text: [Themes: sci-fi, serious]
  
  You volunteered and you're going to see it through, might not be that dangerous as you think especially if the place is indeed abandoned.
  
  You spend a few days crossing over hills and some plains. For awhile you think someone's following you, but never see a soul, actually you're wondering about the Geiger counter readings more than anything, but you're guessing there wasn't any nuclear blast the direction you're going. You also guess that seeing trees up ahead is also a good sign. You would've dressed yourself in a radiation suit, but the Colonel kept insisting it wouldn't be necessary and for the mission that Harry was sending some of the others on would need them more.
  
  "Shit! I forgot to take a radio!" you say to yourself finally realizing that it would've been nice to radio in to the Compound if you had something important to report, like being unable to enter the base because snipers were shooting at you.
  
  Happily that doesn't seem to occur when you finally arrive. You almost aren't even sure if you're at the right place at first. The Compound is bigger, then again this place probably has an extensive underground, and as the Colonel said, it was more like a research facility than a proper military base.
  
  Still there's something a little weird about all this, it seems like security would be of major importance for a place like this, yet there's nobody here guarding the outside and you just walked through open gates. Maybe the place is abandoned, but they could all be underground though, (That would certainly be more sensible than wandering around exposing themselves to radioactive wind...)
  
  The surface offices and barracks don't look like anyone left in a hurry; in fact a lot of the barracks still have their equipment. (You take some extra ammo for your assault rifle) You search through some of papers you find in the offices, but there's nothing of any importance. Just mundane status reports of personnel guard duties. You find a few letters with GZS logos on them, but again nothing telling you much.
  
  Nothing else for it, but to go underground. You approach the solid metal structure at the far end of the base. Looks like an elevator door with an ATM machine near it. There's a slot and some button, so you're guessing this is where you shove your security pass that the Colonel gave you. Hope it works or you came all this way for nothing. You slide the pass in the slot.
  
  "Identification recognized. GZS wishes you a pleasant day in all your endeavors sir!" a chipper female voice sounds as the elevator door opens.
  
  Not exactly what you were expecting, GZS must've had more input here than the Colonel thought. You're a little nervous as you press the elevator button down, you expect the worst. The elevator eventually reaches its destination and opens up to a corridor. You cautiously exit. You don't get far when a cybernetic being comes from around a corner and points its arm at you, which is doubling as a weapon of some sort, one that would blow a big hole in you.
  
  "Lower your weapon and please come with me sir. Alex will want to see you. Any attempt to attack or escape will be met with extreme use of force."
  
  > go with the cyborg
  You lower your rifle (But still hold on to it) and walk side by side with the cyborg who is surprisingly chatty, you also see it walks a bit irregularly, like it hasn't been spliced together correctly.
  
  "Alex will be most pleased to see you; you'll be the first human here in months!"
  "What happened to all the others?"
  "Oh well most of them have been improved like m-m-m-m." the cyborg hits itself in the head before he stops stuttering "Like me, sir."
  "Hmm, some improvement."
  "Oh well, its not so bad. Alex promises to give us a tune up when he gets the necessary time, he is only one man after all. Some assistants would certainly help."
  "So Alex is a surgeon?"
  "Well he's not really. I mean he didn't start out that way at least, but he's completely self taught and trying to learn more each day! Sure there have been some failures, but there's also been success! Why look at m-m-m-m." the cyborg hits itself in the head again while you just shake yours. You can see this is going to be an interesting meeting.
  
  "So who were you before Alex...uh improved you."
  "Oh I was a regular military man who guarded this base with no real identity. Just a name and a number really."
  "And now?"
  "Now I'm known as J-34 and I protect Alex!"
  "That's great... so everyone here is a cyborg like you?"
  "Just about. Most military personnel were friends with Alex before being renewed, so they were happy to be improved. The GZS personnel weren't so enthusiastic about the idea, in fact they were mad that Alex discovered their top secret project. They tried to stop him, but they were stopped instead. Alex saw that the project would be pointless in trying to perfect it to use in a war that was going to be over in six minutes. Better that it should be applied to those that would surely survive the aftermath of that same war. Here we are, I'm sure Alex will want to hear all about the outside world, hey maybe he'll improve you too!"
  
  You enter an office where a man sits at a desk pouring over technical manuals and medical books. Two more cyborgs armed with some sort science fictionish weapons stand by him. There's no way you could hope to kill him without them killing you as well. He looks up.
  
  "Ah a guest! Been a long time since we've seen anyone new...in fact I'm a little puzzled on how you even found this place, let alone entered it...you're not GZS are you?" Alex says changing his pleasant demeanor in mid sentence.
  "No! Not at all! I'm here because the Colonel sent me. He says you and he are friends. Here. Here's his ring and a letter he wrote to prove it. He'd also given me a security pass so I could enter this place."
  
