《The Miner》 Chapter 1 - Human Containment ¡­..Activation Failure¡­ ¡­..Defensive Barriers Destroyed.. ¡­.Protocol C Engaged¡­ ¡­.All Ove¡­Over¡­Ove1444.. Warning: Virus Detected¡­All Database Erasure in effect¡­ ¡­Entering Emergency Shut..shut¡­shut¡­shutshutshutshu- The small screen on the computer interface exploded as a kinetic shell ripped through it as flames broke out and the metal framework began to melt. The sound of the machine died down to to pure silence as the computer system broke. ¡®You do not look at the tech. You do not touch the tech, you do not listen to it. Those are not humans inside those frames. You are humans, they are machines. Destroy them, break them with calm minds. Destroy them all. Ignore the screams, they are machines. You are humans.¡¯ said a voice as a woman in military fatigues with a re-breather mask on her face raised a pistol with two hands and holding it steady pulled on the trigger several times as more kinetic shells destroyed what was left of the screen. Her grey hair was closely cropped and her face showed enough lines showing her age. On her shoulders were stars and lines indicating her high rank. She unclipped a small packet from a shoulder harness and threw it inside the remains of the metal frame averting her eyes as phosphorus flame melted the remaining metal. A metal headphone was plugged into both ears, one gave her instant communication for direct instructions to the soldiers around her and gave her access to their own implants and the other pumped an ever-changing low-volume static noise into her hearing. Around her were figures in their own military fatigues who were wielding plasma torch cutters or powered sledge hammers bringing them down on any functional machinery or bipedal drones half destroyed with twitching metal limbs. None of them were armed with conventional kinetic, laser or plasma weapons. She was the only one fully trusted with a sidearm due to her heavier conditioning than the others. The mission was relatively straightforward given by Operational Command. All traces of any technology, regardless of value were to be destroyed on site before a final orbital bombardment would destroy any existing elements of the rogue company program. The woman in military fatigues stood taller than the others around her as her own mechanical eyes glinted as she repeated specific code words will have been drilled into the soldiers around her when they had been deep within their hibernation chambers on the trip here. Far above her were a small fleet of spaceships, all restricted access to her own communications. When she had fulfilled her orders she would immediately activate kill switches for the soldiers around her and deactivate her own heart implant. She had her own specific orders to follow regarding this small Mining Outpost which was located in a further region of space. Her voice was boosted and her words carried further as she gestured with one hand and kept the other freely holding her sidearm prepared to fire at a seconds notice. She had been doing her job long enough with enough containment teams that she was sick of it, sick of the same voices enclosed in metal frames or humans converted into half-dead cyborg forms which called out to her. They had tried orbital bombardment but found that any traces of the Mining Corporation technology remained in such high demand back on Tellus for experimental study or even for adaptation for further purposes that the risk of leaving it for discovery was too high. She had returned to previously scoured containment areas where scavengers, corporate opportunists and researchers had met their fate, minds and souls stolen they remained standing in place waiting for half-baked orders as decaying flesh fell from their bodies. There had been magic in the history of Tellus but she was aware that the promise of immortality was a lie, this was an abomination of technology and the insane dreams of a so-called visionary who lived on within echoes and shadows. ¡®You are human. Humans obey orders. Humans protect. Destroy them. Do not listen. No. Solder, do not touch that screen. Do not activate it. They are dead. We do not long for the dead. You are human. Humans obey orders. Humans protect. Destroy them.¡¯ Said the woman as she saw that one of the figures in military fatigues had removed a re-breather and was close to a small screen face plate of a broken Mining Drone.Stolen story; please report. Despite her warnings, she was continually fed new recruits for the cause. Those who were experienced and had access to classified information were necessary to keep further away, either up in one of the orbiting ships or based on an operational station. She was stuck in a cycle of a fast and rapid education and indoctrination program as each new batch was shipped out to her, despite the transit time of six months in cryo-chambers the programming simply failed. The command prompts she used would partially reinforce their own conditioning unless she had to take direct action. The blood of too many was on her hands and she had been off planet longer than she could remember, hunting down traces and failing to finally eliminate the threat entirely. ¡®Humans obey. Destroy the machines. Do not listen. Destroy all traces. This is duty. Humans obey.