Humans Don't Hibernate [Part 101/?] (Patreon)

93 Hours After the First Round of Interloper Interrogations. Signal Station. Administration Wing.

Evina

Departing that room was more difficult for me than I would’ve liked to admit. 

There was a strong pull, a weird desire that kept me wanting more from that room. In fact, if it wasn’t for Lysara, I could easily picture myself getting lost in the seemingly endless sea of maps and documents, each of which reminded me of something I just couldn’t put my finger on. 

It was a strange feeling, an uneasy state of mind, a weird combination of nostalgia mixed in with that feeling of frustration you get when you enter a room and forget the reason why you even entered it in the first place. 

But I knew, based on experience and shared interactions with those like me, that these feelings weren’t too uncommon; especially for those with as many iterative memories such as myself. 

In fact, thinking about it too hard could just end up spiraling into a disparate series of thoughts, emotions, and conflicting memories that would sooner lead to an inability to make split second decisions or commit to any single action… which, given the situation we found ourselves in, was definitely not what I wanted to happen to me.

So I tried my best to keep those unreasonable thoughts and feelings at bay for now. Even if my first iteration’s memories still seemed to be unreasonably drawn to that room, or more specifically — the contents within.

We’d already scoured it from top to bottom after all, so there was really nothing else to obsess over. 

Or at least, that’s what I kept trying to tell myself, even as my first iteration’s memories continued to nag at me to stop and reflect on it some more.

I forced myself to focus instead on the task at hand, at figuring out the mystery, at helping to  fulfill my end of the bargain with Lysara. 

If anything, the alien gave me all the ample distractions I needed to take my mind off of that gnawing obsessive feeling. 

Because in the minutes following our departure from that room, the man had quite literally become a non-stop runaway nuclear reaction’s worth of words. 

“A seed vault attached to an untouched storage center… mysterious documents outlining proposal after proposal detailing towns, farms, cities, and massive infrastructure networks not present prior to the war… an untouched bunker with not a single sign of habitation.” Lysara rattled on, openly pondering each of the discoveries we made so far. “There are a great number of hypotheses that can be made of this, and an even greater number of tentative conclusions that could be drawn out of these findings. Personally however, I think that it’s—”

“Ghosts.” Vir announced confidently over the airwaves. “It’s definitely ghosts.” He reiterated with self-assurance, as I could just about imagine the smug, snarky looking ‘face’ he was making right about now. 

In fact, I didn’t need to imagine it, as the HUD displayed his surprising range of facial expressions right beside the active ‘transcription’ of the radio logs. 

“Vir, this isn’t the time for—”

“I kid, I kid.” The AI shot back with a cackle. “Anyways, you were saying?” 

The alien sighed at the AI’s antics, before pressing forwards. “I believe this was meant to be a crypt of civilization.”

“A what-now?” I questioned. “A crypt, as in like, a time capsule or something?”

“No, but I can see an argument to be made for that theory.” Lysara responded, his tone absolutely consumed by that same ‘flow-state’ I’d seen Eslan consumed by before. “A crypt of civilization, from the context of my era, is a last-resort hedge against the potential for a civilization collapse stemming from the mass-failure of our traditional hibernative sleep-wake cycle; a facility designed to activate upon the event of a critical mass-failure event. An event defined by the sufficient loss of population, archives, and resources, that would make the recovery of civilization following a hibernative period practically impossible due to the compromisation of the reconstruction capacity threshold. These crypts were designed to hold equipment, archives, and oftentimes embryonic cryochambers, that could allow for what survivors that existed, or what elements of the government that persisted, to aid in a complete recovery if such a situation did arise.” 

“So… sort of like a time capsule, but instead of it being for anyone else, it’s for yourself. Also, useful and utilitarian, instead of just sentimental.” I offered, prompting the alien to pause in his tracks, before relenting with a nod.

It was scene-for-scene exactly how Eslan would react whenever I summed up or dumbed down a concept that he’d over-explain and over-define.

“Yes. That’s… effectively what it is. However, I would be remiss if I did not address the cricket in the amphitheater… or what the humans would say, the elephant in the room.” 

I cocked my head at that, but shrugged and offered my guess despite not being explicitly asked. “The fact that there’s a massive signal array attached to the facility, and the fact that it’s been broadcasting into deep space this whole time?”

“Correct.” Lysara nodded. “Unless your people were hoping for alien intervention, hedging your entire fate in the hands of beings that to your knowledge at the time of the facility’s construction, may not even exist… it doesn’t seem to be the most effective use of resources.”

“No, it isn’t. Especially not in a time of economic and political turmoil that led up to the war.” I acknowledged. “It also doesn’t explain the mystery man hidden somewhere inside the place, nor does it explain the claw marks.” I quickly added.

“Unless it is a runaway facility with automated embryonic reanimation chambers that managed to bring several felinor to adulthood, before resulting in a mass escape attempt or something of the sort.” The alien offered, prompting me to cock my head in confusion at that pulp sci-fi plot synopsis of a hypothesis. 