  Alex takes the ring and letter and inspects them both, before addressing you again.
  
  "Well it looks like everything's legitimate. I shall trust you. Though I'm not sure I trust the Colonel. I never did trust him. He only wanted to use me so I could get access to high tech weaponry, but instead I found much more here! Much more than I ever told him! Ha ha! I hear him trying to radio in, wondering if there's anyone here, I've been ignoring him. He and his group of right wing loonies are unworthy of being re-made. If they think they're true survivialists then they don't need the gifts that this base provides. All of it is mine, I EARNED this place and it shall be I who ushers in a new era. Not GZS, not the government and not the fucking goddamn Colonel!"
  
  Alex is obviously unhinged, you don't know if he was always this way or got that way later, but it hardly matters, what's of major importance is that you walk away from this meeting unscathed. You try to calm him down.
  
  "Whoa hold on, I don't think the Colonel or any of his right wing loonies would want to be re-made."
  "Nonsense, anyone with any sense of survival would want to be re-made if they new about what was being worked on here."
  
  You can't help, but notice that Alex hasn't done any improvements on himself...
  
  "However, I can see you don't share that same short sighted thinking that the rest of those Compound cronies do. You are worthy of being re-made! In fact I would like to start now, I've been studying up on some new techniques and I would love to test them out. I think I could do a really good job this time, there will definitely be less acc...er complications than in the past."
  
  This is just getting worse. Now this nutjob wants to work on you.
  
  "Look, I don't want to be re-made! I was just here to see if you were alive and scout this place out! Now that I've done that, I'm to return to the Compound!"
  "Oh well now that's going to be a problem...I can't risk you telling him what's here."
  
  You really didn't want to hear that.
  
  "Look, I'll tell the Colonel that there wasn't anything here, I can reason with him. You can even take my security pass to make sure I can't get back in if you're really worried. However, if he doesn't hear from me, he's only going to send more folks to this place."
  "And what of it? They wouldn't be able to get in and even if they could, his weekend warriors would be no match for Cybernetic Evolution!"
  "No, but they could just blow up the elevator trapping you down here forever, and you'll never be able to leave to allow your genius to usher in the new era that you were talking about."
  
  That seems to relax Alex a bit, as always a little flattery goes a long way to ease an unbalanced mind.
  
  "Hmm, perhaps you make some sense, and you seem like a trustworthy sort...very well. I shall arrange for you to leave. Give me your security pass."
  "Okay, and I'll be needing the Colonel's ring and letter back, so I can say I didn't find anything here."
  
  You and Alex exchange items and he and his two cyborg guards escort you back to the elevator.
  
  "Goodbye, perhaps if we meet again you will be more receptive to being re-made. It's a harsh new world, and you'll soon wish you had an edge to survive it." Alex tells you before you leave.
  
  "I'll do alright."
  
  The elevator goes up and you're back on the surface again where you make your trek back to the compound in just a few days. You notice there have been a few changes in the few days you've left. Namely there's a still to make hooch. And you now have some working vehicles that been modified to run on hooch. The same still that people are making cheap booze from they're also using it as fuel, which basically translates into the vehicles running on "garbage" given that's what the booze is being made out of. Smells pretty bad, but whatever works. Though from what you heard some towns have been found to be running their vehicles on shit (animal AND human) so the smell could be worse. There's been a couple deaths from some of the other recon missions, but for the most part everything else is normal.
  
  Everyone's almost surprised to see you come back, Marina's happy, Harry obviously isn't. The Colonel though wants to see you immediately.
  
  Since you don't owe any allegiance to some nutcase playing Frankenstein in an underground base, you tell the Colonel everything. You expect him to get mad at you, but he doesn't.
  
  "(Sigh) Alex always was a bit unstable; I always wondered why the army never gave him a section 8. Anyway, what you're telling me doesn't surprise me, though I wish you could've gotten away without giving up that security pass. It's going to be harder to get down there now."
  "You still want to go down there?"
  "Of course! What you think I'm going to let Alex slowly refine and build up his cyborg army? Who do you think he's going to attack first? No, we need to get rid of him NOW. I suppose we could blow up the elevator doors to gain access. Not like we don't have the means to do that."
  "Yeah, but don't you run the risk of blowing up the entire elevator, and causing it fall and crash down the shaft? We wouldn't be able to send anyone down there in an efficient manner. Let alone fighting off cyborgs who would cut us down with ease if we were trying to repel down the shaft or huddled together coming off the elevator, besides Alex might have left the elevator on his level given the recent visit of mine."
  