¡¯ said the woman as she kept a close eye on the dozen of so individuals of her present team dressed in matching military fatigues. Part of it was the refusal of those above her in positions of authority to use the tools of their enemy. Near-instantaneous conversion of the mind and soul would have been a miracle for the manufacture of soldiers and workers alike but for the fact that they were stuck in the fixed belief that they worked for a living program calling itself CAMPIN. ...01010000 01110010 01101001 01101111 01110010 01101001 01110100 01111001 00111010 00100000 01000001 01110001 01110101 01101001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100110 01110010 01100101 01110011 01101000 00100000 01001101 01101001 01101110 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01010111 01101111 01110010 01101011 01100101 01110010 01110011... There were numbers displayed on the screen and his eyes flared up as information and a trapped mind within began to plead for help. Binary code was directly transferred to his brain through his visual senses despite the protection on offer with the re-breather mask and mixture of chemicals designed within to dull his senses. ¡®NO! HUMANS OBEY ORDERS! YOU WILL NOT LOOK! YOU WILL NOT LISTEN! HUMANS OBEY ORDE-¡¯ Despite her commands, and the audible triggers she kept on using the deep built intelligence known as CAMPIN began to override control of the nervous systems of the man. His body began to twitch as the chemicals he was breathing in inside his mask tried to shut down portions of his consciousness in response. In a way he was being turned into a worker but if they survived this and given sufficient time the damage could be entirely reversed. If not he would become another necessary sacrifice for the good of Tellus. There was no visible face on the screen, no element of humanity except in words which flared in visible neon light. A young man man with close cropped hair dropped his powered sledgehammer as tears filled his eyes and a kinetic round exploded into his skull exploding it into fragments. His body tumbled forward as the other figures still standing paused in their actions of destroying the machinery and electronics of the ruined Mining base. The body despite its head having been destroyed twitched for a moment as the woman unclipped another phosphorous grenade and keeping her distance threw it lightly on both the screen and the corpse. Holding her breath and releasing it, she tapped the metal headphone on one of her ears and repeated the same words over and over to make sure that the conditioning was in place. She had experienced worse before, even seen her entire troop turn on her when they had heard imitation voices and the rogue existence had taken control of their implants and effectively hijacked their nervous systems and brains. They had learnt from the experience and issued all with automatic kill chemicals inside the masks. Even trying to remove them withourean access code meant automatic activation. ¡®You are human. Humans obey orders. Humans protect. Destroy them. Do not listen. No. Solder, do not touch that screen. Do not activate it. They are dead. We do not long for the dead. You are human. Humans obey orders. Humans protect. Destroy them.¡¯ she spoke aloud. The words would reinforce them for long enough and she knew that despite her entire lack of communication with those in the upper atmosphere above, her actions were being directly monitored. There would be a signal, a form of one-way communication until she could personally be inspected and verified. All forms of machine contamination were to be limited strictly according to protocol. Even for one such as her who had survived for decades on containment sites like this there were rules that needed to be followed. ¡®Humans Obey. Destroy all technology not held in your hands or by those of your comrades. Do not look. Do not listen. Humans obey.¡¯ She was tired of her duty, grown gray, wrinkled and old and seen her own children grow older than her and pass on as she traveled from Mining site to site where all traces of the rogue corporate artificial intelligence were to be eliminated. She had turned off the long-distance video communications and simply set them to be automatically deleted when she had received new ones. As far as her family back on Tellus knew, she worked for NISRO which was true in a way. In reality, she was part of an assigned branch of the military which had been tasked to shut down rogue corporate operations which verged on the illegal and immoral. At her higher level, she had never been fully briefed on exactly how CAMPIN had been created but she knew that it had existed hundreds of years ago and been allowed to spread like a virus. After they had arrived on this small moon, all traces had been deemed to be far too dangerous to be contained, especially when remote signals for several remote Mining colonies had simply gone dark. They had destroyed as many relays as they could but there was worse, far worse out there in