Chapter Text
Day 0
Kellin was awoken by loud knocking on his apartment door, although he was barely awake he still had a idea of who it was. He then checked the clock beside his bed “2:36”
“Only an hour of sleep, they said they’d be early but this is a little excessive”
They told him the job was fairly simple, look for signals from space, process them and keep everything running, but the pay was way too good to pass up, almost too good. Just as his brain started to go dark again there was more knocking at the door, this time harder.
He grabbed his suitcase and opened the door to an extremely intimidating man.
“You look like shit, let’s go” His voice was just as terrifying as he looked, he obviously didn’t want to talk more than necessary.
They walked out of the apartment building to a large black SUV with tinted windows.
“This is totally not sketchy” he thought to himself, there was a non-zero chance he was going to be thrown dead into a ditch if he messed something up
As he got into the back seat, he was greeted by a quite toned man with sunken eyes, who, with a glance at his name tag, he found to be Dr. Bao, his boss.
“I assume you know who I am” he said while extending his hand.
As Kel shook his hand, he found his boss to have quite a grip, almost painfully so. As they drove in silence, the SUV turned down progressively worn roads, until eventually it was just gravel.
Then, a large metal gate came into view and Kel was told to get out, as soon as he exited the vehicle it turned around and drove off, much quicker than they arrived which he found weird.
He then proceeded down the path, but as if he wasn’t on edge enough, he heard something in the trees running towards him. As he whipped his flashlight around, he found it was just a pine cone, but that didn’t do much to soothe his mind. Something was just off about this forest.
Eventually he found a massive concrete building with a large sign with the acronym “ASO”, a place which would be his new home for the foreseeable future. When he walked through the door he immediately gagged at the smell, there was trash everywhere.
He flipped the light switch near the door multiple times before noticing the small label with the word “PORCH” on it. Although he had a PHD he was still quite stupid sometimes.
“Guess I’ll have to rely on my flashlight for now”
There were multiple murals on the walls, which he definitely preferred to bare concrete. The first room he entered was the garage, where he found an ATV with a quite nice paint job for how old it must’ve been. As he looked around he saw a door with the word “ADMIN” written above it.
“Don’t tell me the pass is what I think it is”
He then typed the numbers “1234” into the keypad, which lit green after he pressed enter.
When he flipped the light switch he noticed two other switches under the overhang of the window that lead to the main hall, which was lit up after turning them on.
He then entered the signal processing room, trying to step in as little trash as possible.
He noticed one side of the room was full of cubicles—quite a few fallen over—the other side had multiple curtains surrounding a chemical shower. He then approached the large console at the front of the room, which already seemed to be powered on, save the computer, which only took a few seconds.
“At least the chair’s comfy, I’ll probably be spending a lot of time in it”
As he turned on the computer he noticed an email from Dr. Bao, once again informing Kel of his job. He decided to start a signal downloading before exploring the rest of the base. He turned toward the detector to lock onto a signal and quickly triangulated one, he then turned to the download console and began tweaking the polarity and frequency to begin the download. After he finished he left the room to explore the rest.
“Break room.. Storage closet.. Not going to the basement ever..” He then walked upstairs. “another stor- AH!”
As opened the door the upstairs storage room a wooden mannequin fell on him, he then grabbed it and threw it down the elevator shaft towards the back of the room in annoyance.
“A bedroom, just as bad as everywhere else, but it’ll do”
He decided to sit on the balcony to relax while the signal downloaded. After he had sat for awhile, Kel began to stand up, but before he could he felt hard hands close around his shoulders and push him to the ground. When he looked back he saw the mannequin he had thrown down the elevator shaft—evident by scuff marks on its face and body—no longer on it’s stand.
To test a theory he closed his eyes for a few second and heard wooden joints creak as its fist hit his temple, which started to bleed a small amount. When he opened his eyes again it was obviously going for another strike, but seemed to not be able to move while he watched it
“W-what is this place, the pay was definitely too good”
He quickly grabbed the mannequin and took it to the basement, hoping to find a room to trap it in. As he entered the basement he saw something better than a room, a very large incinerator. He tossed the mannequin in and threw the switch, locking the door and starting the flames. Just as he thought it was gone he heard hard banging on the metal door, which took just a few seconds to die down.
As he turned he found a bandage roll and some tape on a shelf, which he used to treat the small cuts from the punch.
“Well I absolutely do not feel safe in here anymore, this job will be fun”
Kel then headed back to the console, which had finished downloading, as he tried to listen to it he quickly stopped it as the noise was almost painful to his ears. He the moved it to the processing unit, but before he pressed the button he noticed a sticky note on the screen.
“Needs upgrade, doesn’t work... Well that’s just perfect”
He was then startled by a roach crawling on the console, which he tried to hit with a drive before it crawled into a crack between the consoles, where a strong smell was coming from.
“Something must’ve crawled and died inside there, another thing to take apart and fix”
After he had started another signal, he went back to the basement to look around more. As he checked the lockers by the incinerator he found a crowbar, slightly stained with blood at the end, which caused him to be slightly disturbed. He searched behind the multiple boxes piled against the wall until he found something that almost caused him to puke, a pile of bones and a skull surrounded by dried blood.
Just as he started to panic the lights were turned off, he had turned off the incinerator too early. He assumed looking at it with the light from his flashlight would keep it at bay, but he found he was sorely mistaken when—with great effort—the mannequin moved its charred body towards him slowly.
He quickly picked up his crowbar which he had dropped in shock before, but as he swung it towards its chest, it grabbed his arm, burning it badly and causing him to yell. It then shoved the crowbar into his chest, followed by a punch to the ribs. Kel then regained his balance and swung the bar towards its arm, shattering the charred wood and splintering the wood on its body. The mannequin then stumbled and fell against the wall, through a curtain covering an area below the stairs. He then moved multiple of the large boxes in place of the curtain to trap it.
“I should probably kill it… why the fuck do I feel sympathetic for that thing, it tried to kill me”
He decided to keep it trapped until he found another option, he would not be messing with the mannequins after that.
As he was at the console, he glanced at the clock noticed it was already 8:00. So after finishing one last signal Kel headed upstairs to the bedroom to get some sleep after a way too eventful morning.
“CLOAKING SYSTEMS CRITICAL, LANDING ADVISED”
The arrow’s console blared, Renθ was quite surprised she had made it this far without something breaking due to the state she found the ship in. Or that no one noticed a warp arrow leaving the planet.
Of course just when she needed him most, he leaves. It was already unlikely for them to even know each other due to her being a short and the multiple communication bans. Although she couldn't jump to conclusions yet, it still hurt that he didn't tell her his plans.
Luckily she saw her destination, earth. Renθ hoped he had come here, but she couldn’t be sure of much with all the faulty systems constantly misinforming her.
“OXYGEN LEAK DETECTED, LEVELS STEADILY DROPPING”
Of course the arrow she stole had to be one with voice alarms, definitely not a popular choice. She then brought the arrow down into a valley that housed a large dish array, previous scans she had found in places she was definitely not supposed to be had said this place had been abandoned for months after the operator went crazy.
As Renθ stepped from her arrow she found it was absolutely freezing, she quickly went back in and rummaged through the bags she had taken with her to find something to keep her warm, an INDIS suit custom made for her much shorter build.
She then saw that it was still early, so deciding to sleep through morning before starting her search, she curled into her quite large bed and quickly fell asleep.
Kel was awoken by a loud bang echoing through the valley, he jumped from bed and ran onto his balcony just in time to notice a long cyan streak through the sky, which his tired brain chalked up to being a meteor exploding in the atmosphere and went back to bed.