Chapter 0: Strange Signal
Earth, 16/7/9915 of Mollusc Era.
Unknown location, East sector surface, Octo Valley outskirt (Formerly Nevada)
The endless horizon stretched across the valley, with streaks of cloud moving lazily across the clear blue sky. The sun shone brightly in the sky like a giant flaming ball, scorching the barren and shrub-filled land below with unforgiving heat. To one side of the valley were vast and dirty-green ocean scattered with fossilized corals, and the other side were rippled and bleak sand dunes glowing bright yellow from sunlight. And lying between them, right in the middle of the valley sat another lonely sand dune that is much bigger than the majority of its brethren. It doesn't spot anymore details that further sets it off from other sand dunes, other than its abnormal size at first glance. But upon closer inspection however, one could see that the material that this particular dune is made of is in fact NOT sand, but weathered concrete and rusted rebars. And if they dig away the layers of sand and dirt covering this so-called "sand dune", they would find a heavy pneumatic blast door with a broken console and strange engraved symbols on the East side of the ridge.
The bunker, once brimming over with life now lay desolated and forgotten, has been lying in this very place for an untold amount of time. During its lifetime, it had witnessed a lot of events, from the day it was constructed by humans as an underground hotel for the upper class, to the day of their tragic demise. It remembers the 6th Technological Revolution, how scientific development of all fields skyrocketed, bringing humanity into a new golden era, how its creators created artificial lives from metal and polymer, conquered the concept of death, made nature bowed to their will, reached to the nearby stars and exploited them for resources. It had also witnessed how their greed, arrogance and carelessness clouded their eyes, how the need for energy and influence pushed them into a bloody, devastating and seemingly endless world war that bought their own downfall. It remembered the day when major powers around the world broke the Geneva convention for the sake of victory, using all sorts of war-crime and experimental weaponry from their arsenal to full effects, and causing immeasurable destruction everywhere, even places not involved with the conflict. The very last straw that broke the camel's back was a Russian nuke, one with a faulty targeting system that caused it to abandon its original target and plummet to the South Pole, causing it to melt and the sea level to rise at a drastic rate. With their advanced level of technology, humanity could have solved this existential threat in a plethora of ways. They could have stopped the war early and evacuated the population into space, built gigantic dams to stop the flood or constructed massive underwater cities systems to live in. They could have even dropped a cryogenic warhead into the molted ice cap to refreeze the water, then resume cutting each other's throats like if nothing's ever happened. But the world politicians were too consumed by their bloodlust to bat half an eye, and by the time they did realized what was knocking at their front doors, it was already too late. Within only half a year, nearly all of Earth's existing landmass was consumed by seawater, bringing humankind as a whole to its knees. They said you can't commit atrocities when you don't have the strength to do so, and lacking strength humanity had, completely exhausted from the drawn-out war and sudden catastrophe. And thus, without a word, guns were dropped down, power armors were stripped off, combat proxies sat without operators, battlefields became scrapyards and soldiers were sent back to their families en-masse. No more blood was shed that whole week, and the war ended swiftly without even a formal declaration.
It also remembered when the Speech of Unification was read in front of trillions of people across the globe and all of Earth's nations finally reunited with their former enemies again, which was also the day it and other underground facilities like it were repurposed and given the honor of preserving the legacy of human race – to house 1,000 humans each, in cryo-sleep along with all the necessary equipment and lifeform samples to recolonize the surface when the sea level has subsided. And now here it sat, centuries after centuries, neglected in the middle of nowhere, reminiscing old memories and silently waiting for its creators to return one day...
… except that silence was being broken by a massive and weird-looking "helicopter" thing flying toward its location.
