Chapter 1 - Rude Awakening.
…
[Disengaging life support system for 'chamber No.172'…]
[…Life support system disengaged. Injecting stabilization chemicals for the subject.]
[…Injection complete. No negative reaction detected from the subject.]
[Subject is now awake.]
[…Cryo-chamber depressurization in progress…]
[...]
[...Depressurization process halted. Undetermined major malfunction detected in auto-ejection system. Debug attempt in progress...]
"WARNING! Ejection failure in chamber No.172! All technical and medical personnel report to the 1st-level cryo hall immediately!"
[Emergency protocol initiated. Reactivating life support for 'chamber No.172'...]
[...]
[...Life support unresponsive. Power level insufficient for reactivation. Debug and energy redistribution in progress…]
…
'… Beep Beep … Beep Beep…'
'… Beep Beep … Beep Beep…'
…Ughhh… What?
I regained my senses with a feeling of numbness in all four limbs, and the sharp acrid stench of ethanol stinging my nostrils. The air was cold, damp and chokingly heavy, pressing against my skin like a clammy shroud. The loud and oh-so-familiar sound of my alarm clock rang in my ears, urging me to sober up and do something productive rather than laze around in bed for a few extra minutes of rest. I kept my eyes shut in hope of ignoring the irritating noise and going back to sleep, but found my drowsiness dissipating little by little as the beeping persisted.
Fucking alarm… wasted my money buying that crap.
As I tried to roll to my side for a more comfortable lying position, red flashing lights seeped through my half-closed eyelids, disorienting me and creating dark spots on my vision.
What the…?
Now there's no doubt that someone is screwing me over right now. Probably my asshole neighbor Jimmy from the opposite dorm. No one else but him could have woken up this early in the morning, and no one else would've had the mind to play overused, aggravating and frankly stupid pranks on the biggest kid in town like this, despite knowing damn well that they're gonna get beaten up later. Like honestly, I just can't get what the hell's even wrong in his head. It's as if the dude gets off from being treated roughly or something!
Annoyed, I raised my hands to block the sudden bright lights, only for my arms to be stopped in their tracks by something holding them down. Oh, that's a new one. Looks like Jimmy has decided to get creative for once, and that's a good thing.
The bad thing though? Dude has officially crossed the line this time, and now I'm pissed off for real. No one likes it when I get pissed off. Last time I did, two jocks were sent to the infirmary, and I got grounded for two months. Not to mention all the other times before that, which often led to similar consequences. Today, it's lil' Jimmy's turn to join the hall of fame, and goddamn if I ain't itching to hang up his plaque myself.
I stiffly turned my head down to look at what was holding me back, and any remaining sleepiness was instantly destroyed as my eyes landed on the criss-crossing mess of synthetic cables that connected from my bed to the sleeves of some kind of rubber jumpsuit that I'm wearing. And isn't my bed pink?
Whatever I'm laying on isn't pink.
…This isn't my bed? Where am I!?
My eyes frantically darted around in hopes of finding the smallest bit of information about where I am. It doesn't take long before I realize I'm stuck inside some kind of metal pod, with a water-inflated cushion under my back. The chamber's door is dirty glass marked with unintelligible numbers and Polaris's company logo. Behind the door's window is a large room that looks like it has been abandoned for ages. With a metal floor covered in gray dust, gray-stained walls that were once white, barely functional lighting and a row of similar but unoccupied chambers. Relieved that I am not in any (visible) danger, I laid back again and tried to recollect my memories.
From what I could remember in my mental fog, I was given a clipboard with Polaris Corp's formal ribbon attached to sign in, and given an elastic jumpsuit with lots of holes in it to wear. I was led to this room by a few guards, and they had me drink… something. I don't remember what it was for, all I remember is that it tasted like shit. The chamber's door was sealed shortly after and the temperature inside it dropped to below freezing, then I went to sleep. That was the last thing I remember.
Was I put into cryo sleep? But only the rich can afford to pay for cryogenic-sleep service, and my family was never anywhere near wealthy enough. Maybe I was chosen for this, free of charge? But why? Hundreds of questions jumped into my mind at once, but not a single one received an answer, my brain seemingly still too frozen to work hard enough.
A monotonous and slightly distorted female voice suddenly called out from somewhere inside the pod, snapping me from my train of thought:
"WARNING! AUTO-EJECTION FAILURE IN CRYO-CHAMBER 172. OXYGEN IS AT 10%. PLEASE LEAVE THE POD IMMEDIATELY. PULL RED HANDLES NEAR YOUR HANDS TO EJECT."
Wait. Oxygen at 10 percent? Shit.
I snapped my head down in panic, fumbled my hands around to search for the emergency handle in the dark. The filaments attached to my arms were overstretched, threatening to tear out of their sockets and making me wince in pain. Words cannot describe how much I hate whatever company created these pods. The handles are next to my kneecaps! How is anyone supposed to reach those!? Not to mention all the wires holding me back!