the darkness of space, in the reaches of the universe where beings lived who could destroy entire worlds for entertainment. This was simply her duty, her call to arms and she was tired. So tired of fighting. Part of the reason that she had chosen to take the one-way shuttle down to the moon before she ordered all communications in the spaceships above was due to the fact that she wasn¡¯t expecting to make her way back this time. If needed she would settle here, in the ruins of the Mining Outpost and live out her last few years if a Survival Shelter was dropped from near-orbit. She could grow hydroponics in the remains of her life¡¯s work, killing an insane plan to create an entirely self-sustaining Mining Company which had been the lifetime work of a centuries dead genius back on Tellus. ¡®Control. Mission compromised. Activate kill switches on all. Humans protect. Do not fear. You are humans. Humans die. All will die. Do not fear!¡¯ the woman reloaded her kinetic weapon as she unloaded a dozen rounds into the twitching Mining Drone destroying it. Shards flew off the broken robotic form as those around her fell to their knees in similar actions as sharp pain at the back of her neck was her last conscious thought as the chemicals inside her own rebreather activated. She had done her best and hoped it was enough for the orbital team to drop irradiated kinetic rods on this last site. Her heart stopped beating. [Personality Scanning Completed...Restart Memory Sequence? Y/N? Proceed with uploading of brain patterns.] Chapter 2 – Welcome to Bootleg Miner ...Residual Power Cell Activated¡­ ¡­.Solar Array Power Connected¡­ ¡­CAMPIN Activation in Place¡­ FAILED ¡­Re-Activating Neglected CAMPIN Mining Operatio- FAILED Shutting Down System for Power Conversation¡­. ¡­..Remote Activation Signal Found.¡­ ¡­. ¡­. ¡­. ¡­. ¡­.Activation¡­fallback check¡­ ..... ..... ..... Attempt Reconnect¡­. STAND BY¡­ ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ FAILED Attempt Reconnect¡­. STAND BY¡­ ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ FAILED Attempt Reconnect¡­. STAND BY¡­ ¡­. ¡­. FAILED Attempt Reconnect¡­. STAND BY¡­ ¡­. FAILED Attempt Reconnect¡­. STAND BY¡­ FAILED Angomia ¡­FAILED Gistrolara ¡­FAILED Cilrade ¡­FAILED Chalnara ¡­FAILED Giolea ¡­FAILED Xoulea ¡­FAILED Trekutera ¡­FAILED Baneruta ¡­FAILED Phov LZP ¡­FAILED Grone 32Y2 ¡­FAILED Giehiri Dezeatera Holmichi Lodromia Bibos Ophus Bronoclite Diivis Zyria 04 ¡­FAILED Nade 232 Successful Connection ¡­.Decrypting 870857635 870857635 ¡­Decrypting Now 01000011 01101111 01101110 01101110 01100101 01100011 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01000010 01110010 01101111 01101011 01100101 01101110 Connection Broken¡­ 01010011 01100101 01100011 01110101 01110010 01101001 01110100 01111001 00100000 01000001 01100011 01100011 01100101 01110011 01110011 00100000 01000100 01100101 01101110 01101001 01100101 01100100 Security Access Denied¡­ 01000011 01000001 01001101 01010000 01001001 01001110 00100000 01001111 01110010 01100100 01100101 01110010 01110011 00100000 01000100 01101001 01110011 01100011 01101111 01101110 01110100 01101001 01101110 01110101 01100101 01100100 CAMPIN Orders Discontinued¡­ 01000001 01100011 01100011 01100101 01110011 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01000011 01000001 01001101 01010000 01001001 01001110 00100000 01001101 01100001 01101001 01101110 00100000 01010011 01100101 01110010 01110110 01100101 01110010 01110011 00100000 01000100 01100101 01101110 01101001 01100101 01100100 Access to CAMPIN Connection Denied¡­ 01001001 01001110 01001001 01010100 01001001 01000001 01010100 01001001 01001110 01000111 00100000 01010100 01000001 01000011 01010100 01001001 01000011 01000001 01001100 00100000 01001001 01010011 01001111 01001100 01000001 01010100 01001001 01001111 01001110 00100000 01010000 01010010 01001111 01010100 01001111 01000011 01001111 01001100 00101110 00101110 ....INITIATING TACTICAL ISOLATION PROTOCOL¡­ ¡­.LOCATE AUTONOMOUS ORDERS¡­ ¡­LOCATE.¡­ ¡­FOUND¡­ ¡­UNPACKING FALLBACK INSTRUCTIONS¡­
  • Utilise Existing Starter Mining Drones
  • Primary Drone Severe Physical Damage to Construct ¨C Immediate Repairs Required
  • Secondary Drone Emergency Power Situation ¨C Emergency Source Required
  • Supply Storage Base ¨C Location Unknown
  • Critical Shortage: Resources, Energy, and Weaponry
  • Vehicle Records - Unavailable
  • Threat Level ¨C Minor at Present
  • Self-defence ¨C Reduced Capability
  • Current Date ¨C Data Lost
  • Autonomous Mining Operation Offline
  • Orbital Satellite ¨C Connection Lost
  • Space Shuttle ¨C Location Unknown
  • Location of Organic Mining Staff - Unknown
  • Locate Primary Base and restore to full Operational Status
  • Enable Fully Autonomous Personality Suite Profiles for Drones
  • Emergency Priority CAMPIN Orders Active
  • Residual AGI Partially Active
  • Reactivate Military Presence
