155 lines
8.6 KiB
HTML
155 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>
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<h1> Wake Up! </h1>
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<p>
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<span class="quote speech">Awh fuck!</span> Jack exclaims in pain as he
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wakes up. He has a terrible headache. While moving his hands up to hold
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his head, he realizes that his entire body hurts.
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<span class="quote speech">Owowowww... Ouch!</span><br />
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An automated voice comes on: <span class="quote speech">Emergency
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defrost complete. Entering low power mode.</span><br />
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He thinks: <span class="quote non-speech">Get it together, Jack!
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You knew this was gonna happen. You have trained for this. Where are the
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meds again? ...</span>
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</p>
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<p>
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Waiting for the painkillers to kick in, he stays in his preservation
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chamber until he is fully awake. As he stands there, looking out of the
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small window in the door, he notices something off. The bunker looks
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different from yesterday - not yesterday! That was years ago, probably
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decades... Besides the point. It looks different. Not just
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<span class="quote non-speech">things have moved around</span> different,
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it gives off the vibe of a full-on lost place. Unexpected but whatever...
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</p>
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<p>
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The pressurized air hisses in the lines as the door of the preservation
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chamber swings aside. Jack steps out into the bunker, breathes the musty
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air, and looks around. The light shining out of his chamber reveals a
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dirty floor. The table and chairs in front of him as well as the kitchen
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area across the room are covered in dust and all exposed bits of metal
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have rust. The red night lights on the ceiling are dimly illuminating
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the rest of the bunker. He looks to the left: The wall is lined with
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other preservation chambers, all but one of them being powered down.
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In the corner is the minicomputer controlling the bunker, a half-height
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rack filled to the brim with devices, and next to it a teleprinter, a
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computer-controlled typewriter. Along the rear wall are desks holding a
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radio and a terminal, a device with a keyboard and a screen, and above
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them a phone on the wall – nothing out of the ordinary here.
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He looks to the right: More preservation chambers. Instead of a wall,
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there's the bunker door – door is a bit of an understatement,
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it's a massive gate. A small slither of light passes under it.
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<span class="quote speech">These fucking idiots... They didn't
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reseal it properly.</span>
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</p>
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<p>
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He walks over to the door's control panel. The paint is flaking off
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revealing the rust underneath. Jack attempts to press a couple buttons
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but they get stuck and nothing happens. A bunch of expletives and some
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banging on the panel later, he turns back to the inside of the bunker,
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looking for tools, contemplating the tradeoff between waking up a couple
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years too soon and getting slowly poisoned by the air, and being locked
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inside a bunker due to a bunch of apparent troglodytes unable to close a
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door properly... Doesn't matter, too late now.
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</p>
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<p>
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As he passes each of the presevation chambers, he looks into them. Empty,
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empty, empty - nothing unexpected here. The others would have been woken
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up over time. His own chamber... He presses a few buttons to fully shut
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it down. The lamp in the ceiling turns off, the door closes, the status
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lights turn off. After passing two other empty preservaton chambers, he
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reaches the one that remains active.<br />
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<span class="quote speech">Hello Michelle.</span><br />
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He checks the status lights of her chamber.<br />
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<span class="quote speech">I think I'm gonna leave you in there
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until I find a way out of here — should be fine...</span><br />
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He continues past the remaining empty chambers to the back of the bunker.
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack opens the cabinets under each of the desks while talking to himself:
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<span class="quote speech">Where is that fucking toolbox?</span>
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<span class="comment">Do we have an alternative expletive to use?</span>
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Well, it isn't there. He continues with the kitchen area. Still
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nothing. He enters the bathroom through a door next to the kitchen area.
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Nope, not here either. <span class="quote speech">Welp, time to
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improvise.</span>
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack returns to the kitchen area and rummages through the drawers to find
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anything useful. He grabs a fork. <span class="quote speech">Works as a
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screwdriver, I guess...</span> He proceeds to jam the handle into a
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screw on one of the kitchen cabinets to see if it will turn. It does
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– barely. Using a slightly rusty knife sharpener
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<span class="comment">sharpening rod?</span> he begins the long and
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arduous process of making the fork handle more suitable as a screwdriver,
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grinding the end over the sharpener over and over and over. After a
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while, he stops to inspect his work. <span class="quote speech">Meh,
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could work.</span> He tests it on the kitchen cabinet again.
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</p>
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<p>
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His newly gained screwdriver in hand, Jack walks back to the control panel
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for the door and unscrews it. After a bit of fiddling, the panel lifts
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out of the niche in the wall, pulling cables out of the box under it.
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He grabs the fork by the handle and bends the <span class="comment">
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middle? inner?</span> prongs out of the way to bridge the control
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panel's switches using the outer prongs. Nothing happens.
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<span class="quote speech">Of course it wasn't gonna be that easy.</span>
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He starts to dig into the wires, attempting to find the fault, but
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realizes after a moment that the wiring is more complex than expected
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and he has no idea what he's doing.
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<span class="quote speech">Let's get the manual for this
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thing...</span> <span class="comment">He probably wouldn't say it
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like that while talking to himself.</span>
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack walks over to the desk with the terminal and flips the switch on the
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desk lamp. It flickers for a moment before turning off again. He flips
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the switch back and leans over the terminal to turn it on –
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Bonk! At least this seems to work. While waiting for the picture tube to
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warm up, he walks over to the rack and sits down on the floor in front
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of it. He inspects the status lights on the various devices, thinking
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aloud: <span class="quote speech">CPU is idle, serials are idle,
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cryogenics control unit sees one active chamber, primary hard drive is
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powered up – all good. Secondary hard drive is powered down,
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let's change that...</span> He pushes the power button and hears
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the spindle motor kick on. The power button blinks. There is some
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intermittent rattling from the drive, probably a shot bearing.
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He hears the platters inside accelerate for an unusually long time.
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Impatiently sitting there, Jack waits for the drive to be ready.
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Clicking from the mechanism unlocking the heads followed by a ringing
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scratching noise. <span class="quote speech">Of course.</span> He
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quickly presses the power button again. The scratching stops and the
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spindle motor turns off, followed by the platters slowly decelerating.
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<span class="quote speech">That's gonna be an ugly head crash.
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No manuals for me, I guess...</span>
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</p>
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<p>
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He gets up and walks over to the phone. Maybe, the lines to
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<dome city> still work. Not exactly excited by the prospect of
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calling random people, but not seeing another option, he reaches for
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the receiver. It lifts off the wall with a quiet click and Jack begins
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to dial. He holds the receiver to his ear - silence.
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<span class="quote speech">Welp, that's that.</span> He puts it
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back on the wall.
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</p>
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<p>
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In an attempt to find anything useful, he sits down at the terminal and
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logs on.
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</p>
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<pre class="terminal">
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Tue, 2106-06-01, 18:01
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EARTH-53 Login: jack
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Password:
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Welcome to INUX!
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$ █
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</pre>
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<p>
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<span class="quote speech">So it's been over a hundred years,
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hm...</span> He starts going through the files, hoping he misremembered
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where the manuals were stored, but to no avail, they are gone.
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</p>
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<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>
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