Tales of the Wastelander Ch. 02 - Teaser (Patreon)

Taking a deep breath to clear his head, Ben got to work, taking full stock of the situation. Only one thing mattered to him now; survival. He double checked the monitoring program, making damn sure that he was the only one there. When the program informed him that there were no other living cryo pod occupants, he went digging to find the files he’d need to read up on to shut it down and shunt the power for the pods, back to the facility.

It took a bit of searching before he found the relevant files and the procedure was rather simple. He double checked each step before he executed it and maybe an hour later, he rerouted the power and the rest of the facility brightened substantially. With the power issue solved, Ben then left the command center to survey his surroundings. 

Though the place had held up fairly well against time and its slow ravages, Ben knew that this place was slowly falling apart. He would have made the needed repairs to fix it up, but he lacked both the materials and manpower to make any significant progress. Sighing, the only option that he had left was to leave, but before he did that, he needed to know what he was working with.

He needed food, clothing, survival gear and most importantly, weapons. Though the world had changed, he assumed that he would need them, as he didn’t know what dangers lurked outside of the cryo facility. Ben started by heading into the storage area and looked around for unopened containers. There weren’t many, but he grabbed all that he could before heading over to where the sleeping quarters for the techs were located.

He carried the boxes over, knowing that he’d have to go through all of them to find anything of use. The sleeping quarters were a serious mess, with decaying clothes and garbage scattered everywhere. Though the task was considerable, Ben got the place cleaned up in no time at all, cleaning each room. He’d even found an old but serviceable broom and gave the place a good sweep before sitting down to go through everything.

He opened his first, knowing what lay in there. It wasn’t much, but the items reminded him of better times, happier times, before all of this. He set them aside reverently, before he went to the next box. Ben tried prying it open, but found the box wouldn’t give, not even a single millimeter. He grumped for a moment before he realized that he’d need to collect the appropriate pins before they would about.

Chastising himself for having such a massive brain fart, Ben got up and went back out to the cryo pods. He went about looking for any of those chips that would open those boxes and did manage to find a few. He tentatively approached the pods that still had occupants in them, a bit mortified that he was having to disturb the dead. Ben knew that he was going to have to get past this hang up if he was going to survive.

Blowing out a heavy sigh, Ben walked to each one and searched them for their keys. He found them tucked in the same place that his was tucked into, so they were easy to locate. Once he’d gone through each of the corpses of those who were left behind, he headed back to the sleeping quarters. He thought about what might be in the boxes, when his train of thought was interrupted by his growling stomach.

He chuckled to himself as he dropped his newly acquired keys on the bed he’d selected and wandered back out into the facility to find something to eat. He remembered that there was some sort of hydroponics facility that Simon had described in the video and went looking for it. He found it as he wandered down a hall, off the main facility but was appalled at what he saw.