"OXYGEN IS AT 6%, PLEASE LEAVE THE CHAMBER IMMEDIATELY. PULL RED HANDLES NEAR YOUR HANDS TO EJECT." The voice called out once again, making me panic even more. I immediately stopped reaching for the handles and turned my attention to pulling the wires off my left arm. These wires are responsible for transporting nutrients and removing excrement from the pod inhabitant's body, keeping it from decaying over time. They were supposed to automatically detach themselves once the depressurization process is complete without any discomfort or side effects. Forcefully removing them before they could disengage is like pulling a key out of its lock without twisting it, causing immense pain and even potential nerve damage to the user. There have been countless cases of cryosleep-induced disability across the world. Mainly from those cables becoming loose mid-process, the system malfunctioning, or just the patient being too impatient to get out of their pod to care about the risk. I've even seen one of those cases myself at the central hospital near my house, and it ain't pretty. Normally, this kind of injury is completely reversible with modern-day nanotechnology. Even if it wasn't, they could just remove the damaged area and regrow it in a lab.. Unfortunately for me, I don't have that luxury right now.
"OXYGEN IS AT 3%, PLEASE LEAVE THE CHAMBER IMMEDIATELY. PULL RED HANDLES NEAR YOUR HANDS TO EJECT."
To hell with it. Better be a freed cripple than a trapped corpse, I guess.
Having made up my mind, I gathered the wires along my left arm into a bunch, gripped them tightly, and pulled them backward with all of my strength.
The resulting pain was both excruciating and foreign at the same time, feeling unlike anything that I've experienced before. It was not acute like the pain of being cut or stabbed, but dull and constant akin to having a swarm of fire ants biting inside my bicep. I grimaced for a moment but continued to tug the bunch of wires anyway, trying my best to block out the burning sensation with gritted teeth
'Click!'…'Pshhhh'
A small click was heard along with a small hiss, briefly echoing inside the enclosed space of the sleeping pod. Then, another click sounded, then another. I changed the pulling direction of my hand and glanced at the wire cluster, seeing that four of them had been pulled out of my suit's protruding plugs, their needles leaving red spots and slight irritations on my skin.
'Click!' 'click!' 'click!' 'click!'
More and more cables were pulled from their plugs, dispensing small streams of compressed gas from their red-stained needles as they retracted automatically back into the coffin's sides. Soon, my beet-red left arm was completely cleared of wires.
Not wasting any more time, I quickly reached toward the nearby ejection handle, cringing at how numb and stiff it was. But no matter how hard I tried to direct my arm forward, it just flat-out refused my command, only flopping around like a near-dead fish with each attempt. Probably nerve damage coming into play right now.
"OXYGEN IS AT 0.7%, 30 SECONDS UNTIL DEPLETION, PLEASE LEAVE THE CHAMBER IMMEDIATELY. PULL RED HANDLES NEAR YOUR HANDS TO EJECT."
FUUUUCK! Come on! Grab the damn thing!
The air inside my pod grew heavier and heavier with each breath I took, and my level of panic was only rising. I once again attempted to reach for the emergency handle, now seeming farther away than ever. In desperation, I flung my entire body forward in an attempt to get my arm on the handle. Luckily, this time I managed to create enough momentum for my hand to latch onto the damned handle, and I immediately pulled it backward with my whole body.
A bright-blue message popped up on the pod's glass window:
[CHAMBER-172 IS BEING OPENED MANUALLY, BRACE FOR SUDDEN PRESSURE CHANGE] it said. Near-fainted due to the lack of oxygen, I ignored the warning sign and pulled the level all the way back anyway, an action that I instantly regretted.
The pod's door burst open, pouring a fountain of white fog into the metal floor below and making my ears buzz due to instability in atmospheric pressure. All the cables connected to my body suddenly detached in unison with a cacophony of pops and hisses, causing me to hunch over like a stringless puppet. I raised my still-functional arm forward in an attempt to brace myself, failing miserably, I just fell face first on the floor instead. I curled up into the fetal position right after, covering my ears with my hands in hope of stopping the ringing inside it. My head felt like it was being split open by a jackhammer, and the whole room wobbled madly before my vision. Clamping my eyes shut, I lie in agony while waiting for my senses to return to me.. After a while, the ringing and nausea finally ceased, and I rolled over to face the ceiling, taking some time to calm myself down and wonder how the hell I'm even alive right now.
Holy shit, this is definitely one of the worst ways to wake up. I layed there for a while, breathing heavily while feeling the numbness on my left arm disappearing little by little. After several minutes, I decided that it was time to end my short rest, and sat up to inspect my surroundings.
