T-030 Clockwork

Threshold Institute · Case file T-030

Number

T-030 in the catalogue

Kind

Creature

Class

Class II: dangerous, and held in a cell

Found

Year 31, month 4, day 2

Where found

A survey camp beyond T-001, among its stores; since then near the trader's ruins and elsewhere

Status

Loose

Now

At the lab and in the rift

Part

Part III: Going through (the places and creatures)

Containment procedures

Beyond T-001, stores are kept in sealed crates at the anchor, and the crates are watched at night. A ticking heard in camp is answered at once with light and noise, and the stores are checked when it has gone. Weapons are cleaned each evening and checked each morning on any survey that has heard ticking. In the cell block a clockwork is held in a bare cell with nothing in it that can age or wear; its observers carry nothing into the block but what they need, and their gear is checked when they come out.

Description

A small creature, the size of a dog, made of plates and joints that tick as it moves. Wherever it stands, food ages by days in minutes, leather cracks, metal rusts and cloth falls to threads at the seams: it ages the food and wears the gear of whatever it comes near. It does not fight. When people come at it, it flees, fast and low, out of the light.

Discovery

Tomas Rehn had looked for two and a half years for whatever spoiled the trader's goods (T-026). A survey under Lina Dahl found it in their own camp, on the night every tin in their stores went bad at once. It was seen first among the stores at the edge of the camp, and it was gone into the dark before anyone could fire.

Addenda

Addendum T-030-1

from the quartermaster's loss report, Year 31, month 4, day 3. Quartermaster: Sofia Hedman

Returned from survey under L. Dahl: forty ration tins, all spoiled, seals intact; six field dressings, rotted; two rifles, actions stiff with rust after a single night, one past repair; four coats, seams failed; one pair of boots, soles cracked through. The survey's water was unchanged. Losses match no known cause except the fast bubbles (T-020), which the survey did not cross.

Addendum T-030-2

test log, Year 31, month 9. Supervisor: T. Rehn

A clockwork taken by the following survey in a net of steel wire, and sealed in a cell on the sealed level. Test 1: a sealed ration tin set inside the cell door. In one hour the tin was as old as one kept for a week. Test 2: a new coat hung in the cell for a day. Seams failed. Test 3: the net that took it, left in the cell, was rusted through in four days. Rehn's note: the clockwork carries a little of the broken time of the fast bubbles about with it, and spends it on whatever is nearest.

Addendum T-030-3

note by T. Rehn on the file

I am sure this is what visited the trader's stock. The trader in its open cell (T-026, Addendum T-026-3) was shown the clockwork through the window. It gathered up its cloth and moved to the far corner of its cell, and stayed there until the clockwork was taken out of sight. In the field, teams have since seen traders do the same whenever a ticking comes near. I do not think the trader means its goods to go bad. I think it sells what the clockwork has left it.

What followed

It was the last file Anneli Sund countersigned before she led her team past the furthest marked zone. Her expedition left the anchor early in year 32 (see T-031).

Previous fileT-029 ChoirPart III: Going through (the places and creatures) Next fileT-031 HollowPart III: Going through (the places and creatures)

In the file

• People: Tomas Rehn, Anneli Sund, Lina Dahl and Sofia Hedman.
• Places: The sealed level, The cells and The land beyond the rift.

In the game

The note you find in the game:

Year 31, month 4, day 2. Found on the land beyond T-001, ticking, beside the stores of a survey under Lina Dahl on the night every tin in their camp went bad at once, after Tomas Rehn had looked for two and a half years for whatever spoiled the trader's goods. It was gone into the dark before anyone could fire.

What is kept near it grows old: food spoils in hours, and guns and armour wear as if from years of use.

It will not fight. Struck or shot at, it runs, and must be run down; after it runs it stops to wind itself, and that is when it can be taken. Status: loose.

Today it is found at the lab and in the rift.

It goes down after losing 1000 ml of its 3600 ml of blood. How it hunts and where it turns up: see the zombies page.

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