The door opens into an inky black hallway with what appear to be emergency lights on in the distance. So I start walking cautiously, afraid to slip onto the floor. I keep to the right side, while my lack of shoes makes walking across the cold wet floor an arduous task. I am however thankful of the little warmth that the long coat provides. The center of the hallway appears to be made of the same mesh that was in the cryohall, and to the left and right are doors that won't open.
Hey. What does Jade stand for?
[I do not know. It’s not included in my factory tag]
Well let's try to figure something out then, because the tension of walking down a poorly lit hallway in an unknown facility, is very nerve wracking.
[Ok. Go ahead]
Something Dermal Endo Plant?
Journal Aid defying entropy?
[No. Not either of those]
Just avoid dementia forever?
[Good enough. Also you are about to walk into a wall]
I quickly refocus and narrowly avoid walking into a wall. I can see better now that I have reached the emergency lights. There's A thick green line near the floor on the concrete walls that stretch 3 and a half meters upward. There are wires that follow along the hallway, going further down the hallway in both directions.
Flip a coin please
[Go to the left]
What side did it land on?
[Tails]
Well that is left, so I guess I'll go that way.
[Tails was indeed assigned to left]
I forgot that you can just view my thoughts
[A horrible curse indeed]
My thoughts aren't that bad …
There was a suspicious lack of a response as i started down the hallway to the left. There was some debris on the floor. Waterlogged panels, wires, the occasional clock, amid the thin veil of water sitting on top of the uneven cracked floor. There were some spots with heavy wreckage, where it appears the level above this one collapsed downward. Fortunately there was somehow always a path through, although sometimes I had to crawl through. There was a small outage in the emergency lights, and then there was a wide doorway to the left. Turning to the left I saw something that made my mouth start to water.
There were rows of tables, in a large room supported by pillars and awash in the red lighting. In the back there was what appeared to be a huge machine that dispensed food. My thoughts immediately honed in on the machine and ignoring everything else, I beeline towards it. I run over to it, and pull one of the levers on the side. I hear the valve grind open, and some moldy slop falls onto the mesh underneath it. It smells horrific, and I nearly barf.
Quickly I look around but can't see any doors in the poor lighting.
Hey Jade. Can you see what I see?
[Yes]
Do you see any doors or seams in the walls where you could get behind the machine
After several seconds of silence jade speaks up
[Walk forward]
I walk forward a meter, before jade yells [Stop]
[Ok turn 30 degrees to the left]
I turn 30 degrees to my left, and I see it. A thin seam. I quickly run over and start pulling to no avail. The door simply won't budge. Looking around the seam I realize something. I walk up to the door and push, and it swings open on its interior hinges. Having solved the first mental hurdle, I look around the even dimmer interior. It was much colder here, and there was a small box hanging open attached to the wall. After investigating for food, I went over to the small panel.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
Inside the panel there were rows of switches, with the majority of them to the left. I quickly looked through them all until I found cafeteria lights, and flicked it to the right. I heard a deep resonance throughout the structure, and all the lights turned on. I quickly turned back to the breaker panel, and flicked all the switches to the right. The deep hum gained power, and then all the lights turned off, besides a small red blinking light in the panel.
[Turn the switches back to the left]
I started moving switches back to left and after several dozen flicks the lights came back online. I can live without the microwave security traps. Moving to more pressing issues, I open up one of plastic crates to see the containers of protein paste that synth co traditionally uses. Thankfully, it's long-lasting, so I can eat it without worrying about bacteria.
It is really satisfying, especially to someone who has been in suspended animation for who knows how long. I didn't realize how hungry I wa-
[I was suppressing your hunger]
Wait, you can do that?
[by gathering up the Ghrelin out of your bloodstream. If your brain doesn't receive enough it wont send hunger signals]
Well that's worrying
Can you make chemicals? Like… alcohol?
[I could … but it's a significant hazard.]
Why? Also damn this hits the spot after cryosleep.
[No filtering by your liver]
I guess that makes sense
[Did you hear something]
Um no…
[Searching memory base]
[78%]
[There's a door on the far end of the kitchen, next to the freezer. Go through it]
I think you're seeing things. I'm not too worried. At most, it will be a couple rats. I mean there's no large food source to maintain predators.
I stop my eating as I hear a set of heavy thuds approaching the door. And then another. I see a thick snout push the door open revealing a large animal with a glowing red aura surrounding it. There are glowing red spikes poking out of its matted gray fur and smoke emanating out of its snout. Overall it looks like an average sized wolf. I hear the sound of burning metal, and then it becomes dark.
[Run]
I turn around and start sprinting towards the exit marked in bold red lights as I hear skidding from claws on tile from behind me.
[boosting adrenaline production 370%]
I slam through the door out into the lit hallway, and run through the empty door frame on the other side of the hallway. Suddenly a thin red beam shoots past me, shattering the glass wall ahead of me. I can feel the heat clinging to the air.
The room appears to be full of computers in rows. I can hear the wolves behind me, so I start running along one of the walls for several rows before ducking into the forest of computers. I can hear the wolves continuing to skit around behind me. I can smell melting plastic.
[There. In that empty rack]
I see it. A relatively large rack where normally a CPU would go. I quickly squeeze myself inside and grab the thin metal door, and hold it closed. I can see the red glow of the wolves as they approach through the thin ventilation mesh.
Their footsteps are heavy, and I can smell the faint scent of singed fur. Finally, one of them steps into my view. They seem to stop and think, before sniffing around. They clearly are looking for me. Their head snaps upward towards the rack above me. Suddenly 2 or 3 of their spikes starts glowing brighter, and a thin red beam emanates out of them. They move the beams to hit one spot, and start burning through the rack above me.
After several seconds they give up, accepting that they lost their prey, and then stalk away.
[That was close. Don't doubt me again.]
I will try too not to.
[Some of these computers are functioning again. We should check for more information.]
Can you try to connect to the computers?
[I already have tried. They aren't servers, so they don't respond to most of my messages beside status queries. Also, fun fact, the system still reads you as a engineer and therefore you have some clearances]
Such as?
[Escape Routes]
Well I know where we're going.