Around 12.000 Year in a far of future a large Octarian archeology troup ripped open a the last metal door that blocked their way into the largest Pre-flood-species structure they have found to this day.

Hina was excited, she was one of the few Octarian that were allowed to investigate those grand structures that survived for so many millenia.

The most common theory about the precursors, that was how most people called them, were that they weren't very smart. The skeletons they found were simply way too small to support proper brain masses. But Hina, head scientist of the royal archaeological investigators, or the Rai for short, believed the opposite, she had seen so many so grand and marvelous creations that to her the simple idea of the creators not to being masters of science was insanity, she would have loved to study the structures forever in the hopes of one day proving her theory that they even had way to create electric energy.

The very idea was preposterous to most, the Zapfish where the holy creator of energy and where keeping millions alive, the only problem was that the victories they had against the squids was short lived, the Zapfish gone with it, and they were back to collecting scraps to stay alive.

Luckily enough there were a lot of scraps to pick from, the structures that they uncovered where so vast and resourceful that even the insane amount of work that it took to crack open the even more insanely thick materials that they used to build their structures was still worth it.

The things they could salvage from them sometimes could feed the citizens energy needs for years to come.

Sadly as much as Hina to explore the insides forever her job was to salvage as much useful things from them as possible, no matter the cost and as fast as possible.

Even if it meant destroying things in the process.

It hurt her now more than ever as she entered and probably for the first time in eons illuminated the structure.

Or that's what she thought, but when she entered she never expected to see so many flashing red lights. They were everywhere. The precursors liked to build practical she learned, so large open spaces with no usefulness were nearly nonexistent. This one was one of the largest she had seen so far. But no matter where she looked red lights were flashing everywhere.

It was completely out of any kind of synchronization and every light was connected to one square on the wall that was clearly sticking out of the wall. She had never seen anything like it, and it was mesmerizing to watch.

"What is so interesting that you have to block the entrance for it Doctor Hina?" Came a angered voice behind her that interrupted her magic moment. With a scroll on her face she turned around. And as expected there was only Octarian who had the guts to call out a full Octoling like herself, and that was the security supervisor Mario, Hina understood this guys job and all that but he really could be a little nicer about it.

He stepped past her unconcerned about the glares he was given from Hina and looked around."Ok, I want all the equipment in that corner over there. Those things, whatever they are all look the same so whatever they are we can probably find out by just looking at one of them, no need to waste energy on lighting up everything." She really hated when he made sense.

After a few hours all was set and done and investigations were running, the materials were mostly the same and the boxes(that was what she was calling them for now), as expected, where all the same as far as she could tell, one box was about as high as her, as wide as she could stretch her arms and they were firmly lodged into the wall, eight of them stacked ontop of eachother with each one having a round grip on it. They had yet to go from the corner next to the door to count how many in length they were.

Also it was cold, they had to get fully clothed because the air in this room was near freezing and already was stale for how knows how long. That it was still breathable was something Hina to found very fascinating.

Speaking of witch this is exactly what she was about to do right now. As she walked off into the dark(red blinking) void that was in front of her her flashlight still failing to reach to the end of the corridor.

But while she marked them down by numbering the bottom row with a piece of tape she found something very strange. One of the boxes wasn't blinking. They theorized that because they blink in such red light they have some sort of power storage in them, this made this place much more valuable already. Maybe this one had run out? At closer inspection she noticed that a part of the box was sticking out, could this be the power source and that it was not properly placed inside? Archeologi normally told her to not touch stuff until properly documented so she quickly snapped pictures and and gave a short entry in her journal.

After she had done that she considered pulling it out for closer inspection and despite how heavy it had to be it was still movable, she could hear weals moving on what sounded like rails beneath it as she moved the grip. She started to move further and further but without a warning it stopped. She reached some sort of blockade that prevented pulling it out fully. With a sigh she started pulling it back and planning to put it back into its starting position.

"What are you doing?!" Came the surprising outcry from her side and a bright light was shining in her eyes.

Hina stopped pushing to shield her eyes."Will you stop shining into my eyes you oversized Pickel!" she screamed back showing the light. She already knew exactly who it was that was screaming at her.

