The Custodian
The robot remained perfectly still, its arm locked in a crisp salute. Dust drifted from weathered joints while old servos emitted a faint mechanical whine beneath layers of scarred armor. A single amber optic glowed steadily through the darkness, waiting.
Adrian stared at it, the robot stared back. Oddly enough, the salute unsettled him more than if the machine had pointed a weapon at his head. Hostility would have made sense. This... this implied loyalty after almost a century.
The synthetic voice echoed softly through the chamber. "Relay Custodian Unit active."
The robot lowered its arm with precise mechanical control before facing Adrian fully. "Awaiting executive directive, Mr. President."
Nope, absolutely not. Adrian pointed at the machine. "You need to stop calling me that."
The robot paused for a fraction of a second, its optic flickered. "Negative."
A quiet snort escaped Cassandra. Adrian looked at her in open betrayal. "You're enjoying this way too much."
"No." A tiny pause, "...a little."
Traitor.
☢ ☢ ☢
The Custodian stepped forward, heavy metal feet ringing against the concrete floor. Adrian's eyes instinctively swept over the machine. Reinforced armor plating, military-grade construction. Weapon hardpoints built into both forearms, though several sat empty or damaged. Faded federal insignia barely visible beneath decades of corrosion.
This wasn't civilian hardware. It had been built to protect something important.
The robot stopped a respectful distance away. "Custodian Unit AR-17 operational at thirty-one percent capacity."
Only thirty-one percent, that somehow made it even more intimidating. If this was what the machine could do while barely functional... he wasn't sure he wanted to see one operating at full capacity.
Above them, the relay's voice continued. "Regional relay node restored to limited operational status."
Across the chamber, additional monitors flickered awake one after another. Power distribution maps, communications routes and infrastructure grids. Most of the state remained dark, but not all of it.
Adrian stepped cautiously toward the nearest active terminal. The screen immediately changed.
WELCOME, PRESIDENT VANCE
His stomach tightened, not because of the title anymore. Because of the name. The system didn't simply recognize an executive, it recognized him. Or at least... the version of him it believed existed.
Cassandra moved beside him almost immediately. "Don't touch anything yet."
Adrian glanced sideways. "That sentence feels wildly important."
"It is." Her eyes moved rapidly across the display, reading line after line without hesitation. Only then did Adrian really notice it. She wasn't deciphering the information, she understood it. Military abbreviations, federal formatting. Continuity designations. She read everything effortlessly.
"You can actually follow all this." It wasn't a question.
Cassandra noticed where he was looking. "My family trained for it." The answer came quietly, less guarded than before.
Adrian studied her. "Trained for what?"
A brief hesitation, then she answered. "Continuity operations."
Silence settled over the room. Even the distant hum of machinery seemed louder afterward. Tandi would absolutely lose her mind if she heard this conversation.
Adrian leaned back from the terminal. "So, your family basically spent generations preparing for the apocalypse."
"Yes." Simple, matter of fact and deeply unsettling.
☢ ☢ ☢
Without warning, the Custodian turned its head toward one of the side corridors. Its amber optic brightened. "Motion detected."
Adrian's hand immediately found the shotgun. "Oh good." He sighed. "More bunker nightmares."
The Custodian raised one armored arm toward the darkness, internal servos whined loudly. A concealed panel slid open along its forearm, revealing an integrated laser emitter.
Adrian pointed at it. "That seems... excessive."
"Defense protocols remain mandatory."
Fair enough. The corridor remained silent for another heartbeat. Then… SCRATCH.
Something moved in the darkness, not mechanical this time. Organic.
Cassandra drew her pistol in one smooth motion. "Stay behind cover."
Adrian frowned. "You say that like I voluntarily stand in front during gunfights."
Another scratching sound, closer this time. Then a shadow darted across the hallway. Small, quick and clearly mutated.
Adrian let out a long sigh. "Mole rats." Of fucking course. Apparently, every abandoned underground Fallout location was legally required to have mole rats.
The creatures burst from the corridor in a screeching swarm, the Custodian reacted instantly. A brilliant red beam lanced through the chamber.
ZZZAP.
The first mole rat exploded in midair. Adrian blinked. "Oh... wow."
The robot pivoted with surprising speed despite its damaged condition, another laser flashed. A second mole rat slammed into the wall in a cloud of scorched fur.
Cassandra fired twice beside Adrian.
BANG.
BANG.
A third creature collapsed near the terminals, Adrian brought up his shotgun… then realized there was nothing left to shoot. The Custodian was systematically erasing the swarm before they could even react effectively. The robot advanced with heavy metallic footsteps, firing measured laser bursts that never seemed hurried or wasteful.
Every shot struck its target, no wasted movement and no hesitation. The entire fight lasted less than fifteen seconds, then silence returned. The smell of ozone mixed with burned fur drifted through the relay chamber.
Adrian stared into the smoke-filled corridor, "...okay." He looked back at the Custodian. "I officially want one."
The robot turned toward him immediately. "Executive security request acknowledged."
Cassandra slowly holstered her pistol. "You should not activate combat systems casually."
Adrian pointed toward the hallway. "They attacked us."
"That's not the point."
Interesting, she wasn't afraid of the robot. She was afraid of what activating systems like this could lead to. Adrian quietly filed that observation away.
The Custodian returned to its previous position beside the communications platform as though nothing had happened. Then it spoke again. "Recommendation, executive relocation to primary reclamation node."
The southwest facility, again. Everything kept leading back there.
Adrian folded his arms. "And if I say no?"
The machine paused briefly. "Recommendation remains unchanged."
Helpful… very helpful…
☢ ☢ ☢
The terminal beside Adrian flickered again as additional files unlocked across the display. Facility status reports, dormant network locations and classified Continuity archives. Most of the files were corrupted beyond recovery.
One wasn't… its heading appeared slowly across the screen.
PROJECT RECLAMATION AMERICA
Adrian felt his pulse spike, there it was. Not a slogan, a title or a symbolic phrase. A real project, a real government program. One that had been waiting beneath the wasteland for almost an entire century.
Beside him, Cassandra went completely still. She had seen the title too and judging by the look on her face... the words Project Reclamation America frightened her more than everything else they had discovered underground.