Aurora resurgence

Chapter 1: awakening

Mankind… Is quite a word, right? If you were to ask a stranger what it meant, the answer you get may vary wildly. For some: a sense of identity, something that tells them that they are part of something greater than themselves and gives them a feeling of purpose. For others: a meaningless word, randomly spit by pretentious people or by those weak-willed enough to be in the need of a collective identity to latch on to. Then, you have the third group; the one I consider myself to be with. For us: it means hope, an idea, a goal to reach; this word tells us that we must strive towards the objective of making our world a better place than it was when we first stepped on it. Our mission is to prolong our species, to be wiser, stronger, smarter, and kinder, among many other things. We pursue this mission so that everyone has the right to live, pursue happiness, and fight their own battles. We must help each other, like a tribe, for our unity is what builds our strength; a strength so great even the direst of situations cannot placate our resolve to reach beyond our limits, survive, and even thrive in the face of adversity.

These are the values many great humans have maintained, while others also have these values in mind, just not as their top priority. But then there are the ones who had them in the back of their minds; a little nuisance as they did their best to screw up their fellow humans. These kinds of people were the ones who drove us to the brink of extinction; their crusades for their short-term gain of money and power or even just plain clout are responsible for this predicament that our whole kind is going through. But not all hope is lost, as the world is engulfed in the chaos of climatic disaster and the whole world flooding, our Project: Aurora is starting, after more than half a century in the making, planning for every possible emergency, and fully geared to allow a portion of humankind to ride out the storm of extinction and take the opportunity to change our destiny with our own hands. A hundred vaults, each with ten thousand individuals, not counting the one thousand and a hundred individuals staffing the vaults at all times. More than a million humans in total, hidden deep within the ground, or inside the surrounding mountains. State of the art equipment, even though for international standards it's all kind of old and even obsolete at times, but with all kinds of redundancies and backup plans.

Those were the words I heard before entering stasis a long time ago. I remember them as if it had happened yesterday, etched into my soul as if someone had scarred me with one of those hot irons farmers use on cows.

Comrades! We at Aurora have a mission! To be the shining beacon of hope in our darkest hour, to keep the flame of life in the universe alive, FOR THE SURVIVAL OF HUMANITY!

It was the mightiest speech I had ever heard, especially coming from our overseer. My heart was jumping wildly as my fellow crew members kept on chanting URA! Our anthem sounded at full volume as the gates of our vault, the mother vault, finally closed. Shortly after, we did a small celebration. We ate food and drank booze, among many other things. All of us knew that the following weeks would be a burden on our spirits and minds, so why not indulge in some of the pleasures of life? After all, some of us, including myself, had to get our spirits lifted before hitting an extremely long period of stasis.

Now… My story begins with quite a mouthful, but context tends to be highly appreciated among the people that might stumble upon… Well, this.

Pain is something I'm not very used to, nor like experiencing after all, who would like something as annoying or even unbearable as pain. My head goes around and around in circles as my eyes struggle to open. My first action is to try to look around. My eyes explore my surroundings from within my stasis pod. It's officially called a cryostasis pod, which is just an elegant way of saying 'a high-tech cube of ice.' All of our stasis pods used cryogenic technology to preserve humans for long periods of time. A human ice cube tray, if you will. I try to speak, but inside my mouth is a contraption created with the purpose to prevent the ice from gluing my teeth together. I try to move a little, but the fact that my body is still kind of frosty makes it painful. I stop moving at some point, remembering that the beyond freezing temperatures of cryostasis have the nasty tendency of making human bodies very brittle, so instead of moving till something breaks, I limit myself to breathing exercises

As time passes by, the pod temperature increases at a slow but comfortable pace. The slow pace is mostly due to the perils of cryostasis, reheating someone too fast might bake them like a pie. The warmth is nice, and I can feel how the ice melts around me, my organs starting to work on their own without the need for life support. I gently move my fingers to get a feeling of movement, which I definitely need. After more time reheating I hear a buzzer and the hatch on the pod opens right up. I spit out the mouth gizmo and slowly but surely sit up out of the now open pod.

