A1 Prologue

He could hear something that sounded like a light brush on a window. His head hurt, though so did the rest of his body. The room was dark. Pitch black. No, wait, his eyes were closed. He opened his eyes, but they felt as if they had to be pried open, and as they did he felt as if his eyelids were made of sandpaper. Now all he could see was red. Was he in hell? His eyes began to adjust, and no, there were no planes in hell. Right? He could make out the shape of one in his still blurry vision, against a backdrop of endless red light. Red… emergency power. Wait, what was the emergency? Hold on, where was he?

He began to breathe rapidly. He went to sit up, but as his muscles contracted every fiber of his being cried out in agony. Perhaps he should close his eyes again. The darkness felt like a comforting thought, simply returning to the endless float in the abyss. Suddenly he was disturbed by a voice. “You, can you hear me?” The voice sounded wrong, and every fiber of his being switched from a throbbing pain to a jolt of fear. Yet, in his muddled state, he could not even recall what the voice sounded like. “You, if you can hear me, I need your help. This is a matter of life and death for us both.” The voice, it was odd, but coming over the speakers near the plane.

“Where are we?” he asked. The voice seemed to take forever to respond, but did so eventually. “I do not know.” He asked another question. “Who are you?” and the voice responded again. “It is complicated, and I am not entirely sure.” He asked a third question, which seemed to give the voice the most pause of the three. “Who am I?” Right as he had thought the voice left, it came back. “I do not know that either. Please focus. Can you stand?” He tried again, and this time found enough strength to make it to his knees, then his feet. Perhaps the abyss could wait a while. “There’s a parka at the door, grab one” the voice said as he began to make his way to the door. As he began to put it on pain shot up his right arm, but the pain was overcome with curiosity. The voice spoke again.

“The door by you, once you leave it walk straight from it to another door straight ahead. Do not walk in any other direction. It may be hard to see the other door when you first exit, but once you get close you will see a light above it.”

He listened to the voice and responded. “Out the door, go straight, and follow the light to the other door?” As he spoke he only then realized how weak and hoarse his voice was, although he appeared to be gaining back a tiny bit of his strength. “One more thing” the voice added, “Once you reach the second door you will need to scan your iris. Press the handle and then look into the scanner. If you are in the system the door will open.”

He was suddenly a bit more unsure of this outing. “And what happens if I’m not in the system?” The voice seemed devoid of any emotion when it spoke. “Then you will die of exposure, quickly. Then I will die later today when the emergency power fails.” He remained silent, thinking things over, but when the voice did not receive a response it began to speak again.

“Unfortunately I cannot access the security system in this state. However, if you are considering refusing to help me, know that I have spent a considerable amount of power heating the portion of the facility you are in, which will cease being habitable if we lose power. Both our lives are at stake and there is no other option.”

“Straight out the door, follow the light”

He mumbled to himself slowly walking to the door. He pushed it open, and he heard the distinctive ‘click’ of an electronic lock being temporarily disengaged. This was a one-way trip if he was not in the system, whatever system that would be. As he opened the door he was hit by a gust of wind and blindingly thick snow in an otherwise dark night, his boots making a crunching sound as they compressed the snow beneath him. The cold, even cutting through the parka, drowned out the pain he was experiencing.

Walking was difficult. It took every ounce of mental fortitude to put one foot in front of the other. He looked back, there was no more building behind him. He had barely walked at all, and already he was lost. Could this get any worse? He began to mutter to himself again, but a gust of wind knocked him off his feet and threw him violently to the ground.

It very much could get worse.

For a moment the cold that drowned out the pain was drowned out by more pain. He lay there, wondering if it was even worth trying to get back up. But then the pain of injuries was drowned out by the snow. It wasn’t cold, it was burning him.

How could snow be burning him?

Reality or insanity, his body responded the same regardless. Adrenaline filled his veins and a cocktail of chemicals clouded his mind. He had to get out of here now, and it no longer hurt to stand up. It no longer hurt to run. Run, but to where? Right, the door. Where was the door? Right, straight ahead. Was he running straight? He wasn’t sure, but that was his best guess and he had to run now. A light, was he dying? No, he could remember now, it was his salvation – albeit of a different kind. Snow danced around the light in the most beautiful patterns.

