System log: The Bunker, Site 3

Solar Calendar: Unknown, 2???

Current status: Active

Log 20

Captain Donaldson wasn’t sure he would ever get used to seeing the world around him zoom by without the feeling of the wind on his face. The moving air was the ever-constant companion to every runner, no matter how long or how far they ran. As impressive as the knight mecha suit was, the leader of the Roadrunners with over forty years of experience on the job could not find the comfort in being sealed away from the rest of the world. He didn’t voice this to anyone else of course, not when Dina and Sloan were all smiles racing around the sandy grassland. He wouldn’t allow his personal feelings to get in the way of the obvious and numerous benefits of using the mecha, especially if it kept his people alive.

“Dina, Sloan, pause break,” he announced through the mecha. The other two runners slowed down with him as the trio waited for the other two members of their scouting group. A few minutes later, the two runners in exo-suits caught up.

“Boss, you sure are fast in that suit huh?” Hilda laughed as she jogged up and clapped her captain on the back. For once, the hulk’s friendly blow didn’t budge Donaldson one bit, and it was the tall woman who had to shake her hand with a grimace. “Sheesh, hard as a rock too. Can’t wait to see if I get one!”

Behind her, the smaller techie Steve walked over, a more sweat-covered brow apparent on his face. The man sighed and wiped his brow, not saying anything.

“How are you doing Steve?” Donaldson asked, eyeing the younger man’s complexion carefully. “You doing okay.”

“I can continue,” Steve said simply. The captain shrugged and nodded. Out of the four techies, Steve was the quietest one, and was direct when he did say something. It wasn’t a surprise Steve was more fatigued thank Hilda; hulks were just built different, sometimes literally. Every runner had to meet a minimum fitness and physical condition requirement to join a run, but the scouting party was moving faster than usual. He’d have to keep an eye out for Steve just in case the younger man didn’t understand his own physical limits.

The group of five shifted over to the shade provided by a dilapidated structure. They’d been running for two hours now, and the landscape had slowly shifted into the more familiar ruins-style environment commonly found on the paths connecting cities and settlements. Those ruins had long since been cleaned out of valuables and dangers, making them a welcome resting point for traveling groups. These ruins, on the other hand, were different.

The captain eyed the unfamiliar architecture the group rested beneath, and the marred landscape all around. This area didn’t appear to be laid out like an old city; the building remains didn’t appear to be aligned with any consistency. Sand and grass did little to hide large indents in the ground, to say nothing of the craters peppering many of the structures that still stood. Twisted, malformed metal rising from the sand spoke of a time Donaldson could not even imagine; of metal things that flew through the air called planes and spaceships.

“What did this place look like back then?” he questioned silently.

“Sir?” Dina asked.

The captain blinked. He hadn’t realized he would be heard. “Nothing, just thinking,” he shook his head. “How are we all feeling?” He waited for everyone to confirm their condition before nodding. “Alright, then we move in five minutes.”

When the group resumed their run, Donaldson resumed his investigation of the mecha’s settings. With Dina’s help, he and Sloan had been brought up to date with the basics of mecha control. Small menus could be opened and navigated using eye or finger movement, allowing for the user to customize what they wanted to see overlapping with the world around them. For the captain, he’d set a small map to the bottom right of his vision that when blown up displayed the immediate surroundings and marked sources of movement with small triangles. His group of five were all green, set to ‘friendly’, and if he or the suit detected something else moving, it would be noted with a yellow triangle for unknown, or a red triangle for hostile. He’d also placed a simplified vitals rectangle to his bottom left to assist him in keep track of his bodies condition. There were many more options, and some rather complex customization settings, but the older man didn’t bother trying to use them. Simple was best to avoid distraction in the wild, after all.

The most useful setting, he’d found, was the auto-run setting. If he set a destination on the map, the knight mecha would move at whatever speed he wanted without him actively needing to move. Running became automatic, just like breathing when one didn’t focus on the action. This allowed him to focus his attention more on his surroundings and the other runners under his care.

It was this that allowed Donaldson to notice the yellow triangle as soon as it appeared, and to react as the color changed to red.

“Hostiles!” the older man shouted as he turned and tackled a very surprised Steve. With the suit’s minimum loss of momentum, the two runners flew over the ground and rolled away, just as a jagged piece of rusty metal surged upwards out of the sand where Steve had been about to walk. Everyone dived out of the way as more metal appeared in the sand, the other three leaping up onto concrete and stone. Donaldson and Steve scrambled up soon after onto a fallen wall, and waited.

The metal sticking out of the sand seemed to resemble corroded teeth that gleamed ominously in the sun. Several had even broken into piece upon exiting the ground. After a few moments, the metal blades retracted into the sand and vanished.

“Sloan, Steve?” Donaldson asked carefully.

“Old human anti-drone trap, Dragon’s Teeth,” Sloan reported after a moment. “Used during the war to counter enemy drone patrols. When triggered, a powerful electro-magnet would hold drones in place, while a chemical-charge or spring-loaded spike was launched into the enemy.” The younger man seemed to be reciting the information from memory, and was not-so-subtly looking towards Steve. “These seem to be spring-loaded types, since the chemical ones would have gone bad and have to be reloaded manually. The magnets either corroded away or don’t have power.”

