3G: the Glowing Green Goo

Zax didn’t know what he expected to find during that journey, but that wasn’t it. And from the stunned silence of the two mutants, neither did they. The door had actually been the first of an airlock who changed the air for a sanitised version, but behind the second one rested a spectacle that baffled their minds.

The sky of the dot was a dizzying five meters above residential roofs on average, which was optimal for lighting and atmospheric control. Higher and the lamps and vents would lack power; lower and there would be blind spots and energy loss. Those issues could be fixed, but at an ongoing cost in power and material, respectively.

Whoever had designed this room did not care at all for those issues; it was simply huge. The doter had never seen so much space outside virtual reality before; it was bigger than the main entertainment centre, any factory, and even the mine’s caverns!

The trio found themselves on a wide catwalk surrounding and overlooking a monumental circular space, filled with machinery, vats and products. It went higher than the sky above their head, and at least that far below their feet. It was far beyond the range of Zax’s light, but for the first time since they stepped in the Core, the room had its own illumination; well-placed blinking spots bathed everything in a crimson light, in tune with a low but unmissable beeping.

There were few walls, and the outside wall was see-through. They could see that the whole place was shaped like a gigantic ring, with several floors and sections with different, but unknown functions. Unknown partly because none of them had seen any machines and systems like those before, partly because the visitors could only see part of the whole, but mostly because they were inactive.

From the broken pieces and folded robotic arms still containing their charges, or what was left of it, their deactivation had been sudden and unexpected. From the fumes still rising in some places, it was very recent too.

“What is this place?”

“What happened here?”

“Why are we here?”

For once, the three were on the same wavelength.

“Only one way to find out. Left or right? Do you smell, see or hear anything one way or the other?”

“I can’t smell anything since I put that protection on.” Dog complained.

“No, both sides are just as dead. Let’s just finish, this place creeps me out.”

“Agreed. Left it is then.” Zax concluded. His nerves were flaying too.

“Any particular reason?” Cat asked as they pushed the trolley behind him, following the transparent wall.

“I heard or read somewhere that in uncertain situations, most people tend to go right, which makes it the first place to put traps in. I don’t know if we’re being tested or something, but better safe than sorry, and… and it now appears I was overly paranoid.” Zax claimed as he stopped, staring at something beyond the wall on his right.

The pair confusedly looked at each other but they understood when they reached a wider opening between two machines. On a lower floor, at the end of a line of broken and collapsed parts, a cube of stone and metal with rent edges rested in a nest of rubble, surrounded with a slight shimmer any inhabitant of the Shelter would recognise as a normal forcefield. The familiarity somehow made them feel a bit better.

Their goal was finally in sight.

And the path to reach it was revealed a few steps further. The wall on their left had a door identical to the one they had passed just before, with a map next to it. A standard emergency map, it detailed their current position, the main areas, the dangerous parts, the exits, and the emergency equipment.

“N-factory 12-B.” Cat read the name on top. “Weird name.”

“Why wasn’t there a map like that last door?” Dog noticed.

“You sure about that? I admit I didn’t really pay attention to the wall behind us.” Zax asked.

“Ah, no, I didn’t look.”

A glance at Cat confirmed that neither did he. Zax pointed at several parts of the map in succession.

“If we are here, the room is there, that whole section is destroyed and better avoided, so we can go through… there. That’s the best path, I think.”

“That’s pretty far. Let’s use that passage instead, it’s closer.” Cat ordered, pointing a closer staircase.

“It’s an evacuation staircase. It’s made for people to escape quickly, no way the trolleys will fit. And there we’ll go through a programming area. Not sure what it means, but if I am right, there should be something good for us.”

“We’re not going all the way around that enormous factory just because you have an intuition.” Dog rebuked, already pushing his trolley away.

“No problem, your path is on the way to mine anyway. Don’t forget to take a picture of the map.” The dotter agreed, sending a few mental commands to take his own.

[]

Ah. Right.

