Results 1 to 4 of 4

Thread: Sometimes the past doesnt stay dead....

  1. #1

    Sometimes the past doesnt stay dead....

    The mid level bureaucrat was seated at a small desk in a cramped room. Across from him was a man with an austere build. The bureaucrat eyed his next interviewee, his skin tone told it all. He was a homo-nano, also called the Nanomage; genetically engineered to incorporate the metaphysical element notum into their DNA. They could only live here on Rubi-Ka. The bureaucrat sighed quietly, so many formalities, but he had already gotten his orders concerning this one. The approval was already given; the interview was nothing more than a mere formality. He had no say in the matter. He might as well get it over with.

    “So.. Mr.. ahh Fire is it? You wish to give up your citizenship with the clans and take on a job with the Corporation as a.. lets see.. Nano Program Developer Tier.. ahh 45?”

    “I do.”

    “Why is that Mr Fire? Your name is quite.. unique… Freedoms Fire, they call you by Enkindled don’t they? That’s not a very acceptable name in the Corporation.”

    “My name was given to me by my late father Archibal Fution.. He was known as MrFusion. He worked for the Corporation for most of his life before he renounced his position to continue his work in Sabulum in the North. He believed that the concept of Freedom was something like a fire enkindled in the hearts of ever man. But that if it wasn’t monitored it would consume the man whole and he would be burned up by his own passions. Led astray as it were. He did what he had to because Omni-Tek was closing down his project. He believed that the clans concept of freedom had consumed them and is burning them out. The concept of freedom and the views and desires of the Corporation are not mutually exclusive. It is said my father never really left and that he received funding and equipment from the Corporation all his life. I have continued my fathers work as far as I could at our labs in Sabulum. I need access to equipment only available here to continue the work. I know that the Corporation agrees and that our little talk here is just a formality. Or didn’t you know that?” Enkindled add the last bit as a barb. He was unimpressed with the little man and knew how little power he had over the situation. The truth was he hated most of Omni-Tek but he had made a promise to his father. To finish the work. He would do that no matter what he felt inside. Freedoms fire would burn its way through RK and burn Omni-Tek from the face of the planet in time. He didn’t need to rush things, after all the Corporation had some very important things to offer him at this time. The bureaucrat, winced, but kept his face neutral.

    “Very well, since neither of us wish to continue this charade any longer…. Enkindled you are hereby formally hired by Omni-Tek Corporation as a Nano Program Developer. Work to begin immediately following this interview. You are assigned to Studio 3 in Omni-Trade.” He tapped a few keys on the holo-interface on his desk. “Have a good day Mr. Fire.”
    Quote Originally Posted by tweeeeeek View Post
    and everyone knows solsdiers dont think they just cast ams then roll face in keyboard for maximum efficiency
    Quote Originally Posted by Means
    I would have loved to see 18.0 finish up faster...but some "interesting" ways of playing the game were discovered that slowed the process slightly...in the same way as the pope is slightly Catholic.



    ..

  2. #2
    154 Years ago, Earth, European Desert: Southern Germany Region.


    Their supplies were running out and they would have to abandon this dig if they didn’t make some progress in the next few days. No backing no money they had just the barest essentials to start with. Now things looked bad. It would be a final failure, a dead end, to continue to be the laughing stock of the Archeological field that would trump every failure before. The data card they had bought on the black market had included some ancient news papers. Badly decayed but somewhat readable they had given clues as to the location of some late 21st century technology cached in this area. The timing was right and the cache was a digging operation done by Farma-Tek. A company she had never heard of before acquiring the data card.

    Anna Fution raised her head from the desk. She had almost fallen asleep mulling over things. They had found a natural cavern like structure under the hill here. Right where the translated coordinates indicated but they had reached a collapsed section and had been unable to clear the passage. Her brother was there right now with Toran Fillmore, an adventurer/treasure hunter type. He was in this for the money. Well she might as well go check on their progress and give them the bad news about the supplies they had left.

    -----

    Toran showed the scanner to Robert Fution.. “Look man, faint energy readings! There is something back there and it is still working! Only twenty more meters till the readings source.”

    Robert looked dubiously at the scanners screen. He was dusty, dirty, tired, and hungry. They had been at this for almost a month and had cleared a passageway of almost 50 meters of fallen debris and still they had not found anything. “Toran, that is low level radiation, gamma. Could just be a decaying remnant of some atomic power source. I tell you this is wasted effort.”

    “And I tell you its not, here now go get some more plasteel reinforcing piers from the pile there I think we can brace here and here and clear out about 2 meters with the Rock Solvant.” He gestured to two points.

