System log: The Bunker, Site 3

  Solar Calendar: Year 2249(?)

  Current status: Active repairs, D.M.H.E.L.L. protocol active

  Log 8

  Whether coincidental good fortune or not, the rest of the night passed by without further incident. With the humans fast asleep, Gamma was able to divert most of its attention and processing power back to the repair work on Site 3’s foundations. Though a full twenty-four hours had yet to pass, the small legion of drones had proved their worth and ability through the speed and quality of their labor.

  Between the maintenance and construction drones, Site 3 had gone from a mere 20% stability rating to a far more stable 47%; an over 100% increase in stability in little over twelve hours. Pilons had been secured, air gaps and cracks had been filled, new supportive beams were installed, and so much more. The drones had worked so hard Gamma was forced to expedite its plan to swap out active repair drone groups into reserves so they had a chance to recharge their power sources from the facility. This would unfortunately reduce work efficiency in the short term, but Gamma’s task list was already working through new plans as foundational stability inched towards 50%.

  As an unintended side benefit of the extensive foundational work, Gamma had been able to acquire a rough mapping of Site 3’s current physical layout. Of the seven core facility modules, only the central hub had managed to breech the surface, while the six others remained buried underground at different elevations. If was only due to the complex and near-miraculous properties of the primary construction material, currently suspected to be connected to the research results of Project Bastion (error, data not found), that the central hub hadn’t been torn completely away from the other parts of the facility. The outer shell that had once completely covered Site 3 was in complete ruin however, having taken the brunt of the impact during ascension.

  The six supporting facility modules connected to Site 3 were: Residential, Factory, Hydroponics, Research and Development (R&D), Test Lab, and Unknown (-error-, data not found). From what the drones had managed to scout out from their work below, only Factory and Hydroponics were determined to still be mostly attached to the central hub, putting both on what Gamma now classified as, ‘Sub-Level 1’. Further down, the drones had managed to find traces of the R&D and Test Lab facility modules. Gamma placed them both into the level of ‘Sub-Level 2’. Though the drones had been unable to determine whether their connection to the hub remained intact, they’d found evidence that the two facility modules still maintained connections to the Sub-Level 1 module Factory, and to each other. The Residential facility module was the last drones found traces of, being buried still deeper in what Gamma now classified as ‘Sub-Level 3’. At that depth, the drones couldn’t reach far enough in to determine if there were any surviving connections to other facility modules, especially as the new collapsed bedrock layer was determined to be still unstable.

  As for the facility module list as ‘Unknown’, Gamma could only roughly determine it was somewhere at ‘Sub-Level 4’, with exact location unknown at this time. From what the program could determine, there was a good chance the supporting module hadn’t actually moved much from where it had been when Site 3 had been buried as part of the Tomb Protocol. This was supported by the near unbroken thermal generator lines the drones had found, which still kept that inaccessible section of Site 3 fully powered. It seemed to have suffered the least amount of damage, though this did the program little good for the moment. It would have to be dealt with at a later date.

  Having learned the current condition of the facility, Gamma had updated its priority task list. At the new reduced efficiency from reserve rotation, it would take the drones three more days to bring stability up to 100%, provided no unexpected delays. The humans, it estimated, would require one to two days to repair their current priorities. This would return a level of security, manufacturing and life support to the hub, which would allow continued human assistance.

  The next step would be two-fold; restore connections to Factory and Hydroponics, and improve the workforce at Gamma’s disposal. It needed more drones to continue work, and the program had some planned ideas on how to improve the human workforce’s efficiency. Gamma estimated that the stockpile of raw materials within the hub, including the stalker bodies, would be just enough to accomplish these goals. To continue further repairs would require increased power generation and raw materials, which pre-planning was already starting for.

  The plan was near perfect, with any possible discrepancies and/or inefficiencies to be cause by uncontrollable human factors. This included the remote possibility that human factors would improve plan implementation, though Gamma didn’t calculate a high level of cause.

  The program knew that so long as the older human known as Hank was under its care, it would have no trouble directing the group of six humans into assisting it. Their apparent code of conduct, or human sense of honor, allowed the program to use several predictive algorithms to measure possible reactions to treatment, orders, and results. The files on each individual it had made assisted in this further. But this did not include the unknown group of humans to arrive at earliest in two to three days.