The expert had forgotten his own nanites were under the Core’s control. He did feel a reaction, but his command was not followed. His shoulders slumping a little he told the pair as he stepped back:

“I removed my bracelet and my nanites don’t answer. I’ll have to bother you if we need to consult it.”

“What about your light ball? Doesn’t it use nanites?” Dog queried.

“… it does.” Zax briefly stopped mid-step, looking critically at the miniature projector in his hand. He mentally changed the colour, brightness and width of the beam, and the ball perfectly executed the commands. His nanites transmitted it without trouble. “My nanites are still active and functional. The Core is only blocking specific functions. But which ones? Oh. The ones it doesn’t understand.”

“That was fast.”

“What does that mean?”

“The Core will refuse to let me use any nanite that use my body. But all the other functions are fine. It’s the only common point between all blocked functions, and that would make sense. It is an expert at building structures with nanotechnology, but it doesn’t know a thing about biological applications. Good to know but doesn’t affect the mission. Can you run?”

“Sure.” Dog nodded.

“Of course, but is that a good idea?”

“We know where we’re going now, and if the Core wanted us walking it would have set obstacles or something like before. Let’s go.”

The human was already jogging before he finished his answer, but he was quickly overtaken by the trolleys. He found them a bit further, where the promised staircase was supposed to be, but they only found a sturdy airtight door. As strong as the mutants were, they were no match for reinforced metal.

Judging by how they held the tip of their clawed fingers tight between their arms and torso, they had already tried.

Aww, I would have wanted to see it.

“We already passed an airlock, what’s the point of that one!?”

They were unhappy with the results.

“Against fire? Or gas? I saw fumes earlier.” Zax guessed, slightly panting. “Did you try to unlock it?”

“Of course we did!”

“Damn scanner doesn’t react!”

Indeed, nothing happened when Zax pressed the glassy panel on the centre of the door. He opened it to the side and used a new nanite ball as a multitester, but none of the wires had anything. Nothing weird, just nothing at all, no matter how sensitive he set his tool.

“That door is dead.” The programmer stated his conclusion. “There is no energy to power it. It doesn’t make sense, the emergency lights are working, the emergency door should too. Is it broken or something?”

“Some of the lights don’t. I noticed bulbs that don’t lit up with the others.” Cat mentioned.

“Great. What do we do know?” Dog asked.

“Do you have any way to force it open without breaking a wall? Then we need another entrance. Do you have one?”

“There are other doors like that one. We can try them.” They checked on their maps.

“Alright” Zax sighed as he put his tools away. “Go ahead and try them. But wait for me if you find one we can open. Without map I’d have no idea of where to go from there. If there are none, let’s meet at the passage I proposed.”

The pair rushed ahead without acknowledging, pulling their trolleys and competing about finding the right one first. Zax followed, pacing himself to arrive at the final door without pause.

This jog was still a lot longer than he was used to, so he was winded and panting when he arrived. This door was a lot wider than the previous ones, and as transparent as the walls. There was also a screen on the side. An active screen. It was blinking red as the pair poked around.

“Here you are at last.” Dog called when he arrived.

“Took your time uh?” Cat smirked.

Zax took a few seconds to catch his breath, but he didn’t take their comments to heart. He was used to it, and enjoying their superior bodies was only fair. He pondered aloud between breaths:

“Finally, a door that works?”

“Yeah, but we can’t unlock it and we didn’t want to risk breaking it open.” The feline mutant answered.

“Good call.”

“The scanner is broken; it keeps calling errors when we try it.” His canine counterpart added.

“Let’s see.” Zax put his hand on the designated mark.

The red light changed to green, then was replaced by an overview of the factory, or maybe a dashboard. The pair gasped; it didn’t do that when they tried. And they had tried a lot, with or without gloves, with many variations, lifted fingers, and so on. It kept asking for a better positioning, to stay centred, to lay their hand flat, to not move, and many other things they were already doing.

As frustrating as it was, the only explanation the expert could offer, even after a quick demonstration, was that their protective fields, misshapen because of their fur and other mutations, interfered with the scan. None of the gear had been made with mutants in mind.