  The Colonel lets forth another sigh knowing that you make a good point, but frustrated as well.
  
  "You're right, so what do you suggest we do then? Sit and do nothing with our thumbs up our asses?"
  
  > Suggest in hacking the security system, then invading the base.
  "Well I suppose you're right in that we need to stop Alex, but blowing up the elevator still isn't going to help, I suggest we hack the security system to gain control of it properly and then send down the invasion force and hope we can deal with the robots and cyborgs down there." You reply.
  "Sounds like a better plan, I didn't know you had so much computer experience though, let alone able to hack into a secret army base."
  "Huh? I don't. I mean, don't you have people like that here?"
  "Excuse me, but you seem to be new here, hello welcome to the Compound...NO OF COURSE I DON'T I HAVE ANYONE LIKE THAT HERE! Sheesh! It's not like we figured advanced computer hacking skills are going to be that useful when the world is blown back to the stone age! So you mean you don't have the ability to pull off this amazing plan of yours?"
  "Well, not really, not to that degree at least...I suppose there's just taking the panel apart and re-wiring it so it opens up for us though, you got any electricians or someone of that nature?"
  "Yeah a few, but I hope you do too, because you're going to assist the team since you're the idea man for all of this. After you clean out all the cyborgs and whatever the hell else Alex has built down there, remember to grab those weapons and come back. We'll go back to occupy the base later. Now go select your team and whatever else you think you might need."
  
  After asking for the names of the electronically "gifted" around the place, you go about following the Colonel's orders and saying goodbye to Marina again, she looks more confident that you'll return this time, you wish you could feel the same.
  
  When you and your team get to the base in a few days, you're in for a little surprise. A medium sized robot is patrolling the courtyard. Looks like your friend Alex also dabbles in robotics as well as cybernetics. You and your team hide behind the outer wall when you all catch sight of it. Apparently Alex didn't trust you any more than you trusted him, and looks like both of you were right.
  
  "Uh, what's that?" one of your team members asks.
  "It's a robot, what's it look like?"
  "Well what're we gonna do?"
  "Kill it! Everyone open fire!"
  
  You have no idea if your bullets are going to penetrate its armor, but you you're going to try anyway. Everyone fires upon the robotic being, which begins to shutter and spark, but returns fire and a bright burst of light strikes one of your team members and completely incinerates him.
  
  "Holy shit, get cover and keep firing!" you shout.
  
  The rest of the battle doesn't last too much longer, while your team continue to fire bursts at the machine while they dodge plasma blasts, you get enough time to toss a grenade at it and blow it to smithereens. Shards of burnt twisted metal lie all over the place.
  
  "Come on we need to open up that door, before something else comes out of the damn thing!"
  
  You and a few others start working on the card reader, trying to get it open as fast as possible. You don't even know how you're going to rewire the damn thing; you'll just keep doing something until something else happens! As it turns out you didn't need to do anything, while you and few others are fumbling around, the elevator doors open. At first you think you it was you who opened them, but in fact it was Alex who was controlling the elevator from the bottom. Two heavily armed cyborgs exit and begin firing immediately turning most of your team into charred skeletons. You manage to just barely get away and duck behind one of the buildings. Fortunately they don't seem to be very fast, so when they try to chase you, you toss a few grenades in their direction, blowing them up in the same manner you destroyed the robot, except a bit bloodier, given their human bits.
  
  You come out of your hiding place and see nothing left of your team, they've all been killed. The elevator door is still open; you could enter and finish the job, or return to the Compound in failure.
  
  > Enter
  You take a deep breath and enter the elevator taking it down. As soon as it opens you step out and blaze away at the first metallic monster that pops from around the corner, hitting it critically in some vital component. In fact you're doing okay all things considering, but as they say, it usually isn't thing that you're expecting that gets you.
  
  Thinking you have a breather, you duck into one of the rooms to reload; unfortunately you feel a dart go into your back, before you enter it. You pull it out and see it's a tranquilizer dart. Already you feel drowsy, and begin to collapse. You ban barely make him out in your current state, but Alex soon enters with a victorious look on his face, holding his tranquilizer gun.
  
  "Well, it looks like I was right to not trust you, but you'll be able to repay me back soon enough. Trust me, you'll thank me for this remaking."
  
  Despite Alex's claims you're unable to do much talking at all after Alex remakes you, let alone thanking him. He basically designs you in such a way that only your basic brain functions remain. Just enough for you to obey simple commands such as "Attack the Compound".
  
  Obeying that command is the last thing you do, before you're eventually blown to bits during Alex's attack on the Compound.