SalivaSpittingWorm

I would like to inform readers that I am now going on vacation on Saturday and there will be no chapter updates. For a week. I'll try to post from my cell phone, but that's pretty inconvenient, I'll try, but no promises. I'll still be available though and will be writing back to comments and any questions (if any) :)

I'll also have to change the cover. Silly me, I completely ruined the original one. So don't be surprised if the cover suddenly changes in the future.

Dai sat in an office chair with her head between her knees, trying to calm her racing heart by breathing deeply. This was too frightening for her. Project Keeper. Project Keeper. What was that supposed to mean? Her supposed name that the Status window showed her was also Keeper. But it was Keeper4. She didn't worry too much about it. She didn't take it too seriously. But now things were getting serious.

She swayed slightly, trying to push the distracting thoughts away and focus on her breathing. Gradually, Dai calmed down. "Haaaaa...." She let out a long breath before straightening up. She ran her fingers through her hair to remove it from her face and looked at the screen again.

"Fuck that... Even if it had something to do with me... so what? I'm not a goddamn experiment." Dai tried to turn her fear into anger. Quite successfully.
"So that's why you brought me here? Did you know what I would find here?" She addressed the System.
System: "Negative. The System has no access to such information."
She gritted her teeth. "So you insist it was a coincidence?"
System: "... I knew this place had some connection to the boss. Nothing specific."
Dai sighed again. At least it admitted something. "So... I'm from here? But what about my parents?"
System: "I don't know."
Dai turned off the computer, not wanting to look at it anymore. "What's Project Keeper?"
System: "I don't know."
She slowly walked deeper into the room, seeing another iron door at the end. "Who am I?"
System: "I don't know."
Dai frowned. "Do you know anything at all?
System: "All I know is that you're my boss, Dai. And my objective is to do what's best for you. The fact that my subroutines detect this place means it's a good place for you."
She shook her head. "So you admit you brought me here on purpose?"
System: "The System cannot control your decisions and actions. This was only set up as an Option. The fact that you went to these ruins and didn't decide on other options is entirely your own choice."

Dai longed her face. That's the same as saying that just because she set a fat cheese trap in front of the mouse hole, it's not her fault the mouse got caught. The logic of the thing was beyond her.

Dai shook her head; there was nothing she could do about it. She might be able to trick the System on occasion, but that didn't always work... maybe if she held a knife to her throat and threatened to kill herself? But the System shared her thoughts; it would know she was acting.

She stopped in front of the following iron door. Dai thought about it all. What they were doing here was a mystery. Apparently, there were many of these 'Projects.' But what they were trying to accomplish, she didn't know. But for some reason, they all led to one thing. And that was to start 'Project Keeper.' With which she shared her real name. The vague memories she saw in her subconscious indicated that this had something to do with her. But she also had clear memories of her childhood, of her parents... but none matched the memories in her subconscious. From what Dai understood, she was living on the streets? Along with other children? But where are they? Filn should be one of them. And Horn? She knows she's known Horn since they were kids, even if they weren't exactly friends. But he was one of the children too?

It gave Dai a headache. She couldn't figure it out. Need information. So Dai must go further, deeper into the base.
And maybe find out what happened to Helen.

Dai pushed on the iron door, which slowly opened. They jammed a little, so she had to use force. There were several crunches, giving Dai goosebumps. She stopped pushing before the gap was big enough to squeeze through. Dai stepped through and looked back.
"Uhm..." She shivered. The crunch she'd heard earlier gave away the bones of three human remains. They seemed to be piled up behind the door, and as she opened them, they began to break, which was easy because these bones were old and so fragile that they were slowly crumbling into bone dust.

Dai took a closer look; the bones were bare, with only a few pieces of clothing that hadn't yet turned into unidentifiable something on the floor.
She spotted something, so Dai walked closer and bent down to pick it up. It looked like a plastic card with a pin on it. She found three in all. Each one had a picture and something written on it.
Only one picture was still recognizable, the others were too damaged, and she could only see a few words.

