After climbing up the ladder to ‘get some sunshine’ and process it all, Marcus emerged into a moonlit night. The full moon painted the fallen rocks with its pale light and surreal shadows seemed to dance all over the place, although Marcus was sure it was just his imagination. The air had cooled down considerably compared to the previous day and Marcus felt a little chill, as the wind caressed his skin. He finished climbing out, but left the hatch open, just in case he needed to make a hasty retreat and sat down on one of the toppled rocks.

He looked up to the bright moon taking its course over the horizon and mulled over the story that Ede had told him. Could his father really have done this? Could he have been behind the sandstorm that almost killed him after his exile? Could he really be keeping everyone in the bunker a prisoner without them even knowing about it?

He recalled the many ‘weather drills’ they were doing on a regular schedule, so everyone knew what to look out for and how to behave. The most important rule when a storm rolled up was, to get to shelter ASAP, dropping everything they were doing. The gates were the first shelter, of course, shielding the fields and the people from the hot winds, but they were not even remotely fail proof. If anything, they merely bought the people time to return to the bunker. Which was, now that Marcus thought about it, really the sole reason nobody ever tried to expand the settlement or leave the bunker for good. Okay, it was a dangerous world out here, with wild animals and raiders and what not, but the only real danger, the one you could not fight off, was the weather. And the people did not have the knowledge or the resources of the old ones, who initially constructed the bunker. The bunker meant life. Comfort even.

Marcus thoughts kept going in circles, always returning to the same question: ‘Would my father really use this machine to keep the people in line?’ He didn’t know. He wanted to tell himself, that his father was a good and fair man, and that he would be happy, if the sudden and unpredictable sandstorms would stop, so the settlement could expand, giving people the sun back. Was that not what he had promised the people, time and again? That it was his goal to return the people to the surface world, where they belonged?

Marcus mind took a turn and looked at another angle. What if his father wasn’t lying. What if he didn’t even know about the weather machine at all? If he had wanted him dead, would his father even have come to find him the first time? What if someone else was behind the sandstorms? What if nobody really was? What if the machine, assuming Ma wasn’t lying through her teeth, was really running amok and the terrifying weather was nothing but the result of that?

Marcus looked out over the grain dancing softly in the nightly wind. The world had recovered far more and far better than he had thought it possible. This field of grain was proof of that. The animals that had tried to kill him were proof of that. The raiders were proof of that. The Earth had, once again, become able to support life. Maybe it wasn’t a full recovery yet, but it was coming around. With all the people and their pollution gone, it was slowly coming around.

Marcus closed his eyes and felt the soft wind caressing his skin, breathing in the smells of the world around him. The world in the bunker never smelled like this. It smelled of sweat and there was always a pang of despair to be found. A stale air without prospects. Without future.

Marcus made up his mind. He needed to find out the truth. And assuming the weather machine really existed, he needed to figure out who was controlling it and expose them to the entire settlement. Even if it was his own father. And then he would shut it down for good. As tempting as it might seem to be able to control the weather, he realized, it is not a power that belongs into the hands of humans.

After having come to that conclusion, he noticed that he had become thirsty and climbed back down to have a drink and some actual rest. After taking stock of the remaining supplies, he figured that he would need new food and water before long. Food he could find easily, but water would pose a problem from the looks of it. As he slowly drifted towards dreamland, Ma’s story kept playing back in his mind. Maybe he could ask them for help. Sure, it may be a gamble, and he’d best have something to trade them for their help, but it was the best chance he got.

In his dreams, he saw himself returning to the settlement and finding the weather machine in the bowels of the bunker, hidden deep within where none ever ventured. Only that it wasn’t a machine in his dreams. It was a terrifying beast with twenty arms and eight eyes, feeding the life of the settlement through a drip and it took the entire stock of weapons within the settlement and everyone alive to strike it down. It was a harsh and bloody battle, but in the end, the beast lay dead, along with half the people he had taken down there with him. As they stepped outside, the skies just cleared up from a terrifying storm that had destroyed the gates and ravaged the fields.