“Well… we can safely dismiss that one based solely from the fact that none of the supplies, medical, or otherwise, have been tapped into.” I countered.

“And we can also safely rule out the habitation center having been touched too.” Vir proclaimed through our intercom once more, as he displayed several live feeds of the drone team that’d been plundering through each and every corner of what would otherwise be the single most lived-in wing of the facility. “Yup, nothing. Just take a look at this.” The AI spoke, highlighting the general overflow quarters that were built to house an excess of population that sometimes did happen in certain bunkers. Either due to a population that grew naturally into a healthy thriving society, or simply because the facility’s admins were particularly empathetic to the pleas of those outside the doors prior to the nukes being dropped, there were in fact some bunkers that made use of the excess space designed for utilitarian communal habitation and not much else. If anything, even the underpopulated bunkers would’ve found a way to make use of the space, generally as a communal gathering spot or a space to just hang out. 

Here however? Not a single bed, cot, or bunk within the massive corridor-filled space showed any signs of occupation. Nor were any of them misaligned or moved out of place. 

Not one bed was made, with the linens intended for use remaining neatly folded and wrapped in unblemished plastic, placed perfectly by the foot locker at the end of every bunk.

Vir quickly shifted the video feed to other drones, as if preempting my question of whether or not the more typically-occupied family-quarters showed any signs of habitation.

They didn’t.

And again, the pattern repeated throughout the entirety of the habitation wing. 

Seeing those live feeds gave me a certain feeling of unease that I just couldn’t shake off.

It was just so eerie to see the world as it was, trapped in a time capsule.

Still, I pushed forward, not wanting to dwell on it.

“Engineering is more of the same as well, by the way.” Vir quickly added, before switching over to live feeds of what looked to be the typical boring pieces of machinery and row upon row of electrical, plumbing, and communications infrastructure that kept the place liveable. 

There were some oddities however.

Ones that I quickly pointed out to Vir.

“There’s way, way too many reactors, generators, backups, and power relays here.” I announced.

“I was about to mention that.” Vir immediately responded. “From my calculations, even at max use capacity, accounting for extra side projects that could be crafted from the storage bay, we’re looking at a power draw of about twenty percent of max power production capacity.”

“And fuel?” Lysara quickly added in.

“That’s where it gets a bit weird.” Vir responded, before shifting the main feed to what I recognized as the fuel storage warehouse. 

“They’ve barely touched it.” I blurted out instinctively.

“Correct. And by my calculations, the missing fuel rods account for only a fraction of the amount of fuel that’s necessary to have powered the facility up to this point in time.” The AI announced, before just as quickly shifting live feeds once more. “Hold on, I think I just discovered an answer to that little mystery.” He spoke, as one of the drones managed to worm its way through a series of pipes, before emerging into a part of the facility that definitely wasn’t on the map of any other facility. “That’s a primitive, albeit a very reliable-looking geothermal plant, if I’ve ever seen one.”

I was left stunned.

Words escaped me as I couldn’t come up with a sufficient reaction to the existence of something so completely out of left field.

“A facility overly designed for redundancy.” Lysara commented.

“Those are my thoughts as well. This place seems built to last. Though, sadly, it doesn’t seem like enough care was made to make sure the intercom system was built to the same standards.” Vir offered, as he highlighted the intercom system in front of us that similar to the ones at the bunker’s main intersection, had fizzled out. 

“You can’t over-engineer everything I guess.” I spoke with an utterly drained sigh. “But yeah, no, if you were wondering… no, we typically don’t have geothermal plants in addition to our normal power generation systems.” I would’ve begun wringing my hands together to vent out some frustration at this point, if it wasn’t for me still firmly gripping my gun. “My best guess right now is that this was some government facility that the bigwigs in charge just didn’t manage to arrive in time to inhabit. Or maybe it just wasn’t complete to their standards. Maybe there was a design flaw somewhere so extreme that they chose somewhere else to live. But then how would this place still be running if there was no one here to keep it going? Someone has to be managing the reactor, or else it’d just shut down automatically. Someone has to be managing the power regulation system, or else the wires would overload and breakers would be triggered. And someone had to have existed here at some point in order to be able to make those claw marks.” 

“I’ve scoured through the entirety of the bunker, Evina. I can confirm more of the same — there’s no sign of any deviation from the norm that would indicate a single soul has even explored the place.” Vir announced, before ending the live feeds just as we approached the final turn in the administration wing, rounding out the corner to a door that I recognized as the ‘bunker HQ’. 

However instead of a small unassuming door, or even a security door for the more built-up facilities with way less of a friendly open-door policy to administration, we were instead met with a solid bank vault style door.

There were no signs of markings anywhere on or above it. 

In fact, all that existed beside it was a palm print reader, and a console that Lysara began approaching.

However, before he, or any of the drones could begin their hacking operations, the door began unlocking with a solid KA-THUNK! 

I could almost feel the vibrations of the cogs and gears turning behind it, and the pneumatics cleanly unsealing a door that had been closed for who knows how long.

A solid hiss filled the air as my eyes now bore witness to a space completely alien to me.