T-052 Mutant crawler

Threshold Institute · Case file T-052

Number

T-052 in the catalogue

Kind

Creature

Class

Class II: dangerous, and held in a cell

Found

Year 46, month 6, day 17

Where found

The nuclear plant's yard

Status

More of them creep through the plant, out in the yard by day and indoors at night too

Now

At the nuclear plant

Part

Part IV: The planet and the pollution

Containment procedures

None: the one specimen brought in did not live long enough to be held.

Field guidance for the nuclear plant: it hears well and makes almost no sound of its own. It hunts alone. Do not trust silence. Walk the plant in pairs back to back, the way the surveyors learnt to walk around the statue (T-027), and keep the rear of a line covered. By day crawlers keep to the yard; at night they come indoors too.

Description

A creature of the nuclear plant, low to the ground, fast and frail, made by the plant's pollution out of something that once walked upright. It creeps through the plant, out in the yard by day and indoors at night too.

Discovery

The man lost on the first trip (T-051) had been walking at the rear of the line and was simply not there when the team turned round. Halden's second trip went in by day and kept to the yard, and Halden walked at the rear himself.

Addenda

Addendum T-052-1

Incident report, Year 46, month 6, day 17

Filed by Erik Halden.

Fourth hour in the yard. I heard nothing. It was on my back before I knew it was there, and it was Lehto who shot it off me. It weighed less than a child. It had come over twenty metres of gravel without a sound. We brought it in in a bag. It was dead before we reached the Institute.

Addendum T-052-2

Recovered footage, Year 46, month 6, day 17

Ole Sandberg's helmet camera was found in the yard, forty metres from where he was lost on the first trip (T-051), and its card was still readable. It shows eleven minutes of the line's backs, the gravel and the turbine hall's wall, with the sound of the team's boots and Halden's voice ahead. Then the picture tips over and shows the sky. There is no other sound on it: no cry, no step but the team's own, going away. Rehn watched it eleven times and wrote: it was there for the whole eleven minutes, and the microphone did not hear it either.

Addendum T-052-3

Research note by Tomas Rehn, Year 46, month 7

The crawler is the echo's (T-005) opposite. The echo learnt to make sound, to draw its prey to it: Jonas Berg's voice, a door, a shot. The crawler has learnt to make none. Both hunt by what we hear and what we do not.

I have asked Okafor to teach the plant teams to walk back to back, as she taught the survey teams beyond the rift. She has agreed, and has said this will be the last class she teaches; she is to retire at the year's end, and Halden is to take the response team.

Addendum T-052-4

Halden's plan for the third trip, Year 46, month 9

Target: the reactor building, where the field reads highest. Masks under the sealed suits, as the suits' seals do not last more than a day in the plant. Antitox pills for every man. The reactor building's floors are reported wet (T-053).

Previous fileT-051 Mutant brutePart IV: The planet and the pollution Next fileT-053 Mutant sludgerPart IV: The planet and the pollution

In the file

• People: Tomas Rehn, Mara Okafor, Jonas Berg, Erik Halden, Sami Lehto and Ole Sandberg.
• Places: The land beyond the rift and The nuclear plant.

In the game

The note you find in the game:

Year 46, month 6, day 17. Recovered from the nuclear plant's yard by Erik Halden's second trip, which went in by day and kept to the yard with Halden walking at the rear himself: the man lost on the first trip had walked at the rear of the line and was simply not there when the team turned round.

Low to the ground, fast and frail.

It hears well and makes almost no sound of its own, and it hunts alone: the team that brought it in never heard it coming.

Status: more of them creep through the plant, out in the yard by day and indoors at night too.

Today it is found at the nuclear plant.

It goes down after losing 1300 ml of its 3800 ml of blood. How it hunts and where it turns up: see the zombies page.