To call the place I'm in a room, isn't exactly accurate. It's a long, narrow and dirty hallway similar to my school's locker hall, if the rows of lockers were replaced by empty cryo-pods instead. What I saw from inside my pod just then was only a section of it, at the ends of the hall are two gigantic chrome-colored blast doors with blue neon lights fastened to their edges. The hallway's floor is lined with bright ceramic tiles, scattered with papers and covered in dirt. On the hall's ceiling, the emergency lighting system and exit signs are barely functional, illuminating random sections of the hall with dull yellow light and further intensifying its already eerie atmosphere. I looked down both ends of the hall, seeing only lines of identical pods, the barely visible shape of the blast doors, flickering lights and occasional passing shadows that I'm pretty sure was my mind messing with me. Needless to say, it creeped me the fuck out, so I followed my instinct and scrambled around for anything that I could use to defend myself. I found nothing, save for some paper clips and a nearby rubber hose. Deciding to search my opened pod in hope of finding a proper weapon, I glance left and right occasionally to make sure that I'm the only one here. While I was digging around in my pod, I noticed the locking mechanisms of the life-support cables were halfway unlocked, which must be why I was able to rip them off so easily without it causing too much pain or serious damage. I could only imagine what that would've felt like if they weren't.
Sweeping the loose cables to the side, I was disappointed to see that the pod's interior was empty save for the water-inflated cushion and two manual-ejection handles, which are too short to be used as any kind of weapon. I sighed disappointingly. Not having any means to defend myself down here isn't good. I was about to turn away from the pod to look elsewhere when I noticed something that looked rather out of place.. There was a white metal box that looked like it served no function for any of the mechanics inside the pod, lying in a compartment just under the cushion. Curiosity getting the better of me, I knelt down and pulled it out. It was some kind of mini safe with a holographic keypad and a Polaris Corp logo on the top of it. Is it mine? I mean, it was inside my pod, so it's got to be right? Who else could have placed it there besides me? I looked at the box's nine-digit keypad, trying my best to remember its five-digit password, to no success. Goddamnit me from the past. Why did I even bother setting a password in the first place? I should have known I would forget it. Especially with my goldfish memory.
Damn… I'm such an idiot….
Frustrated, I began to spam blindly into the keypad, hoping one of my wild guesses would unlock the container. Let's see…
"…1-2-3-4-5… ACCESS DENIED"
"…5-4-3-2-1… ACCESS DENIED"
"…1-3-3-4-5… ACCESS DENIED"
"…6-9-6-9-6… ACCESS DENIED"
"…6-6-6-6-6… ACCESS DENIED"
… Son of a bitch
Why!? I dropped the box to the ground and slapped my forehead in annoyance, inhaling loudly to refrain myself from whipping it against the concrete wall and cracking it open like a coconut. Kicking the box out of frustration, it flew a few feet before landing upside down. While moving towards it for another good kick, I noticed that a few of the upside-down numbers looked sort of like letters . For example: Number "4" becomes the letter "h", number "1" becomes the letter "L" or "i", number "3" becomes the letter "E", and etcetera. If I type the code "01134" into the keypad's blank section then flip the box over, I'll have the word "HELLO". I doubt it would work, but just to amuse myself, I typed the numbers into the keypad anyway. I don't think the box would lock itself permanently after too many failed tries, because who would design a locker like that, right? So… here goes nothing.
"…0-1-1-3-4… ACCESS GRANTED" The locker beeped softly, then a long hiss sounded as the compressed gas inside was released. I stared blankly at the depressurizing container, completely speechless for several seconds. What can I say? I'm a goddamn genius.
After the hissing finished, the lid of the box sprung open – almost hitting my face by accident - to reveal the contents inside, which I recognized as my personal belongings. I eagerly dug my hands into the pile and began to check them one by one, prioritizing searching for potential weapons. The content of the box consists of:
- Three orange-and-white T-shirts made of super-durable fabric, packed in plastic wrapping.
· Three pairs of dark-brown trousers made of waterproof fabric, also folded neatly inside plastic wraps.
· A pair of black hiking sunglasses with a built-in eyewear retainer.
· A military desert-camo travel pack.
· Two bags of BBQ and sourcream chips made in Japan, my favorite flavor.
· A small foldable survival knife with a carbon handle and ceramic blade, designed for maximum compactness. Lightweight enough to be used as an effective throwing weapon.
· A heat-preservation water bottle with attached optical-illusion hologram in the shape of a plant sapling, depicted to make the sapling look like it's growing inside the bottle.
· My wallet of pocket money and monthly bus ticket, with a dozen coins still inside it.
· A long and cylinder-shaped underwater flashlight, along with several spare batteries.
· Four first-aid health injectors, containing synthetic healing serum that quadruples a person's natural regeneration ability, and a healthy dose of nanobots that - once injected near an injured body part - will actively locate nearby wounds and patch them up.
· Chewing gum and biscuits of various brands and flavors. Just, why? I could have stuffed two more first-aid injectors into the box if not for these things taking space.
· A holographic smartphone with a blue frame, that had long run out of battery.
· Multi-purpose face masks with built-in filters.
· A small survival handbook, written in both Russian and English. The same book I'd bought from some random book festival out of curiosity, then proceed to wonder just what the fuck had I wasted my money on.
· A portable charging port with a built-in solar panel. Offers an infinite but rather inefficient source of energy from sunlight. Damn, overpowered survival stuff right here.
· A black shearling jacket with detachable hoodie, hastily stuffed into a pile on the bottom of the box. Thank god for that, I'm fucking freezing my arse of right now.
