I've got no idea what to do with this. The Remnants said we should keep a log of our findings and explorations, but I don't know what that entails. They said we can be informal, it does not need to be a checklist or a file, a diary-like structure works, but it feels weird to be forced to write. If it wasn't for the machine's autocorrect (which is far from perfect) I doubt I could even write whole coherent sentences. I came here for the money; I'm not educated enough for an essay.

First day:

Apparently the first mission is going to last four whole days, so I decided to document every day separately. This way no one can reprimand me from not taking notes.

Our first destination was an underground bunker of some sorts. The installation was big, kilometers and kilometers long without seeing the end of a corridor. Not that I could, even with the torchlights incorporated in our suits, the darkness of the underground unlit corridors is too thick to disappear.

The bunker was mostly empty and the things that remained were broken at best. It was just a straight line of endless concrete.

This job is uncommon. I knew it before I signed in, but the idea is still alien to me. The job is simple, go to the Old World and recover things. Literally anything. I asked this multiple times to the machine, read any manuals (with a lot of effort), and asked my crewmates, but the answer was always the same: anything that’s not bolted to the ground is free game.

This became clear when Teradoi, one of the crewmates, brought a rotted door to the cargo area. I thought he was insane, I had searched for more expensive things like sheets of metal, but no, Kerian, the “navigator” said it was a valid recovery.

I ended the first day only having brought a handful of broken bed frames to the ship.

Second day:

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At first, I thought the suit was comfortable, but after wearing it for two days straight, incommodity set in quickly. Directives said that we could only remove the suit in the ship after we ended our shift as the scene could be contaminated and toxic. That I could accept, but not being able to piss or eat for twelve hours was irritating.

And having a feast is not exactly possible. We are given limited rations to last the whole mission. They are not fancy, but free food is free food.

I brought more stuff the second day, mainly because now I knew I should bring like anything at all. The cargo area of the ship is big, bigger than houses, but I’m sure we will hit a limit if we continue to bring anything we find.

Third day:

I was wrong on the limit thing. After we stripped cleaned the first rooms of the bunker, it became quite more difficult to find any “loot”. (I am not comfortable with calling a gnawed pipe loot.) Maybe I should refer to it like the machine does. Recoveries sound far better than loot.

Anyhow, the third day we walked a lot. Everyone took a different direction and stripped the contents of those bunker wings. Everyone except Kerian, of course.

I know that she’s educated and has a higher position than us, but it’s not fair she can “do inventory” and “revise machinery” whilst we walk all day and haul heaps of trash.

The only thing worth mentioning found today was that Zal found a broken clock. Nothing out of place there, if it wasn’t because it was made out of gold.

Unfortunately for Zal, we are not paid for the quality of the recoveries, nor for the quantity. Just for the hours. Well, quantity does help. Kerian said something about extras when Teradoi hauled a whole bunker bed in one piece.

Fourth day:

Rereading the third day entry, I noticed that was the first time I mentioned all the crewmates. Maybe I should have written something about it in my first entry. Whoops? I am not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, nor the most motivated.

There are four of us in the crew: me, Teradoi, Zal, and Kerian.

The first three of us are like the brute force. Men that haul all the Old World recoveries back to the ship. Kerian is the woman. As much as I would like to say she’s the “easy conquest” type of girl, she’s more of the “I will eat your balls” type of girl, and I like my balls.

The fourth day came and went far faster than the others, maybe because I’m already getting used to the job. Considering it’s a single month endeavor, I think we are set.

Tomorrow we will spend the whole day in orbit as we unload the ship on the main transit station, then the next we will go to our second mission. I’m not excited about it, but this means we are basically over with one eight of our term. If the Remnants are going to pay us as much as they said, then I’m going to be rich in thirty-six more days of this boredom-and-sore-back-filled job.

Money is a great incentive.