Humans Don't Hibernate [Part 99/?] (Patreon)

92 Hours After the First Round of Interloper Interrogations. Signal Station. Atrium Entrance.

Lysara

“Evina.” I spoke under a cautious breath, a quick glance towards my HUD reassuring me that our conversation was indeed private and audible only between our two helmets. “I need your opinion. What are your thoughts on this?”

“We could be dealing with a rogue administrator.” Evina offered, her hand clenched tight around her slug-thrower. “Or, we could be dealing with an internal rebellion. It’s not uncommon to see a bunker society more or less collapsing in on itself. And with those claw marks on the door… I’m assuming that there’s definitely gotta be some unsettling history deep inside the place; those claw marks being painted over can only mean they’ve been keeping people in. So my guess? It’s an isolationist bunker gone sideways. One of those secret government ones that perhaps lost its footing or its plans or whatever, and has since turned into some weird dystopian nightmare.” 

“That’s… surprisingly in-depth.” I offered with a cock of my head. 

“Listen, when you’ve lived several lifetimes as an underdweller and a topside rat, you tend to get a feel for how these things go.” 

“Right. Well, given the peculiarities of all of this, what do you suppose his angle is?” 

“Only one way to find out right?” Evina shot back through a side glare, gesturing her shoulder towards the recently opened door. 

“Allow me to pry before we jump in head-first into this mess.” I countered, turning towards the open door, and the speaker system above it.

“Identify yourself and your intentions.” I spoke plain and simple, ensuring that the point was made as I held my ground and refused to make any moves towards the ominous open door.

No response came.

At least, not immediately. 

It took a good half a minute before something of a response finally came through.

“I am—” 

POP! SCREACH!

However, before anything could come through, a loud pop halted a proper response; one that echoed and resonated throughout the atrium, and would’ve otherwise shredded our eardrums, but was thankfully mitigated by the helmet and the suit.

“That wasn’t a gunshot.” I announced, turning towards Evina for pointers.

“That was the sound of an improperly maintained… or a completely unmaintained PA system giving out after being turned on after who knows how long.” The felinor responded without a moment’s hesitation, taking a few steps closer towards the speaker. “Can’t smell a damn thing through the suit… but yeah, even without the distinct smell of fried electronics, I can confirm that that’s exactly the noise you’d hear from one of these things giving out. I guess we’ve lost contact with our mysterious facility-dweller.” 

The felinor took a few more steps towards one of the terminals in the room, forcefully tugging on the mechanical keyboard, and momentarily powering the thing to life.

Though similar to the speakers, the entire thing inexplicably shut down moments after it was turned on. 

“The last thing we heard from them was a desperate cry for help.” I surmised, trying to gather together what I could about the whole affair. 

“Correction.” Evina quickly interjected, raising a single finger in the process. “It was a desperate plea for us to stay. Which… isn’t the first thing you’d think someone asking for help would say now would you?” 

“They could be panicking. Especially if they knew that the PA systems were on the brink of failing.” I countered, somehow playing devil’s advocate now. “Though I do admit, they seemed to have admitted their direct responsibility for shutting the bunker door shut; which certainly isn’t something I could see someone asking for help to have done. So you do have a point there, Evina.”

The felinor signed, pulling up both of her arms behind her head in what I assumed to be a show of frustration. “He did open a door deeper into the facility for us.” She pointed at the well-lit hallway beyond the threshold of the recently-opened door. “Which means this could be a trap… or it could be him trying to lead us deeper into the facility to… I guess save him.” She shrugged. “Though normally I’d say this might be some sort of a trap… I don’t think anyone smart enough to run a facility like this would be dumb enough to mess with two people who just literally melted their front door.” Evina took another moment to let out a massive sigh, finally bringing her arms down, before turning towards me with a sense of palpable conviction. “We aren’t going to be getting any answers just standing around though. So I suggest we just dive deeper into the facility. Oh, and if you’re afraid of traps or whatever, trust me, I know how these places work. You won’t find any of those fancy space-age automatic defense systems here. And even if we do find any traps or countermeasures… they’ll probably be easy to spot, or completely messed up like that PA system. What do ya say, Lysara?”

I took a few moments to ponder this, turning back towards the army of drones behind me. 

A part of me wanted to continue moving forward in the typical, more cautious fashion. However, I had to remind myself that there was now, in fact, a local guide to expedite the entire process.

Besides, it was best to make haste with the whole operation, lest other parties arrive on scene in orbit.

There was always that potential for the whole operation to be completely upended by the arrival of some unwelcome visitors overhead. So with that in mind, I decided to put my faith in the felinor; entrusting her with the role I’d assigned her in the first place.

“Let’s move.” I nodded, before gesturing for the rest of the drones to gather around us. 

“I’ll take point.” Evina announced, moving forward as we began our approach into the bowels of the facility.

The corridor we found ourselves in was rather barebones, somewhat dusty, yet otherwise in more or less perfect condition. Off-white tiles lined practically every surface, giving off a sterile, almost medical aesthetic. Whilst pipes and wires neatly nested within long tubes of galvanized rectangular steel added an understated industrial flare which… once again, simply looked old but not at all used. 

