Utterly Mad

Timeline: 7 years after the cataclysm, detailing events dating back earlier.

Characters involved: Captain Anguiano.

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Following is a summary of files sent to Refugee Center US77687 (Site 4 Designation: Center Sierra).

Defense Initiative Site 4. Designation: Vault Delta.

Purpose: Site 4's primary purpose is self-contained, long-term command-and-control of local strategic assets and direction of military operations within the region. This purpose is incomplete, as Site 4 was still in the development and testing phase. Communications equipment to contact local assets had been installed, but full command and control systems were not made available.

Objectives:
1. Site 4 is to maintain a fortified position in the region to supplement all nearby military operations.
2. When development and testing is complete, Site 4 will function as C&C for all assets within the New England region, including nuclear defenses.
3. CLASSIFIED (overridden by Cpt. Anguiano, 3-IV): In the interim, one anomalous materials department has been assigned to Site 4, researching a number of items brought over from other Y-series sites.

Facility Summary:
Level 1: Surface level. A facade of a small town has been constructed above for concealment purposes, and to provide supplementary housing for civilian contractors, along with other peacetime amenities. Surface is to be evacuated the instant strategic assets are initialized, if a state of war is declared, or if a nuclear first strike targeting the United States is detected.
Level 0: Access level. A functional sewer with integral water-treatment system, with concealed access to Site 4 itself. In addition to personnel entrances, access for vehicles and construction materials is available via a secondary entrance, capable of being collapsed via buried explosives in the event of enemy invasion.
Sublevel 1: Main sublevel with amenities for both personnel and civilian contractors, including education and medical facilities for their families to live on-site, and a "visitor center" primarily used for orientation of new civilian arrivals. Notable sectors include a Security section that doubles as an on-site Military Police station, Communications including monitoring systems, and Control. Control is intended to facilitate Site 4's planned C&C role, but currently houses the engineering department's Damage Control personnel.
Sublevel 2: Secondary civilian housing and other amenities. Some were incomplete in construction as of this time, and not presently at acceptable standards of living. Secondary Engineering sectors are here, in addition to Robotics.
Sublevel 3 CLASSIFIED (overridden by Cpt. Anguiano, 3-IV): Reactors, main Engineering department, and Data Management. Additionally, Research has been assigned a sector on this sublevel.

Personnel Summary:
1. One company from Army Corps of Engineers, unit information classified at request of Captain Anguino.
2. One company of United States Marine Corp (unit information classified at request of Captain Anguino), including Military Police and attached United States Navy Hospital Corpsmen.
3. Various civilian contractors hired to assist in construction and maintenance, estimated number 1075 civilians, both contractors and their families.
4. CLASSIFIED (overridden by Cpt. Anguiano, 3-IV): 3rd company, Special Projects Division IV (Nuclear Operations).
5. CLASSIFIED (overridden by Cpt. Anguiano, 3-IV): Research Department Y-241, anomalous materials series. Estimated 200 personnel.

Note: "Yeah no, I'm not incriminating the others with this shit. If word of what we're up to gets out, 3rd company is taking the blame." - Captain Anguiano

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Number of assigned personnel (including civilian contractors and families): 1435.
Number of active personnel on record: 8.

Commissioned Officers:
1. Catalina Anguiano. Captain (OF-2). Female. 3rd Company, Special Projects Division IV.

Non-commissioned Officers:
1. Nell Branham. Sergeant (E-5). Female. USMC. Unit data classified.
2. Alberto Vela. Corporal (E-4). Male. USMC. Unit data classified.

Enlisted Personnel:
1. Leila Carnes. Specialist (E-4). Female. USACE. Unit data classified.
2. "Dusk" Gao. Hospital Corpsman Third Class (E-4). Male. USN. Given name classified. Unit data classified.
3. "Atomos". Private First Class (E-2). Female. USMC. XV Classification: 3a. Full name classified. Unit data classified.
4. Larion. Private First Class (E-2). Male. 3rd Company, Special Projects Division IV. Surname classified.
5. Mardell Baumgarther. Private (E-1). Female. USACE. Unit data classified.

Note: "Had the corpsmans' first names taken off-record because navy was really fucking pissy about any of their boys being linked to SPD shit. Last names for any 3-IV enlisted or NCOs are off-record for obvious reasons. And finally, Atomos is off-record at her request." - Captain Anguiano

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Log 031548-1:

"Getting increasing amounts of chatter this evening, Major Thomasson has been on edge all day over more incident reports, evidence that the topside fuckers are going to be mobilized soon. That's on top of a lot of bickering and saber-rattling between Mr. President and his Chinese equivalent. The way those two are going at it has the civilian contractors on edge, but the Major figures that the imminent mobilization orders are just a convenient excuse to initiate Operation Antibody discreetly. Nice to hear that threatening to start WWIII is the cover story. Here's hoping when the PRC realizes those launches are landing on our side instead of theirs, they'll figure out something's gone sideways."

Log 031648-1:

"At around 8:17 this morning, radio chatter went completely batshit. Confirmed x-rays in almost every city we're getting reports from, topside SPDs are being mobilized for Operation Antibody. All personnel have been ordered to get down below, screened and triaged according to XV Directives. Around 50 civilians are 1b and currently being treated in the medbay, no one's terminal."

