What greeted his sight was an extremely long hallway, so long that even with his flashlight he wasn't able to see the end of it. Above him were things that could only be identified as some kind of light system, but it seemed that it didn't have enough power to be active. Or maybe it just wasn't turned on. Aiden wasn't able to test that, because there wasn't a single thing that would even remotely resemble a light switch. Along the walls of this corridor many doors were located, almost all of them closed, but the first one on his left was slightly ajar. They looked like a simple double doors, often present in labs and professional facilities, with mechanisms similar to card readers on their right.
Firstly he decided to scan the atmosphere for any traces of harmful substances, or lacks of subelements in it. It came back with no negative reaction, or even a sight of anything dangerous. The weird thing was that there wasn't a trace of any virus or bacteria, as if the entire area was completely sterile, even after the diver brought with himself oceanic microbes. Did the chamber disinfected him after he came here? But it still should be near impossible to get rid of all the nano organisms inside the area seemingly previously inhabitated by living beings.
Aiden decided to investigate the only opened door, to gather more information about this place. Looking into a gap he could see some sort of a working place, with steel desk, a computer on top of it and drawers installed on its side. Strangely enough, it was almost identical to other offices in cities of his hometown. The same simplistic design, the same structure, even the same kind of computer. To his knowledge no one managed to build anything this deep into the ocean. He should know, because it was Aiden's job to surveil any location for potential new habitats and areas where enemy cities were located. On this depth it should be impossible to create a self sustainable structure, even with current technology. So how could something like this even exist at the first place?
To check for more answers he decided to pry open the door. Taking a hold of the gap he used a bit of his strenght to further expand it. They opened up with less resistance than he thought. Taking a step in the first thing he did was to check if the computer still had power inside of its spare batteries. They didn't. No matter what he did he could not active the device, which once again was unusual, because they were specifically made to survive for at least a decade without use and external power.
Taking a small risk he used some of the energy inside of his suit to power it. Almost immediately the computer came back to live. Unfortunately, it turned out that during the blackout almost all of the data went missing. The only information that he managed to scavenge were useless strips of data logs and notes. Surprisingly, all of it was written in his native language. How is that even possible?
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Aiden began to suspect that the mission regarding this place wasn't meant as a reconnaissance, but rather a rescue mission of this facility. Why didn't they inform him of it? Is there something so important that even he wasn't privy to the information?
Inside of the lockers he managed to pull out a single keycard and an identifier. On both of these objects the identity of their last owner was written. Someone called Dave Schwarz, presumably an IT specialist tasked with maintaining the database. The largest thing placed on those cards was a single number, namely '3'. Except that there was nothing more that could help Aiden with understanding this situation, or learning of about this location, so he exited the room.
Currently he was met with two choices, one is to continue to investigate what happened and risk learning something he shouldn't, or exit the station and inform the higher ups of the status of the building.
Aiden decided to continue his research in hopes that he could find a more specific information regarding what exactly happened here, to minimize the risks of future expeditions to this place.
His next course of action was to try to enter the next locked room. This time it wasn't as easy as before, but he managed to dig into the space between doors, using his suits power, and forced it to open. Insides were much the same as before, with only difference being that the desk inside had all of its drawers removed from their casings. Once again checking for power, the computer didn't turn on. Thankfully, Aiden took with him the spare battery from the last room and plugged inside this one.
This time however there was literally nothing on the device. No data, no logs, it's like someone wiped it clear, instead of simple data corruption. He didn't even manage to find anything about the previous occupant of this office.
Trying his luck several more times Aiden was able to only gather a few more identifiers and keys. In not a single one of them was any trace of living being, not even mold or small critters. Even with datalogs he wasn't able to puzzle out what happened, or even when it happened. As if something got rid of any evidence and witness. Along the way he was also testing if any of the devices had any power left in them, or if any of the switches were still functional. He was left with nothing, no energy left in any structure.
Why would nothing in this place have power? Previously when he entered this place the outside doors were still functioning. Is it that only a part of the infrastructure was destroyed by some means or something happened that limited the amount of systems active? Or maybe...
With sudden panic Aiden run towards the exit to the facility with all the power he could muster. Not looking around him, only focusing on this simple task, he didn't waste even a second to test his theory. When he finally reached his destination he immediately hit the button responsible for the activation of the chamber.
But nothing happened.
He tried it again and again, each time more desperate than before, but no matter how much he tried, how strong he hit the button, it didn't react a single bit. No sound from the mechanisms operating the door, no pumps responsible for water level, no response to any of his struggles.
He was stuck here, and something locked him away.