Chapter 6 Gearing up part 1

Another week quickly passed, and Hunter was finally back on his feet. Glados could have completely healed all of his torn muscles and broken bones immediately, but to save the dwindling supply of the miracle juice in his blood, they decided healing naturally was a better choice. Hunter had plenty of time to brainstorm new ideas with glados during his downtime, so he immediately went about implementing them when he was mobile again.

For his power problems, Hunter considered a larger, more complicated generator powered with steam turbines, but the size of his printer severly limited what he could do and he ended up giving up on that idea for now. He considered using solar power, but, even if the panels were 100% efficient, since he was in a jungle, he needed a large number of them to produce enough power. Keeping the four generators running was a chore since he had to chop and process the wood, which took the majority of his time, but for now his simple generators powered by IC engines were his best option. He did find another monster core from the alpha raptor, but decided to use it as an emergency power source.

Hunter built a crude conveyer system with machines that could process the raw logs and supply the generators with wood chips. Now, as long as he had fresh logs piled up in the feeder, his generators happily chugged along, with the new machines supplying it with fuel. Everything was fully automated with the machines being electronically controlled by Glados, and as long as Hunter periodically cut trees down with a chainsaw to replenish the wood, Hunter was finally able to focus on scouting the area and finding more resources to upgrade his arsenal.

After he got his factory running smoothly, Hunter immediately asked Glados to print a hundred of the tiny B2 bomber looking palm sized drones. As soon as they were all completed, Hunter deployed all of the drones around the vicinity of the cave. He wanted to operate more, but that was the maximum number Glados could control at one time anyway, so he waited to see how the drones performed. Small birds and sometimes enormous unknown airbourne predators attacked his drones, which resulted in the loss of more than half of his fleet, but by the end of the first couple of days, the drone army was finally able to map everything within a radius of twenty kilometers. Hunter wanted to scout further but Glados had a range limit on how far she chould control the drones. 20 kilometers was the maximum range even with a ridiculous metal helmet with two antennas Glados made him put on to increase the range.

From what the map revealed, the cave was located southeast inside a valley. On the north side of the valley, was a large mountain where Hunter was certain some dangerous creatures lived, and the South side of the valley was where the series of cliffs that the cave entrance was located at. The east and west were the entrances to the valley, but he could see another large mountain in the distance towards the northwest, so Hunter decided he was going to scout towards the east with the added benefit of the cave being closer.

Hunter spent the next few days stocking up on supplies and producing extra drones as preparations to head towards the valley's exit to the east. Since his printer was his lifeline, he placed most of the supplies and the monster core in the printer and secured the printer with his broken down anti-material rifle to a small metallic carrier with backstraps. He was initially afraid the printer might get damaged but it has proven to be durable, perhaps even moreso than himself. Hunter, then stored the rest of the remaining food, materials and the extra drones in a small one wheel cart, and made the final adjustments to his prep to leave at dawn the next day.

Before he left for his scouting trip, he headed to the clearing where he witnessed the death of the stranger. Hunter looked all around the clearing, but could not find any remains, besides some jwellery, torn clothing, and the staff/spear weapon she used. Hunter buried her remains along with the small earings and a ring she had, since he could not find anything on them to identify her loved ones. Hunter was not religious but he gave a short prayer as best as he could, and quietly left her grave with her weapon.

Hunter finally departed on his scouting trip, and using the staff as an extra durable walking stick, Hunter trekked the routes that the drones previously scouted to have relatively light local wildlife traffic. He did not feel confident with his rifle doing much against one of those alphas again, but with the drones diligently doing their jobs, it gave Hunter comfort in knowing he would see them before they saw him.

After half a day of brisk walking, Hunter was well past the 20km mark and decided to stop for a drink and some much needed rest. He then started to check his progress on the map with what the printer lazily named the Terra Tactical Commander's Terminal. The small device wraped around half of his forearms, with a flexible screen going the entire way around so the user could see the screen, no matter what angle the device was viewed from. He was not sure how, he was going to use this when he was finally going to put some armor on, but it was a very useful device nonetheless showing him live feeds from the drones, maps, targets that the drones found which got labled and marked neatly; all on an easy to use interface. He spent some time having fun with it while having a rest, but Glados suddenly spoke up and told him she found something interesting.

Hunter zoomed in on the drone footage and around what looks like the remains of a large concrete building, saw what looked to be the entrance to an underground structure.

"Looks like your mother sent us to the correct place Glados, just 3000 years too late."

'A 3000 year nap would do that to anyone, Hunter'

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"Should we go and take a look? You mentioned something about the locals finding things gods left behind and getting stronger before right?"

'Lets be careful Hunter, we don't know what we are going to find down there. I am going to send the drones in'

"Hell yeah, hope we find some some awesome stuff down there, like power armors and stuff"

The drones quietly wizzed into a large hall which looked to be used as the main entrance to enter into the underground structure. The drones quickly scanned every inch of the hall and Hunter was able to have a good look of the interior. There were large holes in the celing of the hall where the rest of the large building collapsed and some of those openings had trees covering them.

