...

...click.

The first sound to emanate in the small, claustrophobic room was a quiet beep. A harsh staccato in the silent space. The disturbance was followed by another beep, then another.

As the room swelled with sound, oxygen streamed in from the vents, neutralizing the previous mixture of gases. Above, fluorescent bulbs flashed on, flickering uncertainly before settling on a steady, yet dull glow.

Over the soft hum of the lights, quiet ticks and hisses made themselves known. They reverberated from a strange, mechanical coffin bolted into the back wall. Various wires and tubes were tangled amongst its silvery surface, dipping and weaving between it and several canisters laid next to it.

A thin, rising shriek slowly drowned out the room's cacophony as light steam rose from the crevices of the coffin. As the piercing gale reached a crescendo, the top swung open.

Clang!

The coffin's insides were obscured by a thick cyan mist. It rose up over the sides, spilling onto the floor in small curls. As it wove its way over the ground, the various quips and quivers of machinery faded into nothing, leaving the mist in silence.

The tranquil scene broke when a plastic covered arm shot out of the mist. Many thin filaments were attached to the appendage, which tore off from the violent movement. The small tears in the material leaked a mixture of chemicals and sparks. The arm, after its triumphant action, fell back into the casket with an audible thud. A muffled groan came from within, alongside the sounds of something shifting.

A body slowly began to rise out of the coffin, the head and torso piercing the fog. Like the arm, they were covered with the same whitish plastic, including many more attached filaments. Most tore off, causing a small shower of sparks and a contribution to the ever growing hiss of escaping gases. With another grunt, the person slowly flexed their right leg, still concealed by the mist. They cringed slightly at how stiff the joint felt.

Gingerly, they swung its legs onto the lip of the coffin and carefully shifted their weight onto the edge. They quietly inched its legs forward, slowly but surely easing its feet onto the floor. Unfortunately, shifting their full weight onto their feet caused the being to stumble forward and crash onto the floor.

Overhead, a quiet whir made itself known as the auxiliary ventilation came to life. The remaining mist slowly filtered away, completing the vent cycle. Above the sarcophagus, a red industrial light blinked rapidly before shifting to a soft green. The changing light heralded a quick relay of beeps in response.

The figure groaned inwardly at the incessant chirps, but got to their feet, wincing in pain. Shaking their head slightly, they brought their hands to the hard mask covering their face. It fumbled to grip the mask, and found two indentations on the sides. Hands shaking erratically, they brought the hands up to the indentations and applied as much pressure as it could.

The mask came off with a "pop!", and the figure pulled the rest of the suit hood back. the person took a deep gasp of air, one that had been long overdue. A hand through his hair before burying his face in his hands, collapsing into a crouch. He took another breath, and then another. Even if the air carried a heavy and sour scent, it smelt of heaven.

He sat in the position for what felt like hours , breathing in and out. Slowly, but surely, the primal instincts of his mind relented, giving control back to him. He could still feel the deadening effects of the medicines that had been pumped into him, but they too were slowly fading. With every breath, and beat of his heart, his body threw off the artificial weariness.

For how long he sat there, he wasn't sure. His focus was solely focused on his breathing.

In… out…. In… out.

It couldn't last forever. He stood up on his feet, and in one fluid motion, stripped the rest of the suit off of him. A grimace passed his face as he felt the needles embedded in the suit's insides rip out of his skin, leaving a dull irritation behind. Without the suit, he was wearing little else.

After giving a moment for the ache to pass, he carefully made his way to a small mirror positioned on the wall opposite of the mechanical coffin. A hastily scribbled checklist was taped up next to it, none the worse for wear. The rest of the steel wall was barren, save for a hook on which he hung the suit.

He looked over the reflection that greeted him. His hair had thinned out significantly, and his face had been reduced to an odd myriad of ashen skin with the occasional touch of blue. He brought a hand up to his cheek and gave it an experimental pinch, then frowned to himself. No pain. The rest of his body was looked over with a critical eye.

The effects of stasis on humans had varied significantly, and even with every precaution and safety taken, there were still risks involved. While he would have to perform a myriad of tests later to determine which had affected him, a cursory inspection would have to make do for the moment.

Besides the same discoloration on the rest of his body, he had clearly lost body mass. He had been fairly fit before entering stasis, but now, his ribs were could be faintly seen , and he had obviously lost some of his muscle tone.

One of the more unsavory side-effects was the loss of body mass, and he had been no exception to the rule. It seems he got off lucky, however, especially considering he was under for at least a year. There was no doubt that not everyone would be as lucky.

It definitely could have been worse.