When he woke, the images were still fresh in his mind and cold sweat glistened on his skin. As the pictures slowly faded, getting replaced by reality, his stomach growled. He shook his head and got another bite to eat, taking careful stock how much there was left to feed him.

After his meal, he returned to Ede’s chamber and explained his plans to him.
Ede remained silent for the largest part but eventually asked, “And you think asking Chris is a wise course of action? You may well be stumbling down a rabbit hole you won’t be able to get out again by yourself there, you know?”
“What, like a bunker that’s like 100 meters under ground, talking to an ancient alien super computer who ate a programmer from the before times?”
“...fair point. Still, Chris cannot afford to just ‘feed’ you. You’ll need to work for your meals. And, them being raiders, I think you can imagine what that ‘work’ will be.”
“So you’d rather have me starve down here once the supplies run out? Cause they’re not going to last me an entire month. Especially not the water.”
“Yes, yes, I know, I can do the math on my own.”

After a moment of silence, Marcus asked, “Hey, assuming I managed to get some of the maintenance guys to come here...do you think they could fix this ‘generator’ thing you talked about yesterday?”
“...in all honesty? I don’t know. I don’t know how far it is gone or what shape the circuitry is in, but I know that is was man-made and, as such, could be repaired by men.”
“Why didn’t they just hook the power supply to your generator in the first place?”
Ede smiled for a few seconds before responding, “Did you know that you are within a ‘dampening chamber’?”
“I...think Ma mentioned it. But actually...I don’t know what that is.”
“When my people found Ede, they quickly realized that they were dealing with something exceedingly dangerous and unknown. As such, when this bunker was constructed, the first thing they did was build this ‘dampening chamber’ around the entirety of Ede, which blocks, or at least ‘dampens’ any and all signals Ede might be sending out. This entire room is engulfed in multiple layers of various materials which all have but one single purpose: To keep Ede isolated. The sole reason why I managed to detect your approach in the first place was, because they left the door open when they left. Close the door and I am trapped for good with no way to influence the outside world. At least theoretically.”
“So...you don’t know if you could?”
“I don’t know if Ede could do it. They did everything they could to isolate Ede, but they could only work with what they knew from the science of Earth. I for one have yet to find a way to ‘interface with the world beyond’ with the door closed, so I think they did a pretty good job. Either way, that’s also the reason why they didn’t ‘hook Ede up’ as power supply. For one, they were afraid of the whole place blowing up if they tried, for another that would have given Ede a conductor to get out.”
“But...the door’s been open all that time now, right? Can’t you go through the door then?”
Once again, Ede smiled, leaning back in his chair and then explained, “If you give me legs again, I could probably try to walk out of here. Seriously though, it’s not just this room. The entire bunker dampens and weakens any signal I can send. Yes, I can ‘see’ what is going on within the bunker and yes, I can send radio waves to interact with devices. But the telepathic link I am using to talk to you is effectively blocked right beyond the door.”
“How so?”
“Actually, I don’t know. I think it was designed to be rather short range. You know, like it was meant to be used as an interface and nothing else. As I said before, nobody really knows Ede’s purpose, but from its capabilities, we can at least deduce a few things that are ‘not it’.”
“Like for example?”
“Like for example enslaving the world by filling it with drones. Ede has this capability to turn people into drones, yes, but the short range telepathic link, which is not even ‘enabled by default’ makes it unlikely as a ‘primary directive’.”

Marcus mulled over the topic for a second, but then shook his head and decided that it was not worth pursuing it. If Ede did not manage to figure out his body’s purpose in over 200 years, it was very unlikely that he would figure it out right there and then.

Besides, he had something else to figure out.
Hence he turned to Ede and asked, “If I don’t want to be a raider, I’ll need something I can trade with the raiders for supplies and access to clean water. Do you think you can help me with that?”
Ede remained silent for a moment and then said, “You could help them kill the other Ma. That should be worth a thing or two to them.”
“...what?” Marcus asked, unsure whether Ede was cracking one of his crude jokes.
But the look in his eyes left no room for doubt. Ede was serious.
Marcus sat back down in his chair, leaned to the front and said, “Okay, that one you’ve got to explain. Why would they want to kill ‘the other Ma’?”