· And finally, at the bottom of the box, a… gun? The hell?
I placed everything else neatly around me and picked the somewhat familiar pistol up to examine it, along with its three spare plasma capsules. It's a brand new "DEP-450C", a directed-energy pistol used exclusively by Polaris Corp's security and task force. The pistol is slightly bigger than my hand, with a black carbon grip, rectangular handguard and chrome-tinted slide. A small holographic sight with a built-in thermal scanner is attached on its scope rail, constantly emitting a light-blue glimmer that's bright enough for the user to see without catching surrounding attention. The gun had already been loaded with a plasma battery in its mag well, which nearly gave me a heart attack when I looked down its barrel. If not for the fact that its safety was still on, I would have had a smoking apple-sized hole in my head right now. Oh, and there's also a biometric locking mechanism that only allows the owner of the gun to use it, and I wasn't surprised to see that my signature had already been registered. I racked the gun's slide backward, causing a holographic ammo-counter screen to appear on its side. (12 SHOTS. FULL) it read. Goddamnit, my wrist is gonna suffer greatly because of this.
Back when I was 12, before my father – god bless his soul - got drafted for war, he had taught me how to shoot a pistol when he found out how much I liked them. Thanks to him, I became quite a good shot after only a few months of practice. Even if I've never used a plasma pistol before, figuring out how to reload the thing was all I really needed to get comfortable with it. Different magazine well area, same point-and-click technique.
After unloading and reloading my newfound toy a few times to get the hang of it, I placed it down to the floor, stripped my sleeping jumpsuit off, and replaced it with brown trousers and a gray T-shirt. I put on my hoodie jacket, stuffed everything else inside my travel pack, then put my gun and knife inside the jacket's pockets. With basic preparations complete, I slung the backpack over my shoulder and planned my next move.
So… now what?
Okay, given the current state of the cryo-hallway and the fact that the malfunction I experienced a moment ago was a mechanical failure and not a system glitch (which is quite unusual since all cryo-pods are supposed to be kept in top-notch condition by monitoring A.I), it's pretty safe to say that our facility failed quite a while ago, long enough for both the AI and the assets under its care to degrade. But how long exactly? How long have I been sleeping? It must have been more than 5,000 years, right? Because 5,000 years was the calculated amount of time we're supposed to sleep through, then wake up just before the facility's infrastructure could degrade too badly. If I did wake up at the intended date, this place wouldn't be such a mess.
Plus, am I the only one who woke up? Where are the others? Determined to find an answer, I began walking in a random direction, with my gun and knife drawn, wobbling left to right like a drunkard thanks to my concrete-numb legs that still haven't fully woken up yet. As I carefully walked down the narrow corridor, I turned to look at the passing line of cryo-pods, finding only empty cushions behind the glass layers. Occasionally, I came across several pods that seemed to contain someone inside them, and I stopped to force-release the pods' lids only for their dried up and frozen remains to shatter on the ground, nearly making me piss my pants. After the first few, I learned to not open any more pods along the way and just focus on the task at hand.
After a long and tense journey, I finally reached the blast door without encountering any real danger. If I have to spend another minute in this claustrophobic crypt of a hallway, I'll kill myself. I examined the massive door, and found a wall-mounted control console with a glass pane for a screen near the wall's left side. Touching the screen with my finger, I was relieved to see it still worked. Bright blue text popped up in the middle of the screen.
[PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR CLEARANCE CREDENTIALS]
It's asking for my keycard, which I don't have. Goddammit, where can I even get one of those now? I mean, I've worked with repairing door consoles before, and I know how to override their locking mechanisms to force them open. But this thing isn't your average civvie door console, this is military-grade. With anti-hacking countermeasures, that will lock itself permanently if tampered with. One wrong move, and I'll be forever trapped here. It's just not worth the risk.
I began to look around, checking every dark corner, every nook and cranny for anything that could be a keycard even though I knew it was futile. I even thought about looting the corpses inside those pods for one despite the potential PTSD, but before I could convince myself it was worth it, something popped up on the console's screen. It's a glyph in the shape of a fanned-out hand, blinking rapidly like it's inviting me to touch it. Turns out the console was merely asking for my biometric identification, much to my relief. Although I don't remember if I had registered for a biometric clearance or not, it wouldn't hurt to find out. Pressing my hands against the glyph, it disappeared for a moment. After a few seconds a large green "tick" symbol appeared in the middle of the screen right after I lifted my hand out, and the blast door was pulled up, revealing the open space behind it.
The once clean and elegant central hall now looks like a tornado had passed through it. It's as dark and dirty as the hallway behind me and surrounded by canteens, market kiosks, grocery shops, and all sorts of leisure centers. The center of the room is carpeted with patches of fake grass, scattered with park benches, and contains the remains of a tall tree standing in the middle of it. The tree had been dead for so long that the majority of its outer and inner bark had already decomposed, revealing the black and hummus-like heartwood layer inside. There were also metal stairs around the main hall that lead to the second floor, which is where the residential domes and overseer center are located. As I moved around the circular space, I noticed short and continuous shoe soles leading toward the nearby staircase to the upper floor.. Probably running shoes, given the pattern on its sole. There are also long scratch marks along the hall wall, and even distinct circular burnt spots of plasma weaponry around the mini-park. It looks like there had been heavy fighting in this hall.
