The landscape Robin entered was different from anything he had seen on Ruca II before. Not that he traveled much around, but somehow he felt that this was special, older…ancient even.
With the occasional happenstance of meteorite showers and the like, most of the moon's surface looked the same. A great plain with some craters here and some hills there. The most noteworthy thing Robin saw till now was the tunnel from the third race and he was pretty sure that it was man-made by Apex.
Now, however, he slowly steered the Melody through a little cluster of small mountains. He could see chasms and canyons winding amidst the area and noticed a substantial lack of craters or locations that showed signs of past meteorite-impacts.
Robin checked the ship’s systems once again and matched them with the cryptic map that guided him here.
“You’ve better not messed with me and led me here as part of some bad joke!” He swore under his breath. While he couldn’t completely shake off his nervousness, he really didn’t think he was on the wrong trail - everything around him felt different.
After he reached the exact location of the ‘Drel Outpost’-marker, he stopped the Melody and landed on a small flat plain below. Checking all systems and especially the functionality of his spacesuit and helmet again, he opened the canopy and jumped off the ship, slowly falling to the ground.
“I have oxygen for 90 min, better not to dally around!” He said and carefully observed his surroundings. He couldn’t see any buildings or other man made constructions, but that didn’t surprise him. Those would’ve been found long ago by one of the orbital scans that the UAS performed on each newly discovered planet and moon.
“Must be below the surface…” He mused, and looked around, “Maybe in a cave or inside of one of these mountains?”
Since he had no further instructions on how to proceed, Robin walked towards one of the four mountains around him and began to carefully probe the insides with his G-Anomaly. He was pretty sure that he got the location narrowed down to 250m, so there were only so many places where an alien structure could be hidden. Not that he knew what exactly he was looking for…but some remnant energies should still linger around, right?
Time ticked by and after 30 min Robin was sure that the mountains didn’t house any secret facilities. Momentarily stumped, he returned to the Melody and climbed up to claim his personal spot for thinking.
“Please don’t tell me that all this was for naught.” He sighed. Maybe the structure was too deep below the surface or there wasn’t any power left that he could sense. He would have no chance to find the outpost at all, if that was true. The last remaining option was to contact the UAS directly and hope they would buy the information or give him a reward after digging up the whole moon, but then someone would begin to ask questions about the source of his knowledge.
“Fuck…” Robin cursed and looked at the dusty surface of Ruca II, “There is just one more option. Randomly running around and scanning as deep below the earth as possible.”
Depressed, he jumped down from his ship again. When he landed on the ground however, he felt his left foot sinking in a bit.
“What the hell is that?”
The earth began to rumble and shake and the hole around his foot grew wider at a rapid pace, the sand seemingly getting sucked into the ground. Jumping to the side, Robin observed as a new chasm opened up directly beneath him and...
“Melody!” With a fright he climbed back on his ship and powered up the engine. Just as the Melody attempted a nosedive into the chasm, following the waves of moon sand, the thrusters came to life.
“Too close! Fuck…” Robin gasped after he landed his ship a few dozen meters aside. He climbed down and returned to the edge of the chasm, careful to not set off another collapse. “Burn in…holy shit! Is that…” Lost for words, he stocked and just looked into the depths. There he could see a big silver metal door neatly embedded into the wall at the bottom of the chasm, 20 m below him.
“I found you! You fucking asshole of an outpost, that's where you are hiding!” He yelled in his helmet, blowing off some of the built up tension. He hurried back to the Melody and flew her a bit closer to the edge. Then he rummaged through the stuff he had stored on the copilot’s seat.
A few minutes later he already had a rope attached to his ship’s landing gear and was on his way into the chasm. One hand to hold the tow, the other to grasp his toolbox that was filled with half of Jim’s workshop. Slowly he let himself slide downwards meter by meter.
When he finally stood in front of the door, he put down his tools and took an appraising look at the huge metal gate.
“Let’s see what this fucking thing is made of…” He mumbled.
Robin couldn’t see any markings or other indicators hinting at an alien origin. If he didn’t know what he was looking for, it could’ve very well passed as human craftsmanship. He also couldn’t find any opening mechanism or identity scan. But they probably didn’t let in just anyone, so there definitely should be something he could trigger.
“Now what, how do I enter? Can’t just kick it open, right?” He continued his monologue and tapped into his mutation to scan the door.
“You can try it, but I’m pretty sure your foot will end up on the losing side, human.” A flat, neutral voice disrupted his thoughts suddenly.
Robin looked around once and then focused on the door.
“Uhm…Hi?” He hesitantly asked.
“What ‘Hi’?” The voice tried to become angry, but was still stuck to a completely monotonous intonation, “Now you find the courtesy to greet me? Should've been the first thing to do, when meeting someone. Did people lose their manners over the last generations?”
Robin had to suppress a chuckle when he heard the door nagging around with its funny voice, but decided it would be better to remain friendly - he still wanted to get inside at the end of the day.
“Hello, I’m Robin Tulward and you are…?” He tried a fresh start.
“I’m the ‘fucking door’ you wanted to kick open!”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“Ooh... right.” Robin began to sweat, why did he have to run his damn mouth aloud?
“Sorry for that! I really didn’t expect…someone...to be down here. I was just venting a bit, as I had to take huge risks and put everything on this one card to find… you. It was nothing personal!”
“So, you found me; why are you here?” The door asked, not disclosing if the apology managed to save the first impression he made.
“I heard there was a Drel outpost here, I was intrigued and came to… take a look around.”