The helicopter is painted green and shaped like a square box, with four small rotors attached to each edge of it and landing legs below each rotor. In the front of the helicopter was a glazed cockpit with a set of high-intensity floodlights below it, and a creature in the shape of a fat red tentacle with bulging green eyes and wide mouth – presumably the helicopter's pilot – sitting behind the cockpit's reinforced windshield. Despite all of its strangeness however, the most bizarre feature of the flying contraption is the gigantic purple face with yellow eyes the size of small car tires and bulbous purple lips under the helicopter's belly – and even creepier, the face seemed to be alive somehow, constantly twitching and moving in an erratic and unnatural manner, like something straight out of the deepest level of hell itself. Inside the helicopter sat more of those tentacle-shaped creatures and several humanoid figures with octopus tentacles for hair. The clothes they wore were also odd, with black armored t-shirts that revealed their lower torsos, cheap latex pants and numerous different types of eye goggles. No flag of any known countries or rank insignias is found on their uniforms. Five of them seemed to be females judging from their hairstyles and body features, and the remaining two seemed to be males (although they could also be females with "flat-board" syndrome. Who knows?).
"Sister! What kind of job are we taking today?" Asked the youngest humanoid female in the group excitedly, grinning wide while exposing her sharp, beak-like teeth.
The person in question – a slim octoling with tomboy-ish "hair"cut, starfish head decoration and name tag with her name "Mira" attached on her body armor - glanced toward the girl, flipped her visor upward to reveal her green eyes and responded in a tired tone: " I didn't attend the briefing, but probably the usual boring stuff. You know… get into some Ascendant's ruins, haul out as much artifacts as possible, then we scram. After that, return for paycheck." She paused for a short moment as to take a more detailed look at her little sister's cheerful face, then asked with a raised eyebrow. "Say… Maurice, you seem overly eager for the mission today, even for someone as, uh... wild as you. May I ask why?"
"Well… I've always interested in salvage missions, especially those that involve old Ascendant's ruins. A welcome change from fighting Inklings and bagging zapfishes, ya know. I can explore their massive structures, learn about their history and how they lived before their extinction. Hopefully uncovering great secrets, invaluable knowledges and-".
"-And to feed your empty wallet, after milking it for boozes and drunken bets at the Tenta-fest last weekend?" Mira asked in a questioning and accusing tone, causing her younger sister to fluster in embarrassment. Teasing lil' Maurice like this never gets old for her. The octoling continued with a smirk, "You think you can just bluff your own sister like that? Nice try, kiddo."
"Y-yeah, about that also. Kinda regret taking part in that drinking contest, to be honest. Costed me my whole month's salary, and some extra debts also. I just couldn't stand another week eating dried kelp and cheap canned bean, so I signed up for this job. Sky-high risk but equally high reward, so fair trade. Also, we get to be the first one to touch any valuable artifacts that the Ascendants left behind if we ever find one, and could even sneak some for ourselves without being caught, right?" Maurice replied with a meek laugh, receiving only a discouraging eyeroll from her older sister and slow handclaps from some teammates sitting around her.
"Yeah, you're spot on, Maurice! You could find all sort of exotic stuffs in these Ascendant's ruins, I assure you. From electronics, components, tools to broken weapons and even vehicles. If you're lucky, you could even find a hot-as-shuck Inkling boy in one of those ruins, like Anthia on her loot run three weeks ago." A male octoling with short purple tentacles and dark skin chimed in with a smug grin, throwing a provocative glance at another octoling girl at the back of the seat row.
"Kaye, you dogfish! You've promised to not mention about that ever again! The shuck's wrong with you?" The girl in question cursed out loud, annoyed by her team mate's tease. With a grunt, she bolted up from her seat and stormed toward the grinning clown, hands curled up into fists. Her sheer amount of murder intent formed into an invisible aura around her, silencing conversations and adverting eyes along her way as she moved toward the front row seat. Unfortunately for our boi Kaye, he was too busy spilling the beans for his other teammates to notice.
