Nagant took the lead as the group of t-dolls followed the main tunnel further into the Mountain. Their footsteps echoed around them, and their flashlight beams scoured the path ahead. "According to the map," StG44 spoke as she went over the file in her digimind, "We should be coming up on a vehicle bay that has a stairwell leading to the other levels."
"Can't we take the elevator?" AA-12 quietly moaned.
"I doubt it's operational," StG44 replied in a stern voice. "And, before you ask, no, you can't stay here to 'guard' our exit."
"Tch." AA-12 clicked her tongue in annoyance.
Nagant, not wanting to have her leader get into another argument with AA-12, spoke up to change the topic, "I see it." The dolls entered a room with a high ceiling making the emergency lights that dotted it practically useless. However, what took the dolls completely by surprise was what their flashlights revealed was inside the room.
Galil's eyes widened in disbelief as she slowly walked in, "Aren't those military vehicles?" Still parked in their spots were rows of different military vehicles. There didn't seem to be any order to them, and it looked like they were put here haphazardly. "Why would these still be here?"
"Probably because they're all broken," Nagant said as she pointed to the nearest vehicle, a Vityaz DT-30P. "That one doesn't have any tracks, and some of the wheels are missing. And, I'm pretty sure I see one of the trucks over there missing the entire engine."
"So, they're junk?" Galil tilted her head to the side as she looked at her teammate. Nagant nodded her head.
"Aw~" M2HB bemoaned, "And here I was hoping we could use their firepower to further tear Sangvis Ferri to pieces."
"Focus," StG44 refocused her team. "We can report the vehicles to the Commander once we get the power back on and resurface. We lost signal about halfway through the tunnel, so for now all we can do is continue the mission." Getting back on track, the team crossed the vehicle bay and came upon a locked bulkhead door with a keypad next to it. Punching in the code they got from Zeldri, the keypad chirped three times before the door unlocked and slowly swung open to reveal a dark stairwell that went both up and down. "Hmm?"
"What is it?" Galil asked as she saw StG44 looking rather confused.
"According to the files we have, this main floor should be the highest floor of the base."
"Then...where do those stairs go?" Silence overtook them as the team all looked up the unaccounted-for stairwell that ascended into the darkness above. Not even shining their flashlights up allowed them to see where the stairs went.
"Let the Commander worry about things like that," AA-12 passed her gawking teammates and started taking the stairs down. "Let's just find this power source so we can be done. I want to go sleep." StG44 let out an annoyed sigh as she followed suit. Since they were only told to recon the lowest level, the team purposefully didn't check the other levels they passed as they continued descending. Eventually, they reached the bottom of the stairwell and were faced with another bulkhead door. But...
"Hey," Nagant said while pulling on the collar of her shirt, "Does anyone else feel kind of warm?"
"Yeah," Galil said as she punched in the code, but this time the door didn't automatically swing open so she reached out to push it. "It is kinda wa-OW!" Galil's scream echoed in the stairwell and she leaped away from the door.
"What's wrong?!" StG44 rushed to Galil's side.
"It burned me!" Galil unclenched her fists to see that the synthetic skin on her palms had been singed off. The group looked to the door and heard a soft sizzling noise.
"Hmm." Nagant let her coat sleeves fall over her hands and used that so she wouldn't directly touch the door. Yet, even with that, she felt the intense heat on her hands as she forced the door open. A wave of hot air rushed past the dolls so strong that it knocked Nagant off her feet. The door finished opening to reveal a dark hallway that seemed to only get hotter the further it went. Galil helped Nagant to her feet and everyone looked to their leader.
"...Let's go." StG44 took the lead as the team entered the hall. There was no map of this floor, but that didn't seem to be an issue as the hallway only had a single door at the end; this time a normal-looking door with a knob. Using the same trick, Nagant opened the door to reveal a room filled with computer consoles, a door on the wall to their left, and a large viewport along the far side. "Spread out," StG44 ordered, "Try and find out what these computers do. This should be the source, so try and see if there's any way to turn it on; whatever 'it' is." The t-dolls spread out and scoured the room. It was even hotter in this room, but luckily their bodies could handle it. According to their sensors, it was roughly sixty degrees Celsius, and that was only after they opened the door and allowed the heat to start escaping to the rest of the base.