"I will shine my light wherever I want. Now tell me what you are doing pushing whatever that is into the boxes, do you want it to lock and send us straight back to square one?!" While the argument broke out both of them failed to notice that the box indeed had continued moving back and with a soft click locked into place. mechanisms so old that not even the land masses remember them stirred up for the first time in eons, displays started to light up analysis started and systems checked. All this was clearly visible on the outside and even a soft humming was heard.

Sadly the two Octarians were blind to all of this as they continued their argument.

"... and I keep telling you to listen to my orders you insolent child! I am responsible for all of your safety and you just walk off and do move mechanisms that could very well blow this whole place up!" The grumpy military Octarina screamed up at her, despite her being a Octoling, something that was feared by most other Octarinas, the damn guy who only had six limbs left criticised her like she was a child who just recently hatched and would set the world on fire with irresponsible actions.

"I am not a child you crazy old…!" she interrupted herself she saw his look being hefted to the one odd box and he carefully started stepping away from it. She to started looking at it, noticing the humming that was getting louder by the second, and the strange symbols rushing around on the many displays that now were visible on the box, she to now was stepping away carefully.

Meanwhile inside the box tubes connected to vains started fluid circulations making perfectly preserved and enriched blood flow into a body that should have decomposed long ago if not for masterfull chemical, biological and electrical engineering. A heart muscle was forced to pump making stiff and old muscles move for the first time in ages. And rhythmical shocks were injected over the many wires that were connected to the body slowly restoring, temperature, functions and activity. the whole process took only a few minutes. but slowly the body of a man long declared dead to the world started to work again.

"I told you to wander off and now look what you did." Meanwhile the argument outside started again.

"What is that supposed to mean?! If you hadn't surprised me like that, nothing of this would be happening! And not everything will blow up and kill us pessimistic algae eater."

"What did you just call me you damn..." A loud boom of metal hitting metal was heard and this time both looked back at the box a bit more fearful.

The strange noises continued and the displays now showed something that looked like a progress bar, what it was showing the progress of Hina only could guess but the process was close to completion.

A few tense moments both stared until the bar was full and now the whole display was flashing in a bright green and making pinging noises.

Suddenly lights were switched on. Light's. Everywhere. it was so sudden that despite being not very bright they blinded everyone who was in the room.

Hina had to rub her eyes and it took a while until she could open them again, when she did the box that started all this was fully outside.

This… was absolutely amazing, it's the first time Octarian had discovered fully functional precursor technology, she had no idea what it did but right now it didn't matter. She had her camera out and was snapping pictures with excitement radiating out of her body.

"What in the Octo King's name is that thing." She heard a low grumble next to her and saw the superviser point his inker at the box. She doubted she could do any real damage with it and in that moment chose to ignore him and stepped closer, sadly she didn't see much as the box seemed to be the same material and there was nothing interesting visible on it other then she now saw that it was way larger than she expected it to be and the other boxes stayed unchanged. Hissing was heard and gases burst out from the box forcing her to step back again and she watched with fascination as the box opened with noises she never heard before being heard.


"So, will any of you fine gentleman explain to me what is going on?" I asked the two guys that were sitting in front of me.

Roughly two hours ago I literally had my door ripped open and 3 full black suit, agent looking guys whose moms fed them way to well, politely informed me that I had to come with them, or they would drag me along.

I like to think that I am a smart guy and as such chose to not complain.

Now one of them is driving while the two others were accompanying me in the back seats of the limo that we drove.

Also the guy in the front was actually driving. I mean come on it's the year 2025, who is still driving manually these days? If the cars still had gears I might understand but the cans they produce these days are all purely electronic.

"We can't give you any information yet." left big guys said."If it's any consolation you are not in trouble."

Well that is good, I think? "Thank you for at least telling me that." I answered with a sigh.

The drive continued and sadly the windows were completely black I also didn't have my phone with me so I was bored out of my skull.

"Anything you guys are allowed to talk about to pass the time?" I asked again.

They both looked at each other for a moment before left guy spoke up again."You watched the quarterfinals of the last hockey cup?" Now we are talking!

While I wasn't a very big sports enthusiast I have to admit that the conversation speed up the ride immensely.

"We are here." the driver spoke up, how he was driving with his windshield completely black I have no idea. Probably had something to do with the sunglasses he was wearing the whole time.

The door opened up and we stepped out of the car. Of course I had no idea where we were and there was no point for me to even look around as the garage we were in had no windows whatsoever, but I did see other things, a massive armored vehicle for one and I really wanted to drive that thing.

