Chapter 1: Awakening

October 15, 2331, 3:37 PM:

Subjects awaken in the mysterious room. They are naked,  have no memories and are not sure where they are. They are prompted by a voice to begin to gather their personal items from a row of lockers when the voice is cut off. After a few moments a man named Roger stands up to try and rally the group and get answers. He passes out on the floor and seems to pass away. In rapid succession 3 others in the room fall ill and seem to perish as well. The voice returns again with a broken message urging the occupants to leave the room and seek safety in the elevator in the hallway. One of the survivors attempts to revive Roger but is only successful in bringing his vitals back to a normal level but he does not wake up. The group rallies and takes Roger with them as they evacuate the room using the palm print of a “Primary” to open the door. 

Once there, the group of remaining survivors meets the android behind the voice, a beautiful NIMS model with a soft and soothing voice. She soon reveals to them that they have been awakened from a stasis chamber that they have been held in for the last 32 years. The entity responsible for the facility is called the Eden Initiative and all of them were volunteers for a project whose goal was to preserve the human race from something called The Occurrence.  NIMS proceeds to check power and life support levels and delivers a report that she has been able to stabilize the floor they are currently on and that they can choose to investigate it further within a limited time frame if they choose. 

While in the elevator, the majority of the survivors begin to make themselves known to each other, introducing themselves and discussing what moves to make next. They decide to explore the floor and split up, using various methods to attempt to get the doors open.

The first room they opened is a simple storage room with some supplies for people who are being kept in stasis. 

The second room is a surveillance room that holds information on the stasis subjects as well as a mysteriously large amount of people that were removed from the facility and a video that was corrupted during the saving process. 

The third door that was opened revealed the stasis chamber room with one stasis pod in distress. When they investigated they found it was partially opened and there was a lot of blood on the machine and floor. They soon discovered the body of one of the technicians that was tasked with monitoring the stasis chambers and found bloody footsteps leading to a door at the back of the room. 

Meanwhile, each survivor is learning more about what happened and why they were there. Their time is running out before they will be forced to proceed to the upper levels.

Continuation of Story on 7/9/2016

The survivors continue exploration, taking various objects from the rooms. Meanwhile, they finally get the last door open. It reveals a server room that has recently been the scene of an attack. Frederick enters attempting to assess if the body seen from the door is still alive and while investigating sees 2 more people who suffered the same fate: Death. As he is kneeling next to the first dead technician, the back door to the room bursts open and the missing infected subject bursts into the room. He is obviously in a violent rage and runs at Frederick who uses his augmented body to hurl the corpse in front of him at the monster. He barely escapes the room in time to slam the door as the enraged man slams into it.

NIMS proceeds to caution everyone to enter the elevator. They do not hesitate, everyone loads up and begins to head upward. Flick offers up some interesting evidence she has collected from the surveillance room, including a ledger that shows a lot of information on the business of the Eden Initiative.

As everyone settles on the elevator for the remainder of the long trip to the surface, NIMS notices that one of the survivors is missing. During all of the activity, he seems to have slipped away without being noticed before NImS could tap into the surveillance equipment and track him.

Is the missing survivor up to something sinister? Will they make it to the top? What will await them there?

Continuing Story 7/15/19

The group makes their way to the sub basement without incident. Once there they are greeted with a pristine waiting room with a locked door behind a reception desk. They must wait for NIMS to reroute power to a second elevator so they take the time to look around. There are some snacks and water and almost everyone partakes while they look around the space. Zara is especially happy to have something in her belly. While they wait, they sync up their CD’s so that they can share information and talk to each other if they aren’t in the same room. NIMS shares several maps of the Eden Center campus. The group also discusses what their next action should be.

Nims has notified them that in order to fully explore the building, they will need to repair the power core, which has been damaged. Without that, they can only travel round trip to 2 floors and may need to see more of the area before they can decide what their course of action will be once they leave the building.

When the group inquires if there is anyone left in the building, NIMS says there is not, based on her access to the logs at the time. However, as the group files into the elevator the panel next to the closed door across the room lights up and a face is seen as a voice calls for help.