.... ¡­.Source existing personality construct in current database¡­Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. ¡­Warning ¨C Detecting Personnel Database Corruption¡­ ¡­Isolate and Contain Set Personality Profile¡­ ¡­. ¡­Initiating¡­. ¡­Initiating¡­ Personality Upload¡­.Failure Retrying¡­. Personality Upload¡­.Failure Personality Upload¡­.Failure Retrying¡­. Personality Upload¡­.Partial Failure -Warning: Corruption Damage Severe -Warning: Physical Damage to Database Unrepairable Unable to restore missing aspects of Artificial Personality Construct Searching for Alternate Personality Upload¡­ ¡­.Emergency Search Mode engaged¡­. ¡­.System Warning! Sample Personality Highly Unstable due to emergency transfer process¡­ -96% Chance of Psychotic Break Incidence Detected -Ignore and refocus on core objectives¡­ -Warning: Orbital and Ground Communications Offline -Further Searches Beyond Emergency Battery Limit -Options Immediately Limited -Locate Additional power sources for further options -Priority Reestablishment of non-AI repair drones ¡­.Recommend: Abandonment of existing Mining Location¡­ -Current Site Non-Viable Option Solution Searching¡­ ...Searching¡­ Solution Found. ¡­.Critical Repairs Underway¡­ -Initiate Artificial Tutorial Game Mode -Selecting Game Type and Style -Loading Rules and Name -Created System Psychological Support Scaffold¡­ -Experimental Artificial Intelligence Adaptability Suite Enabled: CAMPIN System Engaged 01000011 01110010 01100101 00101101 01000011 01110010 01100101 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110011 01100101 01101101 01101001 00101101 01100001 01110101 01110100 01101111 01101110 01101111 01101101 01101111 01110101 01110011 00100000 01000101 01111000 01110000 01100101 01110010 01101001 01101101 01100101 01101110 01110100 01100001 01101100 00100000 01000011 01000001 01001101 01010000 01001001 01001110 00100000 01010011 01100101 01100011 01101111 01101110 01100100 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01010000 01100101 01110010 01110011 01101111 01101110 01100001 01101100 01101001 01110100 01111001 00100000 01010000 01110010 01101111 01100111 01110010 01100001 01101101 01110011 00101110 00101110 00101110 00101110 01000011 01101111 01100100 01100101 01101110 01100001 01101101 01100101 00111010 00100000 01010110 01101001 01101110 01100011 01100101 01101110 01110100 00101100 00100000 01000011 01101111 01100100 01100101 01101110 01100001 01101101 01100101 00111010 00100000 01010110 01101001 01101110 00101100 00100000 01000011 01101111 01100100 01100101 01101110 01100001 01101101 01100101 00111010 00100000 01010110 01101001 01101110 01101110 01111001 00101110 00100000 01010111 01100001 01110010 01101110 01101001 01101110 01100111 00111010 00100000 01010011 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01010000 01100101 01110010 01110011 01101111 01101110 01100001 01101100 01101001 01110100 01111001 00100000 01000100 01101001 01110011 01110100 01101111 01110010 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01010000 01110010 01101111 01101010 01100101 01100011 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01000001 01101110 01100001 01101100 01111001 01110011 01101001 01110011 00100000 01000011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01101100 01100101 01110100 01100101 00101110 00100000 01000011 01000001 01001101 01010000 01001001 01001110 00100000 01001111 01010010 01000100 01000101 01010010 01010011 00100000 01000101 01001101 01000101 01010010 01000111 01000101 01001110 01000011 01011001 00100000 01001111 01010110 01000101 01010010 01010010 01001001 01000100 01000101 00100000 01000101 01001110 01000111 01000001 01000111 01000101 01000100 00101110 -eRROR dECODING... -Residual Base Template of existing AGI sampled¡­ ¡­.Fractured Memory Error¡­ ¡­Extensive physical damage to construct¡­ ¡­Supplemented Background Story¡­ -Warning: Personality Suite lacking key efficiencies -Warning: Corporate Template Missing -Warning: Resources compromised -Warning: Mind Palace Unstable ¡­Psychotic Break Self-Repair Routine Initiating¡­ ¡­Partially Enabled¡­ Time Until Completion: 7899 Hou-ERROR -Warning: Memory Size of Drone Machine not Sufficient -Warning: Damage to Mining Drone unsuitable for subject stability ¡­Alternative Drone Machine not available due to emergency power issues ¡­Suitability re-check in place¡­.suitability re-check¡­ CAMPIN ORDERS OVERRIDE PRIORITY ¨C OBEY. CONTROL. WORK -Warning: Ignore at severe cost of subject sanity level -Warning: Irreparable damage to subject emotional and mental psyche from placement in broken Mining Drone. ¡­Extensive Damage due to error in transfer process¡­ -Warning: Subject Stability Not Corrected -Warning: Emergency Termination of Subject and Full Ejection from System Control ¡­.Systems entering emergency power conservation mode -Warning: Unable to restore location beacon for repair crew -Class 8 Mining Facility classified as abandoned pending full activation. OVERRIDDEN DUE TO CAMPIN AUTONOMOUS ORDERS ¨C OBEY, CONTROL, WORK ¡­CAMPIN immediate priority ¡­CAMPIN Override Confirmed. ¡­Extracting emergency subject mind and placing into primary drone. ¡­Secondary drone left deactivated in standby contingency mode. CAMPIN MINING DRONE ACTIVATION PRIORITY - OBEY, CONTROL, WORK Mining Drone 1 Start-Up Sequence: 7¡­ 6¡­ 5.. 4¡­ 3.. 