T-044 Alien spitter

Threshold Institute · Case file T-044

Number

T-044 in the catalogue

Kind

Creature

Class

Class II: dangerous, and held in a cell

Found

Year 41, month 3, day 20

Where found

The launch site's hangar, in the cold store

Status

Uncontained at the launch site and on the planet

Now

At the launch site and on the planet

Part

Part IV: The planet and the pollution

Containment procedures

The spitter in the Institute's keeping is held behind a wall of laminated glass, replaced every week whatever its state; the acid weakens it from the inside before any crack shows. The cell's floor drain is relined twice a year. Staff stand no closer than ten paces to the glass and never in line with another creature's cell behind it. Food is lowered from above.

Field guidance: armour does not stop the acid; distance and cover do. A spitter strikes whatever stands between it and its target, its own kind included, and a team can use that. Close in only from the side, and only when it has spat.

Description

A creature from the planet, kin to the skitter (T-043), bigger and slower. It keeps its distance and spits globs of acid from a few paces away; the acid eats through cloth, leather and plate alike. Up close it fights with its claws like any of the infected. It goes with the skitter packs on the planet and at the launch site.

Discovery

Six days after the hold was opened, a technician of the launch site, Ruben Achterberg, was sent to clear the hangar's cold store, where one cargo pod had been set aside as empty. It was not empty. The thing inside had lain still through the fight and the count, and the response team had taken it for dead and for cargo. It woke when the store's lights came on.

It did not close on Achterberg. It backed off and spat. The acid went through his vest as if the vest were not there. The team came at a run, and a second glob, aimed at them in the doorway, struck one of the skitters that had come in from the yard behind it and killed it where it stood. The spitter was brought down alive at the far wall.

Addenda

Addendum T-044-1

Interview with Kerstin Holm, Year 41, month 3, day 22

Interviewer: Tomas Rehn.

Rehn: The colony knew about this one.

Holm: The colony calls it a spitter. They come with the skitters, to the domes, at night. The fences don't hold them.

Rehn: That is not in the agency's reports.

Holm: The agency's reports say the colony is thriving. The colony has asked for more ammunition on every flight for a year. They were given seed and solar panels.

Rehn: What else have they seen?

Holm: Their survey team goes out in the rover. They have film of things in the open land they can't catch. They don't send it to the agency any more, because nobody answers. They give it to me.

Rehn: Then from now on you bring it to us.

Addendum T-044-2

Containment note, Year 42, month 2

The glass has been replaced 47 times. Achterberg returned to duty without the use of his left hand. The colony's survey film reached the Institute on the next flight with Holm (T-045).

Previous fileT-043 Alien skitterPart IV: The planet and the pollution Next fileT-045 BurrowerPart IV: The planet and the pollution

In the file

• People: Tomas Rehn, Kerstin Holm and Ruben Achterberg.
• Places: The cells, The launch site and The colony.

In the game

The note you find in the game:

Year 41, month 3, day 20. Taken at the launch site's hangar beside the skitters, six days after their hold was opened, when the technician Ruben Achterberg was sent to clear the cold store and found that the cargo pod set aside as empty was not. It had lain still through the fight and the count, and woke when the store's lights came on.

Bigger and slower than the skitters, it keeps its distance and spits acid from a few paces away.

Armour does not stop the acid, and a glob strikes whatever stands in its path, ours or its own. Up close it fights like any of the infected.

Held behind glass that had to be replaced every week. Status: uncontained at the launch site and on the planet.

Today it is found at the launch site and on the planet.

It goes down after losing 2800 ml of its 6000 ml of blood. How it hunts and where it turns up: see the zombies page.