T-032 Cache mimic

Threshold Institute · Case file T-032

Number

T-032 in the catalogue

Kind

Creature

Class

Class II: dangerous, and held in a cell

Found

Year 33, month 2, day 14

Where found

Beyond T-001, a day's march past the hollow's ridge on Petr Lask's bearings, in a ruined town white with frost

Status

Uncontained

Now

In the rift

Part

Part III: Going through (the places and creatures)

Containment procedures

None possible: no cache mimic has been brought home, and the Institute sends no team after one. Field guidance for the land beyond T-001: count the crates you brought, and count them again at every halt. A crate on the way that the team did not leave there is not to be opened, searched or stepped up to; it is passed at a distance of five paces or more, with one rifle on it until it is out of sight. A crate that creaks when no one has touched it is shot from where the team stands. A cache mimic that has opened does not close again, and is fought like any creature.

Description

A creature that looks like one of the Institute's own supply crates, left behind: white boards, corner caps and all. While it is a crate it makes no sound but the dry creak of old boards, and the other creatures beyond T-001 pass it by as if it were one. When someone comes within a few steps it twitches and crackles for a moment, then splits open along its length and comes for them, low and jointed, with a dark seam down its middle and pale, flickering edges. A shot opens it at once, from any distance. Once open, it never closes again, and it hunts until it is put down.

Discovery

Rehn's fourth search for Anneli Sund's expedition (see T-031) left the anchor on Year 33, month 2, day 10: six people, Tomas Rehn, Lina Dahl, Erik Halden of the response team and three surveyors, with stores for twenty days and orders to follow Lask's bearings as far as the stores allowed. A day's march past the ridge where the hollow had stood, the bearings led through a ruined town, frozen white though the land around it was not. In its square stood a supply crate of the Institute's own make, stencilled with the stores' mark, as if Sund's team had set it down and gone on. Surveyor Elin Brask went to it to read the stencil. At three steps it twitched, and a crackle ran along its boards, and then it opened along its length and came at her out of its own lid. Halden fired, and it was down before it reached her a second time.

Addenda

Addendum T-032-1

from the search log, Year 33, month 2, day 14. Written by T. Rehn

The stencil on the crate read our stores' mark and a batch number from year 31, the batch Sund's expedition drew. The crate the search carried, and the one beside it, are real. The third was not: inside the boards there was no wood, only something jointed, and a seam of dark down its middle that went on twitching after Halden's last round. Brask has a torn coat and a cut along her forearm, no worse. We passed four more crates in the town. Halden shot each from twenty paces. Two of them opened.

Addendum T-032-2

from Mara Okafor's training notes, Year 33, month 4

I have added one line to the manual, and the teams say it at every halt now, out loud, the way they say "I have it" for the statue (see T-027): count the crates you brought. The trouble is that the rift has learnt what our crates look like. It did not learn it from us at the Institute. It learnt it from Sund's stores, the ones she carried past the ridge.

What followed

The next day, on the same bearings, the search met a thing that was all edges (see T-033).

Previous fileT-031 HollowPart III: Going through (the places and creatures) Next fileT-033 Shard swarmPart III: Going through (the places and creatures)

In the file

• People: Tomas Rehn, Mara Okafor, Anneli Sund, Petr Lask, Erik Halden, Lina Dahl and Elin Brask.
• Places: The land beyond the rift.

In the game

The note you find in the game:

Year 33, month 2, day 14. Logged by Tomas Rehn's fourth search for Anneli Sund's expedition, a day's march past the hollow's ridge on Petr Lask's bearings, in a ruined town white with frost: what looks like one of our own supply crates, left behind, white boards and corner caps and all, stencilled with the stores' mark. It is not ours, and it is not a crate; when the surveyor Elin Brask went to read the stencil it came at her out of its own lid, and Erik Halden of the response team brought it down.

It waits without a sound. Come within a few steps and it twitches and crackles for a moment, then splits open along its length and comes for you, low and jointed. A shot opens it at once. Once open, it never closes again.

Count the crates you brought. Status: uncontained.

Today it is found in the rift.

It goes down after losing 1600 ml of its 5400 ml of blood. How it hunts and where it turns up: see the zombies page.