T-048 Infected

Threshold Institute · Case file T-048

Number

T-048 in the catalogue

Kind

Creature

Class

Class II: dangerous, and held in a cell

Found

Year 44, month 2, day 11

Where found

The town nearest the launch site

Status

Uncontained; they roam the open world

Now

In the open world

Part

Part IV: The planet and the pollution

Containment procedures

Specimens are held in the lower cells for study, one to a cell, under constant light after the rift stalker's rules (T-002), though light does nothing to them. Staff who feed them wear masks and gloves and go in pairs. Doors are kept shut and no sound is made near the cells without need: a groan from one cell sets every other cell groaning, and the noise carries to the levels above.

Field guidance for the open world: the infected hear a shot, a step or a door from far off; move quietly and fire only when it is worth what it brings. The groan of one that hunts brings the rest. At night they move faster, strike harder and hear better. They gather where people lived, and where the pollution lies thickest there are more of them.

Description

People turned by the pollution. They turn on every living thing, people and animals alike. They fight with their hands only, but they come in numbers and never stop. They were the first of the pollution's creatures to reach these files.

Discovery

The launch site's ground crew had been sent home after the quarantine (T-047), and the town nearest the launch site sickened with them through the winter. A search team was sent for one missing crewman, Jan Ferreira, who had unloaded the relief flight's cargo. They found him at night in his own street, among a dozen of his neighbours. The neighbours turned on the team and on the team's dogs alike, and every shot the team fired brought more out of the houses.

Addenda

Addendum T-048-1

Incident report, Year 44, month 2, day 11

Filed by Erik Halden, field team leader under Okafor.

We came in from the south road at 21:00 with lamps and dogs. Ferreira was standing in the street. He did not answer his name. When the dogs barked, the doors on both sides opened. They came with their hands and their teeth. We fired, and the houses further up the street emptied toward the shots. One of them groaned, a low sound, and they came faster after it. We pulled back to the vehicles and brought two in alive, Ferreira and a woman we could not name.

Addendum T-048-2

Interview with Kerstin Holm, Year 44, month 2, day 14

Interviewer: Tomas Rehn.

Rehn: You have seen the two in the lower cells.

Holm: They are what came at us in the colony. The same walk. The same sound.

Rehn: The colonists turned on the planet, at the source. These turned here, at the hangar.

Holm: Then it does here what it did there, only slower.

Rehn: Slower for now.

Holm: Will Ferreira know me? He carried my bags off the flight.

Rehn: He does not know his own name. He has not stopped walking at the glass since we brought him in.

What followed

Note by Rehn, Year 45: we have stopped counting the infected and count the towns. The state's own forces cannot hold them back. Halden's field team is moved from the launch site to the forests, where the hunters are coming back with stories about the animals (T-049).

Previous fileT-047 The pollutionPart IV: The planet and the pollution Next fileT-049 Toxic wolfPart IV: The planet and the pollution

In the file

• People: Tomas Rehn, Mara Okafor, Kerstin Holm, Erik Halden and Jan Ferreira.
• Places: The cells, The launch site and The colony.

In the game

The note you find in the game:

Year 44, month 2, day 11. Found in the town nearest the launch site, which had sickened through the winter after the ground crew was sent home from the quarantine. A search team sent at night for one missing crewman, Jan Ferreira, who had unloaded the relief flight's cargo, found him in his own street among a dozen of his neighbours, and every shot it fired brought more out of the houses.

The first of the pollution's creatures to reach these files. The infected turn on every living thing, people and animals alike; they fight with their hands only, but they come in numbers and never stop.

They hear a shot, a step or a door from far off, and the groan of one that hunts brings the rest. At night they move faster, strike harder and hear better. They gather where people lived, and where the pollution lies thickest there are more of them.

Specimens were held in the lower cells for study. Status: uncontained; they roam the open world.

Today it is found in the open world.

It goes down after losing 2000 ml of its 5000 ml of blood. How it hunts and where it turns up: see the zombies page.