System log: The Bunker, Site 3
Solar Calendar: Year 2249(?)
Current status: Active repairs, D.M.H.E.L.L. protocol active
Log 10
Gamma pondered over the memory it had copied from Hank’s mind. Disregarding the irrelevant emotional subtext conditioned by human emotion, the memory had provided much of the answers the program had required. The image of the immense mechanical worm, known to humans as a ‘matriarch tremor worm’, was by far the most valuable discovery, alongside facts such as that firearms were not as rare as it had first hypothesized and runners/Roadrunners were in fact the term for professional logistic teams. It had yet to determine if Roadrunner was the name of Captain, apparently, Donaldson’s group or if runner was a shortened form of the title.
Returning to the tremor worms, Gamma had already determined that the human use of terms such as ‘juvenile’ and ‘matriarch’ were incorrect. Machines did not increase in size with age, even alien ones. While it couldn’t exactly scan data from a memory. . . wait no that’s exactly what it did. While making precise and accurate assumptions from mere image data was difficult, the program could make several educated guesses. The enormous ‘matriarch’ class tremor worm was likely found with a swarm of smaller tremor worms, leading rise to the name. Given the enormity of its size, it was certainly possible and even likely the machine played an important role in creating new tremor worms, but not with its body like the humans implied.
With two invader machines now recorded, Gamma could draw similar connections between the two designs. Both were based on Earth fauna and operated in manners similar to their inspiration; the mantis’ hunted and the worms dug in the dirt. However, the tremor worms were clearly not designed for combat; their deadliness was a side effect of their size, programming, armor, and drill teeth. The teeth, in fact, were the biggest clue. If invader machines were still being produced, clearly without outside assistance from beyond the planet, then an immense amount of raw materials were required.
The tremors worms, who swam through the earth devouring everything in their path, were in fact massive mining drones. The current state of desertification was likely strongly due to the work of the tremor worms; the massive teeth grinding up everything that entered, with the unwanted materials released as sand and other particulate matter behind the worms while required minerals, ores, and crystals were kept inside the worms until full. While humans clearly understood value in harvesting from the tremor worms, it was clear from Hank’s memory that the sheer value of raw materials found in slain worms had never been particularly high. That made sense, however, as if Gamma had programmed one of its drones to gather materials and fight off hostiles, any drone with a full payload would be programmed to ignore all distractions and return to base to unload. Given the matriarch worm’s proximity to the crater, and its angle of attack on the humans from outside the crater, there was a high chance it had been on a return run and determined the human group small enough to recycle one last bit of material.
Which meant, very likely, that a massive source of desperately needed raw materials was lying a short distance away from Site 3 under a collapsed building, to say nothing of the advanced circuitry and metal plating of the worm’s carcass. Gamma now had a new, very welcome variable to its 3-day plan, and something for the legion of drones to focus on once foundational repairs reached 100%. Though, perhaps it could get things started with the help of the human group. . .
Speaking of, Gamma detected a sudden connection restoration to part of the facility. A quick check of its internal time clock revealed that more time had passed in reality than the program had realized; a result due to the majority of Gamma’s processing power being devoted to process Hank’s memory and losing track of low-priority tasks. Had the nanites been more plentiful and of a better type, this wouldn’t have happened. Also, Gamma had never done a human memory scan before, so it judged the process to be successful and improvable in the future. Time had not been wasted.
Momentary digression aside, what had the humans managed to do? For one, Gamma now had full access to every remaining security camera in the central hub, including the maintenance tunnels. It could see the group of Dina, the twins, and Ryan, for some reason, in maintenance tunnel 2A, a pile of rubble sitting out of the way. It could also see a haphazardly repaired cable system wrapped in ‘modern’ electrical tape, the reason for power restoration in both the air circulation system and the fabricator room. The boss, Captain Donaldson, and Sloan were still in the fabrication room, the latter plugged into one of the machines via his terminal.
“I’m getting enough power for work to be done,” Sloan reported with a smile. “Seems the mission has been completed successfully sir.”
“Only took us most of the day,” the boss noted dryly. “But at least that old drone managed to move almost all of the stalker bodies up here in the meantime, leaving the broken bits for us to move.” He turned his head towards the hole drilled into the wall. “Sloan says it’s all working here, you guys come on back!” he yelled.
“Yes sir!” came the answering voices of the other Roadrunners. A few minutes later, the other four exited maintenance tunnel 2A through the now unblocked door back onto the second floor and rejoined their fellows in the fabrication room.
“Good work runners,” the boss announced once everyone was gathered together again. “We managed to finish three critical tasks and one minor task in a single day. We’ve restored security, air circulation, and manufacturing capability to this ruin, which should give us a solid claim on this place once the rescue party arrives. I’m impressed and proud of you all.”
Everyone shared smiles all around at their boss’ words.
“So, does that mean we can have these machine start making the nanites for Hank?” Dina asked hopefully.
