The ring is the lowest level of Sector 7 and the oldest. It is a single containment ring poured directly around the sampling point, small, unlit, and older than every drawing that references it. Liminal calls it the original works.
Neural insertion places an operative at the ring, which makes every containment run a climb from here. The failure recorded in the Last Shift began in the original lower containment ring.
Layout
The ring is a loop of corridor round the core wall that houses the sampling point, with poured pillars down its middle. Four bays open off it: the pump room, the cable vault, the sump and the survey niche. The ladder shaft comes down into the survey niche, and operatives of the armed response insert there. The ring's Transmit Node stands in the cable vault, across the ring from the shaft, and the ladder stays sealed until it is calibrated.
The first order
The first armed projection found the loop poured shut past the pump room, so the way on to the cable vault ran through the cable ducts behind it, where a relay holds a gate across the way out. A climb by the maintenance shaft followed. See the perimeter orders.
Guardians
The ring's Node calls one of two guardians of its own. The Lining is a section of the poured wall that no longer agrees with the rest of the pour. The Sounding keeps time with the sampling point, and no record says what sets the time.
Seen from above
Contractors working downward on Recovery contracts find the facility largest and tightest at the ring, and the light there changes colour on the last step down.
See also
Records cited
- LP-MAN-1993-S7, Liminal
- Critical Response field manual, ENTITIES and OBJECTIVE
- The Last Shift