Judging from the size and color of the burn marks, I can assume that they were caused by a pistol or submachine gun - two types of weapon commonly used by Polaris Security – and given the large number of shots and close distance between them, the gun being an SMG is more likely. It looks like the gunner wasn't a very good shot either, based on the amount of missed shots around the place – plasma weaponry doesn't have any penetration power at all, so there's no way those shots could have punched through the target and landed behind it. There are no extra footprints in places the gunner could have moved to make those shots justifiable. The scratch marks are long and mostly located in the lower half of the wall, like they weren't caused by the paws of animals, but carved by knives.
So, after inspecting all the clues around the hall, I've got a rough idea of what went down.
· The gunner walked out from the same hall I was in a moment ago with a directed-energy SMG. The chance of them being a security guard is high since only P-secs can have access to such high-powered weapons. Civvies and other non-combat personnels weren't allowed to carry weapons of any kind (not even a sharp fork) with them into cryosleep, since the risk of a revolt. The only reason why I was given the exception was because of my dad's wide range of connections in the army, some of them being influential enough to give me a pass on the plasma pistol and knife. Talk about having a silver spoon in my mouth.
· Then they attacked/ were attacked by whatever caused those slashes from an unknown direction, and returned fire with their gun from in front of the hallway's blast door, missing lots of them either because of panic firing or intentional warning shots. This probably means there was more than one attacker present during the fight.
· The gunner then ran straight through the central mini-park, barely avoiding the dead tree and up a nearby staircase, gun blazing along the way most likely. Because the main blast door is still shut and there are no extra shoe marks that lead from the staircases, it's safe to say that the gunner hasn't gotten out of here yet. It's likely that no casualties were suffered during the skirmish, since the dust on the mainhall's floor lacks any spot of dried-up liquid, which is highly unusual for people with extensive firearm training like P-Secs. Talk shit about Polaris all you want, but you can't deny that they'd made some very decent investments in their paramilitary forces. Even more so than the US army late in the war, actually.
I could just blame the gunner's inaccuracy for lack of lighting and panic, or even post-cryogenic fatigue. But there's only one thing that I couldn't find a reasonable explanation for, and that's the lack of additional footprints of the other assailants. Was it because they had covered their tracks, or because they weren't human in the first place? It's entirely possible that the attackers were some sort of evolved insect that could fly and those knife marks were actually their claw slashes, but I'm not a conspiracy theorist to that extent. And if they erased their footprints themselves, then how and for what purpose? Did they know about the cryo-sleep hallway? Where did they even come from? Have they left yet? I gulped instinctively at the thought, gripping my gun tightly upon considering the last question. There is a pretty good chance that they had died a while ago, but there's also a chance that they had survived somehow and managed to build a giant fucking nest somewhere in this facility. Either way, I gotta be more cautious from now on. Can't take any chances.
I shuffled around the surrounding centers a little bit for anything useful, but only found trash, rotted and eroded through time. Some furniture inside those places also bears signs of struggle like cracked billiard tables and snapped pool cues in the clubhouse, non-functional and even smashed game machines lined up in the arcade, flipped-over shelves in grocery stores, and destroyed tables in the central canteen. After some fruitless digging, I finally decided it's just not worth the trouble and went to trace the footprints that lead to the second floor instead. I slowly walked up the staircase and toward the overseer's office, weapons drawn and ready. My four years of playing paintball, airsoft, and VR shooter games have provided me with just enough CQC knowledge to make me feel somewhat confident. Instead of B-rushing upstairs or poking headfirst around corners like a suicidal idiot, I moved slowly and cautiously, crossing my pistol-holding arm with the one holding the flashlight into an "X" shape for light source while still being able to stabilize my gun - a simple breaching method commonly used by Police when clearing houses. When I check corners or empty rooms, I don't just lean my upper body to peek over covers, but move in an arc wide enough to prevent anyone hiding behind my blind spots from grabbing and disarming me, without exposing myself completely. So far, I've scouted seven residential dorms and two technical rooms - all of them looked like there'd been a riot inside – without encountering any threat. Finally, after checking the 7th dorm room, I reached the overseer's office. I grabbed the doorknob with my gun raised high, then gave it a little twist… only to find it locked from the inside.
Ah, shit… this is becoming kind of infuriating.
But no problem, I know how to pick a lock with the right tools, and now I just need to find said tools inside the trash around me. I knelt down next to the nearest pile and began to dig it with my right hand, holding my flashlight with my left hand. Let's see… buncha nylon bags, scrap metal, filthy rags, dirt, even more dirt, why the hell is there so much dirt in here!?…. And there they are:a few sturdy metal wires that I can use as makeshift lock picking tools. I curled them into a zig-zag shape and began to poke inside the lock hole. After a while, I pushed the tension wrenches deeper while spinning them, and the door lock turned upside-down with a satisfying click. And… Bingo! Nice to know I'm not too rusty after all these years.