Steve seemed to incline his head in thought, then nodded. “Implies, military presence,” he said after a moment. The other techie groaned and hung his head.

“Right, that too,” the younger man admitted.

“How large is this trap field then you think?” the captain asked, eyeing the sand carefully.

“Not big,” Steve reassured him. “Less minefield, more entrance barrier.” The techie pointed to the next building. “Most likely, stops there.”

Thankfully, the distance was reachable by hopping across the various broken building pieces in the area, even for the exo-suits. Sloan went first and confirmed the area ahead was clear of more dragon’s teeth, and the group continued. What Steve had said, though, stayed in Donaldson’s thoughts. When the scouting party had taken a break, they’d moved off the path the drone tracks had left to take refuge in the shade. They’d followed the tracks on a parallel path, straight into the dragon’s teeth trap. If this place was a military base of the old world, and the trap had been at the entrance to destroy drones, how did the ruin drones know to avoid them? Did that mean, the ruins were connected to the old world’s military?

The thought concerned Donaldson. After all, military ruins were the most dangerous type, given the extra security and top-of-the-line weaponry used back then. The explanation would explain the scary-looking guns at the entrance, and the fabricator’s ability to create the knight mecha, but it didn’t explain the look of the lobby, and the ruins’ light touch when Ryan was caught eating that old ration.

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“Hey boss, I think our destination is coming up,” came Dina’s voice, distracting Donaldson from his thoughts. The older man looked up, and noted the abrupt turn in the tracks leading to a smaller section of the area. The loose remains of an old concrete fence outlined what appeared to be an old factory complex, one that looked relatively more intact than most everything else in their surroundings. Notably, the tracks seemed to end at an old door made of a single continuous folded sheet of metal, a ‘garage’ as it was known to wallers, merchants, and caravan bases.

The captain eyed the closed door with suspicion before casually attempting to raise it with the knight’s strength. The door came up slightly, but seemed to be caught on something unseen. Evidently, the drones from the ruins hadn’t entered this way, though their tracks had vanished on the cracked concrete.

“Spread out and search for a way in,” Donalson ordered.

It didn’t take long for Hilda to find a door with a somewhat recently melted handle and lock, an obvious sign someone or something had breached the building to enter. Taking the lead, the muscular woman waited for her captain’s signal, armored gloves ready, and rolled inside to the right while Dina followed taking the left side. The two women eyed their surroundings carefully as the men followed, Steve’s flashlight and the lights from all three knight mechas lighting up the room.

It appeared to be a breakroom of some kind, likely a place humans once entered to begin their day at work: cracked mugs on dusty counters, powerless interactive wall terminals, round tables with chairs. It reminded the captain of old holo-vids he’d seen a couple times. Out of place were, of course, the bullet holes on the walls, floors, and crumbled skeletons in the room.

“Sheesh, messy fight,” Hilda noted.

“What makes you say that?” Dina asked curiously.

The larger woman shrugged and pointed at several of the skeletons. “I doubt the civies wielding wrenches and hammers could put up much of a fight. Odd though to see actual bullet holes though; didn’t the old world have lasers and beams and all?”

“To be,” Sloan started, only for Steve to wave his hand quickly, causing the younger man to clear his throat. “Um, yes, lasers and beams. Uh, they were around I think, but chemical ammunition back then and today is the cheapest long-range hand weapons. That’s why we use them.”

Meanwhile, the other techie was kneeling down and examining one of the bullet hole groupings. “These aren’t chemical,” he noted with a chin scratch. “Too much burning, too deep. Can’t tell if railgun or coilgun though, too old.”

“I’ll ask for a refresher on the difference later,” Donaldson said dryly. “Though it does raise the question of who did the killing; human or bug.”

“Not all bugs,” Steve reminded his captain with a snort.

“Right right,” the older man waved off the comment. “Death machine from the stars, whatever. Anyway, I think we can assume the drones went through that door.” He pointed at the only other exit from the room. Once again, Hilda and Dina took point, and the two burst out onto either side.

“Boss, you need to see this,” Dina said a few moments later.

Curious now, Donaldson poked his head out the door and looked around. Inside his mecha, his eyebrow shot up. “Well, I’ll be star damned,” he muttered.

Outside the breakroom was neither an office or hallway. Instead, a giant room stretched left and right, going up at least three stories, with sunlight peeking through several broken parts in the ceiling. Giant cranes and machinery, and the rusty remains of old. . . things, were scattered all around the space in an assembly style. This place had clearly been once a factory of some kind, though time had taken its toll on everything it seemed.

“I wonder if this was a military factory of some kind,” Donaldson mused aloud as the others joined him. “Those look like some kind of truck, though smaller than the ones used by the caravans. They were made here?”