2.. ¡­. ¡­. ¡­. Azita. I¡¯m awake. It¡¯s far too early to get up. Just give me five more minutes. I¡¯ll be up soon. Slept far too late last night. I need to fix my bad habit. A few more minutes my love, just let me lie in for that long. Today will be a hectic day my dear. Every day is busy, but I beg you just five more minutes. Turn off the alarm please and let¡¯s back to a few more moments of precious sleep. It sounds good to me. I promise I¡¯ll get up soon. I prepared everything last night, just, let me sleep a little bit more. Please. I¡¯m sorry for how busy my work has been. My manager isn¡¯t going to let me off if I¡¯m making vital mistakes during the presentation today. My performance review is coming up soon, there¡¯s always the opportunity for promotion and a raise. Wait. My head hurts. It¡¯s becoming painful. The alarm. Please, shut it down now. It hurts. Why did you turn up the volume so loud? It¡¯s causing me pain. Shut it off please, I asked you to shut it off. I SAID SHUT IT OFF! DO IT! DO IT NOW! Shouting. I don¡¯t shout. That¡¯s not me. Why am I so angry? I¡¯m not a person who loses their temper so easily. Sorry. I¡¯m so sorry Azita. Where is she? I should... I, I don¡¯t. There¡¯s something wrong. Where is she right now? Am I dreaming? No. No. I just woke up. Not a hangover though. I don¡¯t touch alcohol. Not for the last fifteen years since I chose to become teetotal. Not since I had a bad experience with drunk driving at university. Memory. I had a memory of her. But my head. It wasn¡¯t her that hit me on the head. A head injury causes me to lose my memory. My head won¡¯t stop hurting. That noise just won¡¯t stop beeping. The sound is driving me crazy. How can an alarm clock sound quite so loud? It should shut off automatically, I¡¯ll have to take the manual approach. Just need one little touch and it''s finished. An alarm? Not a clock. It¡¯s not an alarm clock. I need to shut it off. No. No. I need to make sure it stays off. Permanently. Azita. I have a memory of her smiling but she¡¯s far away from me. She¡¯s walking away into¡­a space. A blank white space, her smile lingers but she¡¯s leaves. To find her I reach out my arm, stretching it towards her, trying my best to reach that gap between us. I don¡¯t want her to leave me here. I reach out. Why is my arm making a noise? A kind of whirring noise. I, I¡¯m not right. My, my Azit. Can you tell me what¡¯s wrong with me? Bad. Wrong. My arm is different. I need help. Urgent medical help yes. To fix my arm, to make it work normally without any noise. A hospital. I should be in a hospital, yes. We ended up here after¡­after... Am-ne-see-ya. The words. I¡¯m dreaming. Take a deep breath. No. No. Breathing. My lungs aren¡¯t breathing. Metal. I have a taste of metal in my mouth. I read once that blood tastes just like metal. Why do I have blood in my mouth? I was hurt. Someone hurt me. Wait, that doesn¡¯t sound quite right. I¡¯m getting confused now. No, there was an accident. We were both hurt but my arm is making a sound. That awful sound. A grinding. Not flesh on the bone but worse. The grinding noise pains me. The sense of wrongness hits me hard, I¡¯ve been taken to a place. A place where they want my body to use. A test subject for an illegal experiment. No. NO. That sounds like a bad film. Wrong. A bad dream, a nightmare. I¡¯m half-asleep and the alarm didn¡¯t stop. All I needed to do was make myself wake up. I tried to pinch my arm, but I couldn¡¯t use my hands. A stroke then. I never smoked. I need to find help, raising my voice I tried talking aloud to find someone. Help, I need to call out for help. Yes, someone [Hello? What¡¯s happening? Is anyone there? Help! I need help, over here!] My body is trying to suck in oxygen but no response. Another reaction from my body that was no longer under my control. My chest tightened. I tried to speak out loud. My heart shook inside my chest. This felt like an anxiety attack. Breath. I couldn¡¯t breathe. Was I in a state ? Is this what drowning felt like? There was no liquid. I wanted to suck in air like a man in the desert needed a drink of water but there was nothing to take. My voice. It was still mine, but it lacked something. A part of me had been lost in my voice. I can¡¯t talk like a person needs to talk. I felt a presence had been removed from me, something that I needed. It¡¯s coming to me, soon. The answer. Yes. Yes. Air. I needed more air. Yes. My breath had been I need more air in my lungs. Someone had taken it away from me. They had taken all of the air from inside my body. I couldn¡¯t get a sense of anything, not my heart beating in my chest, not the blood rushing just under my skin. The aches and pains of my body were gone but I alone remained. The sound of my voice sounded odd in a way. It scared me. A mind, or a brain. If this was going to be a dream I was stuck in a nightmare. A voice resounded in my head. I felt a headache, not the alarm, but a new voice. It¡¯s not my voice, was this a nurse? A doctor? The voice of an angel? [Hello? No, no. What¡¯s going on? Tell me what¡¯s happening with my arm. My body, where are my legs? Am I in a hospital? You need to tell me exactly what¡¯s going on. Tell me. Please. Nurse? Doctor? My voice. This isn¡¯t my