“This is freaky.” Evina commented. “This is supposed to be the entry and intake corridor; the place you enter immediately after you get into the bunker. Like, normally you gather in the atrium where we just came from. Then, you’re shuffled down access corridors like this. Which, after a few decades, start becoming repurposed for a variety of things. Most of the time it just becomes open storage. Some of the times though, these security and processing offices on either side of us—” She paused, gesturing at the doors lining the corridor. “—start being repurposed into storage units, or just outright refurbished into residential units for families.”

“Everything in this facility looks too pristine for that then, I presume?” I offered.

“Exactly. It’s dusty and needs some cleaning. I'll give you that. But there’s no signs of… well… anyone having lived here. Bunkers are normally bursting to the brim with life, or signs of it. This place? I don’t know, there’s just nothing.” 

“Maybe there’s just a lower-than-average population.” I offered, eliciting a shrug from the felinor.

“Maybe… but still.” The felinor took that moment to gesture for a detour, pointing to her right at a random door that lacked any signs, consoles, or anything that’d make it stand out amongst the rest of the doors lining the corridor. “I have to take a look.” 

That logical part of me wanted to object.

But then again, I was curious where the felinor was going with this. “Alright.” I nodded.

A few moments was all Evina needed to make short work of the lock, as she opened up the door with a solid push, revealing… what amounted to an office. One with more than your typical stash of supplies piled up in wooden crates, but an office all the same. 

A layer of dust caked the entire room, even moreso than the corridor.

Moreover, everything here looked… eerily pristine, just like the rest of the facility so far. 

“This doesn’t make any sense.” Evina spoke bluntly. “This… is exactly how these security and customs rooms looked on day one of intake and processing.” She quickly walked over to the desk, picking up pens, papers, and a whole assortment of office supplies. “This is what it was like even before facility personnel came in. I saw it in like, training manuals and videos that I watched for fun—” The felinor paused, before turning towards me with a hint of self consciousness. “—and don’t judge me, after a few lifetimes, you start to get bored of watching the same stockpiles of media over and over again.” She quickly added, before moving on to the desk and its various drawers. “Everything’s here, intake forms, questionnaires, security forms, you name it. And not a single one is filled in.” 

“I’d assume that the typical bunker would-”

“The typical bunker would’ve had these rooms inundated with forms for the first five years before abandoning the notion of old-world bureaucracy and then implementing their own system.” Evina interjected, more or less anticipating my question and answering it before I could even voice it. “And yet not even a single form or piece of equipment in this room was even touched by felinor hands.” 

We eventually found ourselves filing out of the room, as Evina stood there, her helmet’s chin nestled between her fingers. “I want to check the rest of the rooms. We have enough time for that right? Just a quick little check is all I need.” 

“Sure. But just make it quick-”

“You got it boss.” 

…

10 Minutes Later

…

“Every. Single. Room.” Evina managed out with a frustrated breath. “I’m sorry for wasting our time but… this is as much necessary to confirm the mystery. I thought that maybe they’d only used one intake room or something. But no, all of them are untouched.” 

“All the more reason for us to move forward with our investigation.” I reasoned, prompting a nod of agreement from the felinor as we cautiously marched ever onwards, deeper into the facility. 

We eventually found ourselves at a circular ‘intersection’ of sorts, with several branching corridors branching out from the middle circular ‘room’ with benches and seats, and what appeared to be PA speaker systems sat above three computer terminals. 

Evina quickly moved to check each and every one of them, but just as it was in the atrium, not a single system worked following an abrupt cessation to its boot cycle. 

The speaker systems too erupted in a flurry of noises, static coming through, and a voice once again attempting to break through the failings of its mechanical rot. 

SCREEEEEECH! POP!

“They definitely know we’re inside.” Evina surmised, her hand gripping that pistol grip even tighter now. 

“And yet they’re still finding it impossible to communicate.” I reasoned. 

“Okay so, this is also weird, check this out.” The felinor pointed to the various corridors, their walls being completely identical to one another, save for a solid strip of paint that acted as the only delineating aspect of their design. “No signs. Only color-coded corridors. Now, just so you know, even after decades of habitation, we’d never think to take our signs down. The kids need to know where things are after all. So with that being said, if the color coding is right, these halls lead to roughly the sorts of places you’d expect from a typical bunker. “Gold for admin, green for medical, pink for storage, orange for engineering and infrastructure, and gray for habitation and other miscellaneous access points to other floors in the facility such as hydroponics, repair depots, and other stuff. This… might take a while to fully explore.”

“You’re forgetting we’re not limited by two sets of eyes and ears, Evina.” I reasoned, before gesturing at the small fleet of drones slowly gathering behind us. “We should have enough aerial recon drones to scout four of those five main corridors. Which leaves one just for us to explore. So… what will it be?” 

A small grin began forming across Evina’s face, excitement brewing just beneath the surface. “I heckin love being on the winning team for once. In that case… let’s go to admin.”