"Honestly," AA-12 complained as she tossed her jacket onto a nearby chair.
"I don't get the big deal, it feels nice," M2HB said as she tried flicking some switches on a console to no avail.
"That's because you were never dressed for cold environments, to begin with," AA-12 retorted as she rummaged through a desk's drawers. "All this heat's making me tired."
"If you slack off on the first mission, the Commander might send you for dismantlement," StG44 tried to reign in AA-12.
"Yeah?" AA-12 bitterly mumbled, "Well, he wouldn't be the first." The air was awkward as no one knew what to say to that. StG44 dropped it as she was privy to her teammate's backgrounds. She silently cursed herself for stepping on that baggage landmine as she was just trying to get AA-12 to focus more. This Commander seemed like a good one, and she didn't want to see her teammate scraped because of something avoidable. "Found it."
"...?!" StG44 stopped looking around and walked over to AA-12 who was holding a rather worn-looking binder she'd pulled from one of the desk drawers. "Found what?"
"...This." AA-12 flipped through the binder until she found a certain page. All the pages in the binder were printouts, except for one which was completely handwritten and put into a binder sleeve so it could be added along with the other pages. Written and underlined in black marker at the top were the words 'Quick Start' and underneath was numbered steps along with some rather colorful notes.
"How did you know this would be here?"
"It's something I would do," AA-12 replied as she handed her leader the binder. "Everything's so needlessly complex in here that I figured at least one person would write down the basics in an easy-to-follow list."
"Huh." While she didn't like that AA-12 thought that way, StG44 couldn't deny the results of such thought processes. "Alright. Everyone, listen up!" She regrouped her squad and they began following the steps one by one. With every step complete, weird sounds could be heard beyond the viewport that looked out into the darkness. "...Finally, Nagant, flip switch F9 and press the button at the bottom right of the console."
"Roger!" As the switch was flipped, and the button pressed, a loud mechanical roar shook the entire room. "GAH!" Everyone grabbed the nearest thing they could so as not to fall down. Overhead lights started to turn on, fully illuminating the room. Floodlights outside the viewport began activating and revealed what lay beyond. The team of t-dolls all stared in amazement out the window as the Mountain took its first breath in decades.
"What was that!?" Annika exclaimed as she nervously looked around. All the personnel in the parking lot stared at the Mountain as, just moments ago, a deep roar echoed out of the main tunnel and the still open personnel door. Ice shattered to the ground as the vehicle door forced itself open. Zeldri was completely dumbstruck as to what was going on. Then, his tablet started pinging him.
"Com..an..r?" A transmission was coming from the initial team of t-doll's he had sent in.
"...StG44?" It felt weird calling to someone whose name was a gun, but that wasn't important right now. "StG44, do you read?"
"Lo...nd..clea..Commander." After a few seconds of static, StG44's voice started coming in crystal clear. "Can you read me?"
"Affirmative, StG44, I read you. What's going on, are you back at the entrance tunnel?"
"Negative, Commander, we're still down in sub-level six." Zeldri raised a bewildered eyebrow. "We found the power and turned it back on. When we did, I noticed I was getting signal again and contacted you right away."
"..." Zeldri was even more confused. How were they getting signals so far down? "What about the Mountain's power source? We heard some kind of roaring up here. What was that?"
"About that..."
"A geothermal power plant!?" Helian was currently being displayed on a large screen in the Mountain's 'command' room. Although they were still moving in all their supplies, with people constantly bustling around, Zeldri decided to send an update back to HQ as soon as they got the basic systems working.
"Affirmative," Zeldri said as he idly flipped through the binder StG44 had brought to him when their team returned.
"But, your sector isn't near a fault line. Where's the geothermal vent coming from?"