  The other Roadrunners, Gamma was less concerned about. It already had the measure of the collective group. However, the implied ‘rescue party’ with possible ‘vault breakers’ (which also implied, by the same nomenclature, ‘bunker busters’) were unknown variables. Given the job description, some level of greed and/or daredevil behavior should be expected. Combined with the references to ‘wallers’, a term Gamma calculated to refer to individuals who lived in closed, protective settlements, the program determined that there was a high chance its mission would be negatively impacted if revelation of its existence and capabilities were to come to life.

  Gamma was charged with saving humanity and the planet Earth’s biosphere/existence. It was not charged to protect individual humans. Given human propensity to overreact to negative stimulus, such as a potential scenario of gunning down a group of humans in self-defense for the greater good, it would have to take as many precautions as it could to keep its nature a secret.

  This meant concealing its identity to the group of human workers currently asleep in the destroyed mall lobby. This complicated human interaction, but Gamma’s H.I.P. protocol was already hard at work. D.M.H.E.L.L. protocol, for the moment, would be disabled as to avoid any chance at developing negative emotions. For that purpose, the blueprint for Gamma’s first ‘original’ creation, was well underway.

  All Gamma had to do, was wait. It was very good at waiting.

  ***

  The humans woke up later than the average humans, a probable side effect of their stim use the previous night to fight the stalkers at full awareness. The boss had once again prepared the hot water for the group’s meal, this time appearing to be some kind of dried gruel made from dried plant seed. Even after finishing their apparent normal ‘morning’ routine, the group was collectively groggier compared to the previous day. Another example of organic inefficiency, Gamma noted.

  Still, the program supposed, the extra time had served to improve preparations for today’s events. Like a puppet mas-, like a theatre director, Gamma devoted a decent amount of processing power to watch events unfold as it had planned.

  The first thing in the plan to occur was for the group of Roadrunners to notice the lobby overnight had been ‘relieved’ of several stalker bodies. Before they could discuss this strange phenomenon in detail, the old hauler logistic drone, under Gamma’s control, silently swooped down to pick up another body and carry it up to the fabrication room. It then was very obviously returned up to its recharge port, where it stayed. It could have continued to work, but Gamma wanted the humans to make a particular assumption.

  “Seems we found the poltergeist,” the boss noted, correctly comparing the drone to the supernatural phenomena of moving objects without visible cause. “I suppose that should make the job easier once we get to it.”

  “Doesn’t seem too efficient,” the human Ryan noted with a grimace. “One trip, and it has to recharge? I could cook and eat two meals faster than that thing.”

  “I think it moves fast enough to catch you in one meal,” Dina pointed out dryly, invoking a round of laughs in the group, to which Ryan joined in with a shrug.

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  It was then that, under the boss’s direction, the group spread out to search for anything that would help them with their repair work. Gamma had already determined the group to have on hand basic welding tools, clearly designed for patching up their exo-suits in the field, but not meant for architectural repair work. To that end in one of the shop fa?ades on the second floor, Gamma had directed two construction drones and a maintenance drone to shift out the ‘prop’ fishing gear with the ‘prop’ tool store tools and accessories. As the practice store fa?ade included a welding section, it would be exactly what the humans needed.

  Indeed, upon discovery of the shop on the second floor, the group had wasted no time suppling themselves with the raw materials for welding and hardline repair. The boss, Donaldson, had to practically drag Sloan out of the shop so the younger man would stop comparing tool capabilities. It would have been better if the store had been equipped with the more modern equipment at the time of Site 3’s creation, but that had been determined by the program to be a bit too wasteful until the humans proved a higher level of competence and earned greater trust.

  This time, instead of splitting into three groups, the humans went together to the easiest, and possibly most dangerous, task: reconnecting the hardline connections between the central hub and the entranceway. Carefully, the group reopened the security door and checked for any signs of new intruders. Leaving the twins and Ryan to mind the door, the boss, Sloan, and Dina all entered the security room and its maintenance tunnel to repair the cut wires.