With my pistol aimed at the widening gap, I pushed the door open slightly while taking cover behind it. After a moment of hesitation, I violently kicked it open and shined my flashlight into the dark void inside.
My heart stopped.
What I saw inside frightened me so bad I nearly pulled the trigger, but thankfully I managed to stop myself from doing so.
In the corner of the overseer room, leaning against the concrete wall is a dried-up corpse with its left arm missing. It's wearing a P-Sec security helmet with a built-in HUD visor, and a black ballistic vest with the Polaris Corp logo printed on its chest. My fear died down after a while and I scanned the room, occasionally glancing at the corpse just to make sure it stays put. My paranoia demands it.
The place is about 10 meters wide and is carpeted in green rug, with a line of dented paper cabinets placed opposite the entrance. There's a large and meshed window overlooking the main hall, a desk under the window with a set of hologram screens on top of it, and a large painting that looks like a replica of the Mona Lisa hung next to the room's door. I looked behind my back cautiously and went inside, locking the door shut behind me. Then I inspected the body, still slightly alert. To be honest, I was just momentarily disoriented by the body, I've seen plenty of similar ones in horror games both VR and PC, so the scene doesn't really shock me much. Besides, there is no rotten smell anyway, since the person had been dead for such a long time that the body had been entirely dried up. I shined my flashlight closer to the body's bulletproof vest and saw the words "Cpt. Brandon Valentine" written on its nametag. Oh, so this belongs to that perpetually angry P-Sec captain with a curled mustache, who liked to yell at me for running in the hall? I continued to look at the body and saw that its limbs and legs were cut in numerous places, which most likely means the dude was stabbed/ hacked in areas outside his vest's protection, managed to retreat to this room and probably bled out in this spot. Damn, that's one hell of a way to go.
Oh wait, looks like his right arm is holding something, a detail that I've somehow overlooked. Prying the guy's dried up and thin fingers off the object with some struggle, I took it from his grip and found that it was an "FN Pulsar-45 PDW" - a bullpup plasma SMG heavily based on the design of the antique FN P90, but slightly larger, heavier, chrome painted and has a triangular charging handle. Also, its fire rate is 3 shots per second. Yeah, quite shit for an SMG I know, but that's peak plasma weaponry performance right here, whether you like it or not. I've also found three plasma cylinders for the gun, with two of them empty and the other filled to the brim with 20 rounds. Unfortunately, I can't use the gun right now since the dead guy hadn't been so kind as to disengage its bio-lock before he died, so I stuffed them all inside my backpack instead. There is also another smartphone like the one I have below his gun, but this one still has some battery in it. I pressed the power button below the phone, causing a holographic screen to pop up on top of it. I slid the unlock symbol to the side and saw that the phone's notepad app had already been opened, with only one entry in it. "NEWWORLDNEWMAN135", it says. Without hesitation, I clicked on it only to find the entry completely blank. So, the real prize is its title huh? Kinda looks like a password to me, maybe for that computer over there?
I pulled a stool out from under the computer desk, sat down, and turned on the PC. A simple gray screen popped up with the Polaris logo in the middle and an orange space under it to type a password into. The computer used to belong to our bunker's old overseer Billie, evident by his wrinkled smiling face in the account's profile picture. While I was still scrambling to find where the computer's keyboard was, a holographic one was projected from below the computer screen onto the desk, along with a floating and ethereal mouse next to it, much to my amusement.
Huh, neat.
I hastily typed the supposed password into the password bar and grinned when a white welcome text popped up, replacing the lock screen. The main desktop has a Neo-Tokyo landscape wallpaper, with countless files and office apps scattering all over it that eliminates the picture's beauty. There is, however, one audio log that stood out from the rest due to its recorded date being the latest. It's about 12,000 years older than other recordings, so it's gotta belong to the security guy, right? Turns out I did oversleep way longer than intended, about double the scheduled time.
I nervously clicked on the file.
[Now playing: "Untitled log #124"]
The video began with a series of increasingly loud footsteps that ended abruptly with the deafening sound of the door being slammed shut. After a few moments of silence, movement could be heard, accompanied by the screeching of a chair being pulled across the floor.
"Is- is this thing on? Okay … ahem." The distinct raspy and nasal voice of the P-Sec captain echoed in the room. He paused for a while, then continued in an urgent tone: "Whoever is receiving this message, I'm captain Brandon Valentine… head security of the bunker this message was taken in. And this will be my last recording." He grunts in pain, clearly wounded from some kind of fight. "Ah shit… the bastards got me pretty good.