"It appears," Zeldri began as he flipped to a certain page, "When this base was constructed, a massive hole was drilled in the lowest level. These reports say the hole is thirty kilometers deep and, because of how close it is to the Earth's mantle, an artificial geothermal vent was created. The power plant was constructed over the hole along with numerous industrial-sized batteries and flywheels to store the excess electricity."
"..." Helian silently looked over the files Zeldri had scanned and sent to her. The Mountain was on an isolated grid meaning that, with the power plant now operational, the base was completely self-sufficient when it came to power.
"That said," Zeldri brought Helian out of her thoughts, "Even though I'm not an engineer, I can tell that the years are taking their toll on it just from a quick look. Do you have anyone you can send to do proper upkeep on it?"
"No, we're a PMC, not an electric company." She rubbed her chin in contemplation. "I'll make some calls and see what I can do. In the meantime, all I can say is try not to put too much of a load on it."
"Understood, that's all for my current report."
"Very well," Helian gave a nod and the feed was cut.
"Um...Commander?" Annika sheepishly approached Zeldri.
"Hm?"
"Are you absolutely sure we shouldn't mark down the vehicles that were left in the main bay and report it?" She seemed very uneasy about the decision.
"Don't worry," Zeldri assured her, "I was given the task of cataloging anything left behind by the FSB and told to send in my report 'when done'. Also, all of those vehicles have something wrong with them so they're no longer operational and shouldn't cause an issue if discovered."
"But...not even mentioning them to Mrs. Helian?"
"..." Zeldri disliked keeping secrets from his subordinates, and Annika seemed like someone with a good head on their shoulders, but something in his gut stopped him. Certain things didn't add up in his mind. The transfer of such a large installation that obviously had tons of work and money put into it was already weird, but now that there were discarded military vehicles just sitting in the vehicle bay, and a functioning power plant despite being told there was 'nothing' here made Zeldri uneasy. Not to mention the other mysteries that were constantly being discovered, it seemed. "I'll take responsibility for whatever happens, Annika." Although that did little to stop her fidgeting, Annika didn't press the issue further, so Zeldri changed topics. "How's the mapping coming along?"
"Well," Annika walked up to the table that had a touchscreen interface and pulled up a simple and constantly updating map, "The main floor, level zero, seems to just be the primary tunnel which connects to the vehicle bay and, off shooting from that, there's a logistics bay with a large freight elevator that goes to the other levels of the base. We can access all levels except for sub-levels four and five, and level one whose doors don't open from any of our codes. The first sub-level, as you know, holds the command center as well as multiple offices and some briefing rooms. Sub-level two seems to be the living quarters, mess hall, and armory. I've already ordered some furniture for our t-doll's dorms an-"
"Dorms?"
"Hm?" Annika looked at Zeldri's confused face for a few seconds before it clicked in her head. "Oh! Right, you skipped the academy." She tapped her tablet a few times and Zeldri felt a ping come in on his. Clicking the ping led him to a furniture catalog that had some rather outlandish products. "As you've seen, our t-dolls still have their personality matrices installed to further simulate and foster relationships and comradery."
"The whole 'you fight harder when next to your friends' mentality?"
"Yes. And, while they don't need fancy dorm rooms, it was tested that dolls that lived in well-furnished dorms had higher levels of comradery and loyalty than those that didn't."
"Wait, aren't the dolls programmed to be loyal already?" Zeldri was getting confused. Were the dolls under him not bound by a loyalty protocol like military-grade dolls were?
"I mean, they are, but it's...Well..." Annika started scratching her head as she thought of a way to phrase it.
"It's our loyalty to you, Commander." Annika and Zeldri turned to see StG44 standing behind them. "Apologies for interrupting, Commander, I was going to wait for you to finish your conversation with Mrs. Annika, but I feel it would be more easily explained from me."
"..." Zeldri silently looked over StG44. Her clothes, her posture, the way she talked, and the way her eyes would look around idly were all unmistakably human. And, all hid the fact that, underneath, she was a machine. It still unnerved him. "Alright. Explain."
"What Mrs. Annika means by 'loyalty' is how willing we are to carry out our orders for you."