Oh well, maybe later.

"So, now that we are here can you tell me something more or do we talk more about sports?" I asked again.

"Well it involves a lot of sciency stuff so I may not be the best to explain it. If I had to sum it up this is a Noah's ark projekt." Ok that set of way too many alarm bells in my head and also way too many questions.

"When you say Noah's ark you mean the one that was made to survive the end of the world?" I tried to confirm as we left the garage into a normal looking hallway.

"The one and only."

I breathed out heavily and while various questions ran through my mind, questions like, why me, how and when. Most of these questions belonged into 'sciency stuff' territory as such I simply followed along.

We reached a plain looking door and entered to find a lab coat guy sitting at his desk typing away at his computer.

He didn't seem to notice us at first being to deep in his work. "Professor Martin? We brought the last guy in." Now that didn't sound ominous at all.

"Ah, yes thank you gentlemen you are dismissed for now." And with that they left the room."So, I am sure you have a few questions... " understatement much?"... but allow me to explain first. This is government lead installation that is made for the purpose of preserving human life, culture and technology in the case a apocalyptic scenario. Ones such scenario is close right now." He said that so calmly I had trouble believing him. "To be exact the world is being flooding right now and the whole surface will be covered in water in a few years making it completely uninhabitable for all land based creatures."

It must have been very comical for someone who watched this conversation from the outside with no tone with the multiple faces and emotions I made right then and there.

I was struggling to find the like words for this and chose to wait it out and look around the room for hidden cameras and the likes. After it became apparent that I was waiting for nothing I formed my first question."What is causing it? Because that global warming crap has been going on since I am a child and the polar caps don't have nearly enough water to flood the whole world."

"Global warming was fake, it was something else that made the water levels rise and we had, and still don't have, any way to stop it." He shows emotions at the fact that he couldn't solve a problem rather than the fact that many people are going to die. I like this man. "Basically there is a insanely large gas pocket that is beneath one of the tectonic plates and the gas started to leak, the gases are mostly H₂O, with a few stranger ones in the mix that range from radioactive to acidic and corrosive. We have estimated that they will severely change the ecosystem of the oceans but the main problem is that there is simply too much of them and when they reach the surface and condense back into water they will flood the whole world while simultaneously sinking the american continent below sea level."

I took of my glasses and rubbed my eyes."There isn't any chance that this is some TV show crap that you are pulling right now?"

"I am afraid not, but to get the usual questions out of the way. There are many arc projects that are currently running around the globe, this is simply one of the first ones and will launch and one of the most promising ones, you are chosen because you are in perfect health and have a very high chance to survive this, are very calm and collected, have a degree in electrical engineering and some of your books count as cultural property under the preservation act of 2023 so trying to save the author along the way is a boon if you will.

I… really didn't know how to respond to this, at all, the things the lab coat told me were way too much.

"Also you don't have anything really holding you here, familie dead or no contact, no girl or boyfriend and not much social contacts besides online interactions in some really old games." Rude, also thank you for confirming you spy on me bastards. "If you wish to talk with someone we have multiply highly trained personnel that is willing to listen?" I would have questioned your sanity if you didn't offer me that option right now.

"I… am good for now." I thought over his words and what to say next."You have yet to tell me what exactly we will be doing."

"Cryosleep." came the one word reply and I probably made a funny face again because he added."Yes you heard me right."

"We, as in the human race, can already do that?" I asked curiosly.

"Yes." Came the short answer that I wasn't buying at all.

"And we can do it safely?" I dug deeper.

"In your case…" thinking break, I know you are about to lie to me buddy "We have a 85% chance to be perfectly fine. If you want to know more about the direct process I am sure the doctors will love to tell you more about it, but to finish this up all your personal belongings are taken care of and everything that can be preserved until your planned wakeup call you can take with you. You will have a list delivered to you with everything that will be taken along, and you can add things that we might have forgotten but it has to be approved first." Want to get rid of me quickly buddy?"Here is your pass..." He said passing me a shiny green name plate."And the gentleman outside will lead you to your room, tomorrow we start preparing your body for the procedure."

"Preparing in what way?" I asked with a bit of fear

"Physical training,..." Flinch."Dieting,..." Flinch."and at the end a very long medical procedure."

"Joy." He really didn't want to talk more about details, I probably shouldn't pressure him about it."Well, time to meet and drill some doctors then."