The boss turned to Sloan, who could only shrug helplessly. “I don’t have the security permissions to access the command menu, nor the tools to break through the encryption and firewall,” the younger man said helplessly. “I can confirm the machines are ready to receive raw materials and instructions at least.”
As if to answer Sloan’s words, Gamma activated the fabrication room’s hatch. It watched (perhaps with amusement?) as the humans all jumped at the sound of the alarm and scrambled out of the way as the center of the room shifted. A large circular lid opened up to reveal a chute, the underside of the top revealing a sign that read: “Raw and Recyclable material only. Do not enter unless system is in complete shutdown. Take all necessary steps to avoid fatal accidents!”.
It was this chute that was the reason why the fabricator room was on the second floor instead of the ground floor. Underneath was a large complex of machinery, recycling magma and steam pipes, and conveyers that could recycle almost anything into usable raw materials like metal bars, petroleum products, wires, and etc. The downsides, including a highly fatal environment, near impossible to fix without shutting down everything, added transportation costs to the second floor, were acceptable for this small-scale training and emergency fabrication room when testing the Project Lighthouse subjects. Even if something had gone horribly wrong, the damage would have been limited to this small part of the hub instead of the Factory module.
Of course, this small-scale fabrication section was still able to produce everything Gamma needed for now. Like a baby chick begging its mother for food, the open chute awaited new raw materials.
Though a little slow, the humans eventually managed to figure out what they needed to do in a couple of minutes. Under their boss’ direction, everyone started hauling broken alien machines over and pushing them down the chute in an orderly fashion.
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“Boss, can I just say this is weirdly satisfying,” Ryan spoke up after kicking a torso over the edge. “Heck, I’m not even upset we aren’t stripping the gold out of their circuits anymore.”
“It is oddly cathartic,” Sloan agreed as he tossed several arms in from a distance. “If we put up some safety bars, we could even practice grenade throwing and the like without risking falling in.”
“I’m not sure the hole to hell would be the best place to relax around,” Dina noted dryly, though she too tossed a leg over her shoulder into the chute. “Ah, nice.” The twins swung one of the intact bodies into the hole together, then high-fived each other.
“People, don’t forget this is a job,” the boss barked with an amused expression. “But, let’s come back to that later, I suppose. Ryan, give me a hand with the brute; I think it’ll fit without taking off the other arm.”
The stalker brute was the last to enter the chute, clanging against the sides of the chute all the way down before making a satisfying crash somewhere down below. With nothing else to add, as it still needed the humans, Gamma closed the hatch and got to work. Devoting most of its processing power to the processing room, it activated a portion of its remaining attention to interact with the humans using its H.I.P. protocol.
“Raw material breakdown underway,” came the fake robotic voice from the fabricator room’s speakers. “Detecting ongoing order for, nanites, medical. Beginning production run.” The sound of machinery came to life as the large fabricators hissed and clanged as gears turned and pistons moved. The humans couldn’t see inside, but already the fabricator’s internal parts were shifting in preparation of a nanite production run. The sealed nature of the machines meant they’d been mostly untouched by the erosion of time, though Gamma had already determined the areas needed to be fixed to return efficiency to peak performance.
Fabricators at the end of the century had largely become consolidated in general models; able to ‘print’, as well as forge, anything that fit within their base plate. Industrial fabricators largely forgone the ability to ‘print’ with liquids like cement and plastic in favor of being large robotic all-purpose blacksmiths that could forge anything from steel plates to interconnected circuitry. Site 3 had been equipped with (-error-, data not found)---, the central hub’s fabricator room was equipped with the medium size general models, though in their free time some of the scientists had taken it on themselves to modify and improve the machines. It was these modifications that allowed Gamma easier interaction with the machines’ systems when it came to importing blueprint designs and modifying them based on fabricator feedback.
“Receiving scanned data of local human equipment,” Gamma had the speakers say over the noise of the fabricator. “Improved design blueprint underway.”
This caused the Roadrunners to all react in confusion, everyone turning to look at Sloan reflexively. Sloan, in turn, looked down at his terminal, shrugged, and plugged it back into one of the fabricator terminals. The younger man’s eyes bulged as Gamma graciously shared the blueprints it had designed.
“B, boss?” Sloan stammered, “You, you need to see this!”
Eyebrow raised in curiosity and concern, the captain Donaldson walked over and looked over Sloan’s shoulder at what the man was seeing. Now it was the boss’ turn to have bulging eyes.
“Holy stars above,” the older man muttered. “Sloan, am I, is that showing what I think it’s showing?”
“I think so boss,” Sloan gulped. “These are the blueprints for the exact model of exo-suit we’re wearing. Look, there are readouts for the different damaged sections from each of ours.” He pointed at the red highlighted parts of the exo-suit on screen, each listing damage type, likely cause, and preventative measures. Seeing their own technology on screen of an ancient ruin was startling enough, but that wasn’t what had captured the two men’s attention. The other runners had wandered over now as well, peeking curiously at what was on screen.
