Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

His body shuddered suddenly; the motion promptly woke him from that odd dream, just as his eyelids snapped open, staring at the ceiling for a second before looking around his dark room in a slight panic.

He was still in his room and everything was right where it should be. He sighed in relief. The cool breeze of the air conditioner whiffed upon his face calmed him down a little.

"The hell was that?" He breathed, not knowing why he said that aloud. He guessed it just felt more like the truth that way.

The truth that he kept having that same dream over and over for weeks. He did not know whether it was his brain or the maso within him that was trying to screw with his mind. If it was his brain that did this, then it was just simple imagery formed during the brain's memory consolidation. He would get over it in time.

If it was maso, he might have to get himself checked with the resident doctors here soon.

As he was contemplating his options in bed, the sound of the alarm bell rang around his room. If there was a silver lining from repeatedly having that weird dream, it was helping him wake up a little early.

He pulled his hand out from under the blanket and lazily tapped the surface of his drawer as he tried to find the alarm clock. The ringing of the bell annoyed him, and if possible, grew louder by each second. Impatient, he turned his sight to the drawer and finally found the clock. He quickly pressed the snooze button, the sound no longer echoing around the room.

5:39 AM? Huh, that's a new record. He chuckled, that was probably the earliest time for him to wake up if he slept 8 hours a day as usual.

He slowly pulled himself up and sat on the bed, rubbing his eyes as he tried adjusting to the dark atmosphere of the room. He could feel the texture of brown synthetic rubber skin massaged against his face, along with the outline of cybernetic prosthesis underneath it. If the subtle whining of intricate machinery coming from his shoulder did not immediately give it away, he would have thought he still had both of his real arms for a few seconds.

Regular flesh, blood and bone. Instead of rubber, plastics, carbon fibre and lightweight metal alloys that made up his limbs now.

"Good morning, Adam Menendez. I hope you were having a sound rest," a machine-like male voice rang out from the speakers built into the room's ceiling.

"Hope? What made you say that, EVANS?" Adam asked of the monotone, inhuman voice of the artificial intelligence. His real designation was Enhanced Virtual Adaptive Neuromorphic System.

"12 minutes ago, I detected increased breathing, heart rate and perspiration on your face, along with trembling limbs. Based on my observation of your sleep activity for the past eight hours, you were having a nightmare."

"Stalking me while I'm sleeping, EVANS? Doesn't sound like the usual you there. People find that kinda thing creepy and rude, y'know? Especially when you did it for hours." Adam joked, smiling as he moved the blanket off of his body and gradually climbed from the bed.

Light from the ceiling automatically turned on as soon as his cybernetic feet tapping slightly on the ceramic floor, bare of their synthetic skin like the one on his arms as he moved toward the bathroom.

"To be precise, it was EVANS-Main Program that observed you during your sleep," the AI replied before continuing. "Adam, I recommend that you should go see Doctors Drew and Okazaki for a medical checkup before taking the mission."

"You read my mind, EVANS," Adam said as he stepped into the shower cubicle naked and turned on the knobs. He closed his eyes, letting himself sprayed on in fine streams of hot water and surrounded in a saturated steam.

In the shower, he absently began tracing some of the scars on his body. Half of them he did not remember getting. Some he remembered when he was in the United Nations Command, fighting Legion forces in almost half the world. Vladivostok, Taiwan, Bougainville Island, Perth and then back here in Japan when the Legion launched a desperate surprise attack in Sapporo.

A few he got when Adam and his fireteam volunteered with other Lancer teams and Crusader squadrons for "Very High Risk Assignments" deep in Legion-held territories for surgical, yet devastating attacks. Even when they were all wearing powered armors during those times, it still did not stop most volunteers from dying. Millions of people still died when White Chlorination Syndrome spread all over the world, turning infected humans into statues or salt powder. Those that survived, however, became the white monsters humanity had been fighting for decades to survive.

Adam even remembered when he was stationed in the Philippines in 2019, inside an office building repurposed into a barrack. When news of a WCS outbreak in Los Angeles reached him, he sat down on the floor burying his face in his hands. Trying very hard not to cry in despair because he knew his parents and friends were already dead.

He immediately snapped out of it when his fingers reached his shoulder, particularly the cybernetic part of it. He shook his head to rid the thoughts from his head. He turned off the water, quickly dried himself up before putting on his dark grey battle dress uniform, which had a UN circular patch on the right sleeve. Once that done, he moved toward the door intending to leave the premises of his room.

