Chapter 0 - Strange Signal
Earth, 16/7/9915. Mollusc Era.
East sector surface, Octo Valley outskirt (Formerly Nevada).
Unknown coordinate.
The endless horizon stretched across the valley, with streaks of clouds moving lazily across the clear turquoise sky. Like a great, raging ball of fire shone the sun, scorching the barren and shrub-filled land below with unforgiving heat. To one side of the valley was a vast and dirty-green ocean, scattered with old metal ruins. To the other, rippled and bleak sand dunes glowing bright yellow from the harsh sunlight. And lying between them, in the middle of the valley, sat another lonely sand dune, larger and mightier than its brethren. Towering over the surrounding dunes, it would be difficult not to notice the clear size discrepancy. At first glance, its abnormally large size seems to be its only defining feature. But upon closer inspection, one would find not rippling and flowing sand, but weathered concrete, with rusted rebar sticking out like a skeleton bursting from its body.. And if you dig away the layers of sand and dirt covering this so-called "sand dune", you would find not the cracked bedrock and soil of a typical desert, but a heavy, pneumatic blast door with a broken console and foreign symbols carved into it on the East side of the ridge.
The bunker, once brimming with life, now lay decayed and forgotten. It seems like it has existed since the beginning of earth itself. Throughout its great lifetime, it has bore witness to countless events, from the day it was constructed as a place of relaxation for the upper classes, to the day it became a beacon of hope to the remaining few. It remembers the New Industrial Revolution, how scientific development in all fields skyrocketed, bringing humanity as a whole into a new golden era. An era once thought to belong in the realm of science fiction.
How its creators gave birth to artificial minds from metal and polymer, conquered the concept of death, forced nature to bow to their iron will, and reached to the stars for their near limitless resources. It had witnessed how their greed, pride, and carelessness clouded their vision, how the need for power and worldwide influence pushed them into two bloody, devastating and seemingly endless conflicts that heralded their own downfall. The future of progress and prosperity that was destined for mankind was torn from their grasp in the blink of an eye, as fellow men went against each others in the name of their nations, children were ripped from their hysterical parents' arms to feed the ever-growing flame of war, majestic cities became the tombs of their own inhabitants, and the once blue sky choked red with smoke and chemical agents.
It remembered the day when major powers around the world finally snapped and cast aside their Rules of War, committing unthinkable atrocities on an unprecedented scale, and causing immeasurable destruction far and wide. Not even neutral nations unaffiliated with the war were spared from this rampage. The death toll in the first following month was staggering, and it only continued to rise after that. Eventually, the people in charge refused to continue tallying casualties, in fear it would discourage and demoralize those who were left fighting.
The very last straw that broke the camel's back was a Russian nuclear warhead with a faulty targeting system, that abandoned its original target and plummeted to the South Pole. The resounding explosion was enough to completely melt the ice cap, causing the sea level to rise drastically, and dealing yet another death blow to the already-ravaged Earth. The final nail for the coffin of man was hammered.
With their advanced 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 city systems to live in. They could have even dropped cryogenic bombs on the South Pole and turned the water back to ice, then resumed cutting each other's throats as if nothing ever happened. But the world leaders were too consumed by their bloodlust to bat half an eye, and by the time they 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 the sea, finally bringing mankind as a whole to its knees. And thus, without a word, guns were cast down, power armor was stripped off, war machines sat without operators, battlefields became scrap yards and soldiers were sent back home in droves. For the first time in years, not a single drop of blood was shed, and the war ended swiftly without even a formal declaration.
It remembers when the Speech of Unification was read in front of billions of people across the globe. How all of Earth's nations put aside their old grudges and differences, finally uniting together as one singular entity. On the same day, it and other similar underground facilities were repurposed and given the honor of preserving the legacy of the human race. To house roughly 1,000 humans each. Kept 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...
… That silence however, was broken all too soon by the whirring rotor of a strange, helicopter-like machine flying toward its location.
The helicopter is painted green and shaped like a box, with four small rotors attached to each edge, and landing legs below each rotor. At the front of the helicopter was a glazed cockpit with a set of high-intensity floodlights below it. a creature in the shape of a fat red tentacle with bulging green eyes and wide mouth – presumably the helicopter's pilot – sat behind the cockpit's reinforced windshield. Despite all of its oddities however, the most bizarre feature of the flying contraption is the gigantic purple face on the helicopter's underside. With large, yellow eyes, and fat purple lips it sat there. unblinking. Even stranger, the face seemed to be alive somehow, constantly twitching and moving in an erratic and unnatural manner, like something out of the deepest pits of hell. 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.
"Mira! 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 a tomboy-ish haircut, starfish head decoration and name tag with her name "Mira"attached to her body armor. She glanced toward the girl, flipped her visor upward to reveal her green eyes, and responded in a tired tone: "I didn't attend the mission briefing, but probably the usual boring stuff. You know… get into some Ascendant's ruins, haul out as many artifacts as possible, then we scram. After that, get paid."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 been 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 knowledge and-".
"-And to feed your empty wallet, after milking it for booze 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, kid."
"Y-yeah, about that also. Kinda regret taking part in that drinking contest, to be honest. Cost me my whole month's salary, and put me in debt too… I just couldn't stand another week eating dried kelp and cheap canned beans, 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 find any. We might even be able to sneak some for ourselves without being caught, right?"Maurice replied with a meek laugh, receiving only a discouraging eye roll from her older sister and slow handclaps from some teammates sitting around her.
"Yeah, you're spot on, Maurice! You could find all sorts of exotic stuff in these Ascendant's ruins, I assure you. From electronics and 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. he threw a provocative glance at another octoling girl at the back of the seat row.