"What's that, little Anthie~? Am I saying something wrong here? Wasn't it you who dug the little squidhead up from that pile of rubble, wiped the dirt off him and caressed the dude like he was your ex's 4th replacement? Wasn't it you who he "affectionately" hugged - literally wrestled to the ground - for dear life like you were his long-missing sister? Damn bois and gurls, you gotta see her reaction at that moment. It was utterly PRICELESS, I tell ya! How she blushed like a literal b- wait… oh CARP! WAIT NO I WAS JOKING IT's A JOKE PLEASE HAVE MERCY CODDAMMI-IAAaaccckks!" He didn't have the chance to finish his pleas though, for her furious grip has already wrapped itself around his chicken neck, shaking it back-and-forth furiously like shaking a Champagne bottle. The rest of the crew started to point and laugh at the unfolding drama, some even whipped out their octophones for a quick pic. But the laughs soon became dissuading shouts as the strangled guy began to show signs of mild asphyxiation, and Anthia was forced to let him go and return to her seat, albeit reluctantly. As soon as Kaye was released, he dropped face-first to the floor and clutched his throat, wheezing loudly like he was about to kick the bucket for real.
"Ughh… Coddamn, s-she r-really…likes to play i-it rough, yeah? I-it would have…b-been enjoyable if you… were a l-little bit… more lenient, ya know?" Kaye struggled to squeak between his breaths, still having the balls to add in another tease. His teammates only responded to his joke with compassionate stares to show pity for the level of foolhardiness he was unfortunately born with. Some folks are just hated by nature since birth for no reason at all...
After an awkward moment of silence, the meek Maurice finally asked in a soft voice, just enough for her sister to hear: "So… what happened to the inkling boy you found afterward?"
"Oh well, after we had successfully wrenched him off Anthia, we'd tied him up and dropped him at the outskirts of Inktopolis for the border watchers to find. There's no point keeping him as a prisoner and besides, he was still young, about 16-18 or something. It would be quite sad if his family didn't see him back again." Mira replied, shrugging nonchalantly. After that, the conversation was dropped and the whole team went back to minding their own businesses.
After several more minutes of silence, the nearby control room's door was suddenly kicked open, revealing a tall and well-built female Octoling, with deep blue curly tentacles, seaweed hair decoration that signified her elite rank, chrome-painted gear and red-tinted goggles, leaning against the door frame. Her chest-attached Elite tag sparkled gold under the chopper's yellow ceiling light, with the word "Oceanica N. Rigby" engraved on it. The whole compartment suddenly went silent, and not a single sound was heard aside from the constant whirring of the helicopter rotors as soon as the woman showed up.
She glanced sharply across the compartments, into each of her subordinates' sweaty faces, and announced in a stern and slightly authoritative voice: "Listen up, squad. Today, at 9:30 AM, we picked up a foreign radio signal from an unidentified location in the East Sector of Octo Valley's surface, which is where you lot are heading to right now. The signal was heavily distorted, but we have been able to confirm its Ascendant origin, and scout octocopters sent to the emitting location have also reported a strange sand dune that stood out from the rest. Whatever that dune is, it was left behind by the Ascendants, and your mission is to salvage as many valuable items and components as possible from it. Paycheck will be decided based on the amount of loot you bring back. We've been given the permission to engage any and all non-octarian presence in the area, should our position get compromised. ETA in 12 minutes, get ready!" After finishing her mission briefing, the elite officer turned around and strolled back inside the mission control room, leaving her team to gear up. With a nervous look, Maurice holstered her Octoshot and sent a timid glance at Mira, with the latter just shrugging lightly in response.
The Octo Seeker slowly descended to the ground in front of the structure, blowing large swirls of dust and sand below its spinning rotors. As soon as the helicopter's door was opened, a yellowish tidal wave smashed into the compartment inside, causing the team to stagger backward and wipe their faces in disgust. The monstrous face under the helicopter's belly suffered the most however, taking tides after tides blown by four rotors in the face, causing it to gag furiously and puke out pink ink all over the ground.