When he stepped out into the bright, clean hallway of the bunker, he tried moving cautiously and as quietly as possible as to not wake anybody. The only people who would be awake this early beside him were the medical and military personnel changing their shifts.

Adam was at the cafeteria, making a cup of coffee from an instant mix, avoiding the beans because he was not sure his stomach could handle the acidity level of regular stuff.

He took a pack of MRE from the pantry, started heating all three meal packets with a flameless ration heater and water inside a durable plastic bag for 15 minutes. There were tons of MREs from several countries and different militaries stockpiled in the bunker. He was surprised that all of them were still edible and tasted just as good after thousands of years in storage. It was all thanks to the stasis spells cast upon them before they went into cryosleep.

As he sat at the table waiting for his meal to heat up while drinking his coffee, Adam heard footsteps echoing from a nearby hallway and from the sound of it, someone was heading to the cafeteria. He turned to the premise's entryway and saw two people entering: one was in a black-yellow engineer jumpsuit and the other in black BDU, which meant he was part of the bunker's security detail.

Even from afar, Adam instantly recognized the faces he was familiar with for a long time: Park Seong-Ho from engineering and Nikolai Soldatov from security.

"Hey Menendez! Still eating those stupidly out of date rations again?" Seong-Ho called out with his tone.

"Keep gobbling up those things and you'll never be able to eat real food ever," Nikolai told him, playing along with Seong-Ho and teasing Adam for his choice of meal.

"At least the hamburger I'm about to eat is several times better than your poor excuse of a steak," Adam retorted, referring to Seong-Ho's attempt at cooking a steak two months ago. Of course, most steak lovers in the bunker, which also included Adam, never live the disastrous result down.

Nikolai snickered at that, while Seong-Ho just seemed to shrug at it coolly as both men walked past Adam's table. They approached the pantry and each took out a bibimbap MRE. As the men silently prepared the meal with their backs facing him, Seong-Ho was the first to break the silence.

"You know you don't have to do this, right?" He asked, the cheerful tone Adam used to hear was replaced with sombreness.

"I do and I still intend to," Adam insisted. He unwrapped the steam inflated plastic bag, taking out each ration pack before emptying the contents onto a cardboard tray.

"We can still just send the drones instead of you, Adam," Seong-Ho said almost desperately. "We don't have to waste another life for this shit."

"There's a limit on how far either us or EVANS can control the drones. As engineer, you know this better," Nikolai reminded.

Seong-Ho turned to Nikolai, glaring intensely at the Russian as he exhaled loudly through his nose, clenching his hand into a tight fist. The engineer stared at the man standing next to him for a few moments before turning his sight on Adam, who simply stared back at him as he chewed his food.

"Why? Because you're a Lancer, Adam?"

"Yup. Ask Nikolai here; he was a Crusader before becoming security guard," Adam pointed at Nikolai with his spork. "He knows better what this means for me than anyone else."

After a few seconds had passed, the Korean engineer sighed and finally gave up. There was no point arguing with the person who had already made up their mind on the matter.

"At least bring some Spectres to fly with you. EVANS-Subroutine can still control them when they're close to your Javelin," Seong-Ho suggested. "Upping your chance of survival, y'know?"

"Good idea, man," Adam nodded in agreement, taking another spoon of his fried rice pilaf with a small chunk of boiled hamburger.

His Javelin suit, plus its devastating offensive and impressive defensive abilities could allow him to handle most kinds of threats he would face out there in the world. Still, there was nothing wrong bringing along a couple of Spectre drone mechs for extra firepower and support for this "mission".

Seong-Ho and Nikolai brought their MREs and sat across the table from Adam, who was staring at his food as he ate.

"The children are gonna miss you," Nikolai told the Lancer.

"I know," Adam admitted glumly. "But I'm doing this for them, for all of you. One day they'll understand why."

He sat silent for awhile, as did Seong-Ho and Nikolai before they started opening the packets and eat their meal. Adam was expecting the latter to understand his situation, given their similar history and experience. The former? Not so much but he could not blame Seong-Ho for showing a lot of concern for him.

"Does the hamburger really taste that good?" Seong-Ho asked as he stirred the spicy beef rice inside with a spoon.

"It's soft and a little mushy, but tastes a lot better than most hamburgers I've eaten," Adam commented, taking another spoonful of the meal.

