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Description
THE STORM

Any time I go SFU, I have nightmares. The added change tonight of staying on the ground for the first time in twenty-five years, without the zeppelin's familiar hum and the tremor of the engines, is not helping. So, after reliving the Outbreak over and over and waking in a cold sweat, I've decided to do some exploring. It's 0230 AM shiptime, and apart from the watch over at the control centre, everyone is sleeping. My room, apparently meant for an officer, has a very nice screen that has the minor fault of displaying nothing but snow. As I don't have any video OSDs with me, it isn't really of any use. So I go out, trying to find something to do.

The environment control has been rebooted, sending the temperature skyrocketing from C°8 to C°35. A fault in the system has prevented the engineer from tuning it down, and the Scavengers have had to pillage summer clothes from the base's supplies. As we're used to constant temperatures of C°15 onboard the zeppelins, this heat is nearly unbearable for most of us. I'm wearing a light, short-sleeved shirt that looks like a Daltonian's impression of a fireworks display and bog-standard American khakis, thus showing off an impressive number of my bandages. I'm down to my fourth and final gel patch, but I know that the medic must have some. If not, I'll go to the base's infirmary. The three women from the unit have decided to bunk there, so I think I'll wait for a bit before bothering them. The pain's gone from "unspeakable" to "barely manageable", anyhow.

Some thoughtful person has applied tags in English to the elevator's controls, so I can now navigate through the base without becoming hopelessly lost. First, I think I'll check the computers. As there are only a few of us in the base, there are only two Scavengers manning the control centre, which is more than enough to keep track of sixteen people. Lights have been dimmed everywhere, and I can't be arsed to break the mood, so I grab the headlamp from my helmet. If it gets too dark, I'll be able to use it.

I make my way to the lift and select my destination. I am whisked away to the lab section, and a secondary elevator takes me towards the computer room. As the platform slowly goes down, I remember what Clara told me about the base's previous staff.

Three years before the Outbreak, after the bases had been completed, the structures were "abandoned" or sold to "private" companies, which were actually screens for the CIA. The "staff" (In this case, ostensibly media workers and technicians for the radio station) was mostly picked from the CIA Special Projects division, but also from several other branches. However, during the Outbreak itself, this base and a dozen others from the same network were only staffed by a skeleton crew, with the others having been pulled out by the time the Rust hit this region. Most of the remaining employees, it appeared, were either the "UN officers" we'd seen on arrival, who'd been part of the security staff, or were still decaying quietly in the Dual Hip's wreckage on the landing pad. Two members of the twenty-strong research team had been hiding in the bunker, and they witnessed, day after day, the skies getting darker as the Rust swallowed everything. One of them kept a log which became filled with more and more despair as it went on.

In the end, exactly a year after the lockdown, both decided to end their imprisonment. They locked down all the systems and shot themselves in the head. Both mummified bodies were found by the Scavengers in the command centre, facing each other, with the diary resting on the main console. Similar fates had befallen the occupants of many bases. In the Communication Centre, the first base to be investigated, the commander had apparently opened a officially sealed letter that ordered him to kill any nonessential staff and retreat to the base's core. Unfortunately for him, and the remaining handful of essential staff, the core leaked, and the radiation killed them within a few months. Gruesome.

The computer room itself is on the same level as the infirmary, oddly enough, but I suppose it has some logic: Keep the headache-generating machinery and the cure for it on the same floor.
As I make my way past the double doors of the stretcher entrance, the door opens up, making me hug the wall and draw my weapon. I breathe an involuntary sigh of relief at the near-ghostly figure that appears. Seems I'm not the only one who isn't sleeping.

-...The fuck? Ah, it's you, Captain. What're you doing up at this time?"
-Probably same thing as you, Corporal Moreau... Is that all you found?" I ask, indicating her rather flimsy green surgical coat.
-Shut up. I don't know how I'm even survive with that heat... I feel like putting my armor back on just for the environment control."

Protocol quietly but swiftly set aside, we set out to find one of the purifier's taps. Scattered throughout the complex are a number of water ducts coming from a water recycling and purifying plant installed as part of the base's nuclear lockdown system, drawing from the water strata right below us. The infirmary has a couple of them, but the room is still occupied by the two other women, so we need to look for another.

