Looking at the floor plan, I noticed the room labeled "power" right across from the armory. Flying over in front of B1, who lumbered behind me almost comically. Rust and filth continually falling from its aged body. I almost felt bad for it, but I quickly retracted such thoughts when I saw it mechanically scanning the hallway we were in with its machine gun, something that I have to say was objectively not at all cute! Though, laughing to myself, I’m sure it wasn’t meant to be.
Arriving at the generator door, I happily move forward, anticipating building inside of me for what I might find. My drone's thermal camera gave me a clear image of the faded letters on the metal door, despite the darkness of the bunker. Maybe in here, I’d be able to fully restore the operational power, something that I really wanted to do for further plans. Maybe if I had access to the high-power communication equipment, I’d actually be able to contact people.
Though I wasn't sure if that was actually something I wanted right now. I mean, my current body was a little drone, with my only usable companion besides that being old B1. Not sure how much of help that would be if who we were communicating with were human. And if they weren’t, well, then I really didn’t have any strong desire to meet them.
I opened the doors in front of me, which seemed to open with relative ease compared to those of the armory. I couldn’t quite tell if it was less heavy or had just survived the test of time a wee bit better than its grim counterpart. Looking inside at the power room, my "eyes" sparkled as the digital camera scanned over the environment. In front of me were three large-looking industrial generators, which seemed relatively well-maintained, perhaps even enough to be used. I sent an order to B1, who had just lumbered into the room, to inspect the generators and give a report.
As I scanned the control panel in the corner to see what I could make of it, I felt the ability to interface with the panel, but whether because it was broken or just simply offline, it neither powered on nor allowed me to interact any further with it. I’m sure if I had a face, it’d be pouting. But my spirits were still high as ever considering the door even opened in the first place. Still, according to the data, I knew that the terminal recorded the activity history of the generator in greater detail than what was available to me, which would be nice to see how long power was operational for, and what caused it to stop. Currently, all I knew is that it didn’t work, hopefully requiring only another fuel cell to start back up again.
At nearly the same time, the report from B1 came up, letting me know it was finished. As I planned my camera to see it holding a set of three large empty containers in its hands, I let out a sigh of relief as it let me know in robotic language that all the generators were in good condition and that the only thing wrong was that they were out of fuel. What made me smile was the small note at the bottom saying the most likely place to look for them was the fabrication facility on the second floor of the facility.
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Hearing this, I buzzed excitedly up and down, my "heart" racing. If I could power on the facility, I’d have way more options. I’d maybe even be able to start repairs and get the other bot operational. Laughing to myself, I buzzed around in circles above B1's head as it made its way slowly out of the power room, continuing our adventure!
Virtually pumping my fists into the air, I sent string after string of messages to B1, but disappointingly, it only gave me single-word responses. Strangely, it reminded me of some of the doctors I had in the hospital who would only give me cold glances when I talked to them, but still slipped me a few pieces of candy each time he left. The gap between the two made me find B1 quite cute, well, personality-wise. I still wasn’t at the point where I could find its exterior anything but scary.
Flying about happily, controlling things, we finally arrived at the large area labeled elevator on my floor plan. But in front of me, all I saw was a strange bit of raised floor looking up to an open chute above, a track running along the height of it, but there didn’t seem to be any elevator in sight. Apparently noticing my confused buzzing, B2 walked over to a small panel before hitting a few buttons and waiting. As I was about to tell it I could just fly up to look, the entirety of the raised floor, which must have been a few meters in length, began to shift and move upwards in one large motion.
Hastily and excitedly flying into space, I greedily read the report B1 sent me, letting me know that this was a loading elevator which apparently ran on emergency power. I wasn’t quite sure how such a large thing could run on that, but it worked, so I wasn’t going to say anything. Besides, I’m pretty sure it was my job to know that anyway.
Flying about carefully to avoid getting swept up by the floor, I could no longer hold my anticipation back as I zipped up to the next one, only to be greeted by a shocking sight. In front of me was one larger hallway which looked large enough to accommodate several trucks, and on either side were massive steel doors like those on hangars. All around the hallway was littered with debris.
Holding myself back from going any further, I impatiently waited for the grinding gears to bring B1 up, the elevator making slow and unsteady progress, clinking and shuddering with each height. Luckily, nothing happened as I saw the form of B1 enter my view. I excitedly sent the request for it to come with me to the fabrication zone.
Confirming the order, it made its way there, but I had already buzzed off as soon as I saw it had made it up the elevator, greedily interacting with the doors. Much to my relief, even these doors seemed to work, as with a huge noise, they slowly began to move rather ominously, as what greeted my vision made me let out a breath.