"Pfft! I can guarantee you that all the hamburgers you've eaten before, including this one, got nothin' on Korean-style burgers," Seong-Ho proudly claimed. "I can make some for you guys if you want."

"Considering we've already established that you're a bad cook, I don't think we'll be willing to risk our life eating your burgers, man," Nikolai mocked him.

"Oh, come on!" Seong-Ho cried exasperatedly. "You guys can't just judge a person's cooking skill as godawful because of one fuck-up!"

"Uhh, yes we can. The fuck-up was so big, Bobby and Sandra ended up with diarrhea that lasted days. They still hate you for it," Adam said with a smirk, followed by Nikolai who let out a half-suppressed laugh.

"니들 다 좆까. 니들 다 좆까," Seong-Ho grumbled in annoyance, cursing in Korean before he took a spoonful of rice and beef into his mouth.

"Well, there's nothing odd with the maso in your body," the Japanese doctor told Adam as she scanned his entire body with a handheld medical scanner in her hand.

Adam was in a sleeveless patient gown, lying on a bed inside the bunker's medical facility for his final examination by the doctors here. He looked up at Doctor Okazaki that stood next to him, staring at a thin monitor hanging on the wall above his bed as she moved the scanner back and forth from head to toe. He twisted his head a bit to see what was on the screen. Vital signs. A heartbeat. Showing a human body with numerous bones, nerves and internal organs.

However, only his head, torso and abdomen were shown. Not his arms and legs. Sometimes it was slightly disheartening for Adam to see the state of his body like that once more on a screen. Unless he could get himself inside a cloning lab or the people in this bunker built one, he would never be a whole human.

"Everything looks normal at your end. Even the implants are still working well," Hanako said as she turned off the medical scanner and placed it back on the wall holder for the device. She then picked up a tablet computer from nearby drawer, pulled out a stylus from it and wrote her medical report.

"I'd still recommend EVANS to watch over your health closely and that takes top priority above all else," she sternly advised before finished writing her report.

"You're the boss, Doc," Adam replied.

Just as Hanako placed the tablet back, another familiar face approached Adam's bed.

An African American man in a lab coat pushing a slightly large four-wheeled cart with a couple of metal cans and two sets of advanced, adequately armored prosthetic limbs. The last time he had seen them was a decade ago before he put them in storage.

There was not much use for weaponized prosthesis when he was busy rebuilding society, taking care of children with other adults, as well as maintaining a sense of normalcy in the bunker.

"Alright, let's get these limbs off of you first," Doctor Drew said, handing Adam a spray can after he sat up on bed. It was a special spray to loosen the synthetic skin attached on his shoulders' and upper thigh's sockets before they could be parted.

Adam sprayed the content both around his shoulders first. The fake brown skin were slowly detached from the sockets, allowing Raymond to easily peel them down until the joints were exposed. Using his implant, Adam sent a mental command to the docking port of his right shoulder socket to release the prosthetic limb, where the telltale hisses and clicks announced its detaching.

Normally, attaching and detaching a sophisticated prosthesis required a delicate surgery. Each and every nerve had to be separated, connected and synced with the endless array of wires that acted as mechanical nerves.

However, none of those processes were necessary due to advances in medical and cybernetic technologies. All in large part thanks to the alien starship that crashed in Germany back in 2020. Much of advanced technologies and data that were reversed engineered and learned respectively from the vessel gave humanity a much needed boost in the war against the Legion, as well as allowing more wounded and crippled soldiers to be brought back into the field quickly.

Raymond grabbed the prosthesis with both hands and soon after he moved the limb away from the port, he almost dropping it due to the unexpected weight.

"Jesus, I don't remember regular prosthesis being this heavy," he exclaimed, carefully placing it on the cart's tray before picking up the military-type artificial limb.

"Must be due to fake skin on it?" Adam asked.

"Nah. Probably because I haven't picking up these things for years," Raymond replied, slowly inserting the "new" prosthesis into the docking port. "It's... kinda refreshing actually."

After the right shoulder socket automatically attached the limb together with it, the same process on his left arm and legs taking another half hour. Once that was done, Adam changed his garb into a black bodysuit which only covered his torso, abdomen and thighs. He felt refreshed, following with an elusive feeling of sentimentality as he started flexing his old prostheses while in a bodysuit. And yet... it felt a little odd for him. As if it ran into conflict with another subtle feeling he was having.

The feeling of wanting to "give in and rest".