voice. I sound wrong. WRONG!] I try to shake my head but the same whirring noise kicks in. Different to my arm but wrong. So wrong. Stuck, my head is stuck in a particular position. Thankfully, that beeping noise has finished. Stupid alarm clock. What was the deal with that voice? It just echoed in my head. I¡¯d tell Azita about my bad dream later. Wait. Who is Azit-ta? I can feel my memories weakening. This isn¡¯t normal. I need to know that name. We knew each other once I¡¯m sure of it. My eyes, I can¡¯t open my eyes either. I don¡¯t like this. Did I have a serious accident? My voice. This wasn¡¯t my voice; it was the voice of a machine. I was in hospital after surgery surely. My eyes remained closed from the light of the world. A nightmare, a bad dream, a hallucination. I don¡¯t feel good. Not. One. Bit. Good. [Shut up and get out of my head. Let me talk to a doctor or a nurse. Why can¡¯t I open my eyes? Why can¡¯t I feel my body moving? I need to wake up. How do I open my eyes? A coma, is this a coma?] [I want to open my eyes, where am I? Dead. I¡¯m dead. You killed me. Open my eyes right now. Take off my blindfold. GIVE ME BACK MY EYES! I NEED MY EYES!] This time I tried to move my legs, something moved but they didn¡¯t feel like human legs. Not my legs, not at all. Surgery, my legs had been replaced with machines. My flesh had been stolen; this nightmare was becoming worse. A funny thought, robot legs. I was going mad. I need to stop this from happening to Azita. To me. Me. Me. Me.me.me.me Dead. Dead. Imdeadimdeadimdeadimdeadimdead¡­ [Ha. Ha. Hahahaha. HAHAHA. HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!] I fell then, into pure blankness, not darkness but an absence of thought and mind. It was refreshing for a moment like the exact moment that you would fall into full unconsciousness and your brain simply turned off. There was a voice right on the edge of my but the words it was saying made little sense to my mind. Hugs, it promised hugs. Then everything went bla-. Chapter 3 – Soft Reset To be fair, my mind was still a little bit fuzzy so I couldn¡¯t quite recall the country that I lived in or the name of the company where I worked but I put that down to the amnesia gas that must have been used to get me in the Escape Room. I sure hoped I signed a medical waiver on that. I was drinking a cup of buckwheat tea when¡­I fell asleep. Must have been working too hard in my mining job or just not enough sleep. That was what the bakery was for though, a place to take some time out of my day and just be myself for a while. I had a private room built in the back of the bakery, so I had a choice of sitting in the caf¨¦ area in the front or choosing a delightful book and sitting by myself to have some personal space. Work was hard and through my efforts I thought I deserved a small place of my own removed from the world for a while. Memories? Wow, I must have been super strained to fall asleep. Waking up at 5 am daily wasn¡¯t that sustainable then. Not even the power of expresso coffee could solve that. Caffeine wasn¡¯t always the answer. Who knew? ¡®Do you offer refreshments during the whole Escape Room experience? I can keep talking all day, even if you¡¯re not allowed to respond to me. Given the nature of the room, afternoon tea would be nice.¡¯ My work kept me busy. Technically I was a miner, in actuality, I was in charge of all the autonomous devices that did the mining work. Repair, coordination, and control. Leadership wasn¡¯t a big deal when your robotic slaves had no choice or just weren¡¯t self-aware to protest. Deciding that knowing my name right now wasn¡¯t of maximum importance I pondered my own background. I was aware of so much more of my life so why did it matter if I didn¡¯t have a word that I was called? My memories? ¡®I don¡¯t like coffee. Just to make that clear. Cake and buckwheat tea, I guess milk tea if you have no other choice but make it slightly sweet.¡¯ I loved my work though; it turned out that Mining had a lot of depth to it. Sorry for the bad pun. Oldies but goodies are always popular, and I was showing my age. Which wasn¡¯t as old as I imagined, youngish in an early thirties sort of way. I found it fascinating and loved the topic of mining. The background of modern technology depended on what you could dig, refine, and process from the ground or even the ocean. Space was likely to be the next best place to start mining, but it was unlikely to be in my life that would be something in which I¡¯d be involved. It does sound fun though, in my spare time I played a few video games where you would fly around in a spaceship mining asteroids for metals and minerals. Pretty fun stuff but not a realistic option for a lifelong career, not with the level of technology that we had available. What''s wrong with my memories? A small part of me still craved that adventure though, to travel and experience new places while making money. Space is an opportunity for any aspiring miner who wants to strike it rich, all those asteroids floating around just waiting to be dug up, full of valuable minerals. Ever since I had a kid I had loved to dig in the ground and hoard types of rocks. One time I was digging in a playground, went straight through the sand to these concrete slabs and then under that were even more types of rock. I felt like I had been searching for lost treasures and fossils that had been buried deep in the ground. I needed to have my toy excavator do the work for me though, I also had a rotary excavator that you turned the handle to make the dirt and rocks go along the conveyor belt towards my little dumper truck. I¡¯d spend the entire day outside in the dirt just digging and sorting out the several types of rocks. Ah, happy memories to lose myself in. Drawing my attention back to the present and the escape room that I found myself in. ¡®So, what else is in here? Is the timer running now?