"Kaye, you dogfish! You promised not to talk about that ever again! The shuck's wrong with you?"The girl cursed out loud, annoyed by her team mate's teasing. With a grunt, she bolted up from her seat and stormed toward the grinning clown, hands curled up into fists. Her sheer amount of murderous intent formed into an invisible aura around her, silencing conversations and averting eyes along her way as she moved toward the front row seat. Unfortunately for 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 squid-head 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 however, for her furious grip had 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 Kaye 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 really…likes to p-play it rough, yeah? I-it would have…been enjoyable if you… were a l-little bit… more lenient, ya know?"Kaye struggled to speak between his breaths, still having the balls to add in another of his terrible jokes. His teammates only responded to his humorous attempt 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 Inkopolis 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 opened, 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 fell 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 12 minutes, so gear up!" 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 the soldiers they are.
"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 sandy 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, concerns written all over her face.
"No, I'm fine, just… spaced out a little bit. Busy admiring the Ascendant's work…"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 ever be able to build something like this, even with all of Octavio's current budget."
"Maurice please, we're on a scavenge mission right now, not a road trip. 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 now, 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, it's 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'll 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 fall 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 had a brain, Jason." Oceanica scoffed, smacking her forehead in disappointment. His left eyelid twitches. That remark alone had chipped off a sizable chunk of his 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 deduct 8% of your monthly paycheck real quick."She swiped her finger on her datapad, and the trademark 'Ping' sound of credit being subtracted rang out, much to Jason's 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 cleanly, 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. Upon detecting the wearer's blood supply contains a potentially lethal amount of foreign ink, it will harshly transform them into their squid/ octopus form and pull them back to the spawn point via tractor beam. 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, meaning 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 had 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 steps 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.
"What the flop…? I didn't remember seeing that in the seeker. Where did you pull it from just now?" Anthia asked, staring wide-eyed at the monstrous machine like a 1st grader when they first saw an airplane. The other teammates all shared the same reaction, with some even dropping their jaws in shock, wondering just what hellhole the thing had 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 extreme energy consumption of course. It takes three zapfishes to power the machine, and those same zapfishes can generate enough electricity for the whole Octaria capitol-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 use those zapfishes to crack 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 signals, 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. 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 during work hours. 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 along those lines. Oceanica simply facepalmed at how dead her subordinates' brains were. They didn't even think about fame, promotion or even respect but only octo-burgers and new phones and new weapons etcetera etcetera. 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 caused everyone to slam their hands over their ears, except Jades, she already had ear protection on. The elite Oceanica simply shrugged it off as a 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. Rather disappointingly, its 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 an 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 a while for it to do its job."She added, then turned toward her team, "Lads and gents, early break time. Now, scatter!"They quickly left their posts, attempting to put as much distance between them and the drill as possible. That thing was loud, painfully so.
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 Octoball Race, whaddya say?"She asked Maurice, drawing out the word "long", earning a chuckle from her sister. They joined their teammates at the recently-ignited campfire nearby. Pulling out their phones, they played a few games to pass the time. Though no matter how high the duo turned their volume setting to, it wasn't enough to drown out the maddening screeching of the drill.
Meanwhile, inside the ancient bunker...
[TARTARUS_1467 Multi-purpose Supervisor Unit; Booting 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. Referring to system default.]
[Permission granted.]
[Calculating a viable solution…]
[…]
[…Solution found. Deploying all available Advanced Mechanized Combat Unit(s) to intercept disturbance.]
[…]
[WARNING! 79 in 80 A.M.C.U unit(s) in-storage unresponsive. Responsible Tactical AI- Designated: RASPUTIN_57 - currently offline. Forced activation unauthorized]
[Insufficient combat force. Calculating substitute solution…]
[Thawing all cryo-crew members for additional combat personnel. Armory unlocked. Checking crew members' status…]
[1 vital sign(s) detected. Checking past sleep history logs…]
[….. All sleep history logs checked. Processing conclusion…]
[89% of all current cryo-crew members show no vital signs. Possible cause: Power outage/ Cryo-machinery failure. Dispatching Automated Maintenance Drone(s) for reparation….]
[… All AMD unit(s) unresponsive.]
[Potentially alive crew members list]
1) Name: Brad Raymond,
Age :16,
gender: Male,
DOB: 8/8/2174,
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: Head P-SEC Guard,
Status: UNKNOWN. Had left the facility early on 6/3/98?.
3) Name: Judd, Age: 6, Gender: Male (formerly)
DOB: A cute-ass sentient cat with an auto-translator implant. Dont ask me where he got that.(Info edited by the Overseer)
Nationality: "Maine Coon species(Info edited by the Overseer)
Profession: "Good Boi". "Emotional Support Unit"(Info edited by the Overseer)
Status: UNKNOWN. Had left the facility early on 8/1/99?.
4) Name: Grizz Volkov,
age: 145 (Life-extension augmentations implanted),
Gender: Male, DOB: 5/7/2045,
Nationality: The Russian Federation.
Profession: Cyberware Specialist and Geneticist,
Status: UNKNOWN, last diagnosed with stabilized stage-1 lung cancer. Had left the facility early on ?/?/?.
{ CLICK TO EXPAND FULL LIST}
[…]
[Thawing available crew member(s)…]
[…]
[…All crew member(s) have been successfully thawed.]
[…]
[Thank you for using Polaris Corp's business-class cryogenic hibernation service. We hope you all had a pleasant dream.]
[A new world awaits you.]
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 give feedback to me. I'd be more than welcome to receive them, cuz they fuel my motivation to keep going.
Also, edited n' proofread by my bestest (probably) mate: Hakase.