Welcome, User 326. You may be feeling dizzy and disoriented after such a long stay in stasis.

That's great and all, but I already know how this works, I've already been woken up several times before for my routine body maintenance,
I don't put much effort into saying that.

Dear user, it is recommended to allow your body to naturally reactivate itself. Do some breathing exercises, look around, and take a small walk.

I'm getting tired of this chatter.
I reach for the control panel and turn off beginner's aid. I take my time to get up, trembling from the get-go due to how long it's been since I moved a limb, and it doesn't help that I'm stepping inside the puddle of water my dripping jumpsuit has created. Although its rubberized cloth keeps me warm and dry.
Just like a baby that is learning to walk I timidly put one foot after the other, clumsily at first, but within a short time, I regain my ability to walk and run.
Well, that is quite enough physical rehabilitation, better get my gear out.
I make my way toward the safety stash, which also uses stasis tech but of another kind. Late in our struggle to keep humanity alive we realized the existence of a western rival: Polaris, we sent a spy to take as much information as he could about their stasis tech, we managed to get the tech they used to store objects for prolonged periods, but it was already too late for complete integration into our system, we adapted some of the techs into our safety stashes, they are not as advanced as those of Polaris, but we compensated by making them dead reliable.
Damn, I hope my stuff is still in good shape.
I press the unlocking button, the stash makes a sound and pops open a set of trays,
Alright, my four fingers here… alright the scanning was correct, now my thumbs, also correct, at last.
I spit on the last tray
a DNA sample

The stash makes a pneumatic release sound, it pries open revealing my personal belongings, a turtleneck wool sweater, a cotton t-shirt, a pair of jeans, a laptop, cell phone, lighter, matches, a cheese and cucumber butter brood with a mineral water flask to test if the stash works, a pair of boots and other goods
well, it seems that everything is in the order
I start to eat the food to recover some strength, considering it is barely 6 minutes since I woke up. I get the shirt and sweater along with the jeans on; I get my cell phone and play on it "Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum" with a pair of headphones on my head. I open the gate of my room, in the same manner, I open the stash; I am greeted by a corridor flanked by other cells.

COMRADE FROM THE POD 326! Welcome back we require your presence at the overseer's control room

Well, there goes my rest hour.

I jog along the empty corridors, they are made out of concrete following a hexagonal shape made out of honeycomb-shaped support beams, the ground is a steel grid covered in linoleum following colorful patterns and shapes, masonry covers parts of the walls that aren't made out of steel nor concrete, style choices to make the place less depressive, the buzzing led lamps glowing in a warm yellow glow, as the air smells earthly, like concrete after the rain, yes it sounds redundant but that is the nature of this vaults, most of the tech in here is not too advanced, like the pads to open doors or stashes, same tech used in banks to check if you are the real owner of a credit card, fingerprint scan, was good enough and it already existed so no need for an overcomplicated high tech wonder of a locking system.

For God's sake, it's taking forever just to get there. Why did we have to build these things so bloody large, well we have to house at least ten thousand people, and all of the goods to repopulate the earth and rebuild civilization and all of those things the first overseer preached upon us that day, but jeez Louise might as well placed a conveyor belt or something, damn some vodka would do wonders right now.
I kept muttering angry opinions about the whole ordeal, hoping it was something really serious.
As I was about to step into the overseer's office I got stopped by a small group of people in maintenance rotation.
Hey, how are you? Long time no see. When was the last time we saw…? Last rotation?
Yes,
I answered.
You know we must rotate people to keep a healthy age populace and also always have people awake to fix problems and stuff like keeping the gene pool fresh and reactivating the asleep one's muscles once in a while yada yada yada the usual.
I said hoping they would complement my opinion with the reason I'm here
alright, bud, first we must give you a booster injection so your body mass bounces back to optimal levels, then you will do some exercise, after that you'll talk personally with the overseer.
Well, let's get this over with.
I said, pretty much fed up with hearing everyone overuse the overseer's title.
After the injections and some basic stuff like treadmill running, jumping jacks, crunches, pushups, and pull-ups I was finally ready to hear whatever I had to from the "great overseer"