Spitting out a lump of ink mixed with sand, the Elite squad leader gripped her octoshot tightly and called out to the rest of her team: "All right, boys and girls. Let's make some cash! Octotroopers, guard formation! Linda and Mira go scout ahead, Anthia, provide back-up behind with your splatling, Jason, throw that lollipop away and focus on the mission, the rest of the team with me! Now move!" And in a tight formation, they casually made their way through the barren landscape and toward the dormant bunker, not even bothering to train their guns around like what professional soldiers would do.
"We're here! Octotroopers, guard the site." Called out Oceanica. The octotroopers quickly gathered into a circular formation around the bunker entrance while the Octoling team moved toward it, guns holstered by their sides. As the team inspected the sand-covered blast door, Maurice couldn't help but touch its smooth metallic surface in awe, admiring the delicateness and level of craftsmanship that spiked her curiosity to no end. To be able to create a door that could withstand 12,000 years and still remain intact…
Damn, the Ascendants truly were godly.
Her train of thoughts was cut short by a gloved hand waving in front of her face. Maurice gasped and turned to face the hand's owner, realizing she had been staring blankly at the construct for 30 seconds straight. "You okay, sis?" Mira asked worriedly, concern written all over her face.
"No, I'm fine, just… spaced out a little bit. Busy admiring the Ascendant's work, you see…" Maurice quickly replied, stealing quick glances at the ancient blast door. "How did they even manage to build such a tough structure? This thing has been here since the beginning of the Mollusc era, can you believe it? For more than 12,000 years, longer than even our history! How epic is that!? I bet we won't be able to build something like this, even with all of Octavio's current budget."
"Yeah, I do… But Maurice please, we're on a scavenge mission right now, not a roadtrip. Can you stop trailing off, and instead help us set up the spawn point? We could really use another hand over here. You're a grown-up octoling now, not the little girl of 9 years ago anymore, so show some self-restraint, will you? Maybe after the mission, you can have some spare time to play with it while we sort out our haul. But not now." Mira replied with an exasperated sigh, readjusting her dynamo roller's holster and pulling Maurice toward the half-folded spawn pad to work with her teammates. While everyone was busy unfolding the spawn pad and powering it, the elite team leader walked toward the door with an escorting subordinate.
"Look, the door is caked with dried mud and dirt. We won't be able to open it without cleaning them. The control panel is scrapped also, guess we'll have to take out the drill." The elite spoke coolly and unholstered her octoshot.
"I got it, boss!" The male octoling accompanying her hurriedly answered, then bolted back to the octoseeker before his superior could say a word, waving to the team's combat engineer nearby while running. "Yo Jades! Which chest did you put the shovels in again?" If there was one thing he'd learned back in the military academy, is that proactivity is the basis of success. The very first semester, full of extra training drills and lack of dinner, had brutally hammered that lesson into him. If you take matters into your own hands, you will always be prepared for the future and do your work better. And if you do your work better, you will impress your superior and bathe in the benefits of that good impression. Which is exactly what he was trying to do at the moment.
"HEY!" Oceanica snarled upon seeing her subordinate's unruly behavior, making the guy trip and fell on his face in fright. "The shell you think you're doing!?"
The poor octoling soldier answered hesitantly while rubbing his aching forehead, fetching his charger rifle on the ground, "Uh... I'm sorry, boss. I was just going to fetch the shovels, so we can scrape the grime off-"
"-Coddamnit, and here I thought you have a brain, Jason." Oceanica scoffed, smacking her forehead in disappointment. The guy's left eyelid twitched. That remark alone had chipped off a sizable chunk of the guy's dignity, but he managed to swallow what's left of it down and not voice his displeasure to the Elite. He knew better than bringing enlistment propaganda about a "friendly, fair and just working environment", especially the 'friendly' part to argue, because everything he'd witnessed from the start sure as shell ain't it.
