PreCursive
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Chapter 85 - Records
🕑 Added 2023-09-25 17:01:00 +0000 UTCI stared at the screen in shock, instinctively understanding what this was. Somehow, I’d run into something that I had never expected to, here on Vereden.
A functional computer.
Sure, it seemed like it was way, way more advanced than anything from back home, but this was familiar to me. The screen projected on the wall across from me very obviously contained some kind of text prompt. Turning around wildly, I tried to see if the screen was being projected somehow.
Nothing.
While I was in shock, my companions were examining what had appeared curiously. Both the screen and the keyboard. Azarus had walked up to the projection and was waving his hand through it inquisitively, making interested noises as it rippled around his digits. Grey was poking at the keyboard, fascinated, while Sylvia peered over his shoulder. Both of them were delighted whenever a keystroke made characters appear in the box on the screen. Venix though, was standing off to the side, arms crossed and head tilted while he observed. He must have caught sight of my shock because he spoke to me. “Hart,” He said flatly. “Is aught amiss?”
The Antium’s words caused everyone in the room to look at me. “Nathan?” Grey asked with a raised eyebrow. “Are you alright?”
I drew in a shuddering breath. “Y-yeah, just…I wasn’t expecting this. I recognize this for what it is.”
That caused Grey’s eyes to light up. “Do tell.” He said hungrily.
I walked back up to the keyboard and lay my hands over it. I paused, considering something first. “Grey, or, well, anyone,” I said to the others. “Can you actually make out what letters are on this keyb-I mean device?”
My words caused Azarus to wander back over to our position and peer down at the keyboard alongside Grey and Sylvia. He studied it for a moment. “Nope,” He said finally. “Whatever that is, it ain’t being translated by Language Adaptation.”
Grey hummed. “That is odd. I don’t often find languages in my studies that remain untranslated. In the past, I’ve only seen it with those languages that are truly, decisively dead. However, considering the apparent age of this facility, perhaps it isn’t too odd.”
I shook my head at them slowly. “This language sure as hell isn’t dead. After all, back home, over a billion people speak it. This is my birth language. English.”
Azarus’s eyes bulged in their sockets, while Sylvia gasped. Venix remained silent, simply observing. Meanwhile, I saw a manic smile begin to steal across Grey’s face. “Is that so, Nathan? Well, well. Are you perhaps saying this facility could have been constructed by Precursor’s?”
“I don’t know,” I said to him. “What I do know, is that both the language, and this interface, are familiar to me. This is a kind of technology that I’m familiar with, if not blown away by how advanced and obviously magical it seems.”
“Advanced?” Sylvia asked curiously.
“Yeah,” I nodded at the Sculpted woman. “This is way past what we can do back home. I mean, hard light? That’s theoretical, to the best of my knowledge. This is like…” I paused to think for a moment, before snapping my fingers. “This tech is like the equivalent of steel tools as compared to primitive stone ones.”
“Fascinating,” Grey breathed. “Can you, perhaps…decipher what this all is for?”
I took a deep breath before nodding. “I’ll give it a shot.”
Letting my hands fall on the keyboard, I marveled at the sensation of a hard light construct. It was electrifying, almost literally. My fingertips tingled slightly. I had to suppress a hysterical laugh when my index fingers felt familiar protrusions on the F and J keys, though.
I pressed the backspace key rapidly to delete the nonsense characters in the box from Grey’s chicken pecking, drawing interested noises from the peanut gallery. Ignoring them, I considered the box for a moment. Where to start, where to start. This didn’t look like a login screen, thankfully. I didn’t think it was likely that we would be able to break a password if it had been protected. It looked more like a command line, to me. I may not be a software engineer, but I was at least a little computer-savvy.
Oh, whatever. Let’s just go with the obvious.
I typed ‘help’ into the box and pressed the enter key.
On the screen, words began to display beneath the command line in white text.
Available commands:
System Diagnostic
Network
Message
Records
lkasdfied
…
After those four, there was only worryingly corrupted text. I guess there might have been more commands, but this place or the servers might be too degraded to provide them. Hell, I didn’t even know if the commands I had would work. I guess I’d find out, starting from the top.
I typed System Diagnostic into the blinking text box and pressed enter.
The word ‘error’ in big bold, red text flashed across the screen, causing my companions to jump.
“What happened?” Grey asked me, startled.
“I tried to find out how damaged this place was,” I said to him without turning my head. “I’m guessing it’s so messed up that it can’t even tell.”
“I see,” Grey muttered, confused. I doubted that. Whatever, onto the next one. I entered Network.
This time, something did show up.
A graphical map popped up, displaying a map that I had only grown accustomed to in the past few days.
It was a map of Vereden. On it, there were a bunch of dots. Nearly all of them were greyed out, but there were some red ones. There must have been well over fifty of those dots spread out across the breadth of the continent. Of those, I think there were only three of them that were still red. I felt my breath hitch in my chest, as I understood what this was representing.
I think Grey understood as well, just from the context. “My gods,” He breathed.
“What?” Azarus asked, clueless. “What’s goin’ on?”