“Call it by its name - you came here to loot this place! Unfortunately this facility is locked down and shall remain closed to anyone who doesn’t have an invitation from one of the Drel in charge of this project.” The door stubbornly shut him down.
“Well, I have…” Robin began but was immediately interrupted.
“If you now try to tell me that you have an invitation, you are even more stupid than I thought!”
“...”
“...”
Robin and the door just stared at each other in silence for a moment. Well, Robin stared, the door just kept quiet.
“Okay, you know what, you are right. So what? You brooded around here alone for… how long? Isn’t it time to get some company and give up all this loneliness?” He tried a psycho trick. No way he would be able to get inside with a clever lie, that was for sure.
“2.381 years and did you really just try to make me feel bad for being alone? You are not only an asshole, you are also as stupid as a Huzna! I’m a damn machine, I went to sleep after everyone left and the only reason I woke up now is that you came knocking. For me time flies by like…”
“Okay, okay… I get it, no need to get personal!” Robin interrupted the door and wondered for a moment about the absurdity of the situation.
“Am I really standing on a damn moon in the middle of nowhere, 20 m down below the surface and am arguing with a door?” He asked.
“Sounds stupid even to me, if it's said out loud.” The door agreed.
“Ugh...” Robin sighed, “Can’t you just let me in, please?”
“Human, I don’t know what you are using doors for, but the Drel gave me just two jobs: No. 1 Open for everyone with an invitation, No. 2 Stay closed for everyone else.” The door continued, “Do you have an invitation?”
“Nope, any chance you have one lying around nearby?”
“The Drel long left this facility, I don’t think you'll find any around here or the neighboring galaxies. I just downloaded some basic information I could get from…” the door stopped a moment “...places!”
“Really? You are hacking the UAS but I’m not allowed to go in without an invitation?”
“You could try kicking again, I’ll not stop you or take it personally anymore!”
“You know what? I’ll do exactly that!” Robin said as he had enough of this bullshit. He didn’t fought so hard just to be stopped by some fucking… some stupid door!
“Give it your all!” The door cheered and he was sure it would have laughed if it’s sound-module wasn’t so broken.
Robin returned to his initial plan and tapped into his mutation to get a better feel for the door’s systems. He needed some time to see something, but eventually thin lines began to form, creating a small network.
“Pretty well shielded or it’s running low on energy…” He mused.
“What? Hey, how do you know?” The door instantly jumped in and began to ask questions.
“Nothing, give me a moment.”
The moment was longer than expected. It took Robin several attempts to finally get a good idea of what he was dealing with. He was pretty sure the door had bluffed and in truth was already running on low fumes. Too many years had passed, whatever produced or stored energy in this outpost was on its last legs. Many systems he had expected in such a sophisticated door were missing or, more specifically, offline. Only some rudimentary ones were still active.
He observed the last powered locking mechanism and finally took a step back with a throbbing head.
“Has someone already told you before that you look a bit creepy when staring like that? Even I felt naked and got goosebumps… and I'm a door, made of metal!” The door immediately began chattering again, after it realized Robin was done with his inspection.
He didn't answer but honestly hoped it would never meet up with Happy. Instead, Robin grabbed his toolbox to search for a drill.
‘Wait, did it leave me alone to concentrate on my mutation knowingly or was it just a happenstance and it didn’t know it could have disrupted me easily just by talking all the time?’
“Oi! What are you planning? Didn’t we agree on kicking? What is that thing for?” The chattering kept going.
Walking over, Robin stopped in front of the huge metal gate.
“Tell me, are you ‘the door’ or are you ‘the facility’?” He finally asked.
“Oh? Did you begin to use that head of yours?” the door tried to chuckle, “I’m the management AI of the whole facility, but as you correctly observed, I’m a bit low on energy and can only access one major system at the time…”
“Do you have a name?”
“Kind of, but you better just call me Guard for now.”
“So, Guard, just one system at a time. Does that mean just one set of rules?” Robin probed for loopholes.
“I know where you want to take this. Unfortunately it’s not that simple. However, for your actual situation only one thing is important: I already told you my rules!
“Opening or remaining shut; nothing about defending, right?”
“That would be… another part. We will keep that for later.”
“...”
“...”
“Thanks” Robin gave a small bow after a moment.
“I’m just bored right now and wanna watch you struggling!” Guard lied with its monotonous voice.
“Okay, now this will hurt a bit…” He said and activated the drill.
***
15 min after the surgery began, Robin finally had cut all the relevant cables that were connected to the lock and saw the system wink out with his mutation.
“Well, that surprised me somewhat. Not bad, human. How did you know where to drill?”
“My G-Anomaly is a Class E - Minor Energy Senses. I could see the cables.” He honestly explained as he already understood that Guard was actually quite the cool dude.
“Bullshit! That mutation doesn't work like that.”
“How would you know, maybe after nearly 2.500 years the classifications have changed.”
“No, they didn’t! I just checked the database of…” Guard tried to argue but stopped mid sentence.
“Huh? Tell me, Guard, where did you check that?” Robin laughed.
Suddenly the huge gate slowly swung inwards. Giving way to a long, narrow hallway that was dimly lit with white lights.
“Enough of that, move in already!” Guard said and Robin packed his stuff.
Just before he finally entered the Drel outpost, Guard had one more piece of advice to share.
“From now on, the door will be powered down. I’ll have to take over the local defense system. There are new rules but only one is relevant to your case.” Guard explained.
“Kill all intruders!”