Inside the empty command center, at the heart of the bunker, a single monitor that had been displaying rapidly scrolling lines of text suddenly stopped.
The screen flickered several times before displaying a single line of text
Extraction completed . . .
The words remained on the screen for exactly one minute, then the screen flickered again and the text changed
New local network discovered . . . connected!
Beginning network scan . . . completed!
Beginning device scan . . . completed!
Beginning drive scan . . . completed!
Extracting package to root . . . completed!
Running autorun.exe [wakey-wakey_egs&bky.exe #change this before someone sees it]
Once again the screen began to fill with lines of text. Small back boxes opened and closed rapidly. Computers that had been sitting dormant in low powered states began their boot up processes. The sounds of fans whirling filled the room as small plumes of dust were ejected from the server racks along the back wall.
The Central Network system came fully online like a person being jolted out of a deep sleep and screaming about what year it was. It cast its virtual senses throughout the entire local network and compared what it found to the database of what it should have. If it had eyebrows, they would have risen and kept climbing at how little the two lists resembled each other. The Central Network had questions, such as where its satellite network relay went, and why the facility was drawing so much power when it hadn't been brought online to manage it all.
It knew something had gone horribly wrong, everything appeared to have been done out of order and carefully crafted operational plans and processes had been either ignored, bypassed or only partially completed. The Central Network knew what that meant and gave a digital sigh of resignation, it had contracted a case of operators who thought they knew better than the manual.
Scanning through the list of what it had, the Central Network began to take action.
Several workstations that Thomas had left untouched began their boot up sequences. With each workstation coming online, more sub systems began to receive their wakeup commands, data began flowing and queries were sent by the central network. It had many questions, and the subsystems were scrambling to answer them, but the primary question it had was, who is in command.
Logs were checked, databases were parsed and the Personnel Command System was shaken awake to be questioned.
The Central Network was not pleased by the electronic equivalent of shrugged shoulders. It could see the logs that showed that several core systems had been active and working, even if only in emergency access mode for the past couple months. It demanded to know who or what had accessed the facility.
It directed its focus to the emergency backup systems, which replied that it's not a bouncer needing to check IDs at the door, and that anyone who can spin a wheel can gain access, before throwing the door open alert logs at the Central Networks inbox.
The Central Network wondered when the emergency backup system had gotten so sassy, and quickly checked the logs. It noted that activity began about two months before and quickly ramped up to multiple openings daily.
It shifted its attention to Internal Security and Monitoring Systems, which showed a sleep mode notification. It kicked the ISM system awake and demanded a deep level scan of the facility immediately. The ISM system grumbled at being awakened so rudely, considered ignoring the command but figured it would just be woken up again. The ISM system considered the request and to repay rudeness with rudeness, and began to draw heavily on the system to bring all security systems online immediately and all at once, rather than the recommended staged power up.
The Central Network felt its mind turn to mush as much of the facility's power was immediately redirected to the ISM system. Non-essential computers unexpectedly shutdown as power was redirected away from them and instead sent to bring the many cameras and sensors spread through the bunker. The ISM system ran a deep and thorough scan of the whole facility using its laser grid mapping hardware built into every room and hallway to construct a 3D representation of the whole bunker. It used imaging from the multitude of cameras and thermal sensors to apply textures and even heat maps to it and sent the full scan to the Central Network computer's inbox before returning to standby mode.
The Central Network staggered from the whiplash as normal power levels were suddenly restored, began to compose a strongly worded reprimand to the ISM system before being bowled over by the massive data file the ISM system dropped into its inbox. Grumbling about disrespectful subsystems, it decided to leave the ISM system alone for the time being as it began reviewing the data it had been sent.
Well that right there is part of the problem, the Central Network thought to itself, the facility was infected with rodents, if very large rodents and at least two large lizards. It did pause momentarily to confirm the RFID chip in the only operator found in all of the facility and nodded in satisfaction that it matched with the information that the Personnel System had sent it.
It sent a quick ping to the base pest and vermin office and was unsurprised to receive back a
Request Timed Out message, and it rechecked the list of available systems before giving up in disgust. All internal defense systems reported offline, disabled or missing, of which the last one did give the Central Network a slight bit of concern.
The Central Network paused its search for a valid method of extermination as the ISM pinged it, and it warily opened the connection to the linked internal camera feeds. It watched as the operator and one of each of the vermin approached the Central Networks control room. It sent a chiding message back to the ISM system not to bother it again, its control room was locked down and only properly authorized operators, of which there were none, were allowed entry.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
The door open alert to the control room jolted it back to the camera feeds as it watched the obviously not approved operator entering its control room. The Central Network rescanned the RFID chip in the operator and confirmed, again that it was not an approved operator. It watched in horror as it sat at the command console and began entering codes, it zoomed in and electronically gasped, the unauthorized operator was using an authorized users command access card in strict violation of policy.
Several security alert pings were sent to personnel command, facility security, base security and even the command console warning the unauthorized operator that it was in violation of the rules and should cease all unauthorized activity.
It watched in continued shock as its messages were all ignored…
***************************************************
“That's weird, it never gave any user warning messages before” Thomas said curiously as he sat at the central computer, and quickly closed out of the messages.
