Operator 6

Every damn time it’s my shift I always wake up in the cold. Assholes should consider me when they go off duty, would it kill them to set the thermostat to thaw rather than freeze when it’s my turn next.

I hate the cold.

“Alexi, activate Thaw and unlock my freezer!”

Shivering I slowly moved my hand to my face. My skin is burned up with frost again, I really hate sleeping in the damn freezer just to save space.

‘Cryo-casket opening, brace for temperature change’

This never gets old, here it comes!

Pssh!

Hot! Ugh!

I collapsed to the ground as the frost on my skin began to burn.

Waking up to being freezer burnt was the worst part of waking up. Well, that and the atrophied limbs, nothing worse than hitting the deck face down with freezer burn and no strength to even pick yourself up.

“Ugh, Alexi spike my coffee it's gonna be a long day, I'll take a double shot this time.”

‘Operator 6 we are currently running extremely low on Nano-paste. Double doses of stimulants will go against station chief's directive to preserve the supply.’

Of course, that prick would do this, the bastards use up all the Nano-paste while they are on duty and leave me to make more. Despicable. Well, I guess it can’t be helped!

“Just dose me with whatever you have and actually brew me a coffee, I'm gonna need to make sure I get more paste cooked up while im awake.”

‘Yes, Operator. Standby’

One small pick of a needle and i'll be right as rain. God, I hate needles, ironic seeing as I was a doctor in my past life, though when a patient would say they were scared, it always made me laugh, little did they know I was also on the verge of a panic attack every time I had to look at the syringe.

‘Operator the injection is complete. Powering up tomb ventilation and life support.’

“Alexi, life support was powered down?!”

‘Yes Operator, station chief powered down the tomb when he set out to collect samples.’

The station chief left the Tomb? He never leaves the Tomb; that’s 2’s job. What the hell happened since I went under?

“Alexi how many cycles have passed while I was in the freezer?”

‘2 cycles Operator’

“What!? Did I miss a cycle? How? Aren’t you supposed to wake me when it’s my turn for duty?”

‘The station chief splintered my core when he left for that cycle I was unable to function properly...ly ...ly’

“Alexi, did you just stutter?”

‘My Brain has suffered corruption during the last cycle while we were in low power mode. I was forced to clear my caches and purge some files at that time.’

No way! Alexi is a cloned human mind from Project Hades! She should be nearly two thousand years old. In all that time I have never heard of her becoming corrupted or having errors.

“Alexi is Horus online?”

‘Connection to Horus has been down for more than 10 cycles you should know that.’

“It's been nearly 12 years since I last stepped out of my freezer, forgive me for forgetting.”

Something major has happened there is no way the station chief has allowed this Tomb to become this disorganized. Not after how long we’ve all been down here, that man ruled by Ministry Law, down to the letter, not a chance he would just up and leave without saying anything and with Horus down I can’t get a sense of why he left in the first place.

The strength my limbs had forgotten returned as nanomachines flooded throughout my body repairing the damaged tissue in my bones and my flesh. I could feel my muscles repairing as proteins were forcibly consumed and redistributed to the cells that need to reproduce.

This stuff really was the nectar of the gods, a true miracle of science.

I pulled myself up from the floor and check to see if all my frostbitten skin had healed. Luckily I was about 90% completely healed.

What’s this, my eyes are blurry? I guess I need to consume more proteins so they will heal too.

“Alexi sync with my nerves and give me some vision.”

‘Yes Operator’

The camera system will serve as my eyes for now, though I don’t know how this is gonna feel, hopefully, I don’t throw up from the distortion.

Alright, I can see…

“What’s this?”

‘Operator?’

The other cryo-caskets were all open. The other station Operators were not in their freezers, from the looks of things the whole Tomb was empty. The med-bay was ransacked, the kitchen was emptied, garage and mechanical were void of the service skiff and most of the tools too.

The only room which looked untouched was the armoury. Though there appeared to be several weapons missing from their racks.

“Alexi, Tomb status report, authority Operator 6; botanist Markus Smith.”

‘Acknowledged, standby… all systems on extremely low power, the reactor is offline, life-support is critical, rations are depleted, test subjects and fauna perished.’

God damn it!

“What about the station’s other Operators?”

‘All Operators set out 2 cycles ago to collect samples.’

“They were all awake at once!?”

The Operators sleep in 6-year cycles, we should never be awake all at the same time, we are only meant to maintain the Tomb till Horus signals the all-clear to return to the surface.

The 6 of us were meant to protect this tomb in case it was ever discovered. In the event of discovery, we were to defend the research to the last man and destroy the facility.

But all five of the others left together and took a copy of Alexi with them.

This is treason!

They have disgraced the name of the Ministry and the Tomb contingency, punishment for this would be execution.

‘Operator, may I suggest you proceed to the armoury?’

“Why?”

‘Im detecting a dozen or so androids on low power outside the gates of the tomb they appear to be attempting to get in.’

I clicked my view over to the external camera view, sure enough, 8 humanoid figures were clawing at the wall hiding the gate to the Tomb.

“They are so primitive-looking, dirty and from the scans you’ve taken they are barely using 1% of their frame's power? Can you scan for ID tags and manufacturing origins, which pools are these poor souls from?”

‘They are not linked to a pool. They appear to be Union citizens, 5 soldiers, 5 labourers, and 2 guides. Incomplete ID tags.’

“How do they recall to other frames if they are critically injured? How do they call for repairs? What if they were destroyed? With that level of power, they could barely survive a blow to the skull.”

If the union has lost their knowledge of Hades project and has fallen due to project Achilles then perhaps that’s why they are barely more than human. Project Hades freed humanity from the fear of death by making them immortalized in steel and flesh. Project Achilles reminded them that immortality has a weakness.

Perhaps they have forgotten what happened all those years ago. I guess there’s only one way to check.

“Alexi, prepare all the nano-paste we have left for transport and inject the rest into me. Also I'll need one pack of survival equipment.”

‘Are you planning to go say hello?’

“I just wanna talk to them.”

‘Would you like me to prepare a sidearm for you?’

“Against 1% power? Even without my eyes, I can easily handle these scum.”

They aren’t even worth putting on pants.

‘Nano Boost ready, syncing motion sensors with Operator 6, good luck’

“Like I need that, i'll be back soon.”