"Sergeant Hezi McDolt. Rank 2." Dai read aloud. She looked at the remains and then poked them gently with her foot. This sergeant had probably escorted these two back to safety, but they hadn't made it. It was sad. They almost got there. But what puzzled her more... where was his weapon? If they died here, right outside the door... he certainly wasn't unarmed. Did someone take the weapon?
Dai decided to keep the cards. She wasn't sentimental enough to bury the dead, but she could make a small gesture and then make a small tombstone for them with the cards that seemed to have their identities on them.

Dai turned away and looked into the long corridor in front of her. There were steel doors on each side, and everything seemed cold and impersonal. This was where people lived? Everything was bare, with no decorations. She took a slow step and headed straight for the first door. She tried to push on them, but they didn't budge. She found a slot next to the door for something thin, and out of curiosity, she tried to push one of the cards in, but there was only a dismissive sound, and nothing happened.
Either the cards were too damaged or couldn't be used like that. Well, it was worth a try.
Dai walked from one side to the other, trying the door to see if it would open.
Somewhere in the middle, she came across an open door.

"Who seeks will find." She smiled before walking in. It was a room, not an apartment. To Dai's surprise, inside, it was all papered in a nice green color with dark wood undertones. Aside from a few pieces of furnishings, nothing here was as metallic and impersonal as the hallway itself. So this was where these people lived? When Dai thought about it, it made sense; after reading the messages on the computer, they placed the personal quarters near the exit in case something happened so as many people as possible could make their escape. But to escape from something that was already inside.

It was an odd arrangement for Dai, but she understood the difference. In Shelter, people want to be as far away from the outer walls as possible because things come from the outside.
Here, it was the opposite.
Dai paused and had to think about it.
"Wait, wait... if they're more afraid of what comes from inside and not outside... how old is this place really?" The thought made her worry.
Did this mean that they had lived here before the great war? Weren't they afraid of the beasts and mutants outside?
Dai had seen a few ruins of the old world, but she saw that most bore signs of defenses.
"Huh... curious..." She muttered to herself.

Dai turned her attention back to the apartment. It was probably a place for one person or a couple. The bed had no cover and was big enough for two; next to it was a short, tan-colored sofa and one rather comfortable-looking leather armchair with a small coffee table. To the right was the kitchenette, and Dai's eyes lit up with interest when she noticed the refrigerator. A refrigerator! She'd never seen a fridge left whole and taken apart before. She walked right over to it, regardless of anything else. She always had to examine what caught her eye first.
She opened it and felt the cold. The light inside the fridge lit up, revealing its interior.

There was still food in there; she didn't bother to examine it much. Something that wasn't conversational wasn't worth the risk, especially if this was a pre-war base. "It still works..." Dai commented on the cold coming from the fridge and the light inside. What kind of energy are they using here? And how is it still working? She knows that the ancestors ran things on electricity. Still, the power plants were long shut down or turned into shelters because they were large and fortified structures.

Well, she'll probably find out when she explores this place.

Dai closed the fridge again and tried the freezer. Shes eyes lit up when she saw it was filled.
"Meeeeaaaat!" She purred the word happily. "Oh! Vegetables! Are that peas? Peas!" whatever was being conversed was relatively okay, and so was whatever was frozen. But it was so rare to find that this was Dai's first time finding anything like that. Who would want magic lasagna when they could have real peas? Shelter does have farms where they grow vegetables. Still, the nuclear war made it very difficult to let anything grow. For someone like Dai to eat vegetables daily, she must be of a completely different social class.
She emptied the freezer and shoved everything into her inventory, running out of room. Now she would have to consider what she would and wouldn't take.

System: "Boss, shouldn't you get back to more important things?" came the voice a little tiredly.
Dai paused and sighed. She had forgotten herself again. But it was hard with so many good things in front of her!
"Yes. Yeah, you're right." She had to snap out of it. No more scavenging... only if she found something really great. But otherwise, no more!