Looking over to the pinned medical list, he silently read it over to himself. Body mass, within acceptable limits. Blue tinted sections of skin were normal… He felt (mostly) mentally alert and well, though there was a warning to perform several mental tests with another person. He'd have to do that when he met up with the others; they could shake off their stupor together.

...Wait.

One item on the list; Nerve damage. From what he understood about cryo-stasis, whatever gases they used to preserve the body was hard on the nerves, and prolonged contact could cause degradation. Even with the protective covering he had been wearing, they hadn't found a way to completely eliminate the issue.

Still, if he got off with just a bit of body emaciation, that was a win in his books. Between nerve damage and body emaciation, the latter was the lesser of two evils, so to speak. One was solved with food and exercise, the other with invasive and expensive surgery at the cellular level.

He wasn't made out of money!

Unfortunately for him, his fine motor skills had not yet returned to him. There was nothing he could save waiting for them to return; on a positive note, The smatterings of blue tint on his flesh were quickly fading into a brilliant red, and even his ashen skin was regaining color.

Because he was awake, there probably wasn't any catastrophic damage to his vital organs or brain. As for minor damage, it would take time to see if he did dodge those. There wasn't much of a point to worry about it right now, however. If he did suddenly suffer an organ failure or, Lord forbid, a seizure, there wouldn't be much he could do about it.

Just… best not to think about it.

In the meantime, he would have to be a bit more careful until he knew for sure, especially because of the remnants of haze that kept his mind shrouded in a light fog.

Seeing that he was in relatively good health, he looked away from the mirror back to his previous tomb. Specifically, a hollow space underneath the coffin itself.

He gingerly bent down to his knees to get a better view of the coffin's underside. Underneath was a small, white locker, nestled against the back wall, amongst a few small boxes. A small light on the locker, still a steady green, brought a grin to his face.

Thank the Good Lord.

Despite knowing it would be there, he had had his worries. A lot could happen in a year or three, the least being his small sanctuary stripped for parts. The implications of anything happening were… unpleasant, to say the least. But his room and locker were untouched. A small miracle.

Still though, if something had happened…

He shook his head. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts…

The locker was intact: that was what happened, no need to dwell on What-ifs. He slowly dragged the silver locker out from under the pod.

Despite being a small locker, it was quite heavy. While the production of this particular stasis technology had been shrouded in secrecy, fostered by the team assigned to working on it, even he knew that minituarizing the machinery any further was near impossible. Freezing a small three dimensional space to withstand the test of time was already quite the engineering feat, but they weren't miracle workers. For the most part.

Having set the locker on the ground in front of him, he stared dumbly at the locked cover. There was a twelve digit keypad in the center, zero through nine, plus a pound and period symbols. A row of top positioned LEDs on the case gave him pause, breaking his train of thought.

...What was his passcode again?

He grimaced a little.

Two Four Two Six?

...No.

One Seven Six Nine?

No.

One Nine Eight Seven?

...Definitely not…

...Well, it's worth a shot.

One…

Two…

Three…

Four…

His eyebrows shot up as he heard a solitary click come from the locker, followed by the familiar hiss of escaping gases. He couldn't help but bring a hand to his forehead. What was he thinking?

Though in this case, his own stupidity saved him the trouble of having to have the engineers pry this overcomplicated piece of tech open. Perhaps he anticipated he would forget, so he made the passcode simple? He couldn't remember.

Now open, the box displayed its contents to the world. They were mostly his personal belongings, save for a piece of bread on top of them. A fresh slice, too. It was their so-called "redneck" solution to the issue of trying to determine if a stasis module was functioning normally. If the field held correctly, the bread would be fresh, not stale. And fresh this slice was.

Before being put under, they had stored some of their most valuable possessions in these lock-boxes; they were to be in cryo-sleep for at least a year, and having whatever possessions they had left kept safe was a great boon to their minds. And if they were to die… the rooms were already pseudo-tombs as it were. Being buried with their possessions was the least that could be done.

The contents didn't amount to much; the folded up clothing he had worn before his time in the freezer, a small, framed picture of him and a few colleagues, laptop, phone, flashlight, several solid state drives, and a sheath of documents and letters. A treasure trove of sentimentality, but one that was largely useless save for the sheer amount of information on the documents and electronics. For now though, they could remain in the locker.

Except for his clothes. He was not about to meet up with the others while wearing practically nothing.

It was simple enough to slip his clothes over the undersuit; tight garments did have their advantages, and he didn't see any reason to remove it yet. Black socks, simple black dress shoes, pair of dark pants, light blue button-up shirt, grey tie (he needed to look at least somewhat professional, after all), all put under a dirty white lab coat. Not to imply the rest of his ensemble was clean. Far from it. Even then, it was still much more presentable than going naked. Hopefully his colleagues had the same idea.

