System log: The Bunker, Site 3

Solar Calendar: Unknown, 2???

Current status: Active

Log 4

As the group of ‘Roadrunners’ brought in the last member of their group, Hank most likely, Gamma only added more questions to its already sizable list. The Hank, clearly older than the boss, was in clear distress with a patch-work leg brace across his left leg and noticeable first-degree burns on his right side. The man could not move under his own power and required help being dragged into the lobby, though this did confirm that the exo-suits did increase the user’s strength noticeably.

Given the position of the sun, once the Hank was inside, the rest of the group turned their attention to preparing a makeshift camp to rest for the night. Boss directed Sloan, Diva, and the other woman to set up a low tech but effective alert system once they determined the entrance to the facility would not close. It appeared that cans on a string and simple relay lines made for a good combination, especially if a simple trip laser was placed on one end with a beeper on the other. Ryan, boss, and the other unnamed men set up tents in a practiced set of maneuvers inside the central room, and were careful to not disturb anything.

In truth, Gamma would have closed the front entrance if it could, but during the opening the last hardline connection to the entrance had shorted out, leaving the door stuck in the open position. Since security concerns were unlikely to either 1. Do any damage or 2. Be able to reach anywhere important due to already existing damage, the program did not assign priority to fixing the door, especially since it also was serving as the only source of air circulation with the life support systems now, not counting the wall breeches.

According to the reports from the drone central hubs, the most dangerous sections of the foundation would be finished in time for the sun to arise if nothing else happened. Once this critical task was complete, Gamma would be able to start shifting drones onto other priorities like the thermal plant connections.

Not on this list were repairs to the bathroom facilities, so it was an odd relief to see that the ‘Roadrunners’ were seemingly equipped to deal with their waste removal through yield old tech trowels. Judging by their gossip, walking outside to relieve themselves was neither a bother nor an inconvenience so long as their camp was kept as clean as possible. It made Gamma wonder what these humans had been through for them to say and believe such things, when an all purpose ‘watercloset’, as they once called it across the pond, was mere steps away from their camp. Did humans no longer use stick figures for bathrooms? Or was the wheelchair inclusion too much for their less complex brains to understand? The list grew once again.

“Sheesh boss,” the one called Hank spoke up with a chuckle from his makeshift cot, “if all it took to find a nice camp like this was for a little tumbling off a building, I would have jumped years ago. No glaring sun, no prickly sand wind, no itchy grass, and no bugs. You sure this ain’t heaven?”

The boss snorted, “Well Hank, if I knew that too, I would have told you to break a leg a hell of a lot sooner. You always did complain about having two left feet.” This drew a chuckle from the group, who had settled down around the center of the camp, where a small pot was heating up water for their dry-food packs. “You need any help eating old man?”

“It’s my leg that’s broken, not my arm, wiseass,” Hank grumbled as he held out his food pack. “I can stir just as well, better than you at least.” The boss just chuckled and poured a cup of the hot water into the older man’s pack, whereupon Hank got to shaking before reaching in with an old plastic spoon to start stirring. The boss also doled out water to the rest of the group before pouring himself some, with the remaining water distributed to everyone’s metal or leather-like water skins.

Gamma watched the group carefully, the room’s sensors and cameras taking in every detail of the group and their actions. Nothing they used appeared to be new. Hank’s spoon upon closer examination had the remains of a fast-food logo that had gone out of business before Site 3 began construction: the longevity of plastic apparently lived on. The boiled water had been taken from a large pack from one of the un-named men, its size indicating it held enough water for the group to last several days on it alone, and it wasn’t the only one.

Alongside Hank, the Roadrunners had brough in several large rectangular and cylindrical crates on their back, the connections all lining up perfectly with their exo-suits and likely the purpose of said suits. The camp supplies had all come from two of the crates, perfectly folded and packed to maximize space and balance the weight inside each crate. This suggested to Gamma that this group was used to moving crates like these, and possibly larger ones, over long distances. The comment about Dina’s family once being in a caravan of some kind indicated that long distance trade still existed, though in likely a slower form. A caravan also implied the need for collective action, but for what? Protection, then from who or what?

A small amount of processing power had been separated out into studying the exo-suit design taken from Sloan when he’d been plugged into the record room’s computer system. It was a relatively simple design by human standards, with the materials requiring the most work in construction. The suits sacrificed aesthetics and comfort for strength, range of motion, and yes speed as well. Each suit had a small generator and battery that worked with motion to recharge. Even without power, the suits would increase strength by their nature by a factor of 1.25x, but once on each exosuit could output up to 3.5x strength and speed gain for the user. The legs were also equipped with miniature boosters that could increase speed by 5x so long as the limited fuel amount was not used up. This explosive speed likely took a lot of practice to get used to without falling painfully, and likely was connected to Hank’s broken leg given that Sloan’s suit was out of fuel.