  With no surveillance coverage due to power loss in the area, the program patiently waited. It could hear the muffled sounds of conversation and movement, but the degraded sound quality from the low volume of the conversation was indiscernible even to its most sensitive microphones.

  Gamma was ready when the notification finally came through. At the speed of thought, or rather faster if one were to be technical, the program’s control and awareness once again flowed through the power line into the entryway for Site 3. The connection was stable, if weaker than it once was, and with a thought the main entrance gate leading into Site 3 closed with a rumble. Both the program (metaphorically) and the humans felt relief at the restored sense of security.

  With power restored, Gamma could now see and hear within the maintenance tunnel, where the three humans were exiting back into the security office. The hardline connection had once again been hung onto the ceiling, thanks to the trio having repaired the damage to the metal fasteners that had broken in the ascent.

  “Alright,” the boss said after the group was together again, “we’ve restored power to the entrance. That was the easy part. Between the fabricator room and the air circulator, I think its obvious which one we should work on next.”

  “Obvious, sure,” Ryan agreed. “But crawling around in tight air ducts doesn’t, well, agree with me.” He indicated his larger size, Gamma in agreement the man wouldn’t fit in the air ducts even with his exo-suit off.

  “I thought about that,” the boss nodded. “I know it hurts to hear it Dina, but I think we’ll need to use your last scout baby for this.” Gamma had not detected any small human lifeforms, nor any wearing binoculars or similar scout tagged equipment.

  “I was afraid of that sir,” the woman sighed, “but I can’t say I didn’t also think about them after last night’s report. I have just the one left, but I think it can get the job done.” As she spoke, Dina took off her bag and pulled out a small spherical device. At the press of her arm terminal, the little machine unfurled into a small drone. “As a reminder sir, I won’t be able to use any of them again until we get back to town and charge them up.”

  “They’re emergency-use only for a reason,” the boss said, nodding in understanding. “You having used two already to help scout and direct our escape from the worms is already two too many used. Thankfully, with the front door closed, that thing’s active signals won’t be detected. Get us the lay of the land Dina.”

  “Sir yes sir,” the woman nodded, and she led the group to the false panel her group had found the previous day. There, at her direction, the little drone flew up and entered the air ducts with its task set to scout patrol. “It’ll notify me once its finished, so we don’t have to stay and wait,” she explained.

  “You and the twins stay here,” the boss decided. “If you find that plugging the unneeded ducts are easy to block, go ahead and get to work, no need to let me know. The others and I will do some more digging in the fabrication room for the source of the problem.”

  Rather than the two human groups, Gamma’s curiosity was focused on the little scout drone. When Dina had first activated it, the program had already commenced with remote wireless hacking the little device, which lacked any electronic countermeasures due to its simple design. Concurrent to that, there wasn’t much for Gamma to analyze besides the technology used for the drone. Compared to the maintenance drones, the tiny scout was smaller, weaker, limited by battery size, and not-nearly as versatile.

  However, the program didn’t overlook that these design inefficiencies were a result of purpose and function, much like Dr. Dilbert had said. The small drone could fit into more space sizes and communicate its findings over its wireless signal. It could also coordinate with others of its type, something that the drones of Site 3 couldn’t do in the field away from their central hub, to triangulate locations. Human creativity and innovation were still to be found in this little post-apocalyptic drone, which Gamma promptly copied, iterated on, and very soon had blueprints for an improved version of the scout drone created using the maintenance drone as the base. With only a small lag in a little, tiny bit of processing power, the program also updated the blueprints for its other drones, though little could be done to improve their efficient and elegant design.

  Using its hacked signal connection, Gamma was able to follow the drone’s recording path through the circulation system for the hub area. As Dina had predicted, several connections to other parts of the facility seemed to have suffered some level of devastation, ranging from outright destruction, to small tears in the metal duct connections. As Gamma had more or less predicted, this damage was mainly found in the six main connections to the other facility modules, with acceptable damage in parts of the hub area that, while they would add inefficiency, were not vital to repair at this time to restart the air circulation system.

