156 lines
8.6 KiB
HTML
156 lines
8.6 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title> Wake Up! </title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="html_resources/style.css"></head><body><a href="index.html"><button class="back"><</button></a>
|
|
|
|
<h1> Wake Up! </h1>
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span class="quote speech">Awh fuck!</span> Jack exclaims in pain as he
|
|
wakes up. He has a terrible headache. While moving his hands up to hold
|
|
his head, he realizes that his entire body hurts.
|
|
<span class="quote speech">Owowowww... Ouch!</span><br />
|
|
An automated voice comes on: <span class="quote speech">Emergency
|
|
defrost complete. Entering low power mode.</span><br />
|
|
He thinks: <span class="quote non-speech">Get it together, Jack!
|
|
You knew this was gonna happen. You have trained for this. Where are the
|
|
meds again? ...</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Waiting for the painkillers to kick in, he stays in his preservation
|
|
chamber until he is fully awake. As he stands there, looking out of the
|
|
small window in the door, he notices something off. The bunker looks
|
|
different from yesterday - not yesterday! That was years ago, probably
|
|
decades... Besides the point. It looks different. Not just
|
|
<span class="quote non-speech">things have moved around</span> different,
|
|
it gives off the vibe of a full-on lost place. Unexpected but whatever...
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
The pressurized air hisses in the lines as the door of the preservation
|
|
chamber swings aside. Jack steps out into the bunker, breathes the musty
|
|
air, and looks around. The light shining out of his chamber reveals a
|
|
dirty floor. The table and chairs in front of him as well as the kitchen
|
|
area across the room are covered in dust and all exposed bits of metal
|
|
have rust. The red night lights on the ceiling are dimly illuminating
|
|
the rest of the bunker. He looks to the left: The wall is lined with
|
|
other preservation chambers, all but one of them being powered down.
|
|
In the corner is the minicomputer controlling the bunker, a half-height
|
|
rack filled to the brim with devices, and next to it a teleprinter, a
|
|
computer-controlled typewriter. Along the rear wall are desks holding a
|
|
radio and a terminal, a device with a keyboard and a screen, and above
|
|
them a phone on the wall – nothing out of the ordinary here.
|
|
He looks to the right: More preservation chambers. Instead of a wall,
|
|
there's the bunker door – door is a bit of an understatement,
|
|
it's a massive gate. A small slither of light passes under it.
|
|
<span class="quote speech">These fucking idiots... They didn't
|
|
reseal it properly.</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
He walks over to the door's control panel. The paint is flaking off
|
|
revealing the rust underneath. Jack attempts to press a couple buttons
|
|
but they get stuck and nothing happens. A couple expletives and banging
|
|
on the panel later, he turns back to the inside of the bunker looking
|
|
for tools, contemplating the tradeoff between waking up a couple years
|
|
too soon and getting slowly poisoned by the air, and being locked inside
|
|
a bunker due to a bunch of apparent troglodytes unable to close a door
|
|
properly... Doesn't matter, too late now.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
As he passes each of the presevation chambers, he looks into them. Empty,
|
|
empty, empty - nothing unexpected here. The others would have been woken
|
|
up over time. His own chamber... He presses a few buttons to fully shut
|
|
it down. The lamp in the ceiling turns off, the door closes, the status
|
|
lights turn off. After passing two other empty preservaton chambers, he
|
|
reaches the one that remains active.<br />
|
|
<span class="quote speech">Hello Michelle.</span><br />
|
|
He checks the status lights of her chamber.<br />
|
|
<span class="quote speech">I think I'm gonna leave you in there
|
|
until I find a way out of here — should be fine...</span><br />
|
|
He continues past the remaining empty chambers to the back of the bunker.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Jack opens the cabinets under each of the desks while talking to himself:
|
|
<span class="quote speech">Where is that fucking toolbox?</span>
|
|
<span class="comment">Do we have an alternative expletive to use?</span>
|
|
Well, it isn't there. He continues with the kitchen area. Still
|
|
nothing. He enters the bathroom through a door next to the kitchen area.