Dai closed the freezer and went to look around more. This place was once inhabited. She saw small objects; a woman must have lived there because small ceramic statues were on a shelf. Or did men collect this too? Koalas, owls, elephants... lots of elephants. It looked cute, but when Dai compared it to what these animals had become, no one would keep their statues at home. Elephants evolved into walking fortresses, and owls became scary smart. Not to mention bears. No one wanted to meet a Koala.

Dai found a lot of things that weren't important but interesting. What was better was that nothing here carried a large amount of damage. Sure, there was dust, fading, a bit of rot, and decaying fabric, but it was only minor damage compared to everything outside. She could make out faces in the photos; even the books hadn't crumbled under her hands. It was probably because there was less access to air and especially plants. In the closet, she found some clothes and some strange bracelets. What good are bracelets with pink fur connected by a short chain? The ancestors stored strange things.

Dai looked at the books, but they had titles like 'Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, Advanced Genetics, AI Programming' and the like. Dai knew what Mechanical Engineering was and even what Genetics was, but she didn't understand the content at all. She left the books like that and the apartment, as she couldn't find anything here that would give her more clues about what they were doing.

She found another open apartment, but the result was similar, so at least she raided the fridge again and got a few more pieces of meat and vegetables.
If anyone asked Dai, she'd say it was worth the delay.

Dai went through two more housing units this way, but it was useless. Dai will have to keep going. Except for the three remnants, since this place bore no signs of fighting, everything had happened elsewhere. Dai was pleased with her harvest but wasn't looking forward to the other things she might find. She reached the end of the corridor, where there was another door. Dai opened it, and more stairs were going down. Second floor? That's where Helen was trapped.

"So this is where it was happening," Dai muttered as she descended the stairs. Halfway up, she began to find the remains; the walls bore scorch marks, signs of gunshots, and scratches. Dai dutifully took off all the identification cards, reading their names, if Dai could, and pocketing them. She counted five adult bodies and three smaller ones before Dai went all the way down. More teens. Whole families probably lived here.

It took her at least five minutes to reach the end of the staircase. This whole base was buried pretty deep. The door in front of her was wide open, but beyond it was darkness. Only when she stepped inside did the lights start working.

Gradually a vast space opened up in front of her. Dai gasped.
The space was so huge that it could accommodate thousands of people. Which didn't make sense, wasn't there only room for a few dozen people upstairs?

The entire space was metal; she couldn't see any sign of stone, wood, or fabric. What was most eye-catching was the large cabins in the middle of the room with glass panes on all sides. Around them were tables with a large number of monitors. Dai looked around and saw that there were various other doors in the walls of the room. Some were wide open, others closed. She looked up and blinked at what she saw.
Thick steel cables held a circular tank in the air, in which a purple liquid bubbled and swirled. Next to it was an identical tank, but the color of the liquid was a dark green. Many tubes protruded from the tank, covering almost the entire ceiling, intertwining with each other, and leading to an unknown destination. A few of them, however, were attached to glass cabins in the middle of the room.

Dai lowered her eyes again. She could no longer ignore the battlefield.

Remains were lying all around; the amount was unreal. Dai slowly made her way forward, noting where she was stepping.
The dead weren't scattered everywhere; instead, they were kept in groups, but here and there, someone lay alone. Everything bore signs of destruction and fighting.
What puzzled Dai was that she didn't see the remains of mutants, beasts, or anything else. What were they fighting here?
She stopped at a few groups of remains and became more and more confused. Most were adults, but there were a few remains of teenagers and even children.
That would be normal enough, but what was confusing was their position.

Dai walked around for a moment before she realized what was confusing her. Actually, she'd seen it all along, but it was hard to believe.
"'Really... adults fighting against teens and children?" She finally said aloud as she stopped before the remains, two people entangled in a death grip. Apparently, the child who broke the adult's neck didn't let go even when he died.