“Boss,” Sloan spoke up. “I don’t think those trucks were made here. I think those trucks were part of the manufacturing process.” The captain turned to find both techies looking over their terminals. “Short range scans are showing those trucks to be still holding old processed materials like steel sheets and wire rolls. I think, whatever was made here, needed all three stories.”

Everyone tilted their heads up to look. The second story notable had no catwalks crossing the space, while the third story had several towards the back, and very few beyond that. Donaldson felt a lump in his throat as he considered what could possibly have required so much height to be produced. To him, only one of the larger inter-continental caravan’s rolling fortresses rarely seen this far north made any sense, but that didn’t seem to be fit.

“Interesting as this all is,” Hilda broke in, interrupting everyone’s thoughts. “This doesn’t seem too useful. I mean, I don’t think plugging a battery in will get things moving again-”

As if to mock her words, a sudden humming seemed to shake the building for a moment. Then, a couple of overhead lights flickered to life, a few fizzling out several moments later. Metal creaks and groans filled the room, as if rousing a great beast from its long slumber. Sloan and Steve desperately began to search for the source of the commotion even as broken parts of the building began to ominously shudder around them. They quickly found an old terminal that hadn’t sparked and plugged into it.

“Power surge in the control room,” Sloan quickly reported. “Unknown source has restarted systems and is cloning system data. Should I attempt to impede them?”

“Don’t,” Donaldson shook his head. “It’s likely the drones doing this. I don’t know why, but let’s not get in the way. Where’s the control room?”

“There are three, one per floor,” Sloan said a moment later. “The surge coming from the second floor’s control room, which is that way.” He pointed to the closest set of stairs.

The group of five shot up the stairs, leaping up flights with several bounds and quickly making their way over to the only room with flashing lights illuminating the cracked window. Peeking inside, they saw two familiar rolling hat drones plugged into an old terminal system, and a new flying hat drone doing. . . something to the control panel with what appeared to be eight different tools. The captain couldn’t make heads or tails of the situation, choosing to rely on his techies as they stared in fascination at the terminal screen’s flashing information. Of course, when the screen showed several large metal blueprints for several frames longer, Donaldson began to understand the factory’s purpose.

They all jumped at the sound of a loud crash, as one of the cranes attached to the ceiling rolled off its broken track and crashed to the ground.

“Sir, I’m not sure this place is safe to remain inside,” Dina cautioned. “We should evacuate.”

Donaldson’s first instinct was to agree, but a nagging feeling in head made him hesitate. He didn’t understand the big picture, but something in his gut told him that whatever the drones were doing needed to be done, and they very likely needed help. When the small flying hat drone put out a sudden fire on the terminal, the captain made up his mind.

“Steve, Sloan, go inside and help,” he ordered. Everyone stared at him blankly. “I doubt those drones have enough juice and storage to finish, whatever it is they’re doing,” he explained. “Plug your terminals into them and let the drones use your CPU and memory. If that isn’t enough, Dina and I can connect our mechas too.”

The two techies shared a glance, and nodded.

“Yes sir,” Steve said.

The two men ran in with cables extended. The drones didn’t react to their presence, but did seem to start after the two humans plugged in their terminals, one wrist mounted and one mecha mounted, into their metal chassis. It barely took a second before the images on-screen moved faster than what any of the humans could process, only for Steve to hiss and unplug himself quickly. When he yanked his arm free, Donaldson saw the light burn the terminal had given the man.

“Plug in, quickly,” Steve urged.

Dina and Donaldson obeyed and added their processing power to the drones. The entire facility continued to shake as things started to fracture outside.

“The ground is cracking!” Hilda reported from the door. “Void, I think this place is shaking itself to pieces!”

“Almost done!” Steve reported as he gazed at some unseen indicator, “And, clear!” As he said it, the drones unplugged from the terminal and backed off quickly. Instantly, the previously dusty grey metal that had turned red changed to orange and caught fire, the stress of forceful power insertion making itself known. The humans quickly detached from the drones as well, only to be pulled unexpectantly by the smaller machines out of the room.

“Time to go!” the captain announced as everyone, human and drone, jumped down from the second floor and made a beeline for the break room. The little hat drone was the last, and was crushed by falling scaffolding right before it entered the room. Everyone else made it outside, and continued to run as the ancient factory vibrated and smoked behind them. They didn’t stop until they reached the old concrete wall surrounding the factory, turning back just in time to watch the building collapse inwards with a groaning boom. There was a brief dust cloud, and then all that was left was a file of smoking concrete and metal.

“Crap, that was close,” Hilda noted. “Cutting it kind of close boss.”

“A risk,” he agreed. “Hopefully it works. . . out.” The captain broke off as he noticed that the drones were still with the group. They appeared to be waiting, somehow. Cocking his neck, Donaldson walked away, and a drone followed him. He walked back to the group, and the drone followed again.

“Techies?” he asked.

“Directive, retrieve data,” Steve explained through a cough. “We, now carry part of the data. They won’t leave until, cough, the delivery’s complete.”

“Is that so?” Donaldson said slowly, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Hm, neat.”