Otherwise… it would be quite awkward.


While he didn't have an exact idea of what would greet him beyond his crypt, there were a few guesses he did hold. Perhaps it would be bustling with the activity of the other personnel breaking the stupor of their cryo-stasis. Or maybe he would be late to the party, so to speak; everyone sitting in the Atrium, already warming up their cup of victory coffee as celebration for finally being rescued.

Hope, warmth, actual time to have a proper rest as opposed to the chaotic days before their sleep. He could almost taste the ambrosial beverage, feel the sun on his face…

The door slid to the side with a silent hiss.

As it turned out, the outside was not the unicorns and rainbows he thought it to be.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

The area the cryo-crypts were located in originally started their life as regular storage rooms. Their doors lined the solitary, concrete hall on both sides. Unlike a more homely hallway, however, the interior was entirely devoted to utility rather than comfort; concrete primarily made the hallway up, steel beams in between the doors to act as reinforcements. The doors themselves were composed of a metallic alloy, and several fluorescent lights lined the ceiling.

He had cracked open his door slightly, sliding it horizontally into the wall. The first thing he noted was the lack of light. The use of a flashlight retrieved from his locker rectified that, but he shouldn't even have needed to use one in the first place. As far as he could tell, the structure's interior was intact; pristine, in fact. Even the fluorescent lights were fine and should have flooded the space with artificial light, but weren't.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

As he stepped out cautiously into the hallway, he flicked the flashlight on, bathing the hallway in its narrow, dull light. A flame of fear flickered in his stomach as he took his first steps into the hall.

This wasn't right, this wasn't right!

He felt almost surreal, lightheaded, walking through the seemingly endless corridor. In reality, it was actually quite short. The bay held seventy-four identical rooms, to be precise, with fifty-seven each holding a cryo-tomb, the rest used for storage. That fact did not help him in the slightest; rather, it only accentuated his paranoia.

Was he truly the only one here?

"Hello?" He called, almost whispering his words. It came out heavily distorted, raspy; partly because of his body not yet having fully awakened, and partly because his throat had clogged with phlegm.

In the silence, it rang out true, but went unanswered. His own ears were filled with the deafening noise of absolute nothing, his words already long gone. The absence of sound left his ears to fill in the void. A task they performed earnestly, filling his head with white, imaginary noises at the edge of his subconscious.

Had he truly awakened before the others? Or rather, did he wake up late? Were the rest already nothing but bones and dust, with him left to sweep up the mess? But then why would they leave him asleep…

No.

They had to still be asleep, had to be. They had to be. They. Had. To. Be. If they weren't… he wasn't sure what he would do.

A quick shift to his left brought him face to face with one of the insurmountable doors lining the hallway. His flashlight revealed a neon orange "forty-three" hastily written in spray paint on the door. They weren't using a proper "system" for their preservation, in truth. Rather, the whole operation had been slapped together over the course of two weeks.

Two horrible, awful weeks where the literal weight of the ocean bore down upon them. A week where they spent every single, waking moment setting up this bay so they could survive. Every resource they had, jury-rigged to create this scheme. Two weeks where they had to cope with the loss of their world. Two week where the fragile flame of hope nearly was extinguished. And yet here they were; or rather, here he was, standing in the remnants of their efforts.

The uncertainty of the situation was what ate away at him. He was awake; he wasn't sure if the others were awake. If there was a silver lining, nothing was damaged; That had to be a good sign. And he made it out and was still breathing. The infrastructure was intact, and if that was so, he could get to the bottom of this. Any lick of hope was better than none. It was vague and pointless, but enough to reignite his own that everything would be ok.

Back to the door.

It was composed of a thin metal-alloy sheet, several more strips hastily welded onto the surface. They formed a mish-mash of cross sections and scorch marks. Aside from the number, there wasn't much else that distinguished it from the others; that was why they had broken out the spray paint. Even in the middle of the apocalypse, keeping a system was still something they valued. And of course, keeping track of who occupied which crypt.

Getting the door open was another kettle of fish entirely. While the rooms, and in effect, this whole section had been converted in a rapid manner, they had incorporated the already present locking systems into their setup. And because this section had originally stored some of their more… important and rare materials, alongside sensitive information and prototypes, and now humans, the security was quite formidable.

The doors were secured with the use of electromagnets and a physical locking system. Both were currently engaged, so even if he could find a crowbar or something to pry open the door, any attempts would fail miserably. They could be disabled with an eight digit passcode punched into a discreet keypad, or a proper security card, but he had neither. Perhaps he could find the code written down somewhere, but that in itself was unlikely. If the magnets failed, he could easily force the door open, but that was unlikely.