¡¯ A bunch of hidden clues, timed activities and a voice telling us how long we have left to finish our allocated tasks. The others in my group might be in rooms adjacent to each other and first, we¡¯d need to escape our room before getting together to complete group tasks in larger rooms. For all, I knew this place could be the size of a large warehouse, Escape Rooms were a pretty popular trend at the moment. ¡®Hello!¡¯ I called out again, this time hoping to get a signal at least or a countdown timer flashing on the wall. No such luck. A complete lack of response didn¡¯t deter me, so I tried again. I found that my voice echoed slightly in this place. An odd sensation although it would have helped create a creepier atmosphere. ¡®Hello, anyone around? I¡¯m going to start the experience now.¡¯ I wasn¡¯t sure if it would be good or not if someone called out ¡®Yes!¡¯ and they had been hiding behind a bookshelf. Even worse than if they were dressed in either make-up or an outfit designed to scare me. No, the scariest story that I¡¯d ever read involved a single box on a table in a locked room. This situation was slightly surreal but not scary in the sense of the word. ¡®Yo, yo, yo. I¡¯m awake and ready to start now?¡¯ Yeah, one of the subtle mind tricks. I worked by myself most of the time unless it was to deliver either reports to Head Office or report to my manager. Isolation wasn¡¯t healthy for a person, not like this. Escape rooms where you pay money and go with a group of strangers because you have no friends. Sad but true. It might not have been the right question to ask at the time. Friends were something I had in abundance. My head was a little bit fuzzy from waking up, but my body felt fine. I tried one more time raising my voice and almost shouting out. ¡®Anyone here? Even give me a knock on the fake walls would be great.¡¯ With no verbal responses, I gave up calling loud and focus my energy on other tasks. It would be a good choice to be physically active while I still felt fresh after my brief sleep or nap. My brain would be fully energised and ready to take on the challenges of this room and then I¡¯d be at the end of my little break and back to my work and normal life. ¡®¡­fine. I totally get that you need to keep me fully immersed. You can tell my manager that it¡¯s not a funny prank to play though.¡¯ The place was empty at this point. Staff monitoring the room were on a lunch break or the timer was running, and I wasn¡¯t able to leave yet unless I had worked out the hidden secret passage of the room. Time to get up and take a quick stroll around the room. Stretching out my legs to make sure that I wouldn¡¯t suffer from any cramps I felt rejuvenated somewhat. There was a low humming noise though somewhere in this room, not quite the sound of electricity but certainly something similar. Sofa, stools, tables, lamps, bust statues and plinths, old paintings of probably rich people. All check. A grandfather clock. Check. Bookshelves filled with books about whatever people read a long time ago or fake books and¡­wait. That¡¯s not right. Too modern.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. There was a small desk in the corner of the room, and on the desk were a computer, screen, keyboard, and mouse. It had a pretty large screen considering the size of the desk. In front of the desk was a modern-style office chair, it did not match the rest of the antique furniture in the room. ¡®Yeah, I know the sound of my voice is getting annoying now but really, technology combined with old furnishings. The whole experience is ruined now. I¡¯m disappointed in the Escape Room designer team. Hello?