An operative got out of Sector 7. With a confirmed survivor on file, somebody upstairs decided the site was recoverable, and contractors were hired to make the problem go away. They are the cleaning crew: underequipped, underpaid and physically present, carrying industrial tools in place of weapons.
A contract lists contamination sites to purge and an airlock that shuts after a stated round. Purging a site means standing on it and working. When the window shuts, the contract resolves where it stands.
Going down
Recovery contracts enter at the top of the facility and work down, which runs against the Operators' climb. Descending goes backwards through the institution's history and toward the anomaly at once: the floors grow larger and tighter toward the ring, and the last step down changes the colour of the light.
The books
Contractors are paid for the work finished and for the people walked out, and never for anything killed. The only place a body appears in the books is as a cost. The debrief gives a line per contractor, OUT, DOWN or LEFT INSIDE, and a total.
See also
Records cited
- Liminal Protocol: Cleaning Crew, store copy
- The setting bible, Cleaning Crew