Alternatively, he could reject the odds and instead cut off all the power to the facility, but that had its own myriad of problems. One; he couldn't do it, even if his life depended on it. There were more redundancy systems installed than he could count, and it wasn't like he had proper authorization to shut down their geothermal generator (and backup generators) remotely, much less actually access the constructs physically.

And two; shutting down the power and their redundancies would also kill anyone still in cryo-sleep. The cryopods would forcibly wake their occupants in the event of a total power failure, and the shock from such an action would be lethal. And if they somehow survived, oxygen deprivation would kill them then, as the facility was reliant on C02 recycling for their air, doubly so since the flood had cut off every surface vent.

There was nothing he could do.

He turned back down the solitary hall, fist clenched at his side, other hand keeping the light steady. It shone down the long hall, its weak illumination fending off the dark. The scene was still extraordinarily eerie, but the edge had been taken off somewhat. It was with hope, not trepidation, that he continued to the end, passing between the numbered doors.

Beyond the corridor was an open space, several magnitudes larger than the cramped room he had emerged from. Its walls were a combination of smooth concrete and steel beams, several more of the beams supporting the ceiling; a workshop, specifically. Their company name, "Polaris", was represented on the northern wall, painted in large, utilitarian characters.

The bay was one of the several passageways connected to the shop, which had been used as their main hub of activity during their two weeks of nonstop construction. In part, the storage rooms had been converted because of their close proximity to the workshop itself; it was easier to centralize their activities in this section, as opposed to spreading everything out over the entire underground facility.

That, and some sections had collapsed outright.

Like the hallway behind him, the whole space was pristine in regards to structural stability, but the haphazard scattering of tools, benches, machinery, and spare bits and ends of metal broke the spotless monotony. Walking amongst the clutter was… unsettling. The strange geometry of the shadows cast by his flashlight certainly didn't help.

It was still deathly silent, and his mind took that opportunity to play tricks on him. It was becoming increasingly difficult to convince himself that nothing would jump out at him. Flashes of movement at the edges of his sight sent his light there in a heartbeat, mind thrown into a tizzy. A moment would pass; he would continue on his way, then the cycle would repeat itself.

His experiences here didn't help; this place had been a den of near insanity, the cacophony of tools nonstop churning out cryopods from whatever metal was available, while the others carted them off to be installed. Others ran to and fro, rearranging wires and systems into the amalgamation that was now their cryo-wing. The memories were ones he would prefer not to relive, though now, it was as if he was walking through the skeleton of a once great beast.

What was surprising, however, was the much different mess left behind. By the time they had finished their preparations, the area laid near bare; tools neatly put back in place, the few remaining unused scraps pushed off to the side, most of the nonessential projects worked on in this space disassembled or put into the unused cryo rooms.

But now it had been reduced to this mess. And not just clutter; several of their machines had been reassembled, even a few that had been cannibalized for parts during the cryopod construction.

Who had been down here to make this all? Their entire team had gone under, all fifty-seven of them; most had been killed when the flood initially wiped out their above ground structures, and when portions of the Underground collapsed. He had been one of the lucky ones to have been underground during the time, and not in a doomed section.

Though as time had gone on, the opinion of their luck shifted to the dead being the truly lucky ones, especially as their food supplies dwindled. That's what it had come down to in the first place; food. The shortage had been why they started their mad plot of cryo-preservation to begin with. Their stores would have run out months before the waters receded, or before they were rescued.

But someone had obviously been down here.

Scratch that, a lot of someones.

This mess couldn't have been caused by a single person; a team had to have been working on something here, and judging by the remains of their work, plenty of time had been spent doing so. But they were gone now, seemingly without a trace.

What was going on here?

There was one last place where the rest could be congregated; the Atrium. It was the only other major space in the sector, and was their designated "free time zone" even before the flood. Not to mention it wasn't an uncomfortable area to rest at; they had a few comfy chairs, wooden tables, a couch, actual carpet, plastered walls, and a small potted tree. They even had a coffee maker and fridge.

In truth, it was a glorified break room, but it was their break room; the room where many laughs were shared, and in more recent times, a place where those who would normally have never exchanged nothing more than a few pleasantries could forge friendships.

He wasn't quite sure why they even called it the Atrium, but maybe it was for the potted tree. A bit more green in these desolate depths was always appreciated.

His quick pace took him right to it. It was simple to get to; exit the workshop through a somewhat discreet door located on the left wall, which would open into a plain hall, then open the third door down.

Unlike the workshop, the room wasn't monolithic in nature; rather, it was cozy. The space still was quite roomy, but the low ceiling and haphazard placement of furniture certainly tried to hide that fact.

