T-031 Hollow

Threshold Institute · Case file T-031

Number

T-031 in the catalogue

Kind

Creature

Class

Class II: dangerous, and held in a cell

Found

Year 32, month 9, day 30

Where found

A ridge far past the last marked zone beyond T-001

Status

Loose

Now

At the lab and in the rift

Part

Part III: Going through (the places and creatures)

Containment procedures

Any figure found beyond T-001 in a surveyor's gear is to be treated as a hollow until it has spoken a password set before the survey. Search teams set such a password before every search. A hollow is put down from a distance and its gear is searched as a body's would be, and everything in the gear is brought home and logged. The specimen held on the sealed level is kept in a sealed cell in its own gear, which is not to be removed. Its file stays open on the lost expedition's account.

Description

An empty skin in a dead surveyor's gear: the shape of a man held up from inside by nothing that can be seen, wearing the coat, pack and harness of someone lost beyond T-001. It walks with the walk of the one whose gear it wears. It turns toward voices and comes at whoever it hears. It falls under fire like any creature, and its gear can be searched.

Discovery

Anneli Sund's expedition, six surveyors with Petr Lask among them, left the anchor on Year 32, month 1, day 12, with stores for ninety days and orders to go deeper into the land beyond T-001 than any survey before it. Its radio was heard for forty-one days. Then nothing. Tomas Rehn led three searches for his closest colleague. The third, eight months after the expedition left, found Petr Lask on a ridge far past the last marked zone. He was standing, in his own coat, pack and harness, his name stencilled on the strap, and he turned at the search team's voices and came toward them.

Addenda

Addendum T-031-1

from the search log, Year 32, month 9, day 30. Written by T. Rehn

Lask on the ridge at two hundred paces. Dahl calls to him and he turns and walks toward us. He does not answer the password. At fifty paces Halden says the face is wrong. At twenty we see that there is no face, only the skin of one, and nothing behind it. It comes on with Lask's own walk, the long step and the left shoulder low. Halden fires first. It falls like any body. Inside the coat there is nothing but the skin. The gear is Lask's.

Addendum T-031-2

recovered note, the last page of P. Lask's survey log, found in the hollow's pack

Undated; the page before it is dated Year 32, month 3, day 4, some ten days after the radio went silent.

Day 52 or 53. Radio dead since the gorge. Stores for thirty days if we are careful. The land past the gorge does not turn; Sund thinks it never has. Camp in the old building, bearings below. Aho and Mo went down first and came up quiet. The voices again last night, the ones from the western ruins, calling for me. Sund says not to answer. She has found what she came for. Something here was made to be carried out, and A. will not leave it. Bearings: [a line of bearings follows].

Addendum T-031-3

note by T. Rehn on the file, Year 32, month 11

No other member of Sund's team was found. Lask's bearings point deeper than any survey has gone, past ground the land does not turn, which I did not know existed. I have marked them on every map and keep the log on my desk. I have also read the choir file again (T-029). It called for Lask a year and a half before he went through. I do not know what that means. I am asking for one more search.

What followed

The Director granted the search. It went out early in year 33, and what it met on Lask's bearings is in the next two files (see T-032 and T-033).

Previous fileT-030 ClockworkPart III: Going through (the places and creatures) Next fileT-032 Cache mimicPart III: Going through (the places and creatures)

In the file

• People: Tomas Rehn, Anneli Sund, Petr Lask, Erik Halden, Lina Dahl, Aho and Mo.
• Places: The sealed level, The cells, The land beyond the rift and The lost expedition’s camp.

In the game

The note you find in the game:

Year 32, month 9, day 30. Taken on a ridge far past the last marked zone beyond T-001 by the third search Tomas Rehn led for Anneli Sund's expedition, six surveyors who had left the anchor in month 1 to go deeper than any survey before them and fell silent after forty-one days. It walked toward the search team in the gear of one of them, Petr Lask, his name stencilled on the strap, and it waved.

It is only a skin, empty inside. It walks and dresses like a survivor and keeps that pace until someone comes close; then it splits open down the front and what is inside reaches out.

What it wore stays behind when it falls, guns and food and all. Status: loose.

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

It goes down after losing 1500 ml of its 4100 ml of blood. How it hunts and where it turns up: see the zombies page.

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