His translations had hit a snag.


    As he didn’t know what things said, his only choices were to copy down everything that seemed important in order to go over them elsewhere or to try and translate them on the spot. As ‘on the spot’ was often not an ideal place for academic pursuits, he mostly chose the first option.


    Since he could copy down enough to occupy himself for a while and his goal of saving energy was best achieved in his room with the lights somewhat dimmed, he felt that had been the ideal option. With the girl now spending most of her time in the room as well, it meant there were no super bright lights flickering on and off. He didn’t know how much energy they took, but off was almost always less.


    The only downside being that he had a limited amount to work with. He had done his best to fully translate all the text he had found on the deck level, most of it either unintelligible due to missing context or not that helpful. There wasn’t much point to a safety warning about moving objects if there weren’t any moving objects. He assumed it meant vehicles, but that word didn’t really translate well, so he went off context. Could have been golf balls whizzing past for all he knew.


    They did tell him that poking around uninformed on that level was ill advised. He would need to do a lot more work before he really got to opening things up. He would need to finish looking around on this level and return to the lab that he had found. He hadn’t noticed any obvious computers in that lab he could work with, but unless everyone that had been here used handhelds he hadn’t managed to find yet, that was his best chance of accessing any kind of network.


    He had hoped to find a power station or a generator plant to gauge how much he needed to worry about power. With the possibility of a leak or containment breach being high though, that would be a suicide mission. This facility was massive, there was no way it was powered by a national grid like a house would be. It would need its own generation in some form. If that was solar or water, he would never find out before he managed to leave the facility. Even if he found a battery or other energy storage, it wouldn’t be a decisive clue. It was possible the facility was powered by fuel of some kind, but the ‘secret’ nature of the level he was living on and that fact no one had shown up yet put those possibilities pretty low on the list. Constant or massive deliveries made hiding more difficult than it needed to be.


    That left nuclear options and future tech he didn’t know about. Both were incredibly dangerous to him if he went poking where he shouldn’t. If it was a fission plant, he could only hope the automated systems were working and didn’t need his input. The only reason he didn’t consider a meltdown as the reason everyone was gone was the fact there was still power. Being the future, he was putting his money on a fusion plant of some kind, though he figured that something external like solar or geo-thermal was also involved. That would be the best way to hide things and keep people from having to come and go all the time.


    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    It would also explain why no one had shown up yet. If the area only got deliveries once or twice a decade, they could be waiting a long time before their next set of visitors showed up. Assuming there wasn’t some distress call or abandonment going on. It could explain the water system as well, since that was a good source of recycled calories. It would still need inputs, but it would be able to get away with far less than simply hauling in and storing all the food and other needs. Enough less that it could be handled by once in a long while deliveries.


    He was assuming all of this off of the secret keeping and access controls though. There was every possibility that he found a secret button in the elevator that dumped him right onto main street.


    Not something he would be looking for today though.


    He had hemmed and hawed a bit when the girl had followed him everywhere after he woke up. He really didn’t have any way to distract her again, as she seemed to have left her stuffed cat somewhere else. Maybe she didn’t want him playing with it again? Or maybe she just got it stuck somewhere, who knows. She didn’t seem overly concerned about it, so he didn’t pay the situation much mind, but he now had a hard decision to make.


    He needed more to translate to keep things moving and hopefully make sure they didn’t lose power. His only choices at the moment were the deck level and the lab, both of which could be dangerous if the girl got out of hand. In the end he figured it didn’t matter much. If she was going to follow him as closely as she had been, then there wasn’t much problem. He intended to return to the water plant to translate the panel in real time. The information that it held would be the most useful at the moment, as he could compare it to the panel in the mess hall. There was every possibility that his override access meant he could get everything he needed right there in the mess hall if he knew the right buttons to press. He just needed something to compare it to.


    The girl seemed a bit troubled as they made their way to the water plant. No doubt confused about entering a door in one hall and exiting that same door into another. He could only imagine that elevators were a mindfuck to people that had never experienced them before, and this one didn’t have any feeling of movement. No idea how that was managed, though it was the reason it had taken him time to confirm it was actually an elevator.


    Once they came upon the water plant, the girl seemed a bit awestruck. If he had to guess this was probably the most water the poor girl had ever seen. He certainly had seen aquariums with less. He settled in near the panel while keeping a close eye on her actions and reactions. She was small enough he wasn’t worried about her getting into a tank before he could stop her, but he did still need to be aware enough to stop her. Though after a bit of staring, the girl seemed to prefer to stay near him as he brought his notebook out again.


    It made his job easier, so he didn’t complain.


    “Let’s hope I don’t run out of ink, huh? Paperwork would be really hard without something to write with.”


    As the girl just stared at him, he figured the sarcasm was lost in translation. Or just lost.


    ‘Need to teach that girl some humor so she isn’t serious all the time.’