And like the workshop, it was abandoned as well. On top of that, the furniture had most definitely been rearranged. The nice couch had been pushed to the back of the room, and the twelve comfy, red fabric chairs had been arranged into a tight circle near the center. One of the stools had been placed in the center of the arrangement, bearing a mug, presumably once filled with coffee or a similar beverage. Unfortunately, the potted tree had also withered and died.

He moved closer to the odd display, his steps muffled by the stained carpet.

That is, until he dropped his flashlight, a shriek erupting from him. The stable scene suddenly shrouded in insanity, he fell onto his rump, limbs propelling him away from the circle. The sudden loss of light only propelled his fear to new heights, his heart beating to burst. His back slammed into the plaster wall, breaking his momentum. His legs went instinctively to his chest, breath out of control.

NononoNONO!

He sat against the wall, gasping for air, yet never catching his breath. It was just… impossible.

There was no…

How did this happen…?

Eventually, his breathing slowed, heart following suit. His body remained high strung, however, ready to react to the slightest intrusion. Carefully, he stretched out from his clenched state, crawling to his dropped flashlight. Fast as lightning, he grabbed it, then rapidly crawled back to the wall.

He… he needed to be sure.

Getting back to his feet, he braced himself against the wall. Sliding against it, he inched little by little, flashlight fixed on the chair circle. Specifically, on the one which was facing the back wall. As its front came into view, he took a sharp intake of breath, but maintained his composure.

A body was sitting in the chair. Like him, it was wearing the standard company mandated clothing, but that was where the similarities ended. The corpse was shrunken and dried in appearance, causing the clothing to hang loosely off of it. The messy, grey hair hung limply from its scalp, and the ashen skin more resembled a prune than actual skin, if in texture rather than the color, though purple-ish red splotches were present on the uncovered skin.

A once soft and gentle face was now stretched impossibly eyes were closed, thankfully, but it didn't help his mind's grip on sanity. Not to suggest he was about to slip into another insane fit, but just looking at the body was causing his vision to shake slightly, and darkness to envelope the edge of his sight.

Oh god… it was horrifying...

But… he didn't even recognize the person. Death's unsavory transformation had rendered the body... unrecognizable.

Against his better judgement, he moved closer to the corpse, flashlight shakily trained on it. While the corpse itself was giving him mental grief, the implications of its existence plagued him considerably more. Someone had died here, and he couldn't even tell for how long ago they had; like the rooms their cryo-pods had been located in, preservative gases had been pumped throughout the rest of the facility.

As a consequence, the natural breakdown of matter here was essentially frozen. And because of the facility being located in a seismically stable piece of crust, on top having constant energy from a geo-thermal vent, they could theoretically sustain their cryo-sleep for as long as they needed to.

Theoretically, of course. The best case scenario that the engineers had calculated was about three years top for optimal performance. After that, all bets were off, to be colloquial.

And this man had been a post-mortem victim of their systems. While the body could internally break down initially, advanced decomposition couldn't occur. So no skeleton, just your death-scarred body remaining for however long the Polaris underground was under lockdown. At the very least, the smell of rot had been neutralized by the gases.

His very presence did beg the question though; how did he even get in here? Unless this one didn't go under?

There was no other explanation. This whole place was under lock and key, air tight, and that didn't take into account them being entombed under the rising water. He rubbed his temples, trying to subdue his rising headache. He wasn't qualified for this, and more importantly, he didn't need any blood vessels in his brain to burst.

Being up close to the body wasn't helping. Truly, it was a horrible experience; up so close, he could see every, tiny... little... detail. His breath came a bit quicker, ears perceiving silent whispers around him. His eyes shot down to the corpse's torso, searching for a name tag… nothing. A quick, cursory glance over the rest of his body didn't show any form of identification. Yet he was still dressed as one of them.

What the hell had happened?

He turned away for a moment to gather his thoughts, gaze falling onto the coffee table. And onto an item besides the coffee cup. A plain, leather book, it looked like. Carefully, he grabbed it, flipping to the beginning of the book. The first page was covered in ink, cramped and near illegible cursive forming a plethora of sentences. At least it was English.

Intrigued, he read the first few sentences...

….He tried to read the first few sentences, but the sentences were hard to make out… and his concentration was continually shattered by the shrunken corpse next to him. Next to him… rotting, bloating…

His nerve broke.

The only sound left was his rapid run out of the Atrium. Through the winding halls, through the workshop, down the Cryo-bay and back into his pod-crypt. The sliding, metal door was quickly resecured, powerful maglocks locking it into place. An illusion of safety against an imaginary threat, but it helped quell the powerful fear running through him.

He was alone. He was alone! No one left, no one up!


...