|
|
Nope, not here either. <span class="quote speech">Welp, time to
|
|
improvise.</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
He returns to the kitchen area and rummages through the drawers to find
|
|
anything useful. He grabs a fork. <span class="quote speech">Works as a
|
|
screwdriver, I guess...</span> He proceeds to jam the handle into a
|
|
screw on one of the kitchen cabinets to see if it will turn. It does
|
|
– barely. Using a slightly rusty knife sharpener
|
|
<span class="comment">sharpening rod?</span> he begins the long and
|
|
arduous process of making the fork handle more suitable as a screwdriver,
|
|
grinding its end over it over and over and over. He does this for a long
|
|
time. Over and over and over. His fingers start to go sore and he stops
|
|
to inspect his work. <span class="quote speech">Meh, could work.</span>
|
|
He tests it on the kitchen cabinet again.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
His newly gained screwdriver in hand, he walks back to the control panel
|
|
for the door and unscrews it. After a bit of fiddling, the panel lifts
|
|
out of the niche in the wall, pulling cables out of the box under it.
|
|
Holding the fork by the handle, he bends the <span class="comment">
|
|
middle? inner?</span> prongs out of the way and attempts to bridge the
|
|
control panel's switches using the outer prongs. Nothing happens.
|
|
<span class="quote speech">Of couse it wasn't gonna be that easy.</span>
|
|
He starts to dig into the wires, attempting to find the fault, but
|
|
realizes after a while that the wiring is more complex than expected
|
|
and he has no idea what he's doing.
|
|
<span class="quote speech">Let's get the manual for this
|
|
thing...</span> <span class="comment">He probably wouldn't say it
|
|
like that while talking to himself.</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Jack returns to the desk with the terminal and flips the switch on the
|
|
desk lamp. It flickers for a moment before turning off again. He flips
|
|
the switch back and leans over the terminal to turn it on –
|
|
Bonk! At least this seems to work. While waiting for the picture tube to
|
|
warm up, he walks over to the rack and sits down on the floor in front
|
|
of it. He inspects the status lights on the various devices, thinking
|
|
aloud: <span class="quote speech">CPU is idle, serials are idle,
|
|
cryogenics control unit sees one active chamber, primary hard drive is
|
|
powered up – all good. Secondary hard drive is powered down,
|
|
let's change that...</span> He pushes the power button and hears
|
|
the spindle motor kick on. The power button blinks. There is some
|
|
intermittent rattling from the drive, probably a shot bearing.
|
|
He hears the platters inside accelerate for an unusually long time.
|
|
Impatiently sitting there, Jack waits for the drive to be ready.
|
|
Clicking from the mechanism unlocking the heads followed by a ringing
|
|
scratching noise. <span class="quote speech">Of course.</span> He
|
|
quickly presses the power button again. The scratching stops and the
|
|
spindle motor turns off, followed by the platters slowly decelerating.
|
|
<span class="quote speech">That's gonna be an ugly head crash.
|
|
No manuals for me, I guess...</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
He gets up and walks over to the phone. Maybe, the lines to
|
|
<dome city> still work. Not exactly excited by the prospect of
|
|
calling random people, but not seeing another option, he reaches for
|
|
the receiver. It lifts off the wall with a quiet click and Jack begins
|
|
to dial. He holds the receiver to his ear - silence.
|
|
<span class="quote speech">Welp, that's that.</span> He puts it
|
|
back on the wall.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
In an attempt to find anything useful, he sits down at the terminal and
|
|
logs on.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<pre class="terminal">
|
|
Tue, 2106-06-01, 18:01
|
|
|
|
EARTH-53 Login: jack
|
|
Password:
|
|
|
|
Welcome to INUX!
|
|
|
|
$ █
|
|
</pre>
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span class="quote speech">So it's been over a hundred years,
|
|
hm...</span> He starts going through the files, hoping he misremembered
|
|
where the manuals were stored, but to no avail, they are gone.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="copyright">Copyright © 2023 Jan Danielzick (aka. BodgeMaster) – All rights reserved.</p><script>let spans = ["<span class=\"paper green\">", "<span>"]; let pre_texts = document.getElementsByTagName("pre"); for (let i = 0; i < pre_texts.length; i++) {if (pre_texts[i].className != "paper") continue; let lines = pre_texts[i].innerHTML.split("\n"); let result = ""; for (let j = 0; j < lines.length; j++) {result = result + spans[j%2] + lines[j] + " ".repeat(80-lines[j].length) + "</span>\n";} pre_texts[i].innerHTML = result;}</script></body></html>
|