RTS System in the Apocalypse: New World

The APC stopped near one of the secured administrative buildings.

Matilda led her inside.

Kordula noticed the absence of civilians almost immediately. Soldiers occupied most of the surrounding area, while the nonmilitary personnel working inside appeared restricted to specific sections.

Nobody looked her way, nor even asked who she was the moment they saw Fairy escorting her.

Callum waited outside the final room.

Kordula looked at him. Something about the man’s stillness immediately put her on guard. He carried himself too much like Fairy and the others she had met inside the station.

Another enhanced?

He opened the door without asking anything.

Matilda entered first, and Kordula followed.

The man behind the table looked up from several reports.

No elaborate command room surrounded him. Maps occupied one side of the table, along with printed reports and a local terminal. Another city map covered part of the wall.

Kordula recognized his voice immediately.

"Overseer Weissenberg."

So he’s Golden Eagle! She stepped farther inside.

"Commander."

Matilda remained near the side of the room while Callum closed the door behind them.

Hans gestured toward the chair across from him.

"Please. Sit."

Kordula did as he told. He moved one report aside.

"How is the station?"

"Stable. Your Engineers haven’t broken anything yet, surprisingly."

"I would be worried if they did. Dealing with nuclear facilities is anything but trivial."

Kordula studied him for a moment. Nothing about the man in front of her matched the weight his name had already gathered in her mind.

"The surviving personnel are recovering. Several are already helping with the assessment. The worst cases are still being monitored by your Medics."

"Any immediate problem with the plant?"

"Aside from ASS-116? The lack of personnel."

Hans looked at the report in front of him.

"Oh? How bad are we talking about?"

"Bad enough that most of the people who should be supervising the non-security sections are dead."

Kordula rested one arm against the chair.

"The plant can keep itself stable. That’s the reason we’re still having this conversation. But maintaining a facility and returning it to normal operation are very different things."

"Can the Engineers compensate?"

"I do not have the capacity to answer that."

"And I presume those who can are already dead?"

Hans guessed. From Matilda’s reports, Kordula’s authority was already directly tied to ASS-116 and the AWP failsafe. The plant’s normal operations were clearly another matter.

"Most of them. There are still a few, but if you want that plant in top shape, we need more skilled and experienced personnel."

"I’m a military commander, not an outsourcing firm."

Kordula chuckled. "You know, you’re quite a sharp person despite being a military officer, Golden Eagle."

"That’s barely considered sharp. It’s about looking at the details."

"They’re basically the same. Anyway, your Engineers are the strange kind I have seen lately. Give them a schematic and five minutes with someone who understands the equipment, and they start keeping up. But they don’t personally know the station, do they?"

"No. That’s why they’re working with the operators."

"I don’t know if I should be relieved or not after hearing that. Your Engineers may understand what they’re looking at, but there are years of modifications, maintenance decisions, and local procedures in that station that won’t be written on one schematic."

"They have their own... peculiar ways."

Kordula settled farther into the chair.

"Okay then. They can probably compensate for some of the missing personnel. Whether they can compensate for everyone is something the remaining operators will have to answer."

Hans nodded once. "Then I’ll leave that part to them."

Kordula watched him move to another report. He had accepted the limitation far too easily.

Most people who gained control of a nuclear facility would have immediately wanted to know when the lights across the city could be turned back on. Hans had asked whether the plant was stable, whether the personnel were recovering, and whether the Engineers could help.

He had not forced the topic about putting it back up for normal generation operations, or restoring the grid tomorrow at dawn.

That was either patience or experience and she had yet to decide which.

"Remind me what happened to the... dead personnel?"

"Oh, that? Have I not talked about that yet?"

"No," Hans glanced at her, then back to the report. "You were more preoccupied with the... slightly defective ASS-116."

"Do I hear two questions already?"

"If you look at it that way," he said as he put the report down. "Which one will you answer first?"

Kordula remained silent for a moment.

"The ASS was not defective. It actually did its job. It simply did it too well."

Hans and Matilda shifted at the same time. He leaned over the table and rested his chin above his hands.

"Interesting. That’s not what I expected you to say after it locked you inside."