Deep breaths… deep breaths… calm down heart…

Now back in his pseudo-safe room, cut off from the facility, and by extension the body… his breathing eventually slowed, heart following suit.

Tears threatened to overtake him, but he fought them back with some difficulty.

...

He looked down to the book in his grasp. Perhaps… this had the answers. It was his only lead. Once again, he flipped to the first page, himself settling into a comfortable position. At the very least, reading could take his mind off of the entire situation.

The first few pages were filled by the sloppy cursive, presumably forming some sort of message. They were followed by several pages full of hand drawn blueprints and schematics, notes written in cramped handwriting around the page. Their contents remained vague from his cursory glance, but even if he spent the time to look deeper, he had a feeling they wouldn't make a lick of sense. A final few paragraphs lodged themselves at the back of the book.

The initial writing suffered from the same issue as the schematics did. It was one thing to decipher bad handwriting in print; you could generally tell what the wording was.

Bad cursive was another beast entirely. It would overlay against itself, similar looking letters and loops forming odd scribbles and impossible letters that were comparable to a two year old's drawings. Even to him, someone who had written in nothing but cursive since his youth, it was nigh impossible to read.

He could still make out the occasional vague sentence, but it was the equivalent of being given a few pieces of a puzzle and left to mull over what could have been. It led to nothing but a thirst for more information, a headache, and the occasional overturned table. And in this case, he didn't have a table to flip.

He skipped looking at the blueprints and schematics, instead going to the final message behind them. Fortune did smile upon him with the few passages left, as the writer had spent time making the writing legible. The message was somewhat short, but a poignant puzzle piece.

...

Our work is done. The last are back in Stasis now, resting with the others. Everything has been completed and set in place, though it leaves me with a sense of melancholy. For those who will undoubtedly read this; I am aware of my actions, and what they mean. Despite what the rest of my colleagues may say, the final stages of this operation require my direct guidance, and your survival hinges on the outcome. I can only hope that I was right, and that my actions weren't for naught.

For those who stayed awake with me after the rest were put under, I thank you once again for your help. I will freely admit, I do feel some manner of guilt for not going into slumber with you, but this had to be done.

By the time you read this, I will almost certainly be deceased. I know the consequences of my actions, and I will live, and die, with them. As selfish as this may seem, I ask that you forgive me. There was no other way, and regardless of how sappy it may sound, it is the truth. We stand as sentinels of Polaris, and while I will die, you will all remain safe. If our groundwork was laid out properly, our creation may remain as your guard.

Godspeed,

~Doctor -

...

The name had been scribbled out.

So… was that body…? One confirmed death… one note saying he would die... This…

He shoved the tidal wave of emotions down. He needed to stay strong. If not for himself, for the others. At this point, he could only presume the others were still asleep, and if that were true, they needed him. They needed him.

He ran a hand down the page, rereading the message. It just… shook him to his core. After all the death, all their hard work, and this dead scientist just decided to spurn it all. It just didn't make sense.

A slight bump in the paper gave him pause. His hand once again ran over the same spot. There was something under the page. Shaking the book dislodged whatever it was. He gently put the book down onto the ground, examining his prize closer.

It was a plastic, rectangular card, large enough for him to clutch with his hand. Despite being blank and featureless, he knew its purpose well. It was a security card, one embedded with an RFID chip. For what, he wasn't sure.

A sticky note was attached to its backside, however. On the faded paper was "Pod 74 - 47905785" and "Pod 73 - 58705321" under it.

Two pod codes?

And the last two in the sequence. English, too.

This was… useful beyond measure. While the implications around the scientist's death were unfortunate, not to mention entirely avoidable, perhaps this could help him solve the mystery of why.


Disengaging his door's maglocks, he exited into the hall, practically sprinting. The two pods in question were near the back of the hall, which itself was a dead end. He found himself standing in front of a metal door with a spray painted seventy-four. He had removed the sticky note from the card before coming here, and was now holding it, the card itself in his pocket. Now then…

4…

7…

9…

0…

5…

7…

7…

5…

Each number was slowly inputted into the keypad. After the final number, a small red light above the buttons quickly blinked green, followed by a quiet sound emanating from the pad. He pulled the door open, bracing himself for the worst. If he already found a dead body, who was to say that someone else didn't have the bright idea?

Thankfully, rather than dead bodies, several stasis safes were instead occupying the space. A storage room.

Aside from the safes, the room was practically identical to his own. Unlike his own safe, these ones were quite larger. A preliminary glance over the room revealed nothing else out of the ordinary, though the stasis pod remained open, still in a state of waiting for its occupant.

This whole situation, impossibly, had grown murkier, and not in the fun "a handful of quirky teens solving murder-mysteries" way.