“I get that that one is our standard runner exo-suit,” Ryan noted a moment later, his right hand rubbing his eye, “but, what’s that other suit spinning next to it?”
Sloan let out a low, slow breath. “That’s, a new suit,” he murmured. “One that I think had been designed in real time based off our current runner exo-suit, our needs, and available materials within this ruin.”
“What?” Dina balked, “You mean, something made that suit in the short few days we’ve been here? How, no, why?” She shook her head seemingly in an effort to clear her head. “Okay, setting that aside since we can’t answer that, what exactly is this anyway? Is that, armor plating? Is this a combat exo-suit?”
“Maybe, here look at this” Sloan pointed at the new image, which was still ‘loading’ on the younger man’s screen, while in the background Gamma continued to update and iterate new parts within the chasis. “See here? Whatever is doing this, it’s using our runner exo-suits as the base for the design, like a skeleton, and building around it. This seems like a compromise to reduce cost, an upgrade in other words, to our exo-suits instead of creating a new model.”
“It does remind me of the hulk battle suits from back in training,” Ryan noted with a frown, “but those things were built for strength and endurance, not speed and flexibility. I can’t heads or tails of the techno stuff here, but this . . . doesn’t this seem more like an enclosed suit than an exo-suit?”
“Yeah I think so,” Sloan murmured as his eyes scanned through the design document. “Replacement parts are included in this as well for our exo-suits. I think this crosses the line for exo-suit. I think we could safely call this design a type of power armor. And that’s not the end of it.”
“It’s not?” Dina blinked.
“No,” Sloan shook his head. “See here, and here. These are hardpoint and softpoint connections built into the armor. I think these new suits aren’t just meant to be used in the field on their own. I think, they’re meant to allow the pilot to plug into something, larger.” The younger man whispered the last bit.
“You mean?” Dina gasped.
“Yeah, I think these are meant to plug into a mech or mecha,” Sloan sighed.
There was a long moment of silence while everyone mulled the younger man’s words over in their head.
“A mech, huh?” the boss rolled the word over his tongue. “Like what our ancestors used to build their world in the distant past. What they used to explore the stars alongside the great ships. The rare rusty remains of such that are kept in museums and private collections; that kind of mech Sloan?”
“I can’t say for sure,” the younger man shrugged. “It’s not like anyone knows how they were built or how they functioned. I’m just saying, this new suit isn’t just a frame with added armor; it’s a singular piece of tech that human is sealed inside of with the ability to add on more connections. I don’t recognize most of what’s on screen here, but take a look at the metal on the joints and under the armor. Look familiar?”
Everyone stared.
“Why does that remind me of those stalkers?” Dina finally asked.
“Because it’s the same,” Sloan said. “The stalker bodies looked like they used metallic muscles in places, and that’s being recycled into this design. Instead of just servos and hydraulics, this new suit is incorporating alien tech to create essentially, a robotic human exo-suit, aka power armor. Boss,” Sloan said, locking eyes with the older man, “that means this design was made recently.”
“A ruin that can not only make, but also design new things,” the boss said slowly. “The mysterious just deepen.” He shook his head. “Setting aside my concerns about alien tech being used here, is this blueprint being added to the fabricators to produce right now Sloan?”
“Negative sir,” the younger man said. “Only the blueprints are being worked on. It seems more rare earth metals are needed to complete production.”
“Shame,” the boss Donaldson shook his head. “We’re all out of bug bodies to dump, and I don’t feel like risking fate to summon more. We already have one man down.”
Gamma noted the humans all appeared to have mixed feelings. Clearly, the new design had intrigued and worried all of them, but they were all equally as relieved and disappointed that there weren’t enough supplies on hand to complete the design. The program had a good idea now where to get more, but with the end of the day fast approaching it judged that keeping the humans from being overworked was a highly priority. It would wait until the next day to inform them.
Eventually, the group of runners left the fabricator room and returned to their temporary camp for dinner and sleep. Their conversation over the work they’d done that day disinterested Gamma, who focused the bare minimum processing power on them while turning back to the repair work on the facility. The rotating shifts of drones had continued their hard work on the foundations, continuing their steady progress as the 2nd day came to a close. Per Gamma’s early estimations, it seemed work would be completed at the end of the third day, upon which time the drones would be free to work on the many other problems plaguing Site 3.
The restoration of power to every part of the hub meant that Gamma had reached its first limit point. It would need to restore connection back to the Factory and Hydroponics facility modules as soon as possible to ensure restored connection to more power generation, otherwise the reserve power and limited generation of the central module would run out now in several weeks. Operating the fabricators and using the medical center had been calculated gambles of power usage, but the program’s predictive algorithms were clear. Though the chance of failure was higher now by 30%, so long as it secured human assistance for restoration and other uses, Gamma saw an increase of 60% of probable success of full facility restoration within a year.
It would guide these humans to where they needed to go, and ensure their needs would be only ever so slightly satisfied to keep them wanting more. Under its perfected direction, Gamma would ensure humanity and Earth’s biosphere would be saved, no matter the cost.