“How could that be?”

“What kind of dumbass would make something that doesn’t work for most of the population?”

Legitimate questions, as it excluded most of the population and made anyone at risk of losing access without warning and with nothing to be done about it, but the answer was easy:

“The Core exists since the foundation of the Shelter.” Zax explained his thoughts as he rummaged around the overview and its dashboard. “That’s soon after the 3G miracle happened, but it took a long time before it was accepted as the boon it is. Maybe whoever built this place didn’t expect mutations to become common. Or they tried to keep some areas for ‘pure humans’.”

“Pure humans he says…”

“You watch dramas?” The pair chuckled at his expression.

“Or maybe they just didn’t have the time and resources to adapt their equipment? I mean, you know what conditions they had to build under, don’t you?”

“… yeah, point taken.” Cat conceded.

Dog didn’t say anything but nodded solemnly.

The planet was theoretically able to support life, but the environment on this planet was aggressively hostile. Any expedition or construction endeavour outside the Shelter was a huge hazard even in modern times, with mutations, specially made bio-tech and 3G to help. That their ancestors managed to survive long enough after their crash, with failing machines and dwindling numbers, to eventually chance upon their salvation in the form of the Glowing Green Goo, baffled the mind and was a testament to their grit and resilience.

That argument definitely cut any complaints about close-mindedness, thoughtlessness, or laziness they could have made.

“So, if I read that right, when the room burst through it triggered an emergency protocol, but it also destroyed a few… a lot of important parts and sections before said protocol was finished. Including major supply lines or generators.”

“That explains the dead doors.”

“Yes, they lost all power, but only after the lockdown engaged.”

“But this one should work, right? Lucky coincidence.”

“Hmm, it’s a main access, with its own auxiliary power supply. That’s also why this terminal can access a few of the safety measures. Such as…” Zax pushed a button and the blinking red light changed to a constant low intensity white glow. Not ideal lighting, but a significant improvement.

“Rah, finally!”

“That was so annoying!”

“Most of the overview appears offline, but I can’t tell if the parts are destroyed or just the connection to them. I cancelled the lockdown order, so the doors that can should open normally, but some rooms had other measures engaged and I can’t change them from here. Like the ones under vacuum. So don’t open any door without checking if they are safe first.” Zax turned away from the screen, looking each of the two in the eye to show how serious this warning was. “The dangerous ones should be marked, but no reason to risk it. Any questions?”

“Why are there vacuumed rooms?”

“Easier to control pressure, temperature and atmospheric conditions.” The expert shrugged. “And in an emergency, it can remove fumes and vapor, dry spiled chemicals and choke a fire. The exact reason would depend on what this factory was made for. I have an idea about that, but nothing solid.”

A few surprisingly relevant questions followed, a path was chosen, and once everyone’s doubts were answered the team opened the door and proceeded with their mission.

Behind the door was a hallway of surprisingly normal dimensions, if a bit on the wider side. Just enough to comfortably push two trolleys side by side. Ordinary if a bit outdated doors were placed irregularly on both sides and ordinary lights dotted the ceiling, but no special safety measures around. Those were deeper in, close to the inner edge of the ring.

Their first stop was the second door to the right. The overview and emergency map had called the whole section a programming area. Being on the right side and away from the damaged part made the room more likely to have something useable, the overview confirmed it still worked, and Zax felt it should have something to prove or disprove his theory about this place. If he was right, it raised a lot of questions, but the room should answer those as well. Convincing the other two to take the detour had been surprisingly easy, their own curiosity winning over their hurry.

The room was well lit, with working desks spread around. Some were individual stations, some were gathered in small groups, and there were even enclosed rooms for more private meetings and discussions. All these computers were probably state of the art when they were put there, but so many physical screens and keyboards gave the room an almost elderly atmosphere. The one and only hologram projector in sight was a big affair in the middle of the biggest table. Definitely booked for the important presentations, and a far sight from the minuscule projectors commonly used in modern times.