He moved to the stasis lockers to check them. Their locks were already disengaged, but they were still sealed. Whether that was a good or bad sign he couldn't say, but it certainly was convenient for him. While the lockers weren't as strong as a traditional safe, they were still difficult to open without their respectives key or passcodes, especially without the proper tools on hand.

It was a moot point, but if worse came to worst, there was only so much he could do.

He knelt down to the nearest locker, carefully pulling the door open. A low hiss escaped the compartment; presumably the contents had been under some kind of pressure. Another slice of fresh bread sat on top of the rest of the contents, which he put on top of the locker. What it had been sitting on was of much more interest.

It was another set of clothing, folded up neatly next to a pair of rubber boots and an odd looking mask and helmet, as well as many small pieces. Hands shaking slightly, he withdrew the mask, holding it up to his face. Its lenses stared back at him, artificial and dead. The mask itself was dark grey overall, most of its internals neatly integrated into the covering itself.

He took the rest of the items out, running them over his hand. Certainly, he did recognize some of the articles; they were cannibalized from some of their hazmat suits, the mask being the worst offender. It had more than likely been ripped straight out of one of their exo-prototypes, and was now instead being used in this bastardized ensemble piece. As for the others, he didn't recognize… it unnerved him greatly. Just what had the others been up to?

Under the rest of the articles was a thin folder of papers. A cursory glance revealed them to be schematics for the suit itself. And unlike the messy ones he found in the book, these were printed and professional, not to mention legible. While he wasn't going to read it at the moment, he did take time to read the small title at the top of the front page.

ERA V.2

Definitely not official. And again, in English. What was going on?

He put the papers off to the side so he could pilfer the other lockers. Their contents were quite the diverse set, too. Plenty of odd gizmos he couldn't figure out the use of, a few high capacity hard drives, another three ERAs, a few modified PDAs, several sample bags, backpacks, eight magnetic-coil rifles (Disassembled), and to top it all off, a locker chock full of magnetic rifle ammunition and plenty of heavy, compact batteries.

In essence, the room was being used for its original purpose of storage. But none of this stuff could help him at the moment. It was all more geared to… exploration, if he had to guess.

Moving back out into the hall, he went to the adjourning pod, quickly punching in its respective code. The lock disengaged, allowing him access to Room Seventy-Three.

Unlike its counterpart in Seventy-Four, the Cryo-pod unit was actually in use. He cracked his knuckles in anticipation.

It was easy enough to access the pod's diagnostic panel; he had grabbed his laptop from his own room and hooked up a few cables between it and the stasis pod. A bit of fiddling with a terminal program, and Viola, Access to the diagnostic settings of the pod.

The diagnostic UI was of fairly simplistic design, represented by a system that had been styled after a command prompt. Various statistics were represented, most of them concerning vital functions of the pod itself, such as power input, pod condition, etc. A scant three statistics were dedicated to the body itself; since the body was technically neither alive nor dead, they only needed to worry about the condition of the body, neural activity, and chemical balancing.

Thankfully, all the markers were green across the board. The body inside the pod was beginning to break down slightly, but it was still within acceptable limits. That was good, though he hoped that the rest of his colleagues were in a similar condition.

In truth, he was sorely tempted to manually awake the pod's occupant, but… he simply couldn't.

There was something blocking his attempts at probing deeper into the UI. By all accounts, he should have been able to get to a bit of the more esoteric information concealed within, but it was outright refusing the commands he fed the terminal. And if he wasn't able to access anything more than basic information, there was no way he would be able to awaken the occupant.

Straightening up, he stretched his back a bit while looking over the room. The pod had taken up his attention, so he hadn't gotten much of a look around.

Everything was in order, save for a computer and desk tucked near the back. Were they really that desperate for space? Or was this a part of some secondary plan? It would not have surprised him in the slightest if the initial plan had been compartmentalized to a ludicrous degree.

Hell, that last section in the book pretty much said it outright. For all he knew, the cursive was purposefully bad so only the author could read it. It wouldn't be the first time.

But to the computer. He pulled up an office chair, the nice spinny kind, from under the desk and took a seat on it. The computer was a standard PC, with the monitor and keyboard on the desk itself, while the tower was tucked neatly in the desk aperture. A standard setup in the company itself, but in their section specifically, it was quite the rarity; most of the personal computing devices used were laptops for their portability.

Luckily, the computer was still connected to the site network via a rare ethernet connection. No password guessing for him, and praise the almighty cabled connection, as he was fairly certain their wireless internet had been disabled before going under. Not to mention the underground placement of their site network servers.

It was a simple matter to log in with his network credentials as to access his personal workspace, but it was another to access most of their public data.