That same processing power off to the side was used by Gamma to practice its Creativity.exe and Build.exe core program modules once it had finished analyzing the suits. The program was curious if, with its now limited resources and abilities, it could make noticeable improvements to this simple exo-suit using what the facility currently had access to. The obvious answer was yes, but Gamma was more interested in how far it could take the improvements. It had already, in the time it took the humans to prepare and eat their food, gone through ten generations of improvements ranging from miniscule to minor, resulting in design optimizations that improved all outputs by .25x without changing the design itself, but it was coming close to the end of that. There was only so much even a program as complex and intelligent as Gamma could do with such a limited and low-tech design managed solely by analog power.

That fact caused a momentary nanosecond pause in Gamma’s processing power for 15% of its capacity, which would have been a disaster had the facility been operating normally. Everything the Roadrunners had was low-tech, and everything they did do with technology was as simple as possible. Sloan and the boss had both mentioned an issue about sending out active signals. The exo-suits were a clear sign that human industrial capacity existed at some level of modern, but even that was heavily limited from any digital technology. What were the humans of today so worried about?

“I hope the others get their safely.” Gamma’s sensors keyed in suddenly on a whisper from one of the un-named men. He sounded wistful, oddly enough.

The boss turned his head and snorted before reaching out slapping the man on the back. “Hey, none of that,” the boss warned. “I put Jamie in charge for a reason. She’ll get them there, don’t you worry. And if she can’t raise a rescue from any of those wallers, she’ll come back to rescue us herself. Though, I doubt they’ll be too stubborn since we all saw this ruin. Nothing like the smell of money to drag every reckless foul out from the walls.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Not doubting her boss,” the man protested awkwardly. “But, its not like this job has been particularly lucky for us so far.”

“That wasn’t our fault,” the boss grimaced darkly. “Had I known we’d be moving something with a transmitter, I would have changed out loadouts. The bastard hid that to avoid paying more, but you can bet the guild will raise hell over it. We don’t charge more just for profit; those damn signal blocker boxes cost an arm and a leg. Guess he couldn’t wait for a caravan, so we got stuck with it.”

Gamma listened intently.

“I think I already paid the leg,” Hank offered jokingly, apparently trying to break the tension that had built up in the camp. That got some dark laughs out of the group. “And look on the Brightside boss. We found a bunker ruin through the mess; maybe I’ll finally be able to retire.”

“I think you’re getting out of the game one way or another old timer,” Ryan pointed out with a lazy wave. “You have any thoughts on what you plan to do with your suit? Yours is paid for, right?”

“Paid off years ago,” Hank agreed with a nod. “My granddaughter in her last letter seemed to want to take on the mantle, so I was thinking of handing it down to her. Keep in the family so to say.”

“Unless she sells it first chance and pockets the change?” Ryan snorted. The larger man recoiled under Hanks sudden glare. “Okay, okay I’m sorry. But I heard stories. . .”

“It’s not like that hasn’t happened before,” the boss suddenly cut in, eyeing Hank with a firm look. “Theses suits won’t make anyone rich, but its enough to feed a family for a month if kept in good condition and sold to the right people.” He then sternly turned that hard gaze to Ryan. “Of course, any Roadrunner who starts their job with a suit can ensure better pay since they don’t need to pay the rental fee to the guild. Only a dumb fool throws that away, and I very much doubt anyone’s family here wouldn’t know that.”

The two other men, respectfully chastised, both nodded sheepishly as everyone relaxed. Gamma got the impression that even with Hank’s broken leg, the other had been growing concerned not for him, but for the Ryan human. Given that nothing was popping up on its sensors, had the program missed something? Unlikely, but perhaps the sensors weren’t working to full capacity.

The boss cleared his throat. “Alright runners, it’s getting late. We should take advantage of this camp and get some sleep. I’ll take the first watch-”

“Ahem,” Hank interrupted with a cough. “Oh, my leg. It’s so painful, I don’t think I can sleep.” He gave the boss a pointed look. Gamma had watched the older man ingest a decent number of painkillers earlier. The older man was clearly lying, but no one seemed to call him out on it.

The boss seemed to repress a chuckle. “Fine, Hank has the first watch. Just wake someone up once you get sleepy old man. Clockwise rotations, as always. Feel free to sleep in people; we aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, and sleeping conserves more energy.” The boss walked over and handed Hank the beeper line, which the older man accepted.

Relaxed and tired, everyone in the group except for Hank prepared for bed, and soon enough were all asleep. Gamma’s noise detector picked up various levels of snoring from each individual after almost an hour had passed. The older man, the one named Hank, remained in his cot and waited patiently for everyone to fall asleep before reaching into a pocket and pulling out a book. It appeared to be quite an old book, one that even Gamma needed a moment to bring up from its available memory banks, but the older man appeared to be quite taken with it. Despite his apparent distraction, Gamma’s cameras easily detected the older man’s habitual and instinctive eye movement as he kept aware of his surroundings. The program noted that Hank’s awareness seemed to rate high above average compared to average human ability to both multi-task and stay aware of their surroundings, on par with others in high stress hostile environments. The older man likely hadn’t slept with both eyes shut, as the colloquial human saying went, in a very, very long time by Gamma’s estimates.

