T-020 Fast bubble

Threshold Institute · Case file T-020

Number

T-020 in the catalogue

Kind

Place

Class

Class III: no cell holds it for long

Found

Year 25, month 2, day 11

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 fast bubbles cannot be contained. Surveys cross them only when no other way is open, and never rest, eat or treat a wound inside one. Food is not carried through a fast bubble that the survey means to eat later, unless it is preserved. A surveyor who must cross with a wound has it dressed outside the edge first and checked again outside the far edge. Every survey carries one day's more rations than its route needs for each fast bubble on that route.

Description

Round pockets in the land beyond T-001, five to nine tiles in radius, where time runs fast. They are the other half of the fourteen bubbles charted there. Inside, a traveller's needs, the food they carry and their wounds run three times as fast; a ration carried through one for an hour comes out three hours older. The traveller walks and runs at normal speed, and guns fire, reload and swing as fast as anywhere. A lens shimmer and a hum mark the edge, as with the slow bubbles (T-019), but the sounds inside come out high. They stay where they are when the land shifts (T-017), and no map shows them.

Discovery

A week after the first slow bubble, Rehn sent Lina Dahl and Viktor Saar into the higher hum beyond the ridge of glass spires. Their report was dull for an hour, then not. Dahl, who carried the rations, found that a sealed tin had rusted at its seams and the bread beside it had gone green. Saar's field dressing, put on that morning over the cut from the glass, was soaked through. The two kinds were charted together over that spring under Dahl's rule and with the same kit. Rehn filed them as two entries because they do different things.

Addenda

Addendum T-020-1

from Dr. H. Ek's medical log, Year 25, month 2, day 11

Surveyor V. Saar came out of the bubble after fifty minutes inside. The cut on his left hand (T-019, Addendum T-019-2) had bled through two dressings, about as much as I would expect in two and a half hours. He was thirsty and hungry beyond the march he had made, and asked for water before he gave his report. Surveyor L. Dahl the same. Neither felt that time had passed fast. Both said only that the hour had felt like an hour.

Addendum T-020-2

test log, Year 25, month 3. Supervisor: T. Rehn

Two matched ration packs were sealed at the anchor. One stayed at the anchor; one was carried into the fast bubble at the ridge for six hours, as timed outside, and brought back. Opened together, the carried pack was as old as one kept for eighteen hours. A second test with a pack of smoked meat showed it far less changed than the bread. A third test with a full canteen showed no change in the water. Rehn's note: the bubble does not age things; it runs time faster for what time already works on.

Addendum T-020-3

from the survey manual, second edition, Year 25, month 6

You will hear a bubble before you see it, and you will see it only at the edge, as a lens. Learn the two hums. Low means slow: you will crawl and so will what follows you. High means fast: you will walk in fed and walk out hungry. Do not sleep in either. Do not bleed in either.

What followed

What the fourteen taught the Institute was that the land beyond T-001 breaks time as well as space (T-017, T-018). Rehn wrote in the margin of the manual that a place which can break time can break the weather too. That autumn it did (see T-021).

Previous fileT-019 Slow bubblePart III: Going through (the places and creatures) Next fileT-021 Upward rainPart 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 11. Found a week after the first slow bubble, when Tomas Rehn sent Lina Dahl and Viktor Saar into the higher hum beyond the ridge of glass spires. After an hour inside, a sealed tin in Dahl's rations had rusted at its seams and the bread beside it had gone green, and Saar's field dressing from that morning was soaked through.

Round pockets in the land beyond T-001, 5 to 9 tiles in radius, where time runs fast. They are the other half of the fourteen bubbles charted there.

Inside, a traveller's needs, the food they carry and their wounds run three times as fast; a ration carried through one for an hour comes out three hours older. They walk and run at their normal speed, 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 high. They stay where they are, and no map shows them.

Today it is found in the rift.

Watch T-020 Fast bubble on YouTube