Zax shook the feeling of walking in a creepy museum and tried to turn one of the computers on. The pair left their charges in the hallway and stepped in after him, walking around the room and looking everywhere. The noise and blinking lights told the programmer the hardware worked, but nothing else happened. It took him an embarrassing number of seconds to remember the screen had to be turned on separately, but when he did they were greeted by a login window.

Some things never change. Zax chuckled as he sat on the chair, trying to put himself in the shoes of the one who used this station.

“It’s just an ordinary workplace, why does it feel so creepy?” Cat exclaimed to fill the awkward silence.

Dog didn’t comment, so he was probably thinking the same. His raised hackles attested to it.

Zax was looking for hints about the password when he noticed two things, including the answer.

“This place is perfectly clean. There isn’t a single speck of dust anywhere.” The pair looked around, and sure enough everything was spotless. They hadn’t paid attention to it before, no parts of the Shelter fooled around with hygiene and sanitation, but a deserted place shouldn’t be that immaculate. “And there isn’t a single personal item either. No family picture, no poster, no notes, no cups. Nothing to indicate someone ever worked there, on any of the desks and walls.”

““Creepy…”” Cat and Dog muttered as one.

“… Since everything is that blank, maybe the computers are too…” Zax muttered, more to himself than anyone.

With not better idea, he tested the oldest factory set password he knew; login: admin and password: password. It worked.

“More and more creepy. Let’s hope the database are not blank too.” The human whispered, before looking in the file directory.

Luckily it hadn’t been cleaned, and it didn’t take long to find what he was looking for.

“I was right.” He called the others. “As crazy as it is, this whole factory is purely used to mass-produce nanites and other nanotechnology.”

“I still don’t see what’s so incredible about that.”

“You did say the decontamination earlier and those protections were used for that kind of work.”

“Yes, but there are many other fields that do the same; I just used nanotech as an example because that’s what I know the most. I would have never thought such a huge installation could be made just to produce nanites. Not even to use them! Just, what kind of work did the founders had in mind? I would almost think they could have expanded the Shelter with only minimal help from the 3G. Can you imagine? The Shelter, with everything made of nanites and only a few biotech as support here and there.”

That thought gave the pair a little pause.

“Terrifying.”

“Especially after your speech about how dangerous this place is.”

“Well, it would be managed by a carefully programmed computer with appropriate directives and restrictions. And this factory is still in use too. Less surprising, the Core needs to repair and maintain itself, but I wonder, would a future with more nanites than 3G still be possible?”

This thought gave the pair a shudder that raised their hackles.

“Let’s never speak of this again.”

“Yeah, let’s go back. We now know what this place is. Great, but it doesn’t help us.”

“Wrong. I also discovered something very interesting. One is that the Core can’t do anything inside this place. Another is that we can communicate directly with it from here. The last is a list of its restrictions.”

“… WHAT!?” A shocked duo echoed in the empty corridors of the facility.

Zax explained his discoveries, some directly pulled from the computer network, some inferred with his own knowledge. The core was made to manipulate huge amounts of nanites to do many incredible tasks, but its makers didn’t want to gather too much power in one place. A trend that was kept to this day. So, they made the Core unable to have any effect on the production of its nanites. It would only have something to work with as long as a facility kept working, but they were effectively blind spots he couldn’t even see in.

“The Core’s need can vary, so it can send requests for specific amounts of specific nanites, exchange messages, and updates, but that’s it.”

The facility was supposed to have been more and more automated until only one person was required to keep things smooth running; they would just have to give authorisations regularly. For some reason, that task ended up being automated too, independently from the Core, so now the factory effectively ran by itself. Since untold centuries. Even the pair was awestruck by such accomplishment.

As a show of good faith, Zax sent a short report of their progress and their plans. He didn’t expect anything from it, but something did happen.

An answer.

An answer a human could have written.

An answer from the Core itself.

“Congratulations for reaching this far. Now, let’s talk about your actual mission.”