With his gun locked and loaded, he cautiously proceeded forward, staying close to the wall. He searched around, looking for any clues that could possibly lead him to his best friend. Nearly one hundred meters ahead, he saw a sliver of light coming from a manhole off in the distance. The cover was tilted, possibly indicating that it had been forcibly opened. It’s definitely sketchy for that manhole cover to be dislodged. That might be worth checking out, he thought to himself while checking his surroundings. He made his way toward the manhole. Being careful to not make a sound, he listened closely for any sign of activity. There was complete silence.
This could be a trap. Anything could happen, he thought. Regardless of this truth, he gathered his resolve and descended the sewer opening. He was light on his feet, ready to spring into action on a moment’s notice if he needed to. At the bottom, he came across a narrow corridor that was dimly lit with rusted flood lights. He followed the corridor to the end where he made a sharp left turn.
The air was thick and oppressing. The passageway smelled of malodorous mildew. There was an excess of moisture buildup, particularly running off the pipes. The walkway was narrow and held together by makeshift metal fencing and railings. Caiden made his way through the passage, gun held forward, aimed, loaded, and ready to shoot.
At the end of the corridor came a series of confusing twists and turns; it was an underground labyrinth. Whoever constructed this piece of shit did it on purpose, he thought. Whoever made it did so with the sole purpose of discouraging any intruders from advancing further. Caiden pressed on, eventually coming to a small metal door with a keycard access panel and a fingerprint scanner. Shit, this is just great, he thought.
He inspected the surrounding area, hoping to find some hidden latch, lever, key, or keycard for the door; there was nothing. He then checked the hardware of the keycard access panel for a port of any kind. He was in luck. There was a fiber optic port; the same kind as the port as the one in the android’s skull. It looked to be manufactured from Quantum Corporation technology. He plugged his fiber optic cable into the port on the access panel and into his holo-watch. He opened a new terminal window.
Upon connection, a cryptographic sequence window surfaced. First, Caiden had to override the cryptographic sequence that required the password. To do so, he used his terminal to diagnose the base software used for the security protocol. It worked.
“Unilox Security software coding huh?” he said. “This should be simple then.”
In a matter of minutes, Caiden turned the security coding on its head and completely overrode its cryptographic sequencer prompt. And the password is Nephele4@3, huh? Easy work! he triumphantly thought to himself. Befitting of his prudent nature, he thought it best to do a little more research on what was beyond the door before barging in. Burrowing deeper into the security software, he branched off to see how many PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers) were active.
The readings came back, reporting that there were over a thousand different types of PLCs running, including lights, electromechanical arms, cooling chambers, multiple computers, process controllers, sequential, relay, closed circuit security readings, and motion detectors. They all read as green and currently active. All green? Whatever’s beyond this door is supposed to be abandoned! None of the buildings I saw had any windows. No light came from any of them. It’s a surprise that this place can run so subtly with this much processing power and energy, he thought.
Good thing I checked. Without a doubt, there’s some sort of surveillance technology here, so I need to be careful, he thought. Caiden then prompted a sequence on his holo-watch to tap into any readings that resembled HSDs. Due to a wave of interference and static, he only made out a few of them via his Holo-watch. The most important camera was the one behind the door.
He set that camera on an infinite loop, but not before getting a good look of the what was behind the door. It was a small empty corridor. There was a soft glowing light emanating from beyond the cameras field of view. I guess the coast is clear, he thought. After he entered the password, the door unlocked and he quietly slipped through, crouched low and ever vigilant.
Closer to the end of the small corridor stood a vast space with tall ceilings. It was remarkable that such a facility existed. It was also underground, beneath the beat down warehouse. There were thousands of strange chambers neatly organized into rows. None of the overhead lights were turned on. The only lighting came from the chambers and the computer panels attached to them. The chambers stood approximately seven feet high at a reclining tilt, and were as wide as a king sized bed. The ceilings were capped by a built-in metal frame.
The cylindrical chambers were surrounded by reinforced glass. The reinforced glass casing was secured by a retractable metal seal that ran across the width of each unit. Each of these pieces of equipment were lit with a soft with halogen light from the inside.
It was hard to see what else was inside because of the thick white mist that was constantly being pumped into the chambers. There was a power distributing device that was equipped with large industrial grade tubes. The tubes were connected to smaller tubes that were distributed among the thousands of units in the facility.
What in the hell is all this? Caiden thought to himself.
Above the power distributor, was a large rotating Hover Surveillance Drone that was surveying the entire layout. There wasn’t a single guard on duty. Hmm, I wonder why that is? he thought. There were no other cameras that he could see; none floating above, circling the perimeter, none in the corners
