Outpost B-11

The sounds of hissing machinery and humming lines power through the ancient facility, darkness that once ruled the deserted halls fill once again with the light, a terminal screen turns on and brightens as a ragged, old voice sputters before auto-correcting itself and speaks again. Several pod shaped vessels line the ribs of the building, each one cracked, damage and decrepit as the occupants inside are long gone or are forever shut down from the power loss ages ago.

*Initializing Start-Up Routines, Powering Primary, Secondary, Tertiary and Quaternary Systems, All Systems Fully Functioning, Power Levels At Maximum, Facility Systems Online, Status: Intact and Whole*

The light filters through several of the pods, revealing within its single occupant, their body hunched over to either side of the pod, laying back against the gel bed or slumped against the class, their skeleton or still rotting carcass waiting within to be released from their prison and to be laid to rest alongside their families. The pods slowly turn active as electrical energy is pumped through the wiring, the lights outside of each pod beam outward as they bounce slightly along the tarnished reflective to reveal the rest of the storage area of the facility.

*Objective Updated*

As the pods get powered on, they slowly start to crack open, releasing a few occupants from their eternal restraint onto the ground, and as more began to open up the bodies started to drop onto the ground, many of them are unresponsive or moving in general, many more down the line is the same thing as the first few with the exception of a few twitching sporadically before freezing up and going limp, the last few in the line tumble out and groan and gasp for air, the few remaining living people wheezing for air or warmth of another upon their frigid bodies.

*Retrieval*

The few people that survived within the confines of their pods slowly got to their feet, many of them are different in the terms of race, body structure, gender and age, and each one as they got up looked at one another, trying to remember who they are and who the person they are looking at is, to remember if they are friend or foe, mate or friend, or just what they are doing there. It was only moments later when the soft murmuring of weak, cracked voices come from those that are able to speak, trying to become coherent enough to communicate once again with those around them, and seconds later the muffled sounds of soft soles on the cushioned rubber tiles come closer until the living spot the appearances of tall, slender beings, their heads oval in shape, their bodies making soft noises until they come within close proximity until they saw what it was.

Security Mech's, each of them bearing the symbol of a red cross, and each one gently lifting up a single survivor before gently leading them off down the corridors to some unknown location.

POV: #27

I felt myself get pulled off the comfort of the soft floor, someone helped me off the ground and led me down a hall of smeared red and grey squares, the person that was holding me up was cold, very thin and its head was oval and had a glass face, only two red rectangular eyes were present as it helped me down the long hall till we got to a room with a strange chair surrounded by metal hooks and claws. I couldn't even see straight, my eyes were hurting and they wouldn't focus on anything whenever I tried to set my sights on something. I could only guess that before I was in that strange pod was that my vision was damaged and was not completely fixed, but from what I can see through the haze of my eyes I can tell that this strange device will leave me different from when I came into the room.

The person or machine that helped me into the room told me in a very calm voice to lay down onto the auto-doc and wait for the medical systems to activate and repair the damages that my body has sustained before and after I was in the pod for the ghosts above knows how long. A face appeared on the monitor in front of the supposed 'auto-doc', it looked like some sort of elderly man with a beard that hasn't been shaved in years and the sagging in his skin only proved that he indeed was an elderly person.

*Mr. Folson, your records shows that your vision in both eyes are partially destroyed from exposure to a dangerous chemical, nearly rendering you blind. Our records also shows that your musculature system has signs of damage from the same chemical exposure, your muscles are weaker than that of a normal fully grown human being which must be rectified. Your voice box is from what my scans show, is destroyed from being slashed open by a serrated acid coated blade back on Mindoir, we can have that easily repaired.*

I looked at the screen, my eyes barely able to focus on the screen but than again his voice was the only thing I needed to hear as it allowed me to paint a picture of the old man's face.

*If you accept what I would need you to do, I will repair your eyes and restore your muscles to its original strength and enhance your entire body to that of what we could have been before the extinction happened.*

Looking at the screen than at myself, my eyes may be screwed up but I can still see that my muscles have simple got up and left me, my body already looks frail enough to break on a weak impact, my body sucks already and the offer was just too much to be true but at this very moment I didn't have much of a choice.

*Excellent, now lay down on the lounge chair and relax, the procedure will take some time but you would never notice the time lapse.*

I did as I was instructed, laying down on top of the lounge chair and closed my eyes, hoping that the machine above did as it was told to do.

4 Hours Later

The wave of drowsiness passes over me as my eyes open up, my vision blurry at first until they fix themselves until I can finally see perfectly, my eyes now picking up tiny details in everything that I see, everything was picture perfect to me. Next I tried to move my body to get a look at it to see if it has changed like my eyes, but to my dismay I saw crisscross of stitches all over my body along with strange metal prongs sticking out of my elbows, shoulder blades, hands, knees, ankles, thighs and along my back. I have no idea what the prongs are for or what their purposes are but for all I know it was meant as a defense mechanism like an electrical discharge or something, but even the slightest movements causes pain to lance all over my body, the pain would have been terrible but for some reason I could no longer feel myself, not even the cold air on my skin.