As Adam flexed his prostheses to see if the usual sensations were right on track, Hanako called him.

"Adam... You be careful out there, alright? I hate the thought of putting pieces of you back together for funeral," she told him with a gentle smile, grasping his biological shoulder and squeezing it tight. "Take good care of this idiot, EVANS."

"I will, Doctor Okazaki. You have my word," the AI rang out through the ceiling's speakers. Adam could almost hear a sense of determination underneath his monotonous, synthetic voice.

"Take these extra Bio-Salves and analgesics as well," Raymond handed him four transparent plastic boxes containing dozens of pen-like injectors. Two boxes had red injectors, while the rest were blue. "Just in case. Crazy-ass Lancers like you always get yourselves into tonnes of heavy shit."

"Well, what else is new?" Adam replied, giving the doctor a soft smile. The boxes in his hands were then engulfed in a flash of light and disappeared, dematerializing into bits of digital data stored inside the Flat Space Inventory within his prostheses.

"Good luck out there, Adam," he offered his hand to the Lancer.

Adam reached out and mildly grasped Raymond's hand, shook it.

"You too, Ray."

He had donned his old armor vest, a pair of pants, knee pads and boots. Including a heavy pistol, combat knife and several pouches containing survival gear on his utility belt for whatever he would face out there. Especially once he was outside of his Javelin suit. Unless they were in tightly sealed containers, It was standard procedure not to place food inside the FSI or else they would become toxic and inedible for human consumption.

Despite being alien origin similar to his prostheses and the Javelin, Flat Space Inventory was a poorly understood technology. Scientists in the past were still struggling to make FSI safer for food storage or develop a better version of it. For now, only ammunition, weapons, other non-organic and sealed medical supplies could be stored inside. Even then, there was a limit on how much could be stockpiled in an FSI.

Adam exited out of the staging room and found himself in the bunker's motor pool. Before him were five people in engineer jumpsuits with handheld scanners and tablets, gathering around a 7 foot tall Javelin that stood at the center of the chamber. He saw Seong-Ho among the engineers, making final system checks and adjustments on the suit like the rest. As he approached them, the echoing sound of his footsteps alerted one of them and turned around.

"Ah, Lieutenant. Glad you're here," Anjali Dutta said, saluting the Lancer with a grin as he walked up to her.

"Please tell me you didn't upload your terrible song collection into the suit, Anjali," Adam shook his head, grinning back at the Indian engineer.

"As opposed to your own crappy choices?" She asked, huffing in a patronizing manner before she turned her back to him. "At least everybody here agreed I'm thrice the better DJ than you. Not to mention during Kazuo's birthday last week, you sang like a dying deer, sir."

The other engineers laughed at the ex-soldier being a subject to a horrible, albeit good-natured, ridicule. In spite of that, Adam also joined in the laughter at his expense. Both Anjali and him were some of the few people remaining in the bunker that came from the same UNC unit back in the war, which explained why she called him by his rank first.

It was nice to have someone give some levity to the situation, Adam at least knew all of them needed it. His thoughts were otherwise permeated with the grim possibility that he may not return alive. Who knew how much the world had changed since Project Endurance was initiated thousands of years ago?

He felt a pang of guilt when he thought about that subject. Just how long were he, EVANS and several other people keep up with the lie they told to everyone in this bunker? Another five years? Ten?

"Activating the Spectres now," Ricardo Suarez said as he tapped the tablet in his hand, the Chilean engineer's loud voice interrupting Adam's train of thought.

One of a dozen doors in the motor pool was opened, revealing a pair of 8 foot tall bipedal drone mechs walking out of the room. Codenamed Type-F Spectres, these were developed specifically to have flight capability similar to the Javelins. The mech marched toward the humans before stopping a few meters away from them. The untarnished white and blue paint that marked the body of machines made him appreciate the crucial role of magic in preserving much of the bunker's infrastructure, supplies and equipment for such a long time.

He turned his sight to the Storm-class Javelin suit before him.

It was not much to look at, if he was being honest with himself. It was not much bigger than himself, taller only by dint of the fact that it featured the same triple jointed digitigrade legs that all Javelin suits had. Without that, the black and white suit more closely resembled a bodyglove with flexible protective plates glued on than what the heavier classes sported, nevermind the hulking armor plated monsters like the Colossus. But for all that it looked like the runt of the litter, and was as fragile as teacup in a rock crusher, the Storm's ability to manipulate and channel frankly ludicrous amounts of raw magic against its enemies more than made up for those deficiencies. He would not have traded it for anything.