Unfortunately nothing can be done to stop the elevator and they must leave the floor until later if they decide to try and help. Once they reach the main floor they are greeted with a clock that tells them it is later in the evening, 8:15 pm. The main floor is a beautiful expression of architecture, however the entire space has a creepy and somber tone. The usually clear windows to the outside have been covered with a shield of some kind and the entire space is void of any life.

The group splits up and proceeds to look around the space as NIMS attempts to gain control of the building and reconnect with the global network so that she can give them information on what has happened since they were put under stasis. Zara runs to the bathroom while Bishop checks out the large statue of a man that is at the front of the reception area. Others go off for a private talk, while a separate group decides to check the security office.

At security, DK discovers that all of the weapons in the armory there have been taken except for a few throw away electric batons and a useless stun gun that actually requires a cartridge to use. When he goes to open a bland looking cabinet at the back of the room he finds that it is locked shut. Some of the others try to help open the thing, but seem to fail at ever turn. Even Frederick, using his augmented arm, can only claw and tear at the thing until setting off a safety measure and electrifying the whole thing.

Finally they are able to open the cabinet using one of the electric batons and DK retrieves the stun cartridges while Bishop and Edward take two of the three batons that are there. It isn’t the best haul of weapons, but it should help them should they run into any hostiles as they move forward. Something is better than nothing!

At this point NIMS has reconnected with the global network and tells the group about a second world wide event much like The Occurrence, but worse. The name for this tragedy is The Reckoning. (Please read the notes on this even for more information).

Hannah asks NIMS to connect her with the group of people in the safe room that is in the sub basement. She begins to speak to Madison Gerard, a PR President of the Eden Initiative. She seems to have a lot of information, including the program and password required to lift the lock down. She insists on being let out of the safe room. They have been held in the place for hours and have received no communication from security or anyone in the company.

The most startling detail she gives the group is that NIMS is not the normally used AI for their facility. They should have met with something called an ABRA unit, instead NIMS is revealed to be a model only used by executives with only 5 known to exist. NIMS also reveals that the only humans she will respond to are those in the group, which makes Madison even more upset.

As the conversation continues, Edward asks if she knows about the tech that they found dead on the stasis and who seems to have had something to do with what happened to them. Madison knows the man by n ame, but further inquiry reveals that his badge was duplicated illegally and an investigation had still been in process. Finding out that the woman tech they found was an impostor, it raises more mystery without much resolution.

After a scan of the group reveals that some of them have a viral load, the group decides that they cannot release them until they are able to be sure they will be safe. Madison is not amused and begins to grow angry. She is cut off as the group decides that the trapped employees are safe for the time being since they have supplies and while the virus may grow quickly they have at least a few days until things are too late.

At this point, the survivors decide to check the gift shop for anything usable, eat some food from the cafeteria and try to rest. The gift shop is a wonderful collection of Eden branded merchandise and everyone enjoys taking a few things, including a wonderful backpack that uses something called bluespace to store items without worrying about weight or space up to 30 items, with duplicate items stacking in the same slot. They are able to get changes of clothes, drinking mugs and water, food gel fabricators , robots and 3d printers, among other things.

While in the gift shop an exciting discovery is made: Zara is pregnant! The group instantly rallies around the mysterious woman who seems to be just as shocked as they are. They try to make her comfortable and are relieved to find out that she is still free of the Beta parasite and the baby is doing well. Zara curls up on a makeshift bed and falls asleep.

Their next stop is the cafeteria. A warm meal and a few hours of sleep should help the group to make good decisions as they move forward. What will they choose to eat? Will there be any other discoveries in the cafeteria?

The group meets Louie, a french robot chef. He seems to know exactly what they like and dazzles them with his cooking skills and penchant for knowing what they want before they know themselves. His helpers, egg shaped drones that supply him with ingredients and equipment, are called chickadee eggs. They deliver food to everyone interested and the group settles down for the night with full bellies and the feeling of safety despite their circumstances.

The room dims and slowly, one by one, they all fall asleep as NIMS watches over them lovingly.