Special Projects Level¶
The Special Projects Level is the secret underground floor, about four stories down behind a keypad door, at the Spud Hut plant in Dahlonega, Georgia, where the company kept its caged ape-men.
| Type | Location |
| Aliases | Special Projects |
| Region | Beneath the Spud Hut Georgia Regional Distribution Center, Dahlonega |
| First appearance | Appalachia 08 |
Description¶
Steel double doors marked "Special Projects," locked with a keypad, lead to the lowest floor, reached by a cage-style cargo elevator and then a second, steel industrial elevator. The floor is largely open, with shelves and corners piled with medical equipment, animal-handling equipment and shovels, a drop ceiling over pipes and railings, cinder-block walls and a concrete floor. A floor grate shows pipes, wires and hissing steam. Andre put the floor four stories underground (Appalachia 08).
Jan Martense introduced it with "Down here we do the toppings," after explaining that the floors above were offices and potato processing (Appalachia 08).
Notable places within¶
- The "break room" (code 441). A dark room behind a hefty steel door opening into the hallway. Jan said it held chairs and a drinks machine and gave the door code 441. It actually holds the ape-creatures; Andre later remarked that it was never a break room, only a door. See The Break Room (code 441).
- The open floor. Where the team found the medical and animal-handling gear while waiting.
- The kennel wing. In Appalachia 09 the same floor extends into hallways with no lit exit signs, veterinary equipment and gurneys with thick leather straps, a kennel room with straw and large cages, a kennel security office, a gear room of bear suits, shotguns, pepper spray, air horns and goalie masks, and a forklift loaded with dirt and ore. The elevator's maintenance ladder is sealed behind a steel shutter and a sliding grate, which Kurt judged had been added after the ladder was installed. Clive said the space was meant for a stuffed-pepper expansion that never happened, and Jan told the company he was installing an R&D department there instead (Appalachia 09).
History of events there¶
The cold open of Appalachia 08 slid down a steel corridor to the doors, dropped through the grate into a nearly dark room of rattling steel cages, and ended on a dozen shining eyes turning toward the camera.
The team, with credentials as reporters and a deputy, was led down by Jan, who then said the external phone lines were out and left to make a call on the internal network. Jan sent them to wait in the break room, and as they opened it the elevator rose away. The Biz heard the propped door squeak and saw a huge pale hairy arm. In the ensuing fight, Kurt shot the shoe he had used to prop the door further into the room, Andrew was thrown through the drop ceiling and juggled by one of the creatures, Huell shot another in the neck, and Kurt's Claymore killed the one holding Andrew and destroyed the door frame and the opposite wall. About a minute and a half had passed since Jan's elevator rose. By Andre's count one creature was dead and at least two others badly injured had fled into other parts of the floor (Appalachia 08). See Ape-Men and Claymore Mine.
In Appalachia 09 the team was trapped when the elevator did not return. They met a worker, Clive, who explained the operation, found a forklift, bear suits and shotguns, and reached the gold room and the mines (see Dahlonega Gold Mines). They escaped by a ladder to the woods outside the plant, and the recorded arc ended there; the finale was an unrecorded session (Appalachia 09).
Aftermath¶
The plant exploded shortly after Jan fled it. In Walkers 01 Kurt told Jan that some other force had caused a gas leak under the mines and ignited it (Walkers 01).