I was woken up in… well, I don't know what year it is honestly. But if I had to guess, I'd say sometime around the 98th century. This whole place has gone to shit. Massive power failures throughout the bunker, more than likely killing anyone left in cryo-sleep. Some survived and woke up at scattered times, no more than a few hundred years apart. Fortunately, or unfortunately for me, I didn't die in that coffin like everybody else. Now I'm here dealing with all the shit that went wrong. Two days ago, I was able to bring the power grid back on, albeit barely. It should hold for a while, but don't get your hopes up. The outage caused the automated-security systems to go offline, and something… something took the chance to get in. These… things…they look like salmon, but they're horribly oversized. Their eyes are yellow and they bulge out of their heads. Their mouths are huge and filled with these dull rectangular teeth. They have patches of quill-like hair where their dorsal fins should be, that are styled like a fucking 90's punk guitarist. These things… they don't swim or flop around, they glide on the ground like fucking snakes.. And they come in different sizes too, from as small as a 5-year old kid to at least 3 meters tall. And they can communicate. It's not like any language I've ever heard, it's… so guttural, more like the growling of wild beasts. They're smart too. They're capable of complex plans and procedures. Managed to lure me into a cramped room, and they sent in the fucking lot of em. One of them… a big one got my fucking arm…"
He pants for a moment, the effort of speaking taking a toll on his body." I managed to retreat up here before the horde could catch up with me. To anyone receiving this message. Do not try to fight these things. Just run. No matter how many of these freaks you kill, they won't stop coming until you're dead. I managed to locate their nest on a still-functioning camera. It's somewhere in the cargo bay 3 floors below here, in the further-left corner, I think... Go to the technical center, on the 2nd floor right above their nest and fix the gas pipeline system. Divert the flow of gas into their nest, and hopefully, that will kill them for good. There's a set of repair tools inside the cabinet next to me, so good luck. May you live to see the sun again.
…Brandon's out."
The rest of the audio log consists of a chill synthwave track played on repeat. The same track I'd heard by Cpt. Valentine's office door countless times before. He'd probably decided to spend his final moments listening to his favorite music. I closed the audio log, then stared blankly at the screen. Despite barely knowing the guy, and having no fond memories of him aside from the scolds and occasional ass-whooping, I still felt sympathy for him, and I'm thankful for the valuable piece of information about what else could be down here – which is some sort of evolved, sentient, and very aggressive kind of salmon according to his description.
Great, I've just escaped from cryo-failure and I already have to deal with walking fish.
Closing the audio file, I rummaged through other files on the desktop to hopefully come across more useful information that I can download onto my phone. Let's see… random useless documents, reports, proposals, stuff like that… nothing worth reading so far… until I came across a strange folder that contained images instead of word documents. Curious, I double-clicked on the odd folder and it opened up to reveal another two folders inside it, one of them is named "Weebtrash Paradise" and the other is "Six Digits". I clicked on the first one and was bewildered to see hundreds of HD downloaded mangas and animes arranged neatly into a grid-like pattern, some of them I didn't even know existed. Holy crap! Our 65 years old Overseer, one of the most mature and proper persons I've ever seen in my life, is into this kind of shit? We could have been best buds if I had known about this before I went under. Although it is quite odd for a man at that age to enjoy Japanese teen culture, I must admit that the old dude has some very exquisite taste, even more so than most of my former classmates. Without a second thought, I immediately replicated the priceless file into my phone's database for later entertainment.
Hehe boi.
I then turned my attention toward the other file, "Six Digits". Hmm, an odd but slightly familiar name, maybe it's like some sort of pun?... Unlikely. I remember seeing this name somewhere before, but I couldn't remember the exact occasion. Maybe some sort of meme or internet slang? Anyway, I just dropped the surprise and opened the mysterious file…
… only to close it as quickly as possible with a mouse-flick. Okay… now I know why Billie liked anime and manga, and it was not a… pleasant discovery to say the least. Very cultured, dear overseer, very cultured. I replicated the file of hazardous materials into my phone anyway, knowing that I probably won't be meeting any human girl anytime soon, and realizing that Billie and I actually have quite similar taste. Hell, even though our overseer is revealed to be a total simp, not even one of his "comics" were considered weird by normal netizen standards.
I turned the computer monitor off but left the PC running after realizing that my phone was charging wirelessly from it.
[8% charged, 25 minutes until full]
I don't remember my phone charging this quickly though. A sleep-mode software update, maybe? Whatever, as long as it's charging I suppose. As advised by the dead P-Sec guy, I reached for the office cabinet nearest to me and grabbed the repair toolkit from its upper drawer, stuffing it inside my backpack. I took another glance at the body, at its armor and helmet to be exact, and wondered whether to strip them off or not. I don't believe in curses or supernatural entities, and find the idea of being haunted by vengeful spirits after reusing the dead's personal belongings just straight dumb. Still, I was slightly grossed out after thinking about looting the body for its clothing and wearing it with its remains still sticking inside. But that set of armor can offer full torso and head protection, and in a life-or-death situation like this, every protective measure counts. Besides, the dude's been dead for a long time so there shouldn't be anything left to stink.
