T-019 Slow bubble

Threshold Institute · Case file T-019

Number

T-019 in the catalogue

Kind

Place

Class

Class III: no cell holds it for long

Found

Year 25, month 2, day 4

Where found

The land beyond T-001; seven sites, none near the anchor

Status

Uncontained

Now

In the rift

Part

Part III: Going through (the places and creatures)

Containment procedures

The slow bubbles cannot be contained. Their edges are taught by hum and by sight, since no map shows them. Surveyors are not to enter one with a creature already inside unless they mean to fight it there, and are never to enter one to escape a creature that is following them. Rounds fired into a slow bubble are to be fired early. A surveyor who is wounded keeps out of the bubbles altogether: the bubble slows the body's steps but not its bleeding.

Description

Round pockets in the land beyond T-001, five to nine tiles in radius, where time runs slow for anything that moves. Fourteen bubbles were charted there, half of them of this kind. Inside, bullets, creatures and the traveller move at about a third of their speed; a round fired into one crawls through the air, visible the whole way. A traveller's needs, the food they carry and their wounds keep their normal pace, and guns fire, reload and swing as fast as anywhere. A lens shimmer and a hum mark the edge, and sounds inside come out low. The bubbles stay where they are when the land shifts (T-017).

Discovery

Keeping Dahl's rule (T-018), two surveyors, Lina Dahl and Viktor Saar, walked together toward a hum near a ridge of glass spires. They found no shimmer on the ground. They found the air itself bent at the edge of a round pocket, like the edge of a lens, and inside it their own steps came short and slow. Rehn tested it from outside over the following days.

Addenda

Addendum T-019-1

test log, Year 25, month 2, days 5 to 9. Supervisor: T. Rehn

Test 1. A single round fired across the bubble from outside, through its centre. The round was seen the whole way and reached the far edge well after it should have. It then went on at its normal speed.

Test 2. A stone thrown in. It slowed at the edge and fell slowly inside. Outside the far edge it fell as a stone.

Test 3. Surveyor V. Saar walked in, roped, and paced its width. His pace inside was about a third of his pace outside. He reported no change in how he felt. His watch, compared with Rehn's at the end, was not behind.

Test 4. Saar fired and reloaded his rifle inside. Both were done at their normal speed. The rounds then crawled.

Test 5, not planned. A rift stalker (T-002) came out of the spires toward the team and followed Saar into the bubble. It slowed as he did. He reached the edge first, by a long way, because he had started first. The stalker was put down from outside as it crawled toward him.

Addendum T-019-2

note by Dr. Hanna Ek, the surveys' medical officer, Year 25, month 2, day 9

Saar cut his hand on the glass during test 3. The cut bled at its normal rate while he walked at a third of his. I ask that the manual say so plainly: a bubble will not buy a wounded surveyor time. It will only cost them distance.

What followed

Rehn's notes from that week record a second hum from beyond the ridge, pitched higher, and a ration that came out of it rotten (see T-020).

Previous fileT-018 Twin riftsPart III: Going through (the places and creatures) Next fileT-020 Fast bubblePart III: Going through (the places and creatures)

In the file

• People: Tomas Rehn, Lina Dahl, Viktor Saar and Dr Hanna Ek.
• Places: The land beyond the rift.

In the game

The note you find in the game:

Year 25, month 2, day 4. Found by Lina Dahl and Viktor Saar, walking together toward a hum near a ridge of glass spires: no shimmer on the ground, but the air bent at the edge of a round pocket like the edge of a lens, and inside it their own steps came short and slow. Tomas Rehn tested it from outside over the following days.

Round pockets in the land beyond T-001, 5 to 9 tiles in radius, where time runs slow. Fourteen bubbles were charted there, none near where a traveller arrives, and half of them are of this kind.

Inside, bullets, creatures and the traveller move at about a third of their speed; a round fired into one crawls through the air. A traveller's needs, the food they carry and their wounds keep their normal pace, and guns fire, reload and swing as fast as anywhere.

Status: uncontained. A lens shimmer and a hum mark the edge, and sounds inside come out low. They stay where they are, and no map shows them.

Today it is found in the rift.

Watch T-019 Slow bubble on YouTube