*I see you have noticed the new you, I would say that I am impressed with the changes I have made to your entire body but sadly there was one part of you that I could not fix, your voice box has been completely destroyed from both the blade cutting it in half and the acid eating the rest of it in the process. But you must have noticed the prongs all over your body, those will be explained in the armory but for now the LOKI will escort you to your next destination. And since you can no longer speak you would not have to worry about back talking to anyone that you come across on your mission or be able to tell any interrogators about your presence for being there.*

As the terminal screen in front of me winks off, two LOKI mech's enter the room, bearing the symbol of an two guns crossing over a shield and the two of them helped me to my feet before guiding me toward what the machine said was the 'armory', and I could only guess what I was supposed to be getting let alone retrieve from such a building.

The section of the facility they led me to was a room that acted as both weapon depository and also a vault, the door was give or take two feet thick of pure metal, secured by heavy-duty hinges and bolts and the inside was heavily built to be impenetrable from the outside. The interior from where I was standing was a short room but from behind the counter was a massive storage area, weapons, armor and ammunition lined the walls, rifles, pistols, grenades, rockets and explosives were each in their own categories, clearly separated from one another along with the armor being divided by type and weight.

Waiting on the counter was what I think are weapons and my armor, the weapons are rectangular in shape but when I lightly brushed one of them, it unfolded into a much larger shape, truly making itself out as a rifle of sorts. The rifle in question was somewhat streamline, a scope was installed on the top rail and the barrel was short, the stock was otherwise compensating for the shortness of the barrel by having itself as large as the barrel half as it probably is meant for the reduction of the recoil when fired. Written on the side of it was in white a bold 'N7', the small piece of plastic that was hanging off the barrel had its name on it, the 'N7 Valiant' it was called.

The next weapon an ivory white rectangle, about roughly half the size of the rifle, and when touched it began to unfold into an unusual shape, it was compact and was easy to wield in one hand but the grip under the tiny barrel meant that it could have another hand on the grip to provide much better control when fired. A small plastic tag hanging on the barrel called it a 'M-25 Hornet', and attached to the hornet was a high-velocity barrel and on the back of it above the grip was a recoil-dampening system.

Last weapon was painted red with a large white skull imprinted on the side, when I picked it up it unfolded itself into a large hand-cannon, the thing itself was heavy as hell as it gave me pause as to why such a heavy weapon would be given to me. It was like the rest of the weapons I had except for the trigger guard was much farther away from the trigger and the hammer was exposed so an object if I am unlucky could get caught in between the parts preventing the action from going through, but the shear weight of the heavy pistol told me that this was a one-shot-one-kill weapon, a weapon that could be used against a target that can resist the other two I have at my disposal.

*I see you are getting familiar with your weapons of your new trade, that is good because those three will be your only means of defending yourself alongside with carrying out your mission, do not under any circumstances lose them let alone get them damaged. There is only so much spare parts and scrap metal we have within the facility to fix and repair everything we have at our disposal. Now move onto your new armor, just step into it and the rest should take care of itself.*

On the counter was my armor and upon picking it up it unfolded before me, it was matte black, it looked not very bulky so protection must not be its number one priority, a probability is that it is meant for reconnaissance and stealth. All over the black synthetic material was hexagon shapes, each one touching the other in an endless sea of reflective shapes, the light itself bouncing off the material and it began to partially blend in to the surrounding area, almost turning it invisible to the naked eye. The helmet of the suit of armor was strange, it had a hood covering the top part and instead of the traditional glass covering of the face it was only two glass lenses that also had the same hexagon pattern and each one was giving a ghastly light green aura.

*That to which you are holding Mr. Folson is the Mk VI stealth suit, created by the Earth Systems Alliance for their deep infiltration teams to sneak into heavily fortified positions and to take it apart from within. This specific suit has been modified with a much larger energy cell and micro-solar panels to provide limitless power to the suit, so worrying about turning visible at the worst possible moment won't matter, but because of the panels you would only have to worry about the suit being damaged enough for them to break for if those panels break you would be revealed and power would have to be diverted to conceal yourself yet again but with a far weaker stealth field surrounding you. So don't do anything reckless while wearing it or otherwise you will be stuck between a rock and a hard place.*

Nodding at the seemingly godly voice I looked back at the armor in my hands before I stepped into the opening of it and felt it attach to the prongs, latching onto them before stiffening up like taut muscles than as quickly as they became stiff they go slack as I felt the suit adjust to my body structure, and when I moved to the helmet part of the suit I felt it slither across my face and attach itself once on the other side and the hood rolled over the top of my head before stopping slightly above my eyes.

*Your mission, Mr. Folson, is relatively simple. Bring back any and all Pre-War tech back to this facility, it does not matter what its purpose was or if it is even functional, if it is broken we can scrap it for parts and if it does work we can figure out its purpose at a later given date. And if you come across other survivors, tag them for pick up and I will send in a Mantis to take them home here. You have permission to use lethal force on anything that will get in your way but otherwise be diplomatic to build bridges with any new indigenous species that has taken over our home. And for the duration of your leave, your new name for when addressed by any locals shall be, Benoit Hakon, your codename for this mission will be Phantom.*

*For now just avoid any locals you may encounter. You are dismissed.*