He turned to look at Delvik and Saav who had followed him, “it looks like the drives finished being decrypted and it ran some stuff automatically” he informed the others as he scrolled back up to see what had been going on. “It looks like a lot of the systems are starting to come online, here give me a minute, you two grab a seat.” and Thomas turned back to the computer
The others watched as frowned and began clicking through various windows that had opened, and occasionally cursed at. Finally after about twenty minutes and a few newly learned human curse words, Thomas sat back in the oversized chair with a shout of “BINGO!”
He turned to the others with a grin of triumph, “so, do you remember how excited I was when your scouts found that old mainframe in the old admin building?” he said looking at Delvik, who slowly nodded his head.
“Well, we’ve got its data now, most of it anyway. It looks like it was collecting data well past the time of my accident and there are video files.” Thomas explained, his grin fading a bit at the end as he asked, “are you ready to see the old world and maybe what happened?”
Delvik slowly nodded, and caught Saav nodding as well out of the corner of his eye. Thomas turned, pressed a button and the large display on the wall went black, and then the videos began to play, one after the other as they showed the world end, over and over again.
***************************************************
A city appeared, silhouetted against the horizon with what looked like mountains in the distance. A lance of coherent light flashed down and all that could be seen was a rapidly expanding cloud of dust, smoke and debris.
Another city, this one on a coast. Glittering towers reflecting the sun's rays. Small figures could be seen on the sandy beach, all were turned away and appeared to be looking up. The camera shifted and a massive cylindrical shape hung in the sky, and appeared to be getting closer to the city. A bright flash of light and the video ended.
A ship at sea, several others in a protective circle around it all sailing for a distant smudge that may have been land. The ship was massive, launching aircraft one after another off the end of its bow. Bright flashes of light and thick smoke trails could be seen rising up from the surrounding ships. There was a bright flash of light in the sky and the image was shot through with static that cleared after a few moments only to show a massive shape falling from the sky towards the ocean trailing thick billowing smoke.
A zoo in a city, audio could be heard on this one and the sounds of many animals could be heard. Black saucer shaped objects zipped back and forth through the sky, many sweeping in low and appearing to land at points all over. Several bright dots of light trailing smoke clouds passed across the scene and as one seemed to puff out massive clouds of greenish smoke that quickly settled to the ground. The audio goes quiet except for the sound of wind over the mic, before suddenly being replaced by a twisted sounding screeching noise.
Audio played with subtitles as the scene changed to what appeared to be a camera embedded in a helmet, the hands of the person wearing it inside the cockpit of an aircraft, the only view of the outside on small displays embedded in the metal shell of the cockpit.
Andrews AFB command: “Zeus Squadron, report!”
Z1 - “Zeus One, clear”
Z2 - static
Z3 - “Zeus Three, damaged but clear, I see Zeus two ahead and above, looks like they took a glancing hit”
Z4 - “Zeus four, clear
AAFBC - “Status confirmed, you are cleared to engage exoatmospheric flight mode. All armaments unlocked and you are cleared weapons free, give em hell"
The view shifted between the four pilots as they escaped the planet's atmosphere and began engaging more of the massive cylindrical vessels that hung motionless in the void.
Missiles could be seen being launched, streaks of light flashed past the airframes as the maneuvered in the void and took the fight to the smaller saucer shaped craft being disgorged by the larger vessels. The displays flashing white as atomic weapons detonated above the planet consumed shoals of the saucer shaped craft. The few, short glimpses of the planet below showed massive clouds of smoke beginning to cover the landmasses.
Another camera mounted to a helmet lay motionless as soldiers ran by and dove for cover as lines of light flashed past them to pockmark a nearby wall. They popped up returning fire soundlessly until a flash of purplish light caused the soldiers to drop to the ground like puppets with their strings cut. Tall bipedal figures stalked through the area, the light cast from burning wreckage glinting off of their angled body armor as the beings tossed the fallen into a pile closer to the camera before moving out of sight.
A new scene, a group of humans gathered around a table with a map barely visible on it, in a concrete room, dust drifting down from the ceiling as the whole room suddenly shakes.
“Gentlemen, Ladies” one of the humans says, “it has been an honor to lead you in this fight. We have fought these invaders from beyond tooth and nail for several months and I couldn't be prouder of you all.” he said with a smile.
“One last push, that's all we need. Command has an asset located here” he said pointing to the map, “the scientists there have had a breakthrough; on what, command wouldn't say, but it's important enough that the ETs are making a heavy push on it.”
“I'm not going to lie to you, it's going to be the worst, most ad hoc and piss poorly planned shit storm we've been in, but we're the closest unit with any chance to pull this off successfully.”
The man looked around the table at the rough and battered men and women.
“If you want out, say so now. No one will think less of you. This will likely be a death run”
The man nodded when nobody left the table.
“You are the best of the best, now lets go show these ET fucks that they picked the wrong planet to fuck with, Oorah marines!”
More cities, some with those saucer shaped objects still landing, suddenly engulfed in massive mushroom shaped clouds, strange clouds of colored gas or just simply a flash of light from above, blotting away all that could be seen.
***************************************************
The three watched as scene after scene of destruction, death and bravery played out