Welcome home, comrade. As you know, each overseer must stay awake for several years before being replaced so that he or she or they or them can go into stasis too. I'm the newest one, and I'm pleased to meet you.

well, good for you, I'm reporting for duty (why did he have to mention all pronouns)
yeah leave the formalities aside, as you know there is like a thousand or more people awake at all time, well our calculations and the data collected from the outside tells us that, finally, the earth is capable of supporting life again now I must tell you something that you might don't like
bring it on, I want to get over this quickly
well, how much time do you think has passed since we closed the doors
I don't know, like one hundred years maybe, two hundred tops?
W Well
the stuttering in his voice was not a good signal
our atomic-powered clocks show that more than twelve
hundred?
No THOUSAND! Years have passed away since our closing
I stand still, shocked by the sheer revelation of all, my breath wavers, and my mind runs amok shuffling the implications of having been underground for so long on how many things could have gone so wrong
son, you seem to be struggling to digest this, I know it's hard to believe this thing has been running so well after twelve millennia but see the good side, this means the project was a miraculous success, we also have linked with the other ninety-nine vaults, all of them are in good shape too so our project again, great success!
As I keep ruminating pessimistic thoughts in my head, I feel a slap on my back. I realize is the overseer giving me a hearty slap on the back
so! Let's give you some vodka or beer or tequila, you know some liquor to bring your spirits up for the task I'm going to give you
oh! Well

he gives me a small glass of liquor, I take a swig, is vodka; its tasteless clean, and smooth flavor sets my mind and soul at ease, it is endearing and something I needed more than I could admit.
Before I get too carried away by this hospitality, what do you want me to do overseer
we are starting phase 2, repopulating! but before that we must scout our surroundings so we get to know the landscape around the vaults, a thirty-kilometer radius would be more than enough
I don't know what to say, but I miss the outside world so I'll do it
alright, go to the armory is right around the corner, and please take care I don't want to lose anyone out there… would be very hard to convince the other ten thousand people in here that the outside is safe if you manage to get yourself killed.

After that interchange of words I make my way to the armory, an engineer is tinkering with wires, transistors, buttons, soldering irons, and other mechanical and electronic gizmos
wassup bro, here let me kit you out, now! here you get this S.R.I suit, some people call it "sunrise suit" but that is just nickname, this piece of fine engineering was made for balanced protection in a myriad of situations, it perfectly fuses a light bulletproof vest with Kevlar reinforcements and a double-layered rubberized cloth with Plexiglas lining, it also incorporates a reinforced PBF gas mask with tinted glasses and a special connection that allows you to hook up to two medium oxygen tanks with a special small size air pump that can extract air from many different environments.

Alright, it seems to be quite a fine piece of craftsmanship
IT IS!
Anyway, do you have something else?
We are just starting; here you have a reinforced backpack, some gear, food, a PDA so we can communicate with you, a Geiger counter, a radio in case the PDA breaks, your phone, of course, a flask of water, an MRE, among other stuff
Will I get any weapons?
Yes, a Tokarev TT-33, a Toz-66 double-barrel shotgun, a Mosin Nagant with Pu-1 scope, and a Dyakonov grenade launcher, 150 bullets for the TT-33, 50 shotgun shells and 250 for the rifle, with 20 grenades, just in case.

After getting accustomed to the weight of the gear, (which I was told was about 40 kilograms, even though I can barely feel such weight) my only thing to do was step out into the wilderness, I walked the long way out to the main elevator, quite a sight, I press some buttons and it opens, getting inside it closes shut. It seems tomorrow will be quite an interesting day.

Well, this is the first chapter of my fic, now this was quite a humble beginning right? something not very common among splatoon and humans fics, but in other subjects please share your thoughts with me. Comments are free, well that is what I know, is not that someone will charge you because of a comment right, but well enough with the PSA now next episode our guy makes first contact with inklings and things go south real fast!