I really shouldn't have asked, basically I will get placed on a operation table, have all my bodily fluids drained and replaced with something that will keep my body from decaying in any way. Apparently the newest toy that chemical engineers have come up with, and I also will have a few of my organs modified, as example, there will be a 'net' placed around my heart that will make sure that the pump will keep going and also restart it when I am supposed to 'wake up'.

It was not fun to have pictures of what will be done showed into my face.

How was I dealing with all of this? I like to think with my calm and collected personality, but the psychologist was helping.

After a few exiting weeks where I got to know my fellow freeze buddies that would be out cold with me, ha, and requested a few extra things to bring along with me, what things? That's privat.

I also got some infos on the other arcs apparently some floating island, massive ships, a few spaceships, and a bunker where all in the making and only had about one year to finish.

A few months passed and the final physical evaluation happened, I was cleared and branded ready as one of the first few with the other still going through body preparations.

So there I was nearly naked on a table soon to be set on ice."It's funny how all the sci-fi stories portray capsules that simply freeze you in place, that would never work on humans." Also my doctor was here for my last talk so to speak."Well if you allow me to sum up..."

"Please spare me the details, the first time I had pictures of my frozen internal organs showed into my face I was grossed out enough."

"Haha, yes our surgeons are very enthusiastic about this procedure, it is a operation of a lifetime after all." he said with a wink. I like this guy."But to sum it up, we will put you to sleep, prepare your body, insert the machinery that will restart you after the time has passed..." another detail that many omitted was how long we would stay frozen for, something to do with the fact that they didn't know when or even if there ever will be ground to live on. Apparently after the procedure is done there was nothing that had to be done other then keep my body sealed completely airtight which wasn't hard at all by today's standards, everything would have safety procedures on the safety procedures that were safety procedures for the safety procedures of the project so that nothing could go wrong. As reassuring as everything was, there was still one details that I dug out after some longer questioning, apparently there was a 30% chance that my body would not restart properly and leave me dead with my heart net simulating pumping for a few hundred years until even this ingenious creation would stop working.

All in all a solid plan, or so I and the 48.635 other people were told multiple times each and everyone had their own capsule, a own backup energy source just in case, and a plushy when(if) we wake up.

Also urinating will feel like pissing acid because of the leftover preservation fluids for a while so yay me I guess.

"Well, let's do this." I told the doctor.

"I wish you good dreams then." The doc said while injecting the good night serum into me.


Question. How does it feel to be dead?

Answere. It doesn't.

The first thing I noticed after I had been put to sleep was cold. Good, that meant it worked and I am not dead.

Slowly light became visible, that was normal as the light very slowly started to get to the same level that was outside to not damage my retina, my breathing was heavy as as was everything else around, with and inside me luckily there was no pain. But there would be when all of my nerves started working properly again.

I was not looking forward to that, so far everything seems to be in order as I slowly moved and tested my body as much as was possible for me. I also started to hear again made evident by Evanescence softly singing, we were allowed a song to chose to wake up to, our hearing to had to be softly awakened and her songs were always pleasant.

The lids started to slide open above me and the ceiling of the facility greeted me, strange I expected some medical personnel to greet me when I wake up and take my vitals and junk like that. Hm, maybe the machines did that for them when they reanimated me and pumped blood back into me.

Speaking of which I now that I saw the previously opened holes in my body they started to hurt.

Well at least that meant that I was working to that extend.

Also. Ouch!

I lifted myself up and stretched my arms up instinctively while feeling one of the most satisfying cracks of my neck in ages, while this was happening I was yawning and because of that my eyes were closed and I didn't see the horrified/fascinated/reality questioning looks that I was receiving.

When I finally did open my eyes I really was expecting some lab coats or at least someone to be there at all, not whatever those things where.

Those things being the strange, disturbingly wrong proportioned kid with tentacles on its head and that literally walking Octopus.

What. The. Fuck?!

Ok, Ok, calm down, is this meds doing some shit to my head? No, I was clinically dead, there is nothing supposed to be in my system, despite how disgusting some if it was, I digged through all of the sleeping process carefully and nothing of this kind was ever mentioned.

What other options where there? This seemed very surreal and so far we all just keep staring at each other. Halluzination from brain damage? Possible, but so far nothing was grabbing my shoulders or asking me stuff so no, also I was pretty sure brain damage didn't work that way.