The main hall was laid out like the ones in large corporate office buildings, with what looked to be old electronic half doors used for employees to pass with a key card and desks for security with the familiar metal detectors. Besides the futuristic looking furniture, nothing looked out of the ordinary besides the fact everything was stained brown and green from corrosion and the alien plant life that took over all the cracks.

There were signs some animals used this as a shelter from the piles of dead animal carcasses in the corner, but it looked as if it was not used as a shelter for quite a long time. Behind the half doors lay the structure's entrance; wide open with two large rectangular vault doors that each looked to be least 2 meters thick on the sides of the entrance, confirming Hunter's suspicions that this was either a military facility or a bunker for important government or corporate officials.

The entire facility strangely had no markings of anykind showing where it belonged to and the lack of bodies on the ground made all of this more strange.

"Can you tell where and what this facility is Glados?"

'I am not sure,but we should scan the whole building first before we can be sure'

The rest of the bunker looked exactly like what he imagained a US presidental or military nuclear bunker would look like with posh meeting halls, a large central command room with hundreds of computer screens, suites for VIPs, bunkers for personnel, dining and breakrooms for the occupants, and finally large number of storerooms and a small hanger leading to another hidden entrance. The drones finally were done scanning the entire structure and Hunter finally saw a flag of a country he never saw before in front of a small hall that seemed to be used to announce to the public.

Since the drones reported no traps or scary things lurking to kill Hunter, he wanted to go down and investigate, but when he saw the footage of the hundreds of remains that were absent in the entrance main hall scattered about in the bunker, since he had no idea how they died, Hunter decided against going down there for now.

"Well, there's the end of it.... You think the hangar, and some of those locked storerooms have some gear we can use? Or at least have those alloy you keep harping we need for an exosuit or power armor? I am still confused on how you can print drones and rifles but not a simple exosuit"

'The control chips needed for the suits are patent and security protected so needs an extra level of authorization, and therefore cannot be printed on the printer even though I have the license for it.There is probably a memory device with the neccessary codes saved on it that grants the printer authorization. Although even with the autorization codes, we still need the specialized materials since there are exotic materials, that we just can't make with the current power barely enough to run the printer.'

"So are you are telling me, I still need to get my ass down there if I want better gear?"

'It should be safe down there Hunter; the bodies and the facility looks to be at least 1000 years old, no virus or bateria can survive that, and the sensors on the drones are not picking up any dangerous radiation.'

"Fine, at least make me a gas mask to stop all the dust and corpse dust will you? Vaporized corpse dust does not sound very pleasant to me at all."

After some more arguing back and forth, Hunter finally mustered the courage to walk into a mass grave and started to gear up. He decided to just bring his wheel barrowed that he emptied out and his carbine along with his knife for prying things open.

"Here we go Glados, point me to the nearest storerooms"

Hunter could not see very clearly with him insisting on donning a full PPE that looked like he was in chernoybl, but he was not going to risk his life anymore with his magic juices running low. Navigating using the light of his rifle and carefully avoiding stepping on the bodies, Hunter finally reached his first destination, an equipment repair shop/armoror. He blew the lock to the entrance on the side of the caged desk, and entered with his rifle at the ready.

Hunter was absolutely glad he was wearing PPE, since the interior was in worse shape than he could ever have imagined. All the weapons and armor that lined the racks completely broke into dust on a slight touch. There was a hole at the celing of the room where a water pipe seem to have blown. He guessed some poor soul was trying to bust his way out of the room and only managed to get to a water pipe judging from the body Hunter saw near the busted pipe. The water was long gone, with the water source empty, but it still managed to do its full damage on the equipments.

"What now?"

'Look around more. Its a shame about the equipment but we need those authorization codes'

After opening all the containers he could find, and after a lot of cursing and long winded arguments with the AI, Hunter finally managed find and open a airtight plastic container and get his prize. Hunter went to the next destination and found two large containers of exotic alloys and other parts Glados was always harping on about. Filled with glee at all his recent findings, Hunter rushed to the hangers and finally found a rusty old exoskeleton that was painted yellow in one of the locked garages.

"Sweet Jesus, is that what I think it is?"

'Its just an old model used to move heavy items, Hunter'

"Can you imagine what we can mount on this bad boy?"

' I have to remind you that the walker is tethered to a power supply and is also extremely slow. It looks like it needs a lot of work to get it working'

"Who cares Glados, that looks like a more advanced version of the freaking loader that ripley used to kill some aliens. Even it is old and not suitable for battle, at least we can get those crates out of here. Besides, its is cool as hell. Quick!, lets fetch the rest of our stuff and get that sucker fixed and powered up. Although Glados I have to say its such a shame whoever opened those gates before us hauled most of the valuable stuff away. Didn't you say these facilities had larger 3D printers and cold fusion reactors?"

'Small steps at a time Hunter, now lets go fix that walker up.'