“I can’t believe it,” Grey said, ignoring him. “This is the only example I’ve ever hear of, when it comes to mysterious doors. Believe me, I’ve certainly checked. But…there are this many more facilities? Just like this one?” His words caused Azarus to do a double take and gape at the map.
“I don’t think so,” I said, staring at the map myself. “I think this means that there were this many facilities, once upon a time. But,” I pointed at the red dots. “Now there are only these four. Grey, I don’t think this was built by Precursor’s. If what you’ve told me about how rare we are is true, there’s no way we could have done it. That’s not even counting the fact that this is too advanced for Earth tech.”
“Perhaps so,” Grey whispered. He raised a finger to point at the red dots. “If what this map is saying is true, then the other active facilities are in the western archipelago,” He said, moving a finger to point at a long chain of islands off of the west coast. He then moved his finger to point a dot at a mountain range in what seemed to be Principality lands. “Another seems to be in one of the old mountain Holds. I’m not familiar with this one, however. Azarus, can you tell who owns this range?”
Azarus stepped up to the console and peered at the map more closely. After a moment, he grimaced. “Aye, I can tell. That’s Dwergar land. I ain’t surprised nobody knows about another door down there. Those are some shady bastards.”
Grey furrowed his brow. “Dwergar…” He said to himself before frowning. He faced Azarus and made a knife hand with his right and dragged it down his left forearm in a shaving motion. “As in, those Dwergar?”
Azarus nodded grimly.
“Ah,” Grey said. “I see the problem. Hmm. Well, moving on, the last seems to be…up here.” He pointed to the last of the red dots on the map, located far to the north. It seemed to be in the area beyond a northern mountain range. “Beyond the northern mountains, in the frozen wastes. Perhaps the northern tribes know of it?”
I couldn’t help a small laugh escaping me, causing the others to look at me. I waved the attention off. “So there actually are northern tribes? I almost thought they were made up just for my old excuse.”
Grey smiled slightly. “Indeed, they are real, and just as reclusive as implied. I don’t quite believe they don’t have Statuses, however.” He looked back up at the map consideringly. “I’m dearly tempted to look into this matter more, especially now that we know how to enter these facilities. However, that’s a matter for another time. Continue with your explorations, Nathan.”
I nodded at him. Time for a new command. This time, Message. Who could it be Messaging? The other facilities? I guess we would find out. I entered Message into the box and hit enter.
The prompt lagged for a moment, before displaying some more text.
System Administrator unvailable. Messaging service offline.
System Administrator? As in, the Messaging SysAdmin, or…
The admin of the System?
Oh boy, that was a can of worms. I shared what the text said with my companions.
“System Administrator?” Grey asked, confused. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. Certainly, there’s some form of decision-making baked into the System, as evidenced by the existence of System Judgements.” Grey nodded at me. “However, there is little evidence of a singular mind behind the System itself. How curious.”
Yeah, I guess. It was just a guess anyway. We had no idea which kind of System it was even referring to. Seeing that nobody had any more questions for that one, I moved on to the last of the available options.
I typed in Records and hit the enter key.
This time was different, however. Another list of options opened up on the screen. It was a pretty short list, though.
Records:
Staff
aedL@gd
EMERGENCY SUBJECTS
One of these was not like the others. That last option, Emergency Subjects, was in red, all bold text.
Ominous.
I started from the top. As expected, the Staff record was exactly that. A list of names, surprisingly long, opened up on the screen in a vertical column. At the very top of the list, each of the names had a little designator that the person was ‘deceased’ along with a date of death. I couldn’t make sense of the date though, as it was in a format I wasn’t familiar with. The very first person on the list apparently died ‘1/4/6/3/2-3/27’. Going down the list, that time would go further out, but only the last part would change. Scrolling all the way down the very long list with the arrow keys, I watched as the date changed from ‘1/4/6/3/2’ to ‘1/4/6/3/1401. That date was the very last one on the Staff list.
Tilting my head, I tried to puzzle out what that meant. Was that last changing number the year? Did…that mean there were people here, in this facility, for over a thousand years? But this place looked ancient. It was falling apart around me, practically. How long ago had these people been down here?
Without explaining things to Grey, I opened up the very last option named ‘Emergency Subjects’.
Another list of names opened up. This time, I could tell that it was much, much smaller. Where before the Staff list had thousands of names on it, this one had less than a hundred. Whoever these ‘Emergency Subjects’ were seemed to be getting a rough deal, as they were all marked as deceased as well. Strangely, none of these names had a date attached to them as the Staff names did. However, it was the last name on the shortlist that caused my blood to freeze in my veins. This name wasn’t marked as deceased, but rather ‘active’.
It was mine.
Spelled out in plain English on the screen was the name ‘Nathaniel Eugene Hart’.
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Comments
charles curtis
This is very interesting.
PreCursive
Sylvia already knew. There's a scene back in vol 2 where he told her. Next chapter has a section where what Venix knows is mentioned.
RedeyeA
I thought there would have been more of a reaction to Nathan revealing he was a precursor. Did Sylvia and Venix already know?
