Chapter 3 - The Intruder

Deep within the mist I've traveled
Secret knowledge I've unraveled

I just know
And it is true
Take a bow
To God it's due

You won't listen
Yet you're scared
Evil's bitten
Your life's thread

Such fool and madman you've become
I’ll crush your soul, and you’ll be gone

For as long as he can remember, Harmon had the helpful habit of recording everything he knew on paper. He never thought a day would come when he had to rely more on notes instead of his memory.

He soon realized he could not remember his childhood, not even his early teenage years. He was not even able to remember his age, but one of his documents recorded that he took a day off a few months ago for what was supposed to be his 19th birthday.

So far, his work was largely unaffected, thanks to his past self having properly documented any schematic device they had, such as the Wheelers, the lampposts, the cable networks, or the power plants. He merely needed a few minutes to recollect his knowledge whenever he wanted to fix an error or upgrade a system. Then, everything would return to memory.

His memory loss was regrettable, but it would not stop him from his goal. On the contrary, Harmon felt cornered by this growing weakness, so he became even more motivated to speed up the pace and work more.

Things went on for some time. Lieutenant #1 was doing poorly on the expansion, while #3's productivity also went slightly downhill. The Maintenance Team made almost no progress, and an Outpost went dark for nearly a whole day until one of the two Maintenance Lieutenants came to apply a fix. The Scouting Team found a natural gas source, but there was no other significant progress.

"This is concerning," he thought, eyes closed. "We can't go on like this. Something has to change. I'll issue more warnings to the Lieutenants and an ultimatum to the Maintenance team. Suppose they can't get a hold of themselves. In that case, I'll have to strip away their Lieutenant rank and appoint somebody else."

Harmon paused, feeling a lump in his throat.

"Even if I get rid of them, I have no replacement. I can't remember the other people in Nexus. Was there anyone else apart from the five Lieutenants? The reports don't mention anyone else. The six of us might as well be the only ones left. Very well, I'll ask Lieutenant #1 to make a census with the entire human population of Nexus and its surroundings."

A few days later, the census report came with a list of the entire population. Harmon's excitement dropped when he realized the text only mentioned "Lord Harmon" and Lieutenants #1 to #5. Harmon was surprised to see the Lieutenant naming him "lord". Just "Harmon" would have been enough, as he never truly cared to be considered superior or royal. Harmon expected people to follow his commands but also felt his role was more of a servant of the State rather than some noble patron. He wrote a reply mentioning this aspect to Lieutenant #1 and eventually returned to his thoughts. He decided he would attempt to prepare another motivational text that he would send to all of his Lieutenants.

"They did an excellent job in the past, so I doubt they are lazy," thought Harmon. "They probably just forgot how important our goal is. Prolonged hard work tends to make people lose spirit. But Rome was not built in one day."

After his motivational letter, productivity improved for a while.

Until one fateful day, Harmon woke up and headed directly to his office. His memory loss was not strong enough to make him forget how much work he had on his plate, so he woke up earlier than he initially planned. But as soon as he sat at his desk, he hesitated.

"Something is wrong… am I forgetting something" he wondered. "Oh, no! It's Saturday; I should have received the weekly reports yesterday, but where are they?"

He pressed a button on his command board and summoned the Wheeler that acted as his deliveryman. The robot entered the room and waited. Harmon checked its signals and concluded that reports had yet to be assigned to be delivered to him in the past week.

"Perhaps it's a malfunction in the post system. Let's try to signal the Lieutenants directly from the control panel."

He pressed a combination of buttons meant to send signals to Lieutenant #1, but there was no response. Same for #2, #3, #4, and #5.

It was at that moment that Harmon realized he was alone. Alone and with memory issues.

"This is bad. Where did those officers disappear?"

From that day on, Harmon used the control panel more and more to send various commands to the systems and machines that worked inside and outside Nexus. He coordinated the robots fixing outages on Outpost #17 and #41. Harmon also commanded a squad of machines to dig into the ground at various locations; eventually, he found a new underground gas reservoir. He even managed to set up a new outpost named Outpost #67.

Without stepping one foot outside the Grand Tower Building, Harmon was trying to keep everything under control. And despite being sleep deprived and exhausted, he continued on and on for several more months.

Until one day, his robots sighted a strange species of creatures, the first kind of lifeform that he would meet in these desolate dark lands. He carefully studied them through his binoculars every time he had a chance, trying to surprise them with a beam of light before they could run off. The light seemed to disorient them, so he used this to his advantage.

The monsters were blue and slimy and looked like a teardrop, so he decided to call them Teardrops. Little did he know the nightmare those Teardrops would become for the Nexus.

Harmon expected to meet new lifeforms sooner or later, but the Teardrops were not what he had in mind. Instead of acting like regular wild animals, they manifested semi-intelligent attack patterns, which he noticed from how they charged the outposts head-on in a straight direction, pushing back any resistance from the Wheelers and the elements of their defense system. They could coordinate into quick retreats once they accomplished minor objectives, such as tearing down a lamppost.

Harmon managed to hold them off for many weeks. But despite his great effort, he was just one man. His outposts were ravaged by the new invaders one after another; eventually, the Teardrops reached the very margin of Nexus itself.

Occasionally, he caught a glimpse of an intelligent humanoid dressed in red that would appear suddenly from the darkness only to strike when he was least expecting it. A pattern he noticed was that frequently the Teardrops would attack one place. At the same time, the red humanoid would perform a hit-and-run tactic towards particular vital objectives, such as power plants, crucial connection cables, or lampposts.

He named the humanoid "the Red Barbarian" and decided to study it more. He couldn't tell whether the Teardrops and the Barbarian were working together. Yet, he clearly saw a synchronization pattern between them. The Red Barbarian often took advantage of a Teardrop raid to do more damage in a different location. He also noticed that his spotlight did not physically affect the Barbarian. However, it exposed them, apparently making them retreat into the shadows.

By the time the Teardrops arrived at the borders of Nexus, Harmon had a sound plan to defeat them. Yet to accomplish his goal, he would need to have the enemy within his own reach, even if that meant bearing significant damage to his facilities inside and outside Nexus.

He had to wait patiently, something he knew he was very good at.