178 lines
9.5 KiB
HTML
178 lines
9.5 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title> Wake Up! </title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="html_resources/style.css"></head><body><svg class="hidden_filter"><filter id="crunchy_blur" x="0" y="0"><feFlood x="4" y="4" height="2" width="2"/><feComposite width="6" height="6" in2="SourceGraphic"/><feTile result="a"/><feComposite in="SourceGraphic" in2="a" operator="in"/><feMorphology operator="dilate" radius="1.4"/><feGaussianBlur stdDeviation="2.2"></feGaussianBlur></filter></svg><div class="back"><a href="index.html"><</a></div>
|
|
|
|
<h1> Wake Up! </h1>
|
|
<!-- perspective: Jack -->
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span class="quote speech">Awh fuck!</span><br />
|
|
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.<br />
|
|
<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 could 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 he brushes
|
|
the thought aside for the moment...
|
|
</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
|
|
are rusty. The paint is starting to flake off of the walls. 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
|
|
comprised of a keyboard and monitor), and on the wall above them is a
|
|
phone; nothing out of the ordinary here – apart from a few paint
|
|
crumbs sprinkled on everything. 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.<br />
|
|
<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 bunch of expletives and some
|
|
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 being unable to
|
|
close a door properly... Doesn't matter now, too late.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
As he passes each of the preservation 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 its 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>, he says more to himself
|
|
than to the frozen person inside.<br />
|
|
He checks the status lights of her chamber.<br />
|
|
<span class="quote speech">Looks good to me — I think I'm
|
|
gonna leave you in there until I find a way out...</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><br />
|
|
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.<br />
|
|
<span class="quote speech">Welp, time to improvise.</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Jack returns to the kitchen area and rummages through the drawers
|
|
to find anything useful. He grabs a fork.<br />
|
|
<span class="quote speech">Works as a screwdriver, I guess...</span><br />
|
|
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
|
|
sharpening rod he begins the long and arduous process of grinding the
|
|
fork handle flat, dragging it across the rod over and over and over
|
|
again. After a while, he stops to inspect his work.<br />
|
|
<span class="quote speech">Meh, could work.</span><br />
|
|
He tests it on the cabinet again.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
His newly gained screwdriver in hand, Jack walks back to the control
|
|
panel for the door and unscrews it. After a bit of fiddling with it,
|
|
the panel lifts out of its niche in the wall, pulling cables out of the
|
|
box under it. He grabs the fork by the handle and bends the inner prongs
|
|
out of the way. Then, he bridges the switch contacts using the two outer
|
|
prongs. Nothing happens.<br />
|
|
<span class="quote speech">Of course it wasn't gonna be that easy.</span>
|
|
<br />
|
|
He starts to dig into the wires, attempting to find what's wrong,
|
|
but realizes after a moment that the wiring is more complex than expected
|
|
and he has no idea what he's doing.<br />
|
|
<span class="quote speech">Guess I need the manual for this
|
|
thing...</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Jack walks over 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:<br />
|
|
<span class="quote speech">CPU is idle, serials are idle, one active
|
|
preservation chamber – all good. Primary hard drive is up, second
|
|
hard drive is ... powered off? Let's change that...</span><br />
|
|
He pushes the power button and hears the fans blow air through the drive.
|
|
The spin-up button starts blinking. He waits for a moment to let the fans
|
|
blow away any dust that may have settled inside the drive, then he pushes
|
|
it. The button lights up solid and the motor inside kicks on. There
|
|
is some intermittent rattling from the drive,
|
|
<span class="quote non-speech">probably a shot bearing</span>, he thinks.
|
|
He hears the spindle inside accelerating unusually slowly. Impatiently
|
|
sitting there, he waits for the drive to be ready. Clicking from inside
|
|
the drive followed by a ringing scratching noise.<br />
|
|
<span class="quote speech">Of course!</span><br />
|
|
He quickly presses the power button again. The scratching stops and
|
|
the motor turns off, the spindle still rattling occasionally as it spins
|
|
down.<br />
|
|
<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 returns to the terminal, thinking there might be
|
|
something useful, maybe even a backup, on the primary drive.
|
|
He pulls a nearby chair in front of it and sits down.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<pre class="terminal">
|
|
EARTH-53 INUX v8.4 SMP
|
|
|
|
Login: █
|
|
</pre>
|
|
<p>
|
|
Jack logs on and issues a command:
|
|
</p>
|
|
<pre class="terminal">
|
|
EARTH-53 INUX v8.4 SMP
|
|
|
|
Login: jack
|
|
Password:
|
|
|
|
Welcome to INUX!
|
|
Last login Wed, 1994-07-20 11:34:08
|
|
|
|
$ date
|
|
Tue, 2106-06-01 18:01:55
|
|
$ █
|
|
</pre>
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span class="quote speech">So it's been over a hundred years...
|
|
Hm.</span><br />
|
|
He goes through the files but nothing useful turns up. He does, however,
|
|
find a note from 2030 saying that the inhabitants of the dome city
|
|
have proven to be unhelpful when asked for assistance. Too bad they are
|
|
the ones that have a full backup of everything – assuming there is
|
|
anyone still living there.
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
He gets up and reaches for the phone. It lifts off the cradle with a
|
|
quiet click. Jack holds it to his ear and starts dialing but there is no
|
|
dial tone.<br />
|
|
<span class="quote speech">Welp, that's that.</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="copyright">Copyright © 2023-2025 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++) {if (lines[j].length >= 80) result = result + spans[j%2] + lines[j] + "</span>\n"; else result = result + spans[j%2] + lines[j] + " ".repeat(80-lines[j].length) + "</span>\n";} pre_texts[i].innerHTML = result;}</script></body></html>
|