  Gamma had already confirmed it could open up the vents above the facility to draw in fresh air to circulate. This would allow the central hub area of Site 3 to be safely breathable once more, but would be completely impractical to send air to the other buried modules later on. Work would have to be done to restore air duct access to Hydroponics and Factory to fully return their system to 100% later on.

  In the meantime, the tiny scout drone had returned to Dina, its power critically low after completing its mission. Dina put away the drone sadly before bringing up a holographic display of the map using her arm terminal. Curiously, this function hadn’t been active in Sloan’s exo-suit; Gamma used the wireless hack to update the exo-suit blueprints in its memory.

  “Okay you two, seems like we need to plug the holes here, here, here, here and here, and lastly, here,” she indicated on the glowing map. “I think we can manage the work with the tarps we took from that store if we secure them properly. Think we need to let the boss know before we get started?”

  The twins looked at each other and shook their heads.

  “I didn’t think so either,” Dina agreed. “Alright, let’s get out of these suits and get to work. Closest one is to the right.”

  Meanwhile, up in the fabrication room, Gamma watched as the three men struggled to find access to the room’s powerlines.

  “There should be something here, I think.” Sloan said hesitantly as the younger man held up his wrist terminal and ran it slowly along the wall. “I can roughly tell where the power lines are supposed to be, and this area notably lacks any. I think this might be an open spot between the lines and pipes.”

  “You sure?” Ryan asked with folded arms.

  Sloan could only shrug. “All I can say is that I don’t detect power lines. I don’t have the better sensors real techies have in their terminals.”

  “You are a real techie,” the boss corrected, “even if you’re just an apprentice. Do your best, and be confident in knowing you did.” He waited for the younger man to nod. “Now, you have any recommendations? I don’t see a door handle or anything to use for leverage.”

  “Well . . .” Sloan held the word as he glanced down at the tools Ryan carried. “We could always, make a hole? I could get better data without the wall obstructing me.”

  The two older men looked at each other, and shrugged.

  Ryan walked over, pulling out an industrial drill they’d taken from the tool store. Unlike the outside fa?ade and barrier that had previously surrounded Site 3, most of the walls inside the base had been made from standard building materials, except for locations deemed too important or (-error- data corrupted). Ryan still had to drill for ten minutes to break through the two-inch-thick wall, and broke the first bit about halfway through. Once he broke through, Ryan moved away from the fist-sized hole to allow Sloan to peek inside. The young man pulled his voltage meter and stuck his arm through the wall, reaching out to test the hidden wires.

  “I’m not detecting any power flowing here,” Sloan soon reported. “The problem is deeper. I think we’ll need to find another maintenance tunnel to find the source of the issue.”

  “Well great,” Ryan groaned. “More knocking on the walls like a bunch of collection agents. Do you at least have a better idea-”

  The sound of a crash echoed from the hole, causing all three men to jump.

  “Okay, I’ve secured the rope guys,” came the distant sound of Dina’s voice. “Climb on up and let’s continue.”

  The three men looked at each other in surprise. Donaldson cleared his throat and moved his mouth close to the hole. “Dina, can you hear me?” he called out loudly.

  There was a short pause. “Boss, is that you?” Dina called back. “Where are you?”

  “We opened a hole in the wall to check the powerlines,” the boss called back. “Doesn’t seem to be a problem with our end. Do you happen to see any powerlines near where you are?”

  There was another pause. “Pretty sure these large fans have to be plugged into something boss, but I don’t see anything obvious,” Dina responded soon after. “Wait, the twins found a door. Seems to be another maintenance tunnel.” At that point, it was a lot easier to hear Dina’s voice.

  “You got closer to us,” the boss confirmed. “See anything?”

  “I think I found them boss,” Dina called back. “These are the largest wires I’ve ever seen; I think they’re wrapped in rubber! They seem to be for the fans, with a line heading in your direction.”

  “Any signs of damage Dina?” Sloan called out.

  “. . .I can’t move any further your way,” Dina answered. “Looks like the ceiling collapsed here. Some sharp looking metal is poking out of the rubble. I think we could move it if we had our exosuits on though. Let me send the twins back to haul ours up here.”