It is currently the next morning, I slept in a separate room, and my friend has his own locked and secure room, so that explains why he let me in so willingly. There is a medium sized window with the thickest glass I've ever seen, covered with a metal shade, this morning it rolled up and exposed the bright sunlight coming through the trees outside. I hear the secondary room's door unlock. He's awake and I'm going to take this chance to ask him some questions.
“Hey there, my name is Godric Aramis, and I’m just here to try and understand what is going on on this planet.”
“What do you mean on this planet? –I’m sorry, my name is Alfred Ridley, but please, I will need more info from you first because you've got me a little confused on your situation here.”
“I’m from another part of the Milky Way Galaxy, this may be a little much to take in, but the corporation I work for is constantly surveying planets for information and we take part in a galactic internet. I traveled hundreds of light-years to get here. Stellenet, the corporation I'm working for has assigned me with the task of checking out earth, we were tipped off on something major happening here, obviously a little late, but you can't react to something immediately when it is so far away.”
“Oh… Wow. Okay. That's a lot to try to believe. I'm going to need a moment. Ha-how can I trust you?”
“Well I’m not really sure about that, seems like it's kind of up to you don't you think? I come here peacefully and I’m just looking for information on this world’s current situation. We received encrypted, repeating transmissions from a radio tower in this area, not far from this location. I was hoping you could lead me in the right direction. I've flown around in my ship and wasn't able to find any score marks, no asteroids, no nuclear fallout.”
Alfred then explained to me,
“About a decade ago there was a conflict among some of the countries with a large military presence. This country Korea was split in two and the north half was controlled by this crazy dictator who decided it was best if he sent some chemical warheads around to the surrounding nations that he disagreed with. This led to the death of billions of people; nearly everyone on the planet. Out of fear, some people built underground bunkers to keep themselves safe in the years leading up to this mass event. I happened to come across an old man who did exactly that, he actually passed away while I was living here post-chemical fallout. It's really impossible to guess how many people are left, but it is probably safe to assume more than 95% of the human population was wiped out. The bombs that were sent here had a chemical agent that attacked the nervous system of just humans, and so many people perished, but animals and plant life was sustained. It was horrible for everyone. I still have nightmares about what happened and what I saw on the news when we still had broadcast television. So... you mentioned that the internet was still working somewhere? Man, I haven't thought about the internet in so long, what a luxury to have, the ability to search anything with some metal and glass in your pocket. Kinda miss those days.”
“Wish I could help you relive that nostalgia, but it will be a while before the planet recovers to that point, especially if we can't find anyone. If I can manage to get into the satellites, I could probably survey the area for any structures that are still being maintained.”
“I actually heard about a hilltop community not far from here from a group I crossed paths with a year or two ago. If they have internet, they probably have some other luxuries that I would be willing to check out. I used to be a mechanical engineer and I helped build and preserve this bunker we are in now. The hilltop is literally the only place anyone has mentioned to me. It might be worth searching for.”
“Yeah, I can probably work some magic with the local satellites. I can make my way over to the location and see if there is any information to collect before I leave.”
“Before you leave? You’re not here to help?”
“I’m just a single person, how could I help here? I’m equipped with technology for essentially saving data, not making miracles happen. I’m sorry, but my job as a journeying archaeologist is not to be a superhero for the survivors here.”
“Well, I’m honestly a little tired of this living arrangement, you think I could hitch a ride to this hilltop spot?”
“I really don’t see why not, I can help you travel there, but we can’t take my ship, she’s only made to hold one and a lot of supplies to get me back home safely.”
After some searching I hack into a satellite and am able to get some views of the local layout. There is a large winding road that moves its way toward a large cluster of buildings, surrounded by nearly empty parking lots.
So far I'm aware that there is one middle aged man living here on this planet, he used be live here when everything was normal, there are bound to be people at the new location, it seems to be maintained to an extent. I would be pretty upset if this planet was a bust. I was really hoping to come up on some internet databases to record and take back to HQ.
