Chapter 3:
Attrition
Darkness is what I was greeted with upon waking up. The stench of rotting meat had permeated the air. I lit a small makeshift candle and proceeded to move a metal cabinet away from the single window in the room. The old wood creaked beneath my feet. The cabinets on this world are surprisingly heavy, I have no doubt in my mind that they could stop a bullet or two. The mattress I had been sleeping on was lumpy and uncomfortable, though I guess I can't complain, considering it's probably the only mattress left in this town. With the morning being calm, I figured I would try to explore my dwelling in a bit more detail. The room I slept in seemed to be some kind of records office. Toward the back of the room was a single wooden desk with four cabinets on the side. Excluding the metal cabinets I used for the window and door barricades, there were four cabinets, two upright and two for filing with four pullouts each. Inside one of the filing cabinets were a variety of documents ranging from payment to shipping orders. Each document was written in two different languages, English and an illegible script. Trying to decipher the script was of little priority to me.
In the right corner of the room was a door I had yet to open. Outside of the main door was a single hallway with a couple of larger office rooms containing cubicles. The desks were empty, however, they looked as though they originally had some kind of desktop computer. At one end of the hallway was some kind of reception lobby that had the door to the outside. The other end of the hallway had restrooms. Two different indecipherable symbols separated the two bathrooms. One could not tell which sex they were intended for, as the restroom layouts were identical. A small lounge was present near the end of the hallway, two refrigerator looking machines, one white, the other chrome with heavier looking doors occupied the space in the kitchen area. A small island counter was present about a meter away from the fridges. In the middle of the room was a table with a series of folding chairs.
There appeared to be some kind of television screen mounted on a table in front of a couple of armchairs, however, it would not turn on. A striking feature of the chairs is a hole at the base of the chairback. Each hole was about 18 centimeters in diameter. After seeing all there was to see in the rest of the building I proceed outside to dispose of the rotten meat I had been carrying. The surrounding town was of a familiar layout.
Various two-lane roads branching off the main road formed blocks. Down each street was an assortment of businesses and small houses. Down the road were a few six story apartment looking buildings. Further down the road was some kind of metal warehouse looking building. The architecture was brutalist in nature, thick unpainted concrete formed the walls and supports of each building. Sharp angles and rough blocks were the key features of the architecture. After seeing all there was to see in the immediate area, I quickly retreated to my dwelling.
As I sat down in the chair behind the desk, I looked over to the other door in the room. I remembered that I hadn't yet explored the room yet. As I opened the door, I was shocked to see a corpse lying next to a box of old documents. The corpse looked like it was fresh, it did not smell, it was not bloated and it had not decayed. Though, the most striking feature is that it was not human. The creature wore clothes. A dull off green short sleeved shirt and grey utility pants. I felt that the clothes were unnecessary, at the creature was covered in a coat of brown fur about three centimeters thick. It's face looked like that of a rabbit. It's ears were positioned at the top of it's head. Each one was about thirty centimeters tall. It's hands and feet were similar to our own.
From what I could tell, they creature was male, or at least whatever their equivalent is. I had a good idea on how it died, it looked like it had been shot in the chest by a very large or very hot projectile. Though this creature is dead, I still am the first human in history to demonstrably prove the existence of intelligent life. A morose sense of brief joy filled my body.
After satisfying my investigation, I proceeded to look inspect the rest of the room. The room was dark, as there were no windows to illuminate it. I took my makeshift candle and used it the light the rest of the room. To my surprise, there was some kind of terminal mounted on the back wall behind a small desk complete with a keyboard and console box. Various wires fed into a small box. I pressed a button on the box and the console and screen began to light up along with a fluorescent tube mounted on the ceiling. A variety of text based processes began to run onscreen, the strings were not in English and thus illegible to me. Suddenly, I was greeted with some kind of options menu. I could not understand what it was telling me, however I could tell it was presenting me with two different options. One was written in English, the word was "Solic". I pressed the key corresponding with that option, suddenly, the keyboard lit up to reveal another format, this time in English. The computer booted into a Linux-like OS system. There were a few basic programs on the desktop, a basic word processor, a calculator, some kind of internet browser that could not connect and a commandline program labeled 'COMMS'. I double clicked it, the terminal asked me for an alias. Jokingly, I entered my alias as "The Stranger". After hitting enter the program hung for a solid five minutes until taking me to another options menu.
"1 for HQ (main;ics)
2 for direct_signal (not recommended for SBOT nearby)
3 for direct_latlong (irrelevent to general FF forces, requires QCode)
4 for central_comms (encrypted, not need worry about wiretapping)
5 for RoBut (taunt channel, encrypted, have fun!)
6 to exit "
Options 2 looked like something I could use to communicate with the Colombia. Though, using it would probably be self-sabotaging. I'm not sure what an 'SBOT' is, and I do not intend to find out. My best bet would be to communicate with whomever is at Option 1 or Option 4.
Option 1 brought be to some kind of chat room, immediately, another user with the alias "Rotor W." asked me for my identification. I promptly disconnected from the channel. Back at the menu, I selected Option 4. I was brought to another chat room, this time a user named "FF Comm Operator23" asked me what I needed. I promptly disconnected. Whoever these people are, they probably aren't going to help me. For all I know, I could've just revealed my position to the enemy once again. For good measure, I powered down the computer and disconnected it from the power box. After exploring a small cabinet to the left of the desk, I discovered a small map looking document. After perusing the map, I was able to triangulate my position, I was fifty kilometers from the crash site and seventy kilometers from the big city. The text on the map was in the same illegible script as the rest of the documents. Once I was done, I carefully folded the map and put it in my pocket for future use.
At around noon, I decided I would try and bury the corpse in the back room. I searched around the immediate town block for some kind of shovel. I could only find what appeared to be a gravel rake. It took a solid two hours of plowing in order to get the right depth of for the body. I dragged the body out and rolled into into the grave. I then spent the next half-hour burying the body. I etched an epithet into a piece of wood that I found and mounted it at the foot of the grave. It read, "Here lies the corpse of the unknown. May heaven greet him graciously". As night began to fall, I retreated back to my dwelling and went to sleep.
Each day I would follow a similar routine: move the cabinets, go outside to relieve myself, eat breakfast, explore the nearby town for supplies and perhaps eat lunch along the way, check the town approaches for enemy activity, set up traps for small game, return to my dwelling, read miscellaneous documents for my amusement, eat dinner, barricade the doors and window, wait for nightfall, sleep. Each day was horrendously mundane, despite this, every time I would exit the dwelling or attempt to sleep, I would be overcome by a great sense of anxiety. I would constantly look over my shoulder expecting to see another horde of drones or worse. The only water I can found around here is from storm drains, which tastes much worse than the water from the river. Though, nothing could possibly compare to the absolute desolation of this place. For nearly three weeks, I had not spoken a word save for a few grunts here and there. I did still have the blackbox, however, considering what happened last time, I vowed to never use it unless absolutely necessary.
I began to hear voices in my head at night, some of them sounded like old friends, others sounded like family. They kept telling me that I needed to leave, that the Columbia was never coming back, that my only hope is to find peace in death. With each passing day, my will to live diminished. I am alone, far from home and surrounded by an enemy far stronger than I who will stop at nothing to see me dead. The situation is not grim, it is hopeless, and each hour I spend alive only postpones my inevitable end. But hey, I guess this is one hell of a place for me to die.