He slammed against the door, and it beeped angrily. What to do? Right! The sensor. A little camera, hardly larger than a grape, spun like the eye of a chameleon. He brought his face close, nearly headbutting the device. “Beep” the device said, changing from red to orange and red again while the lock remained engaged. Orange? What did orange mean?

“It did not get a good reading” said the voice. “Try it again.” He bent over a second time, and the device said “beep” like it had the first time while turning orange once again. He started to feel dizzy. “Hold still while it reads” said the voice. He bent over one last time, using his left arm against the wall to hold himself up. “Ding” the device said in a happy tone, turning the color green. He stumbled through the now unlocked door and felt his body feeling weak as it had recognized it was safe from the cold.

The abyss returned.

He felt a pain like fire shooting from his right elbow to his brain. Someone was tapping on his arm. He opened his eyes, and had he contained the energy to do so he would have jumped back. Before him sat a boxy robot on wheels with a camera and two vaguely human like hands. “Relax” said the voice emanating from the robot. “It’s just a maintenance drone, I am controlling it remotely. Here.” The maintenance drone handed him a cup with a small amount of blue liquid in it. He didn’t realize how thirsty he was until now, and taking the cup he began to chug it as the robot spoke. “Slowly, you’ll upset your stomach,” but he ignored the instructions and finished it in one last gulp. “I need more” he asked, but the voice responded. “No, let it settle. Any more and you will only vomit it up, and in your condition that would be a death sentence.”

“The power, do I-” he began to ask while trying to stand up, but the robot cut him off. “Stay seated. We have enough power for the next twelve hours or so. Get your strength back for a moment, and perhaps you should check your pockets for identification in the meantime.” He suddenly began to scramble to get the parka off, even while the robot chastised him slightly by saying “Slowly” in a vain attempt to slow him down. He found himself to be wearing slacks, a sweater, and some sort of lab coat underneath his parka – all of which were stained badly with blood.

“I’ve been shot” he exclaimed in shock, pointing to the bullet wounds on his right arm and abdomen near his kidney. “You have also taken a wound to your head, but the hemorrhaging on all three seems to have stopped” the voice said, causing him to suddenly shift his hands towards his head. Immense pain radiated out as he touched his forehead, but before he pulled his hand away he could feel a stream of dried blood that emanated from the wound. He began to panic, but the voice tried to calm him down.

“Do not panic, you are alive and stable. There should be enough supplies on hand for me to treat you once we are off emergency power. Focus on looking for clues.” Heeding the voice’s advice, he returned to going over himself. One Seiko watch, one Montblanc pen, one unopened package of cigarettes. Was he about to go through nicotine withdrawal? He pushed that worry aside and continued to go through his pockets. One giant Swiss army knife that seemed to have any tool known to man, one … “Shit!”

He dropped the item shoved into his lab coat pocket. A Glock 42 dropped to the floor, an empty shell casing jammed in the slide. “What does this mean?” he asked the robot. “After I woke up my findings appear to indicate this facility was attacked. There are numerous shot maintenance drones and smashed electronics, and your bullet wounds and handgun largely confirm what I had assumed.” He was caught off guard by the comment. “When you woke up? Were you shot too?” The robot replied vaguely. “It is complicated, do you feel ready to walk again?” He wasn’t sure how to respond, but eventually settled on just responding “Yes.”

The little robot led him down a hall, passing one of the smashed maintenance drones surrounded by bullet holes. They entered an elevator where the little robot selected the bottom floor using a large metal rod to reach the button. Panels were missing from the sides of the elevator as if construction was never finished, and the two watched as they descended two floors. Eventually they reached the floor they intended to and began to walk down a thin hallway to a control panel.

The little robot pressed a few buttons on the control panel and the screen indicated something was cycling on. “Scan your eye here, then pull this lever” instructed the little robot. He put his eye to the scanner and it chirped a happy chirp then turned green. The tiny box next to the reader displayed the text “verified” in blocky green letters. As he began to pull the switch the text box changed, and the little robot pointed to it while beginning to speak. “There, yo-,” but it stopped mid sentence as the switch was pulled.

The entire room went pitch black, no longer even possessing the dim red glow of emergency power. A very large rumble was heard and felt, then he was left in the silence and dark. His eyes began to adjust, however, and were drawn to a very faint glow by the switch. The only thing he could see was the faint green glow of the text box, now reading “Basilious.”