As we walk past the server room's pressure-sealed door, I notice a fire plan beside the control panel. I start studying it, but Clara roughly pulls me to the wall, in the deeper shadow of the thick doorframe.

-What the...?"
-Shhhh!"

The faint hiss of the elevator's door closing, twenty metres behind us, is a barely audible but sufficient warning for me to hug the wall tighter. A metallic humming, sounding like a tune coming from a damaged radio, gets closer.

-The drone? What's it doing here?"
-Beats me... Joan's always been more than a bit weird, as you've seen. Probably due to being a first-gen."
-Weird or not, I don't like a drone capable of opening any locked doors hanging about the base at zero three hundred, when everyone's sleeping."

The drone, pulsing its cold blue light reminiscent of Cherenkov radiation, passes by without acknowledging our presence. Its short arms extended, it plugs into a concealed data port further along in the corridor. After a minute or two of beeping, humming and muttered curses, it retracts its arms and buzzes off, oblivious to the two huddled figures concealed in the shadow of the doorframe.

-What the hell was that? It's creepy..."
-No shit. I didn't notice that data port when we did the base sweep the first time, and Devil knows that we were looking for 'em..."

A "clunk" echoes from the far end of the corridor. The drone has made off through a service duct.

-Let's go back to the Centre. They can figure out what data was retrieved."
-I don't think so, Captain. Most of the data ports on this floor are closed-circuit, they're linked directly to the servers. Maybe Joan was just retrieving some intel for us."
-Damn well better hope so. That machine creeps me out."
-Better it than anything we'd have had to fight against. I wouldn't have been of much use." she says, pointing to her surgical coat. "Comfy in this heat, but ultimately un-sexy and useless. I don't even have a weapon."
-I thought you Scavengers were all trained to fight bare-arsed..."
-There's bare-arsed and there's tangled up. I think that the second one applies here."
-Come on, there's a fresh water tap waiting for us somewhere."

And we resume our little tour without any further incident.

Description
THE STORM

Any time I go SFU, I have nightmares. The added change tonight of staying on the ground for the first time in twenty-five years, without the zeppelin's familiar hum and the tremor of the engines, is not helping. So, after reliving the Outbreak over and over and waking in a cold sweat, I've decided to do some exploring. It's 0230 AM shiptime, and apart from the watch over at the control centre, everyone is sleeping. My room, apparently meant for an officer, has a very nice screen that has the minor fault of displaying nothing but snow. As I don't have any video OSDs with me, it isn't really of any use. So I go out, trying to find something to do.

The environment control has been rebooted, sending the temperature skyrocketing from C°8 to C°35. A fault in the system has prevented the engineer from tuning it down, and the Scavengers have had to pillage summer clothes from the base's supplies. As we're used to constant temperatures of C°15 onboard the zeppelins, this heat is nearly unbearable for most of us. I'm wearing a light, short-sleeved shirt that looks like a Daltonian's impression of a fireworks display and bog-standard American khakis, thus showing off an impressive number of my bandages. I'm down to my fourth and final gel patch, but I know that the medic must have some. If not, I'll go to the base's infirmary. The three women from the unit have decided to bunk there, so I think I'll wait for a bit before bothering them. The pain's gone from "unspeakable" to "barely manageable", anyhow.

Some thoughtful person has applied tags in English to the elevator's controls, so I can now navigate through the base without becoming hopelessly lost. First, I think I'll check the computers. As there are only a few of us in the base, there are only two Scavengers manning the control centre, which is more than enough to keep track of sixteen people. Lights have been dimmed everywhere, and I can't be arsed to break the mood, so I grab the headlamp from my helmet. If it gets too dark, I'll be able to use it.

I make my way to the lift and select my destination. I am whisked away to the lab section, and a secondary elevator takes me towards the computer room. As the platform slowly goes down, I remember what Clara told me about the base's previous staff.