So, right now I had two Aliens look at me while I probably looked even more alien to them then they did to me.

The implications were… worrying to sum it up in one word. I slowly started to look around and recognized the area. Everyone was given a good explanation and time to remember the installation, speaking of everyone where are the… Red. Red lights everywhere. This was not good at all, I need a computer right this instance. I moved and to my satisfaction the after effects didn't seem to great, we were warned that in the worst case whole limbs might be rendered unusable, but so far except for that annoyingly painful stinging all over my body everything seemed to be fine.

In my panic I forgot that I was being watched and I turned back to them and found out that they still stood rooted in place but now threw hushed whispers at each other.

Well they haven't shot me so far so maybe they had even less of an Idea what was going on then I did.

I shuddered as I discovered that the room was cold as ice and the fact that everything was metal and cold didn't help it. I needed to get to the end of the room. The door there should hold clothes food and a few other special things. While it surely would be nice and insightful to chat with aliens I decided that I would rather not for now.

Well here goes nothing. I wiggled my limbs a bit and while they did sting all over nothing was preventing my movement.

Well as much as this silent conversation you were having was entertaining to watch strange strangers but I must go.

And with that last thought I took of running. At first they seemed to shocked to react but then I heard them shout out something in their strange gibberish language. Well not that it mattered, the ground was simply way too cold under my feet to consider stopping.

I reached the door hit the panel a few times while hopping around on my feet and rushed in as it opened. It was still cold as hell but at least the was a carpet in this room. I would have tried to seal the door behind me but I had no idea how to do that with no security codes. If they wanted they could have just followed me, provided they knew how to operate our stuff and could physically do it.

I had a designated locker that was shown to me earlier(an unknown amount of years.) and quickly clothed myself while being thankful for the advice of putting warm stuff into the lockers.

Now I needed to think because all of this was way too much to take in, what to do…


"What in the king, and all the holy lands name just happened?!" Mario shouted with a mix of rage and confusion.

"That… was a precursor, I think." Hina admitted with a twitch in her eye. Her brain tried to come up with a logical explanation for what she had just witnessed and replayed everything in her mind slowly.

First the, what she assumed was the battery, started what she originally called box and after whatever it did, finished it slid out and a… thing that was twice her height lifted itself out of it while she heard sounds of things cracking that disturbed her down to the tentacles. Then the creature that was way taller than her, and had many, sharp looking teeth in its mouth evident by the way it stretched, simply looked at them, then looked around and simply ran off without a word. Hina tried to shout out after it but to no avail.

And it ran fast, like, she had never seen anything going so fast, it reached the end of the hallway hit the wall besides it a few times and then the door opened before it disappeared inside of the room and the door closed.

Also there was music playing during all of this.

All of this happened so fast.

She looked around and while she vaguely heard Mario rage around in the background barking orders at her and the others the implications of the boxes were not very disturbing.

"We need to talk to it!" She said with determination.

"... get that… Wait what?!" He shouted at her.

"Think, we just woke up something that was asleep for who knows how long while we drilled a hole into its door and invaded what is probably its home." Hina reasoned. In truth this was the greatest opportunity she could have ever hoped for, their race was thought to be extinct since over 12 000 years and she found one that was alive, how this was possible she didn't understand at all.

But she didn't need to, she could ask.

She could literally go there and ask the very creature that made it possible and this was only one of SO. MANY. Questions she had.

But first she had to convince it that she and the others where no threat.

Not that she in her unarmed state was any kind of danger to it.

"Hina, you are a great scientist, I admit that. But you deal with dead things, things that can't harm you. This thing!" he said pointing in the direction of where the precursor went."Is freaking alive and very well capable of harming you!"

"But it didn't!" She argued back, this opportunity she would not waste because of that old warsalmon!"If it wanted to attack us it already would have done so when it woke up. But as you can clearly see both of us are fine! Well I am not looking at your mental state." she said the last part under her breath.

"I will not have you risk your life because of your insane obsession with those old fossils!" He shouted back now giving his full attention to her

"This is not just some old fossil that we are dealing with! This is a living creature that came from way before us, that probably has knowledge and secrets that we have never even dreamed of!" by now the rest of the crew has stopped what they were doing and watched the heated argument. Argument such as this one where common but this was right now was big and no one knew really what to do, so the winner of this one would decided on what the next step was. And so everyone waited and watched.