    Moving slowly and showing signs of his exhaustion Robert retrieved the piers and together he and Toran shoved them in place. Toran placed the Omni-Tek made Toilerbot-RockSolvant Case at the base and turned them on for the fifteenth time. The little control computer cheerily displayed the ten hour work time for the defined special segment. Anna rounded the corner as they were moving to leave the cave.

    “Heya sis.”
    “Hello Anna, wow you look beautiful not covered in dust!”

    “Save it Toran, your even uglier covered in that much dirt and rock dust,” Quipped Anna. “So what’s up guys, you seem to have set the toilers back to it?”
    “Toran got a faint gamma reading twenty meters ahead. Scanners still cannot penetrate the rock any further than 2 meters for seeing if there are any open caverns. The rock here is filled with various heavy metals and its doing a number on our ability to see where we are going. I say it’s a wild goose chase.”

    “I tell you its not Robert! Look, the readings are higher than the background readings from the rock itself. That’s an unnatural gamma source.”

    “Well,” Anna looked at the toilerbot screen,” Ten hours to wait till we can scan again. 5m, isn’t that ambitious! I have other news. We are almost out of food and the water recycling system has about 4 days of life left. If we don’t find anything soon., its game over. Come on back to the surface and have some Campster beans with me. We will get back to work in the morning.”
    Quote Originally Posted by tweeeeeek View Post
    and everyone knows solsdiers dont think they just cast ams then roll face in keyboard for maximum efficiency
    Quote Originally Posted by Means
    I would have loved to see 18.0 finish up faster...but some "interesting" ways of playing the game were discovered that slowed the process slightly...in the same way as the pope is slightly Catholic.



    ..

  3. #3
    ---- 2 Days Later.

    “It’s a metal door, here hand me the harmonic drill and I will break off the rocky encrusting the rest of it.” Robert turned from Anna and crawled back through the 1m diameter tunnel through the rock they had tunneled with the toilerbots. He retrieved an odd instrument that used ultrasonic waves to break up rock to a specific depth.

    She turned it on and the noise was deafening, the rocky encrusting the rest of the door slowly broke up. Two hours later it was clear. A large 5m metal door, pitted with age but not rusty. Not steel, but … Anna searched it and examined it. She pulled out a metallurgical scanner and began to test samples of the door material.

    Toran poped his head in, “anyone want some water and beans!”

    Anna waved him off while Robert grabbed the open can of beans and the offered canteen. Toran kept pestering Anna the next ten minutes while the scanner correlated data and returned a result. The results were what they had all hoped, early twenty-first century to mid twenty-first century. This was the real deal, a piece of ancient earth history. The sound the Ultrasonic tool had made indicated that there was space behind the door, clear of rock. Anna turned to Toran.

    “Your move, we can blast the door but that will probably bring the whole place down on our heads. We could cut the door but our laser cutter lost its last focusing head two days ago. So I guess you are going to have to prove those skills of yours and hotwire this thing.”

    Toran moved toward what looked like a control panel and forced it open. He removed many tools and a strange mini-power supply from a bag. He looked over at Anna and Robert, “Even if I can hotwire this thing, I cannot guarantee it will open. Either way, it will be a few hours go get some rest.”

    “We will stay right here you thief,” said Anna grumpily.

    “Suit yourselves then. I promise I won’t steal anything before you come back.”
    “No deal.”

    “Fine, be that way,” and Toran got to work and acted like the world didn’t exist.

    --- 3 hours later

    “I .. think.. I … YES!!! Quick everyone put on your masks!” Everyone scrambled to put on their environmental masks as the ancient door began to make strange noises. With a powerful gust of old air the doors seals broke and it began a slow groaning slide downwards…. Then suddenly it made the most awful noises and ground to a stop. Just under a meter of space was available to squeeze through. The dust hung heavy in the air and even through the masks the old air smelled foul. Alarms began to bleet on the safety scanners they all wore. Low oxygen alert read out on their HUDs in the masks. Everyone switched over to a micro O2 tank they all were wearing on their belts.

    Anna moved to go in first but was blocked by Robert. “No, Anna, it might be dangerous,” he said.

    “I am just as capable and we are all at risk here,” her retort carried with it a lifetime of frustration at her big brothers over protective behavior.

    “Look, just this once, listen to me. You already have one cybernetic arm. And while they may be popular you got yours because you didn’t listen to me. I don’t know why but in the pit of my stomach I feel something. Please…”

    “Listen to you big bro,” Toran was wearing his smug chauvinistic look. This just infuriated Anna but the look of unmasked fear on her brothers face made her pause.. and Toran moved to begin to climb the wall to get to the gap in the door.