"First of all, you've abandoned your assigned duty which is to accompany me, without my permission. And for that, I'll just deduce 8% of your monthly pay check real quick." She swiped her finger on her datapad, and the trademark 'Ping' sound of credit being subtracted rang out, much to the Jason annoyance. "And secondly, your reasoning skills are just terrible. Why need shovels for this, when you could wash the dirt down with your ink?" The elite said, raising her octoshot up. She held down the trigger and sprayed a volley of ink jets onto the door, getting rid of the dried mud sticking on it. To her amusement, the ink she'd just shot out slowly drifted off the surface without leaving a trace, forming large puddles below it. "Hmmm? Ink-proof material? Interesting…"
"Alright team, spawn point online yet?" The elite turned toward the remaining team members, and were pleased to see that the circular spawn point had been unfolded, laid flat to the ground next to the door's control panel, and powered by cables connected into a mini-zapfish pod nearby. The spawn pad – reverse engineered from stolen inkling's technology and some Ascendant's artifacts – is designed to detect the amount of foreign ink that its user was splatted with through a vital monitoring bracelet, and will forcefully transform them into their squid/ octopus form then pull them back to the spawnpoint via tractor beam, once the amount of foreign ink in their blood reaches a lethal level. That means their user can never truly die in a conventional ink war as long as the spawn pad or the bracelet they're wearing remains functional, or unobstructed from each other. However, this kind of failsafe measure can only save the user from enemy ink, and will not work with any kind of damage, means if they get stabbed, cut or bludgeoned, then they're gone for good.
One by one, the octoling operatives registered their IDs to the spawn pad's console. They moved in line across the pad's glassy surface as the red-colored scanner beam ran through them, stopping at each member's bracelets with a tiny "beep". Maurice couldn't help but flinch a little when the scanner beam passed through her. She has been in the Octarian army for two years now, yet she still couldn't get used to the weird tingling sensation of it.
- [ID Registered. "Anthia, age 28, Fifth-rank Gunner". Good luck with the mission.]
- [ID Registered. "Maurice, age 23, Second-rank Rifleman". Good luck with the mission.]
- [ID Registered. "Kaye, age 25, Fifth-rank Rifleman". Good luck with the mission.]
- [ID Registered. "Jason, age 27, Fourth-rank Sniper". Good luck with the mission.]
- [ID Registered. "Mira, age 25, Third-rank Roller". Good luck with the mission.]
- [ID Registered. "Linda, age 30, Fourth-rank Scout". Good luck with the mission.]
- [ID Registered. "Jades, age 22, Fourth-rank Field Engineer". Good luck with the mission.]
And finally, the elite squad-leader joined her team at the end of the line after taking some time to check on the stand-by octotroopers, who have begun to show signs of breaking formation.
- [ID Registered. "Oceania, age 34, Elite-rank Team Leader". Good luck with the mission.]
"Well then! Step one is done, now moving on to step two to five. Jades, you have the Octo drill online yet?" Oceanica called out to a girl with brown skin and green tentacles near the bunker door, leaning against what seemed to be the cartoon adaptation of a mining drill on tank tracks, with pointy and twisted countersink, purple body crudely made out of iron scraps, numerous LED light bulbs attached to seemingly random spots, and three zapfishes stuffed into a large pod on top of the drill as its power source. The girl glanced up from her phone at the mention of her name, and gave a thumbs up along with a wide grin, much wider than the human jaw's open limit.
"What the flop…? I didn't remember seeing it in the seeker just now?" Anthia asked, staring wide-eyed at the monstrous machine like a 1st grader when they first see an airplane. The other teammates all shared the same reaction, with some even dropping their jaws in shock, wondering just what hellhole had the thing even crawled out from. Seeing her subordinates' bewildered reaction, Oceania just chuckled in amusement.