The Javelin's rear hatch was already opened as Adam walked behind it before climbing into the suit.

The inside of the armor was padded and fit snugly around his body like a glove. It felt really nice for him to be back in the Javelin once more. He hoped ten years of him away from the suit had not dull his piloting and combat performance.

As soon as the rear hatch closed and locked into place, the Javelin's HUD hologram lit up in the dark. A quick systems check on his FSI confirmed that all essential equipment for the mission were in there. As his diagnostics came back green, EVANS' voice came over the speaker.

"Spectre synchronization complete. We are good to go, Adam."

The Lancer smiled to himself. Things were going well for him so far. The massive doors in front of him suddenly opened, revealing an elevator platform that would lift him and the Spectres up to the surface of Earth. Before he could take a step forward, a female voice with thick Scottish accent came from his right side.

"I hope you'll find other survivors out there, Adam," engineer Samantha Gleason said.

"So do I, Sam," Adam replied, his voice sounded metallic as it went through the armor's external speaker.

"Think you could bring some fresh meat if you return home alive?" Mishima Kenichi asked. From what Adam heard from the tone of his voice, it was not a serious question.

"Sure. But one condition: Don't let Seong-Ho touch the meat," he replied.

The engineers laughed while Seong-Ho rolled his eyes, yet he grinned at the Lancer's attempt of poking fun at him.

After they bid him good luck, Adam began walking toward the elevator platform with two Spectres following closely behind.

Once they were on the platform, the doors closed behind them and the elevator started its ascent to the bunker's upper level. The sound of hard-working hydraulic lifts filling the entire ride, it would took more than two minutes to climb up the 100 metre shaft.

As the platform was rising up, Adam finally asked EVANS, voicing the question that had been plaguing his mind the entire morning.

"EVANS... do you honestly believe we will find some survivors out there?"

"I can give you a statistical probability and chances of finding Project Endurance survivors from other bunkers in Japan," EVANS stated. "But knowing you, Adam, that's not the kind of answer you want to hear."

The AI was silent for a moment before he continued.

"To be honest, I don't know," EVANS said, his usual toneless voice changed to a more solemn one. "I don't know if we would find other humans from Endurance facilities in this region, let alone across the world. But all we can do for now... is hope."

After the platform reached the top level and came to a halt, Adam and the Spectres marched forward in the new room, which was pitch black for several seconds before multiple light bulbs were turned on, illuminating the entire room with crimson light.

"Do you think there's a chance other bunkers already sent someone years before us?" Adam asked.

"...Yes. The chance is low, but the possibility can't be ignored," EVANS replied.

"Then let's do this," he muttered, a sense of resoluteness in his voice.

The trio stopped when they finally reached the large blast doors before them. There was a loud bang before a line of white split down the dark redness of the room. The blast doors slid open slowly, thousands of years of accumulated rust scraped against metal and old hydraulic gears struggled to turn. The room around them was flooded with a blinding light.

Once the doors were open wide, both Adam and the Spectres ran out towards the light. When the light finally faded away, he found himself running on cracked concrete surface and surrounded by a mountain range. As the blast doors behind them were closing, the trio jumped off the ground, igniting their thrusters and launching into the sky.

"Alright, EVANS. What's our first destination?" Adam asked.

"We should first set up multipurpose antennas on tall structures over 200 metres in height to establish communication and to scan for specific energy signatures to determine other nearby bunker locations," EVANS replied. "Therefore, it's recommended we fly to Tokyo."

Adam was surprised by EVANS' choice of location. If he remembered correctly, Tokyo had been caught in the nuclear strike of 2009 as part of a joint US-Japanese effort to eradicate the Legion and WCS. He doubted if there were any tall buildings left standing in that city.

"Didn't Tokyo get nuked? Aren't there any tall buildings in cities in Yamanashi?"

"None of the cities in the Yamanashi Prefecture have buildings over 200 metres tall," the AI answered. "Moreover, last remaining records regarding post-2009 Tokyo and before Project Endurance began suggests there were several tall structures remain standing firm in the city."

The Lancer was silent for a moment, flying in the sky as he contemplated EVANS' recommendation. After a few moments, he made his decision.

"Tokyo it is."

The Storm Javelin and the F-Type Spectres immediately turned around, flying southeast towards Tokyo.