"Because you’re looking at the last few months instead of what it was designed for."

"Go on."

"The Automated Security System belongs to the Automated Weaponry Program under Project DAEDALUS. I don’t think I have to explain that part to you."

"Continue."

Kordula watched him for a moment, wondering why he did not bother confirming or correcting her.

"The power station wasn’t built for DAEDALUS," she continued. "We used it."

"For deployment, I presume? It would be strange if you used a nuclear power station as some sort of testing site."

Kordula gave him a look.

"At least you’re not stupid."

Hans raised a brow.

"ASS-116 wasn’t a prototype. Nobody with a functioning brain was going to test an unfinished armed security system beside a nuclear reactor. It had already been cleared for operational deployment. The station was simply one of the facilities selected to receive it."

"Why there?"

Kordula shrugged.

"Formally? Critical infrastructure. Restricted access. Large secured perimeter. Enough personnel and vehicle traffic that proper security actually mattered. And a facility where nobody wanted some idiot wandering into places they shouldn’t."

She paused.

"Politically? Heh. There were plenty of under-the-table dealings behind that. The fact that nobody questioned excessive security around a nuclear power station helped too."

"Spare me the boring part." Hans waved a hand.

Kordula stared at him for a second.

"Plant automation ran the plant. ASS-116 handled security. Keep those two separate unless you want every surviving operator here yelling at you."

"I wasn’t planning to make that assumption." Hans tapped the report. "Then why did a mature system trap everyone inside?"

"Because maturity wasn’t the problem." Kordula leaned back. "The world changed underneath its rules."

Her expression settled.

"I still don’t know exactly what happened that day, but ASS-116 detected biological contamination throughout the station. Its first response was isolation. Affected sections were sealed. Personnel movement was restricted. Those who were still clean were kept inside tightly isolated areas."

Kordula tapped one finger against the table.

"And once ASS-116 considered an area compromised, it refused to let clean personnel enter it."

"So it didn’t bother to kill off compromised personnel then?"

Kordula rolled her eyes. "The system wasn’t built to kill-on-sight indiscriminately. If it did, then it wouldn’t have passed inspection and all the bureaucratic workflow along the way."

She sighed. "It had various protocols it followed. But tell me, what happens when one of those compromised personnel finally turns and starts attacking people?"

"I would take it down."

"Against plant personnel? Non-lethal first. If that failed and the threat kept escalating, so did ASS-116."

"Execution. How organized."

Kordula shrugged.

Hans glanced toward Matilda.

"And that accounts for the dead personnel?"

"Some of them."

Kordula’s expression flattened slightly.

"Don’t make ASS-116 responsible for every corpse in that station. Most of the damage started before the system had enough information to understand what was happening."

"Infection. The ASS had no quick response?"

"How can you respond when you’re still investigating recent security issues? People were trying to evacuate. Some tried to reach their family members in other sections. Others were already outside the protected areas when containment came down."

She tapped the table once.

"Some turned before security reached them. Some were killed by infected personnel. Some ended up sealed inside compromised sections. And yes, some forced their way through restrictions until ASS-116 decided they were an immediate threat."

Hans remained quiet.

"We still haven’t opened everything," Kordula continued. "So if you’re asking me for an exact number, I don’t have one."

"What about the people who survived?"

"Right place. Right time."

Kordula leaned back.

"Most of us were already inside highly isolated sections when the contamination spread. ASS-116 identified us as clean, locked the affected routes, and kept everything else away."

Hans looked at her.

"Including you. Must have been lucky. And after the immediate threat passed?"

Kordula gave him a dry look.

"That’s the problem. It never passed. Not until your soldiers came by anyway. Outside contamination remained unresolved. Command links never recovered. Emergency authorities didn’t return. Every time I attempted to loosen containment, ASS-116 would reject me because everything outside is compromised, compromised, and then compromised."

Kordula gripped her fists.

"And so it kept waiting for normal conditions to return. Which, by the looks of things, very fucking did not."

She took a deep breath, then sighed.

"That’s why I keep telling Fairy the system wasn’t defective. ASS-116 kept that station intact. It kept us alive."

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