"You lot will be surprised at just how much one octo-seeker can carry. The place you were sitting in just now was just half of the helicopter's interior, my friends." Oceanica said with a grin, then turned toward the giant drill again. "This is a Mk-Sapcaddy Hydraulic heavy-duty drill, one of many great engineering achievements of the Octarian RD Department. Salvaged from numerous broken Precursor machineries and welded together by the brightest minds that the Department could offer, this monster here has enough strength to literally drill tunnels through mountains without halting, at the cost of very high energy consumption of course. As you can see, it takes three zapfishes to power the machine, and those same zapfishes can generate enough electricity for the whole Octaria capital-dome. Dunno how will it fare against a blast door this thicc though…" She slapped her hand on the blast door, "Welp, only one way to find out."
"And why is DJ Octavio willing to spend those zapfishes in cracking some random vault? If three zapfishes can truly generate the amount of electricity that you've mentioned, and given the fact that our country is currently experiencing a massive energy crisis, why did he give out such an invaluable resource to solve such a trivial matter?" Jason asked with a raised eyebrow, stirring up murmurs and discussions among the observing octolings.
"Well first of all, this operation is not government-funded, but by several private energy companies. And second of all, not if said 'trivial matter' is a classified grade-RED derelict site. And yes, this is not your normal salvage mission, so expect high pay if you succeed. As far as I can remember, Precursor ruins don't emit radio signal, since all of them had already been abandoned which is also the reason why they're worth so little. This one however, does, which means the interior must be still intact. You know how much price can one intact Precursor artifact fetch in the market, right? Absurdly high I tell ya, because we can learn much more from still functional artifacts than damaged ones. Now… imagine a whole facility full of those things. Hah hah, promotion go Brrrrrrr." Oceanica finished her explanation with a childish comment, breaking her strict-boss-lady character and showing the secret meme lord that she didn't usually show at workhour. Despite the elite's obvious abnormal behavior, her subordinates didn't seem to notice, too occupied with letting their imagination run wild to care about their surroundings.
"Oh. my cod… I'll be able to buy that newest Octophone model!" One of the octolings said out loud. "I'll be able to get new armor and maybe even a new roller! This is truly heaven!" Another exclaimed. Soon, everyone in the team came up with their own wishes, each one sounded dumber than the last, such as "stuffing themselves full with exotic octo-burgers" or "buying back a whole playlist of Squid Sisters' most famous songs" or something shitty along those lines. Oceanica simply facepalmed at how dead her subordinates' brains were. They didn't even think about fame, promotion or even respects but only octo-burgers and new phones and new weapons and etcetera, and it made her mentally tired just by hearing. Well at least that's something to keep their morale high, she guess…
"So? What are you waiting for? Cut the carp, start the drill and go make those dreams reality, or do Y'all prefer to keep dreaming?" Oceanica urged, starting to lose patience thanks to her team's rambling. "Aye, Leader. Starting now." Jades, the girl who manned the drill answered out loud, then smacked her fist down to the control console on top of the drill's body, getting a loud "beep" as a response. The drill began to spin its gigantic drill-head at an increasingly faster rate with a deafening whirring sound while moving closer to the ancient blast door. The salvage team moved to a safe distance while watching the drill work in awe, their daydreams still lingering at the back of their minds.
"Oh - my - Great Octavio. I just can't wait to get my hand on the shinies inside" Mira exclaimed at the moving drill, now only one meter away from its target. "Impacting in three… two… one… Impact!" Jades called out as the spinning drill-head touched the door's surface, grinding against it while emitting a loud screeching sound that forced everyone to cover their ears, except Jades – who had already worn ear protection – and the elite Oceanica, who simply shrugged it off as mild inconvenience. What a Chad.
Despite the enormous power the drill possessed, it was not as effective as drilling through the door as she thought, and has only managed to create an increasingly widening dent in its reflective surface. "Hmmm, not as good as I'd expected. You sure this fabled "Great Octo-drill" is at its maximum setting?" Oceanica looked at the operating mechanic for answer, receiving only a slight nod in return. "Well, can't blame it. The thing's still the first prototype anyway. Guess we'll have to wait for quite a long time for it to do its job." She added, then turned toward her team and announced: "Lads and gents, early break time. Now, scutter!" The octoling operatives don't need to be announced twice, immediately leaving the area away from the screeching machinery sound to avoid permanent deafness.