It wasn’t surprising, then, that several hours into the night, and far past when Hank should have changed watch, that the older man’s gaze snapped to the quiet beeping coming from the small device connected to the line leading out of the facility. The noise also alerted Gamma into a high state of urgency. When it had lost the hardline to the front door, it also had lost access to the entrance’s sensors and cameras. That something had tripped the laser on the other end of the line meant something had come close to the facility, and that was bad. Site 3’s current state meant Gamma had very limited access to security measures, and that was mostly limited to the area outside its core room.

The faintest ratting of cans in the distance further disturbed the program as it ran through countless contingency plans, but it did not rattle the old man keeping watch.

Quietly, silently, under the gaze of Gamma’s cameras, the older man reached down and pressed a command into his suit, causing the casing around his broken leg to suddenly shrink and tighten around the stint. The suit forced his leg into working order and was likely incredibly painful even with pain meds, but the older man only frowned as he popped an unknown pill from a shirt pocket. Just as quietly, Hank disabled the beeper and got out of his cot, making his way over to the supply crates without waking the others. The older man pulled out a weapon from one of the smaller and narrower crates; an old looking 3-burst rifle of a design the program did not recognize, only barely surmising the weapon’s nature. Clearly, it did not belong to the group, as the crate had Hank’s name across it. Was that why the others had been worried for Ryan earlier?

Weapon in hand, Hank moved away from camp into the darkness of the hub and hid behind one of the pillars. The group of Roadrunners had set up camp on the far wall opposite the entrance near the left corner, likely to help provide time in case of intruders. The hallway leading to Gamma’s core was actually hidden behind a false wall behind the camp. Hank was hidden behind a support pillar between the entrance and the camp, slightly off the direct path. The old man patiently waited, and watched. The intruder soon made itself known.

At first, Gamma’s cameras didn’t pick up the intruder as it entered. It had taken only milliseconds for the program to notice the blurry nature of the images and come up with countermeasures by combining the worsened image with sensitive sound section sensors and multi-wavelength light detection to restore visual clarity.

A sleek, metallic form was slowly making its way into the lobby. At first glance, it seemed to resemble a human-sized praying mantis, though with a short thorax and two legs instead of six. It also had two small radar dishes instead of eyes on its head, with all three slowly moving back and forth as it silently walked forward. The image did not match anything (-error- data missing) in Gamma’s memory bank, but it clearly was not of human design. If anything, the machine seemed to resemble a caricature of a mantis; a gross violation of the native fauna’s form.

Gamma classified it as probable alien 1.

Hank seemed to classify it as a problem. The older man, having checked and loaded his gun earlier, did not bother checking it again as he waited behind the pillar. Oddly enough, he wasted attempting to peek around the corner, and in fact kept his eyes closed, tracking alien 1 seemingly only by sound with his weapon raised and ready.

Alien 1 seemed to pick up on the snoring as it tilted its head toward the camp. Just as it was making its way toward the other humans however, Gamma received the hourly update from the drone hubs. Alien 1 froze in time with the update drop, and its head suddenly twitched in the direction of the core room. The program processed this and came to an immediate conclusion: alien 1 could pick up wireless signals from the drones.

Alien 1 immediately began twisting its head back and forth to try and triangulate the source and destination of the signal. It appeared to be confused since the bouncing remnants of the signal resonated through the damaged building’s sections. However, the false wall hiding the hallway was made of a different material than the rest of the facility, and in the lobby became the shining light in the darkness. Alien 1 picked up the pace quickly into almost a full run, a low whine starting to build up before a sudden series of bursts from Hank shattered the creature’s head and torso from the side.

Alien 1 let out the briefest high-pitched whine before it fell violently into pieces across the floor, limps twitching as electricity randomly discharged away. The camp erupted into activity as everyone rolled out of their cots and took stock of the situation.

“Hank, report!” the boss shouted.

“One stalker scout down sir,” Hank reported with deathly calm as he switched his rifle’s safety on. “Trouble though. It managed to get out a whine before I got it.”

The boss cursed some new words Gamma had never heard before and quickly recorded for later. “Do you think anything managed to pick up the whine?” the boss finally asked. Everyone trembled suddenly at a faint, high-pitched whine echoing from down the entrance tunnel. It only lasted a few moments, but it was enough even Gamma had to reduce sensitivity in the sensors or risk damage.

“Yeah, I think it summoned its swarm,” Hank grumbled, switching his rifle off of safety.