Three years before the Outbreak, after the bases had been completed, the structures were "abandoned" or sold to "private" companies, which were actually screens for the CIA. The "staff" (In this case, ostensibly media workers and technicians for the radio station) was mostly picked from the CIA Special Projects division, but also from several other branches. However, during the Outbreak itself, this base and a dozen others from the same network were only staffed by a skeleton crew, with the others having been pulled out by the time the Rust hit this region. Most of the remaining employees, it appeared, were either the "UN officers" we'd seen on arrival, who'd been part of the security staff, or were still decaying quietly in the Dual Hip's wreckage on the landing pad. Two members of the twenty-strong research team had been hiding in the bunker, and they witnessed, day after day, the skies getting darker as the Rust swallowed everything. One of them kept a log which became filled with more and more despair as it went on.

In the end, exactly a year after the lockdown, both decided to end their imprisonment. They locked down all the systems and shot themselves in the head. Both mummified bodies were found by the Scavengers in the command centre, facing each other, with the diary resting on the main console. Similar fates had befallen the occupants of many bases. In the Communication Centre, the first base to be investigated, the commander had apparently opened a officially sealed letter that ordered him to kill any nonessential staff and retreat to the base's core. Unfortunately for him, and the remaining handful of essential staff, the core leaked, and the radiation killed them within a few months. Gruesome.

The computer room itself is on the same level as the infirmary, oddly enough, but I suppose it has some logic: Keep the headache-generating machinery and the cure for it on the same floor.
As I make my way past the double doors of the stretcher entrance, the door opens up, making me hug the wall and draw my weapon. I breathe an involuntary sigh of relief at the near-ghostly figure that appears. Seems I'm not the only one who isn't sleeping.

-...The fuck? Ah, it's you, Captain. What're you doing up at this time?"
-Probably same thing as you, Corporal Moreau... Is that all you found?" I ask, indicating her rather flimsy green surgical coat.
-Shut up. I don't know how I'm even survive with that heat... I feel like putting my armor back on just for the environment control."

Protocol quietly but swiftly set aside, we set out to find one of the purifier's taps. Scattered throughout the complex are a number of water ducts coming from a water recycling and purifying plant installed as part of the base's nuclear lockdown system, drawing from the water strata right below us. The infirmary has a couple of them, but the room is still occupied by the two other women, so we need to look for another.

As we walk past the server room's pressure-sealed door, I notice a fire plan beside the control panel. I start studying it, but Clara roughly pulls me to the wall, in the deeper shadow of the thick doorframe.

-What the...?"
-Shhhh!"

The faint hiss of the elevator's door closing, twenty metres behind us, is a barely audible but sufficient warning for me to hug the wall tighter. A metallic humming, sounding like a tune coming from a damaged radio, gets closer.

-The drone? What's it doing here?"
-Beats me... Joan's always been more than a bit weird, as you've seen. Probably due to being a first-gen."
-Weird or not, I don't like a drone capable of opening any locked doors hanging about the base at zero three hundred, when everyone's sleeping."

The drone, pulsing its cold blue light reminiscent of Cherenkov radiation, passes by without acknowledging our presence. Its short arms extended, it plugs into a concealed data port further along in the corridor. After a minute or two of beeping, humming and muttered curses, it retracts its arms and buzzes off, oblivious to the two huddled figures concealed in the shadow of the doorframe.

-What the hell was that? It's creepy..."
-No shit. I didn't notice that data port when we did the base sweep the first time, and Devil knows that we were looking for 'em..."

A "clunk" echoes from the far end of the corridor. The drone has made off through a service duct.

-Let's go back to the Centre. They can figure out what data was retrieved."
-I don't think so, Captain. Most of the data ports on this floor are closed-circuit, they're linked directly to the servers. Maybe Joan was just retrieving some intel for us."
-Damn well better hope so. That machine creeps me out."
-Better it than anything we'd have had to fight against. I wouldn't have been of much use." she says, pointing to her surgical coat. "Comfy in this heat, but ultimately un-sexy and useless. I don't even have a weapon."
-I thought you Scavengers were all trained to fight bare-arsed..."
-There's bare-arsed and there's tangled up. I think that the second one applies here."
-Come on, there's a fresh water tap waiting for us somewhere."

And we resume our little tour without any further incident.