T-037 Rewind Clock

Threshold Institute · Case file T-037

Number

T-037 in the catalogue

Kind

Object

Class

Class I: harmless while it is left alone

Found

Year 36, month 1, day 27

Where found

The rift, in a hollow under a fallen roof, the nest of the clockwork (T-030)

Status

Contained

Now

At the lab and in the rift

Part

Part III: Going through (the objects)

Containment procedures

The clock is held in an object cell kept empty of stores, food, ammunition and anything else that ages. It is wound only for a use or a test, by the leader of a run alone. It is carried on retrieval runs in its own case, apart from the packs. After a use it is not wound again until its holder has slept a night outside the rift. No staff are to stand beside it when its hands run forwards (Addendum T-037-B).

Description

A brass carriage clock in a glass case, about fifteen centimetres high, ticking, its hands running backwards. It has a key and a single knob on top.

Wound and with its knob pressed, it turns time back: it returns its holder and everything near them to where they were a few seconds before, the shot not yet fired, the step not yet taken. Those near it remember the seconds that were undone; no instrument records them. It does this once, and then the knob will not press until its holder has slept outside the rift.

The cost is age. Each use ages the food and gear within reach of it by days: bread grows mould, rounds corrode, cloth thins at the seams. Testing showed that the seconds it takes back are paid for by the things around it.

Discovery

The teams had learnt to follow the clockwork by the rot it leaves, and Rehn followed its trail to the fallen roof, where the food in his own pack went green in minutes. The clockwork was gone. Its nest held the clock and nothing else. Rehn believed afterwards that the clockwork had not built the clock but fled from it, and that the rot it carries is the clock's.

Addenda

Addendum T-037-C

Test log, summary

Year 36, month 3. Eight uses on the sealed level, each after a night's sleep, with the holder standing among measured stores. The seconds taken back ranged from three to seven. Each use aged the stores within about two metres by four to eleven days; the longer the seconds, the more days. Technician Ruth Abel asked whether a person standing beside the clock aged too. The question was not tested, by the Director's order, and the order was written into the procedures.

Addendum T-037-A

Incident report

Year 36, month 6, day 8. A run led by Rehn crossed the edge of the listening field (T-023). Surveyor Lina Dahl fired at a stalker. Rehn pressed the knob. The shot was not fired; all four remember it. The run went round the field and came home. Their rations were found rotten and two magazines rusted shut.

Addendum T-037-B

Observation log

Year 46, month 2, day 1. The clock's hands are seen running forwards, slowly, while it is not wound.

Year 46, month 11, day 19. Still running forwards, faster. Rehn asked what it counts toward. No one answered.

Previous fileT-036 Mending JarPart III: Going through (the objects) Next fileT-038 Tomorrow RadioPart III: Going through (the objects)

In the file

• People: Tomas Rehn, Lina Dahl and Ruth Abel.
• Places: The sealed level, The cells and The land beyond the rift.

In the game

The note you find in the game:

Year 36, month 1, day 27. Found by Tomas Rehn in the clockwork's nest, a hollow under a fallen roof beyond T-001, which he reached by following the rot it leaves; the food in his own pack went green in minutes there. The clockwork was gone, and its nest held the clock and nothing else.

A small brass mantel clock whose hands run backward. Wound, everything within 8 tiles of its bearer stands again where it stood 5 seconds earlier, with the wounds it had then; the dead do not rise. Each winding costs the bearer's pack a day: food comes out a day older, and guns and armour come out worn. It turns once in a site and not again until the next.

Held in a sealed cell, unwound. Status: contained.

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

It is an item you can carry: Rewind Clock.