The last thing alive on the planet.

Hundred of years of war, ocean pollution and atmospheric seeding. Humans had destroyed all liveable space on the planet. The rich fled to the shelters. The orbital and moon failed first. Inadequate solar shielding. The loosening of the magnetic field around the earth did more than scientists expected. Their extinctions were followed by the shelters underground and then the ones which levitated above the clouds.

All that left was the couple undersea shelters, and the crawler.

Hundred's of years passed, the Crawler flourished while the Water Locked shelter slowly dripped and dwindled in population.

So why was the crawler now a tomb?

And how had she survived?

I only heard the voice but I know what I heard.

It was human. It had to be, only a human could awaken me.

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First I have to find a way out of this room. It's easier said than done. This monolith is in sleep mode. It knows about the death of its inhabitants. The machine is intelligent, it won't waste energy continuing its crawl if there is nobody to use it. In sleep mode I can't even open a door. Wedging it open won't be easy either. I'm not strong enough.

How can I get this door opened?

Oh, this is a development lab isn't it? If so, it should have the exact tools i need to get out.

I analyze the tables around me. I see wrenches, screwdrivers, a human femur, and a few data loggers. I grab the data loggers and put them in a bag. I then dump out a few boxes from underneath the workbench. More data loggers and a few containers of backup data. Precious.

No sign of the proprietary screwdriver to access the door panels though. But fortunately I did find the next best thing.

Plasma torch.

The carbon rich steel melted like cheese around the bright blue jet. Golden sparks waterfall into the lab. I will know the jet has passed through the thick door once the sparks are instead tossed out the back of the cut. I should probably be wearing a helmet while doing this. I have to stop every so often to pat the ignited flames out of my hair.     

Half an hour passes and my plasma torch skills begin to improve. Only an inch left until my small hole is cut. At first I planned to cut the entire door out but I quickly abandoned that when I realized a better option was simply cutting a small diameter hole and climbing through that instead. Sure it wouldn't be comfortable but it was better than torching for the next four hours.   

*Clunk*

The round carbon rich wheel I cut from the door strikes the ground of the hall then spins on its rim twice with a loud ring. The hiss of water cooling hot metal then fills the hallway.

I wasn't willing to wait another half hour for this to be touchable. A few buckets of water from the nearby sink did more than enough to cool it. The color of the water was a bit disconcerting though.

Inching through the hole I find myself in the long hall. The hall is filled with doorways to labs like the one i was just in. I should find a level link. They're spread every quarter mile along the hallway, there should be one nearby.

The ship was a maze but I have no difficulty finding the link station. I was in the eighth hallway it seems, the room I was in earlier was number two hundred and nine, and the sign near the elevator said I was on the forty seventh floor. I have a hundred options but my mind says to go to floor sixty where the controls for the crawler lay.

But how do I get up a dead elevator? If any are on this level I could cut the counterweight, if this were fiction at least. But in real life it doesn't exactly work like that, especially now that they use magnetism instead of weights. Not to mention the probability of one of the elevators being on this level are…

Significantly higher than I expected. With 20 elevators in this hallway and dozens more link stations its nearly 100% but probability of course doesn't work like that, and as I said it wouldn't work anyways. My best option would be climbing up the shaft somehow.

Oh, well if I find some magnets I can just scale the wall.

A floor filled with labs, and me holding a plasma torch. I'm pretty sure I can find a magnet. If it comes down to it I can even just strip an elevator and take its electro magnets.

Took me about twenty minutes to find what i needed.

No problem. First I went back to '209', sure enough a half a dozen boxes later I found eight small neodymium magnets, each could hold around sixty pounds without sliding, it would be enough with some to spare. I epoxied them to two sheets of metal and then tested them against a wall. After the epoxy's recommended dry time of course. They were difficult but I could pry them off and scale the wall in the room pretty well.

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I then realize if I add a small diameter wheel to the front of the sheet, instead of prying the entire magnet assembly off each time I could simply tilt the metal and roll it up the wall before snapping it back down and repeating the action with my other hand. I would be climbing a magnet ladder with rollerskates. It would be easy.

And now here we are. In front of an endless shaft. Four hundred sixty feet down at most. I measured upwards with sonar and am sure this shaft is clear of elevators. Now I simply have to climb thirteen floors. I planned to measure downwards with the same sonar device but I accidentally set it beside the magnets and fried the display. Hacking into it seems a waste of time. So I just assured myself if I fall, i won't survive.

Those thoughts as well as a few others pass through my head as the first magnet snaps onto the elevator shaft wall. I test the roll function on the different surface and it works as planned. I snap the other magnet to the wall and grip the handle on each. I shift my weight slowly and move my body into the shaft. The magnets slide from the sudden weight addition but they quickly overcome it with friction. It seems removing the topmost magnet in order for it to roll better was not as good an idea as I thought. But my chances of survival were still within reasonable limits so I tried the first weight transfer.

I shifted my left hand and extend it upwards, the wheel screeches loudly against the thick metal wall. My right hand has shifted down a bit but not enough to cause problem. This would work. I began to repeat the motion in my mind and it turned into a game. I timed myself as I pass each floor. So far my best time was between floors forty nine and fifty. There was no statistical reason to explain it. I should be getting better at it.

Fifty five to fifty six was within a thousandth of a second of the record but it didn't reach it.

On my way up the wall of floor fifty eight while trying my best to beat my earlier time I began to hear sound from below along with a slow draft of air.

You can't be serious.

Why is the elevator moving towards me? It shouldn't be active. Why is it active?

Is this some action to prevent stagnation of air?

Whatever the cause, I foresee a new record.

I slammed my hands upwards and strode up the wall with great gusto. These elevators are quick, even if it's on the first floor it will get here in seconds. I hit the line indicating floor fifty nine and then continue. I contemplated the possibility of opening the door on fifty nine instead but my risk analysis told me it was better to continue my mission first and foremost. For all I know it might stop before it hits me. I will continue to hope that as I race up this metal death trap.

The noise was growing louder in my ears and I'm only a few feet from the door now. Opening it would take a few seconds with the plasma torch. After a final rung of the sheeching ladder I line both magnets up beside the shut door and take ahold of them with my left hand. I extend my right hand with the torch and cut the small safety linkage holding the door shut. I kick my leg over and wrench the door open with it. My grip on the two handles is loosening. I have no choice, the door isn't fully open but I have to swing for it now. The noise sounds within feet of me and the gust of wind is growing chaotic also.

I rock my weight back on the already loose grip and begin to gain momentum for the leap towards the door. My grip brakes. I fall.

At Least my probability for death by fall is reduced. Now the opposite is in effect instead.

The sensation of falling is instantly replaced by the feeling of firm metal beneath me. The noise of the elevator grinding also quiets. Was it because i was now on the moving elevator? No. The elevator which once sped upwards now sat stopped. It is inches below the wrenched doorway. It's also not entirely lined up with floor fifty nine so it could only be explained that it was there to catch me.

But why?

I'm not human, so why is the crawler's AI coming to my aid?

I raise my body and step carefully through the door. I then remember the magnets and lean back in to grab them, with a couple tugs they come loose and I place them beside the door. They could come in handy again later if I don't find what I'm looking for here. She must be here though. I'm sure this was where the voice came from. But I don't sense anything around me. It's dead quiet.

No human in range.