"How willing you are?"
"Richtig (Correct). We will always follow any order you give to us, that is a fact, but how willingly we carry them out is still left to the individual t-doll. This willingness is considered our 'loyalty' or, put in another term, our 'affection' for you."
"So," Zeldri was starting to understand, "Like how that AA-12 doll wouldn't give proper responses while you and the others did, but they still followed through on the mission?"
"That is, sadly, correct, Commander." StG44 suddenly bowed her head to Zeldri. "I would like to deeply apologize for my teammate's behavior, Commander. Even though she's a bit rude, AA-12 is a very capable t-doll. While I have no right to, I ask that you please give her a chance and not have her scrapped."
"...!?" Zeldri was at a loss for words. A machine was requesting something from him and even bowing its head? All he could do was chuckle and mumbled to himself, "This is insane." Annika looked a little worried, and StG44 kept her head lowered. There were both human and doll staff members watching this conversation out of the corner of their eyes. Another precedent would be made from his response. After a few moments of contemplation, Zeldri spoke, "I'll overlook it for now, so long as it doesn't affect any missions. As the echelon leader, the responsibility of keeping them on task lies with you, StG44."
"You mean...?" StG44 lifted her head and looked hopefully at Zeldri.
"I won't have them scrapped."
"Danke, Kommandant (Thank you, Commander)." StG44's shoulders relaxed a bit and a smile overtook her face. The more Zeldri interacted with these t-dolls, the more unnerved he got. They were way too human. But, looking at the warm smile StG44 was giving him, he admitted it wasn't completely a bad thing.
"Anyway," Zeldri brushed those weird thoughts from his mind, "Back to what we were talking about?"
"Right!" Annika readjusted the map and StG44 walked over to the table. "That's sub-level two done. Sub-level three is the logistics warehouse and utility floor. We're having the engineers set up our t-doll maintenance bay down there since there's plenty of room and it's close to the warehouse for quick access to parts. And, finally, sub-level six is the power plant."
"Which just leaves those three closed-off levels." Zeldri looked at the map they had created and at the large empty spaces.
StG44 spoke up, "I just returned from trying to get into sub-level four. None of our codes work, and the doors are too thick to force open. The freight elevator Mrs. Annika mentioned earlier does stop at those floors, but even those doors won't open without the codes. For all intents and purposes, we are completely locked out of sub-level five, sub-level four, and level one."
"Hmm." Zeldri slowly ground his teeth as he looked at the maps. This 'gift' was turning more and more into a liability. Although, the sincerity from his father made him believe that maybe he didn't know? A lot of documentation wasn't correct or was just missing, and they were discovering more and more as they sifted through what was left behind. It was completely possible that this was just a logistics error waiting to be reported.
"But, you know better." A chilling voice snaked its way into Zeldri's ear. Standing just between Annika and StG44 was the woman in the black robes. No one made any motion that they noticed her. "An accident? An error?" the woman cooed as she looked at the maps, "Those are very convenient phrases you people like to make when you don't understand something." A pale hand emerged from her robe and softly touched the map where sub-level five would've been. "Hmm. We're still a bit early, but going at this pace would piss Him off, so I'll let it slide." The robed woman chuckled to herself as Zeldri cocked an eyebrow. Her voice wove its way through his skull into the deepest parts of his mind.
"Are you okay, Commander?" Annika's voice brought Zeldri's attention to her and he realized he was yawning and his eyelids felt heavy. "It is getting kind of late, and we've got a big day tomorrow. I prioritized your room being the first one finished, so you should get some sleep."
"Maybe you're right." While Zeldri wanted to stay up to oversee things further, he felt a sudden wave of exhaustion that he couldn't ignore. "If anything comes up, wake me. Otherwise, I leave it in your hands, Annika."
"Of course. Have a good night, Commander." Annika gave a friendly wave, and StG44 gave a respectful bow.
"Have a pleasant rest, Commander," the woman in the black robes cooed, "I look forward to hearing more of your delicious~ screams."