"I am the security supervisor of this operation." Oh, he didn't dare pull that card."As such I can overrule every decision you made on the ground of a compromise in the operations safety and I will do so if I must." Oh it's so on!

"I am well aware of that," Hina admitted."but what you are forgetting is that I can file a complaint for abuse of power directly to the Queen..." She made sure to say Queen with as much meaning as possible to drive home the point of Octavio not being the King right now."And we both know who she would listen to." She whispered to him only mere centimeters from his face away.

The fact that the new queen was a Octoling herself did wonders for Hinas financial powers and allowed her way more influence than Octavio would have ever permitted, this whole operation was only allowed because Hina made sure to be on the best possible terms with her.

Mario stared at her with rage nearly exploding out of his face."Fine, have it your way brat." before she could allow herself to grin one of his tentacles grabbed her by the collar."But mark my words, if I find this creature to be too dangerous or harm any in the expedition your orders can go straight to the sharks." With those words he turned around and went back to the camp.

Hina waited a few seconds before releasing the breath she was holding and turned to the groupe."Alright people, pack up, we will set up camp just outside the installation. Don't want to bunker directly inside someone's home."


OK, there were a few possibilities what was going on. So I had to filter them out.

Option one. Aliens. This was not very likely as they as far as I could see had no space suits and stuff like that there was the option that they were simply too advanced for them but that was quickly scratched because that would mean that scanning equipment and similar things should be on a similar level and they looked as surprised as I was at seeing me. Also there was no reaction that indicated that this was planned so for now Aliens was of the list.

Next thing on the list, Hallucinations. The problem with this one was that I had no real way to test this at all so for now this to was stored away.

This already limited the possibilities quite a bit but as the encounter replayed in his mind another option came to mind. That thing next to the kid, as he decided to call it, looked like a octopus while the the kid also had octopus like tentacles on its head. Science Fiction was my fort and the scenario to wake up to a future where humans are no longer the dominant species is not so unlikely… But octopy? They were indeed known for their great brain powers so maybe that allowed them surpass everything else.

This also left another big problem, how many years have passed? Evolution like this didn't happen very fast and it would explain why so many blinking red lights where there.

Did this mean the arc failed and they were left to die peacefully? A somber thought.

I wandered a bit and got to Doctor Martins office, maybe his PC had some answers, if he didn't password protect everything that is.

Well here goes nothing!

It booted it up but what I was not expecting was to see Doctor Martins face in the screen. But it was strange, he looked older, I wonder how much time has passed between this and the last time we saw each other.

"How the hell am I even supposed to say this?" He said to someone offscreen."Ha, yea whatever you say." he sighed and turned his attention to the camera."Hello to whoever is watching, my name is Doctor Martin Zuckerback. And I am officially setting the status of project 'Cold arc' to suspended for an indefinite time." You mother fu.."The project is working perfectly fine so far but the problem that we found is that after the first gas eruptions the seafloor became more unstable then anticipated and underwater volcanoes the size of the Yellowstone started to accelerate the process to levels that no one could predict and we don't even have the time to properly calculate it. We… the human race is most likely doomed." Shit."There are a few arcs that have potential to survive, the few shuttles that we managed to launch to mars might lead to something but there is little chance in them actually being able to create a functioning growing Civilization there." By this point tears were flowing out of his eyes. "If anyone ever gets to see this recording then whoever you are, the rooms you passed on your way to this computer contained around 50.000 humans who are frozen down and perfectly preserved, each and every containment unit should be out of power by now. The near perfect isolation and protection that we included in this building should keep perfect conditions intact for as long as no meteor crashes into this building so there is that."He sighed again and lit a Cigar."Lucky bastards, getting to sleep and maybe one day waking up to meet aliens or something insane like this, huh, if not they at least won't know. I on the other hand am too old for the process by now. The security codes for the whole building are in my drawer including multiple security cards, whoever you are, good luck." And with that the feed cut of.

I sat in the chair for a while only staring at the now open desktop of the computer. I was simply at loss of what to do.

I got my answers I suppose. Not that I like them, but that is what I asked for isn't it? By this point a few tears were on my face to. I wiped them away when noticing took a deep breath.