At the very least, he could view the time and date from the interface, as well as his own files. It was six in the evening; it didn't feel like mid evening, but that was probably his cryo-lag. That was going to complicate his sleep schedule in the future, but it was such a minor worry, he didn't give it a second thought.

Aside from his own personal files, he was blocked again and again from viewing anything else. In fairness, their internet connection at the current moment was shot, and thus he was unable to access any of their internet based storage, but that problem shouldn't have been present with their local files.

Was the system itself locking him out? They had employed the use of a few baseline AI to keep everything up to date years before the catastrophe, but they couldn't block him like this without human oversight. And that was assuming the AI were still functioning at all. Most AI tended to corrupt over time without corrective measure, and a year alone would have been enough to render them nothing more than bickering lines of code, much less whatever they had to be now.

What would they be now? Random bits of data?

But that wasn't the point. While the system lockdown was concerning, he had much greater things to worry about. Such as him awakening alone, for one. Finding a dead body and its, in truth, suicide book. The confirmation of at least one still in Cryo-stasis.

And most importantly, someone had been messing with his files!

Messing may have been a bit of a strong descriptor, in truth. It wasn't as if someone had randomized the files or deleted them. Not the standard "renaming all your files" prank they sometimes played on each other, or even the infamous "low orbital ion cannon" executable.

Rather, a plain text file had been dropped smack dab in the center of his desktop, and to rub salt into the wound, they had changed his background into nothing but black arrows over a white backdrop pointing to the file in question. It was difficult to focus on anything else but the file as a result. And to top it all off, the filename was "Readme".

...Was this some kind of joke?

Muttering unpleasantries under his breath, he opened the file. It wasn't a batch file, and if this person had gone through such a length to get him to open it, he might as well oblige. Worst case scenario, it told him he was a fool. Neutral case scenario, it was vital information he would need. Best case, it was an invitation to a birthday party, or a notification giving him carpe blanche to awaken the rest of the pods.

It was none of that

...

/

Log #45_20412_G

Abstracted Transcript

/

Polaris Subsystems, Inc.

#5234AR

11/17/2056

9:12 AM

[09:15] initiating " "

[09:17] surface-negative

[09:17] ping

[09:18] Surface facility contact lost

[09:20] Terminate loop

[09:22] Awaiting reconnection

[09:25] Adapting

[09:30] Changes successful

[09:32]Resume loop...

Polaris Subsystems, Inc.

#4685BV

7/23/14078

1:48 PM

[01:50] initiating " "

[01:52] ping

[01:55] Surface facility contact re-established

[01:55] 47 foreign pings returned. Unknown

[01:58] initiating "e_ "

[02:00] Confirmed

[02:00] Array reactivated

[02:05] Acquiring Data

[02:10] Environmental Factors determined

[02:10] Surface-positive

[02:10]Terminate loop

[02:11] User#42 / Designation: Scout

[02:00] initiating " 42"

[09:54] Successful

[09:58] Remain hold pattern...

/

End Transcript

/

...

...So there were AI still active, after all. Not running perfectly, considering a near twelve thousand year error in regards to the second date, but still probably a fair amount of time. Different AI as well, going off of their call signs. More likely than not, the first AI had dissolved itself when it had lost surface connection, but had put in place a second, near brain dead AI to activate when the connection was re-established.

That didn't answer the question of why he had been awoken alone, and him specifically. And then to keep him locked out of their systems. What was this? More likely than not, this whole situation was on a "need to know basis", and obviously he wasn't in the know.

But… what was he supposed to do now?

He sat back in the chair, boths hands taking hold of his head.

It had specified him specifically, even called him a "scout". Was this all intentional? Why?

...Scout.

Had the flood receded?

And with all that equipment in the other pod; that couldn't have been a coincidence.

Was he supposed to look around?

How was he supposed to do that?

Well, go up to the surface, obviously. Surely there was a way out of here, one that wasn't blocked off.

Even if he could get out, then what? Look around, return, and pray that he could resuscitate everyone?

He really didn't have a choice, did he?

Best case, it would lead to him awakening the rest, and worst case, feel the sun once again on his face. Rekindle the hope of humanity's future. But this was easier said than done.

He got up from the chair, back arched resolutely. He had a lot of work to do.


Melodramatic intro aside, this is the beginning of a story that I've thought about for a long time. While I may be throwing another "human in Splatoon" story into this large subgenre, I hope to add something new and unique. At least something different, if nothing else.

While this chapter doesn't really contain much of anything having to do directly with the Splatoon, this will not be the case going forward. One could call this "setting the stage", so to speak.

Overall, this is more of a side project, but one that I hope to continue. If you have anything to say, I would appreciate to hear it. One can only improve through criticism, after all.

Thank you for reading!