As Mira walked alongside her younger sister, she drew her wristwatch and took a look. 7:30 PM. "Welp, guess we'll have to wait for a loooong time here. So… a match of Flappy Salmonids, whaddya say?" She asked Maurice, drawing the word "long" to excruciating length and earning the cute chuckle of her sister. Then they joined their teammates at the recently-ignited campfire nearby, pulled out their phones, and had a short video game match to kill time.
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Meanwhile, inside the ancient bunker:
[Artificial Supervisor Unit No.106; Starting up…]
[…Done]
[Detecting anomalous bio-signature 3 meter(s) outside blast door area. Unidentifiable trait]
[WARNING! Blast door is experiencing heavy continuous impact. Possible breaching attempt. Permission to intervene?] [Yes/ No]
[…]
[…]
[…Permission to intervene?] [Yes/ No]
[Control unresponsive. Permission automatically granted. Finding viable solution…]
[…]
[…Solution found. Deploying all available Advanced Mechanized Combat Unit(s) to intercept disturbance]
[…]
[WARNING! 79 in 80 AMCU unit(s) in-storage unresponsive, manual activation required. = Insufficient combat force. Calculating substitute solution…]
[Unfreezing all cryo- crew members for additional combat personnel. Checking crew members' status…]
[1 vital sign(s) detected. Checking past sleep history logs…]
[….. All sleep history logs checked. Processing conclusion…]
[ = Nearly all crew members had long deceased. Possible cause: Power outage/ machinery failure. Dispatching Mechanized Maintenance Units for reparation….]
[… All MMU unit(s) unresponsive.]
[Potentially alive crew members list:
1) Name: Brad Raymond,
Age :16,
gender: Male,
DOB: 18/ 8/ 2174,
Nationality: The Reunited States,
Profession: Junior Engineer and 10th-Grade Student,
Status: ALIVE, NO ABNORMALITIES DETECTED. Currently in cryo-chamber.
2) Name: Brandon Valentine,
Age: 41,
Gender: Male,
DOB:6/ 2/ 2149,
Nationality: The Reunited States,
Profession: Security Guard,
Status: UNKNOWN. Had left facility early on 6/3/98?.
3) Name: Judd, Age: 6, Gender: Male (formerly lmao)
DOB: A cute-ass sentient cat with implanted auto-translator.
Nationality: "Maine Coon species,
Profession: Bunker's Little Mascot and Maintenance Unit Supervisor.
Status: UNKNOWN. Had left facility early on 8/1/99?.
4) Name: Grizz Volkov,
age: 145 (Lifespan-extension augmentations implanted),
Gender: Male, DOB: 5/7/2045,
Nationality: The Federation of Russia
Profession: Cyberware Specialist and Geneticist,
Status: UNKNOWN, last diagnosed with stabilized stage-1 lung cancer. Had left facility early on ?/?/?.
{CLICK TO EXPAND FULL LIST}
[…]
[Unfreezing available crew member(s)…]
[…Loading…done]
[…All crew member(s) have been unfrozen]
[…]
[Thank you for using Polaris Corp's business-class cryogenic hibernation service. Hope you all had a pleasant sleep.]
[A new world awaits you.]
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So... that was it for the 1st chapter of my first attempt in "fanficting". Bcuz I'm Vietnamese, my grammar is not that good to make a completely error-free story, so bear with me on that. This fanfic takes inspiration from Phrenpai's now-discontinued fanfic "Only One", and its several beginning chapters might sound similar to his work's (the setting, the bunker layout, the fact that my fic's MC is also a male kid). Thank you for reading this lengthy rambling of mine. Btw, if you see any grammar/ logical errors in the story, feel free to feedback to me. I'd be more than welcome to receive them, cuz they fuel my motivation to keep going.