Step by step, that is how you tackle problems. First things first, how much time has passed, if my theory is correct then holy hell this installation stood for a long time and is probably buried in water or dirt.

Normally I would just look into the corner of the screen and see the date but the year 9999 showed me that his was not an option. If it did count and then simply hit a cap then eight millennia then that was a good starting point, I would accept that as a answer for now. Next, the other people, they are currently out cold(I am so not sorry for overusing that) and I needed to find a way to recharge the their beds or they would become coffins.

What options did I have? The facility had energy right now so where was that coming from? With that i started to search the computer, thankfully it was well organized and I found documents about the arc projects fairly quickly it took a while to find and type in all the codes that he left behind but in the end I had a complete floor plan and description of the building.

And guess what, there was no generator. AT. ALL. Apparently if the notes are anything to go by any reactors that came in question where nuclear or similar which was deemed too dangerous for sustained use. BUT, and this is a big one, the used a EXPERIMENTAL battery that is supposed to have theoretically 0,0032% power loss over one year in unused state.

Wait, that is how I can check! The facility should have been completely switched off until I woke up and if the recharged it to full before leaving it then I should have a rough outline, I just need to include how much the systems ate and luckily for me I had that in a nice graph after I opened the diagnostic programs. The facility was at 63% right now and if I read this correctly then it ate about 9% for temperature regulations. So add that and then divide the loss with the theoretical inactiv loss per year to get… 11.875 years.

I was back in my chair and staring at the ceiling.


Hina didn't know what to do. She pushed all her cards to get this option and now she simply had not idea how to approach this in the first place. How do you talk to something that probably can't even make the same sounds as you?! They were fundamentally different life forms and with the way it fled when they saw each other it had no real interest talking to them.

Still she had to try something after they packed everything up again the created a temporary camp right outside the entrance. They found a few weak points to enter the large building that was found nearly completely buried but finding weak points on these metal monsters was like saying that you knew how to defeat a mountain simply because you knew explosives could move it if used in high enough quantity.

It was insanely hard to enter the buildings and the worst thing was that if you did manage to for example cut a solid hole into it something from the inside would immediately seal it shut again, with a material that was much weaker but still annoyingly hard to get rid of. As such closing the hole they made was out of the question, they would need way too long to get in again. But right outside shouldn't bother the precursor to much, right?

Also she really needed to find a new name for it. Calling it Precursor was getting annoying.

She needed to start interaction with something simple. So she drew a picture, a picture of herself waving and on a grassy field.

Was this a good idea? Nope, not in the slightest, for all she knew green was the color of death and decay for them.

Still, she was running on borrowed time, progress needed to happen now or it would happen never.

So here she was, back in the hallway with possibly thousands of them sleeping and only waiting to get awoken. Also the red blinking lights were disconcerting.

'Focus Hina!' she shouted to herself in her mind and wandered the hallway picture in hand.

She reached the door and placed the picture on the ground. It would probably find it the moment it stepped out.

Hina was about to leave as quickly as she could but hesitated on the first step back thinking how if it didn't know it was there it maybe would never find it.

She turned around and did something insanely stupid.

She knocked.


I feel like needels are being poked into my whole body stinging me like hell, I knew that this was normal because many cells died in my long nap and this pain was already preventing me from getting any real sleep.

And then when I do finally fall asleep someone knocks at the damn door. Oh there is hell to pay.

with the most grumpy and pissed of look I could muster I stomped to the door and opened them. While only wearing my pyjamas I might add.

When the door opened there was no one there.

Was I just pranked by someone?

My expression turned even more angry at probably showing some teeth in the process.

Then I heard some whimpering from below. I turned my head to look down and my anger instantly evaporated as I saw the Octopus alien stare at me with wide eyes. That was when I remembered exactly what situation I was in.

What to do in this situation you ask.

Simple you do nothing and both stare at each other like complete fools unsure what to do.

It took my body to feel the cold that was coming from the cryo room that living things are supposed to interact.

"Hi." I said lifting my hand a waving down at her.

She returned the gesture and said what I think was the equivalent in her language and imitated my hand motion. After that I finally noticed the picture at my feet. I took it and it was a drawing of the same thing that was in front of me, a fairly good drawing at that, where it was waving and was standing on grass.

I took the picture, backed up while looking at her and slowly closed the door never taking my eyes of her.

And I have to say to this day that this was the best second contact I could have ever imagined.