Beggars can't be choosers, I guess…
With every ounce of courage I had, I disengaged the helmet straps, carefully took it off its former wearer's head while trying my best not to puke my already empty stomach out, and put it on after giving it a good internal scrubbing. Now, for the bulletproof vest… Well, I just couldn't find a way to get it off without destroying his body further, so I just closed my eyes and pulled the vest violently forward. Big mistake. His skin, already dried out and pulled taut against his skeleton, split like I was ripping tissue paper. his skeleton wasn't much better off, his spine shattering violently causing his head to roll off and land beside him. His hips dislodged from his body with a sickening snap, and stayed on the floor, although shaken slightly. Carrying just his one armed torso by the vest, it slipped out, and crashed against the floor with a loud thud. Jesus. That was… far more violent than I thought it would be.
I put the P-Sec vest on, giving it a slight dusting and size adjustments to make it fit my smaller stature. I also tried to reactivate the combat helmet's HUD and minimap system and found out that it's somehow still working after all these years, it even has three-quarters of its battery left. I don't know if it was just my ridiculously-high level of luck or something, but I had encountered jackpot after jackpot right after leaving the cryopod, from the lockbox with a pistol, to the security SMG, then the collection of …less than dignified materials, and now a full set of enforcer-grade body armor. This ain't no starter kit anymore, but straight-up endgame content! I grabbed the dead P-Sec guy's smartphone and stuffed it into my backpack, purely because of my looter-shooter habits kicking in: grab anything that looks valuable then drop them off after encountering better loot, since you'll never know when you'll need them.
Feeling my stomach rumbling, I realized that I haven't eaten in 12,000 years. Looking to rectify this issue, I took off my backpack, stuffed my pistol into my jacket's pocket, and took out a bag of BBQ chips. To illuminate the room I'm in, I pointed my flashlight to the ceiling instead of a particular direction, a trick I learned from the numerous power cuts during the last world war. As I "calmly" ate – stuffed 5 pieces into my face in one go - my chips, I suddenly realized that I haven't said a single word since my escape. Clearing my throat and making sure that no one is close enough to hear me, I tried to speak something out loud:
· "Wheewf Whuo Agck-"… wait a fucking minute…
Unsurprisingly, my mouth was very stiff and only able to blurt out gibberish that vaguely resembles English, bad enough to put me below a 1st grader in speech. I tried again several more times with a random tongue-twisting quote learned from the internet, and my words became more and more understandable with each attempt.
"Ahem… Alright. If two wich would wach two witch- Ah shit, again… If two witches would watch two watches, which witches would watch which watch… Ok."
My voice still sounded just like how I remember it, deep and slightly but not unpleasantly raucous just like my dad during his 30s. With my vocal cords back in business, I resumed eating my chips with a satisfied smirk-
-Wait. What is that "whirring" sound that I'm hearing?
I wrapped up the half-eaten chip bag and reached for my pocket pistol, tensing up little by little as the sound continued. With some hesitation, I grabbed my flashlight, then stood up to follow the strange noise. First, I thought it was the mutant fish the P-sec guy mentioned before, and prepared myself for a horde swarm. But as I made my way toward the source of the noise, to the far outer section of the second floor that overlooked the main entrance hall and its blast door that separates us from the outside world, it soon became clear that this sound is something else entirely. The noise didn't sound like it is made by any kind of living creatures, but more mechanical like the whirr of mining drills or whatever hellish equipment that dentists tend to stuff inside your mount whenever you visit them. The whole entrance hall was dark with all of its ceiling light broken, but it was not entirely pitch-black and I can still make out where the sound is coming from. It's from the blast door.
· "…The fuck?"
No, from behind it, to be exact. The realization instantly sent a chill down my spine, since the blast door is supposed to be completely soundproof. That only means one thing: Someone – some THING – is drilling its way in. I stared intently at the heavy door, gun and flashlight still pointing toward it as the noise gradually grew louder. It quickly became unbearably loud, drilling into my skull like a plasma cutter and forcing me to back off a little bit. Feeling the wave of adrenaline rush through my body, I quickly sketched out a new plan in my head. For now, I'll stay on the second floor, behind these safety bars for maximum tactical advantage. From this position, I can see everything below, albeit barely, I have good cover, and I can lay down suppressing fire without fear of obstructions. And since my pistol's holo-scope can highlight enemy positions within 30m using thermal scan, I'll be able to see them through their cover, so even more advantage for me – that is assuming they actually have body heat.
Putting my backpack to the ground, I quickly took out all of my first-aid shots, my gun's ammo batteries, and my folding knife, then quickly stuffed them inside my zipper pockets for quick access. I even took out a piece of chewing gum for momentary stress-relieving, and popped it into my mouth. The sweet fruity flavor has long since been drained from the gum thanks to all the time spent in cryostasis, but it helped keep my mouth occupied nonetheless.
After I finished preparing my equipment, I took a glance from my cover toward the blast door and saw bright sunlight pouring in from a small and round hole in its surface. A pointy and rapidly spinning object poked out of said hole, boring it larger and larger by the second. Welp, I was right. Here they come. I racked the pistol's slide backward with a sharp "click", then waited silently for the intruders to enter…
· "Okay… Stay hidden, observe the enemy, sneak out if possible, don't fret… sounds easy enough. Ahhh... Snap. They're comin' in."