Log 031648-2:

"It's been about 2 and a half hours. No more chatter is coming from Divisions XI-XV. Every X-series lab we got contact with was compromised, XII did a shit job as usual. XIII was the real MVP it seems, they can't program unmanned defenses worth shit. For added fun, the only Z-series lab we could get in contact with consisted of one asshole ranting about something called 'Apophis' before the radio went dead an hour into this clusterfuck. Center Sierra was made ready and filled with people in preparation for XV to arrive and triage, but seems their assigned companies of XIV and XV never made it."

Log 031748-1:

"Topside monitoring is showing signs of rogue x-rays poking around in the abandoned Surface sectors. I'm ordering the charges blown to collapse Vehicle Access, so only way any shamblers are getting in is through personnel entrances. Good fucking luck, assholes."

Log 031748-2:

"Welp. We're fucked now. Holy fucking shit. Reactor 1 went prompt-critical about an hour ago, we've lost all security feed for sublevels 2 and 3, along with half our sensors for Surface and Access. We're in Security, most of the other survivors are in Damage Control. Army and Marine boys down there are working overtime to stabilize whats left of Reactor section remotely. God. Everywhere except our two sectors ate so much radiation that all other personnel are dead or dying and it's only been a fucking hour. The Major and about half of 3-IV were down there in sublevel 3. There's maybe 200 of us total left in our two sections."

Log 031948-1:

"Full day of work but Control has mostly sealed off all access to sublevel 3, radiation levels might take a year to die down though. We got other problems. They're getting back up. I don't know how the fuck they're doing that. All the civilians that were 1b had been treated and were cleared for duty by the time the reactor blew, and even then 1b is below the threshold where casualties are at risk of becoming x-rays. 2b's when it becomes a risk."

Log 031948-2:

"We need to get the group from Control into Communications. Get word out to any survivors that we've got over 1000 radioactive shamblers down here and they're threatening to pop the hatch to Access level. We've put on full MOPP and initialized what I've unofficially titled Operation Move Our Fat Asses."

Log 032048-1:

"Good news is we've retaken Communications. Bad news is we've lost three-quarters of our men, between IV, the marines, and the engineer boys. Got a headcount of 34 here and 22 in Communications now. Worse news is they're saying the goddamn transmitters were fucked. Receiver still works, we're getting intermittent chatter including from Center Sierra, and we've got access to the old personnel network."

Log 032748-1:

"I've lost half the surviving men to radiation poisoning by now, mostly in Communications. They're working 24/7 to decontaminate their sector. It was a fucking moot point since outgoing comms aren't an option. We're gonna lose the rest of our group if we try to find a parts kit for them. Good news is both sectors have assloads of supplies. We could sit around eating MREs and civilian stockpiles for about 30 years, if we don't all kill each other before then."

Log 031749-1:

"Yay, happy one-year anniversary of the fuckfest that trapped us in this hellhole. We're down about another dozen people altogether. Longer-term symptoms of our little jaunt out of the hardened area. We've also had signs of radiogenesis-based mutations. I've long since given up on the standing order to put down any that go 5a, because fuck that noise. Besides, only mutant right now is PFC Atomos and she's only 3a."

Log 062250-1:

"Picking up seismic activity and other weird shit going on over comms. On top of all that, comms picked up the activation of a nearby supply bunker, then a few minutes later we stopped getting logs from it. What the fuck is going on up there?"

Log 121352-1:

"We've had a few mutations and casualties over the years since, and nothing really to report in the logs. Today we got something. Yesterday the remaining half-dozen men and women of my company had an argument about the old procedures. A one PFC Matthias, USACE, had been suffering from radiogenic mutations over the course of the past year. Roughly a week ago his condition exceeded the threshold for classification as 5a. Within an hour after the discussion Matthias, presumably having overheard it, took matters into his own hands and shot himself in the head. Following this, I've clarified to everyone else remaining: the old medical directives can go fuck themselves for all I care. We're all stuck in this together, we aren't going to blow another guy's brains out just because he drew the short straw in the 'radioactive hellhole lottery' or whatever."

Log 072653-1:

"Down to maybe 24 people total as of this log. PFC Larion and I are the only members of 3-IV left down here. Recently picked up something unusual on the network logs, one of the nuclear launch sites reported one tactical missile was armed and sent off. Without the setup this place was planned to have built into it, we can't get uplink with it to determine who, or what, authorized it. Nor what its target was set to. All we can confirm is that it was a on-site activation. Don't think the old silos even had their half of the C&C network finished anyway, so probably the only way anyone would get those running. Still, worrisome to know someone was able to break into one of those and set up a launch."

Log 030454-1:

"After all this time there's maybe the first sign I've seen that confirms someone is out there and in our area. Two intruders were observed on our internal security systems, having broken into the old Personnel Access entrance. One seems to be a woman carrying a number of artifacts, some of it looks like what the old Research Directive had stashed down in sublevel 3. Other's an aug just tearing up the X-rays with his bare hands. They made some headway before attracting so much attention the shamblers forced them into retreat. Fuck."

Log 030454-2:

"At this point we're down to 8 people in total, including myself. Radiation levels have stabilized enough that no more casualties are expected, and supplies will likely last longer than we will now. If we get another intrusion and it seems like they have better luck, we're going to risk sending someone out of the secured areas to try and get in contact with them."

Log 062054-1:

"Two more people picked up on security feed today. One's in a knight outfit, description consistent with a civilian contractor Center Sierra's transmissions have mentioned on occasion. The other's a 5a mutant, suspected chimeric and arachnid subtypes. Possibly one that the center's referred to as Mica. Half the time the latter's only showing up on the thermal cams that are still working, but both of them are cleaning house. Gonna assign Sargent Branham and Corporal Vela to the task of linking up with them."