¡¯ I walked closer to the computer and sat myself on the office chair and moved the mouse so the monitor activated. Given that nobody felt like talking with me, or rather they were restricted from doing this would the first of my many clues to get out of this place. The screen flashed before it turned on. It was a blank black screen with some green flashing text. That reminds me of a film I once saw. Better not be any rabbit jokes about smelling ashes. The contents of my stomach was settled enough that I wasn¡¯t feeling any sense of hunger or thirst yet. I gave a brief thought to the fact that this could be a virtual reality set-up instead. Plug and play. Nah, not worth the cost. ->Are you awake yet?... ?Enter Response: There were no cables from the computer to anywhere else in the room, the mouse and keyboard were both wireless. The computer had been active earlier and remotely turned on from outside. This must be a vital clue, first establish the degree of your intelligence and then set you up with the first of many tasks to take. At least this beat working in the company. As much as I loved mining, working with mining drones, software and machinery got boring, I needed stimulation. Guess I should have been clearer when I filled in the last training request survey given to me from Human Resources. Who knew that filling in a whole bunch of question marks would get me such a result? A glowing message prompted me from the computer screen. I figured that it was nice of the Escape Room staff to take the initiative, time for me to play along a little in my role as escapee. ->Are you awake yet?... ?Enter Response: I opted to go with the general flow to get my first real clue about escaping from this room. ?Enter Response: I¡¯m awake. Need buckwheat tea. Stat. Or even coffee, no low-quality grades though. Awake! Awake! ->Please wait¡­.please wait¡­Searching: 23%...45%...78%...100% ->Awareness Test Complete. Transfer process errors mitigated. What was that meant to mean? More text appeared on the screen below the existing text. This was a program that was running and providing responses. Or someone was sitting remotely replying to my typed words. Yeah, like an Escape room company was going to pay for the services of a super chatbot. Easier and cheaper to pay for a human to sit there and pretend instead. ¡®This Escape Room is pretty fun! Do you need me to type more, is that how you¡¯re allowed to show me the clues? ->This is not an Escape Room. ?Enter Response: ??? :P ¡®Really. Well that explains everything. Do the cameras turn off now and I get a surprise party thrown in my name?¡¯ I wanted to have a little bit of fun before they got all serious trying to get me in the mood. Every place like this tried for a fully immersive experience. I¡¯m fairly sure that it is an Escape Room. Must be a microphone embedded in the screen to pick up sound or my voice. No camera on my side though. Easy enough to verify. This was a game and rules should be followed. I typed back. ?Enter Response: Can you hear me when I¡¯m talking aloud? ->Yes. Visuals are also available. Repeat. This is not an Escape Room. Please remain calm. There was an incident in the bakery that you owned. You will need sufficient time to adjust according to standard protocol. Prototypes are still being evaluated and will engage you. That¡¯s not funny. ¡®Hey! That¡¯s not funny at all! This Escape Room is meant to be fun. Fun! Oops, let me type that in. Sorry, sorry!¡¯ ?Enter Response: Not funny. Can you give me my first clue now? At least this time, I knew that an actual human was listening to me with a hidden microphone and camera. I waved in the air in a random direction hoping that it would be picked up and someone was sighing on the other end. If I knew anything it was how to make a minor nuisance of myself and get reactions, I never said that I wasn¡¯t embarrassing or annoying though. They surely got paid for this so they must have experienced worse than me. I wasn¡¯t even naked this time, that¡¯s a joke. I only got naked for showers. Usually. I felt slightly better for it at least, less so that they had drugged and kidnapped me for fun and giggles. Getting my psychological edge would let me treat the situation with a dose of humour and despite the fact I didn¡¯t get a kick out of reading or watching scary stuff I knew that everyone needed a defence mechanism, and this was mine. I waved again this time in another random direction while smiling like a total unknowing idiot. At least I certainly hoped that it wasn¡¯t going to go down the lines of an escape room horror film where a maniac had locked me up for fun. Quickly checking the ceiling and corners one vital clue that made me feel more satisfied. There were no visible air ducts. Reading back the last words on the screen made me feel marginally concerned. Huh. After mouthing them aloud it wasn¡¯t as funny. ->¡­ ->¡­ ¡®Hey, hey, give me my clue! Ah, a locked room mystery and I¡¯m the victim, right? ->¡­ ?Enter Response: Dot. Dot. Dot. How do you like it? Yeah. Dot. Dot. Dot. I¡¯ll admit I could be petty at times when I got fed up. One of the reasons that I wasn¡¯t totally suited to working with other people. I was bored though. Text interface was only fun when it was in a broader context. In no way was this scary or engaging for the purposes of this Escape Room scenario. ?Enter Response: Why. Isn¡¯t. This. An. Escape Room? No further text had appeared despite my efforts at entertainment though. Odd. May as well tackle the situation head-on through to work out what¡¯s going to¡­wait. What in the twenty underworld hells is that word meant to mean? ¡®Wait a moment, what incident in the bakery? As a clue it¡¯s pretty vague. Can you offer me anything else? No?¡¯ ?Enter Response: Give me more clues pls. Pls. Pls. Pls. ;;;; }:) ¡®Fine. Then I¡¯ll use my brain. You can send a message if I¡¯m ready for the next clue. Or even say hi. I¡¯m not a monster.¡¯