    “Fine be first you greedy bastard!”

    “I will be, ha ha! The find will be mine.. I am just kidding Anna. We all have worked hard for this. We will be famous.. and rich.. did I mention RICH!” The last was said as he squeezed sideways through and dropped out of sight. “There are small electronic lights about ten meters down this corridor. Its faint, looks like another room is branched off from this main corridor. Come on you guys get your butts in here.”

    Anna and Robert dropped down behind Toran. Indeed there was a faint small electric light near what looked like another room that gave the barest glimmer of soft small electronic lighting within. Toran had been right. The scanner had shown a power source and that room was just at the right distance the scanner had shown two days before. Unfortunately for them the rest of what else was once here was blocked by another rock-fall just after the room with the open door. They were completely out of supplies now. No time or money to get more and heck now that they had their proof they could sell the rights to some corporation and all retire as someone else did all the hard work to find what else was down here. However, they would need more than scanner data and video records. They would bring something back. That something waited in the room ahead. They moved ahead slowly, cautiously. There might be old security systems. Toran was intently using his scanner, he took this very seriously. His smug face and light hearted behavior had evaporated in an instant and he was all business right now. Anna looked at him, he shook his head. No threats. Still they moved carefully. The door was only partially open and the light was coming from around a corner in the room so they could still not see the source. All together they heaved against the sliding door and forced it open enough to squeeze through.

    Anna was first this time and once through rounded the corner. They talked less to conserve oxygen, but they could hear her gasp once she got round the corner. They all followed and stood rooted in place. The room was larger than they thought. Rock-falls here and there had crushed much of the equipment. It was some kind of lab, fifteen by thirty meters with a ceiling of about 5 meters. A large chamber of some kind was buried under rocks. The only light came from a large console on the far wall. They all spread out searching the room. Anna examined the mechanism with the three small lights on it. Brushing the dust away from the console the three lights belonged to two indicators and one to a button. Shrugging she pressed the button. A small hum got louder and louder.. the men looked about. Another bleet from the safety scanners, gamma radiation increasing. Toran consulted his scanner.

    “Gamma, safe for now, but its rising fast. Its coming from.. There behind the wall next to the console you were at Anna. Scanner says some kind of power source. It, eh, looks like a small fission reactor. The shielding is damaged. We have about 10 minutes of safe exposure… Unless… Here use these, Anti-Rad injectors. OT makes em, they are real deal nano stimms from Omni-Tek. They will give us protection for an extended period.” He handed one stimm to each of them. He pointed to his neck, “Inject them right into the artery”. They each used the stimms and discarded them. Toran looked at his scanner and tapped it, “The manual states this will protect us from gamma radiation for, one hour. There isn’t that better.”

    “Look,” Robert pointed to another computer looking console on the other side of the room from where Anna had activated the power plant. It was lit up, there was the humming sound of fans and other electronic sounds.

    Robert got to the terminal first and looked it over. A computer for sure, ancient design but the interface made sense. “Hey, Toran, lets figure out how to use this thing.”

    “Right oh, man.. Wow look at that... It’s some kind of data server. Here let me hook up my scanner and see if we can download anything.” Thirty minutes later Toran had managed to interface his scanner with the ancient computer and began to just download all he could. There wasn’t much that was uncorrupted but. He grabbed everything. He left off the scanner to do its down load and continued to peruse the room’s debris for anything that might be of value. His search was rewarded with a canister. It was high tech for its time... a note of petulance crossed his face as he realized his scanner was busy at the computer. “Ah, well he whispered, I guess I will have to open you up to see what you have.”
    Quote Originally Posted by tweeeeeek View Post
    and everyone knows solsdiers dont think they just cast ams then roll face in keyboard for maximum efficiency
    Quote Originally Posted by Means
    I would have loved to see 18.0 finish up faster...but some "interesting" ways of playing the game were discovered that slowed the process slightly...in the same way as the pope is slightly Catholic.



    ..

  4. #4
    ……………….. “Toran, what’s wrong!” ……… “Don’t come near me! Take the data and the scanner get out.” ……. “Hey sis, I feel strange...” …. “Robert!” ….. “Anna, get out of here!”...........
    Quote Originally Posted by tweeeeeek View Post
    and everyone knows solsdiers dont think they just cast ams then roll face in keyboard for maximum efficiency
    Quote Originally Posted by Means
    I would have loved to see 18.0 finish up faster...but some "interesting" ways of playing the game were discovered that slowed the process slightly...in the same way as the pope is slightly Catholic.



    ..

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •