Deep in the labyrinth of the labs Erb sat in the water looking up at the very excited exoskeleton. The thing still barking till he pet it.

“Down, down, please,” Erb pet the armour on the shoulder, then grabbed its roll cage using it to stand up.

He looked at it, its black carbon steel body wrapped in gray synthetic muscles seemed untouched by time.

“Just like me, eh buddy.”

It had clearly been asleep till Erb’s pod opened, but now was awake, if a bit to excited to see him.

“Well, let’s see if there’s anything good in there.”

As he walked in he noticed firstly, the floor had been dry, nothing looked water damaged, and the air smelt medically clean still.

There was a ton of untouched gear, glass front racks of arms and munitions in rows fading off into the far-off corners.

There were seven other Fido’s up front here still wrapped in white cloths, and what looked like more of them in the back as well.

“So,” Erb mused leaning on man’s best metal friend, “You’re a FIDO,” he ran his hand over the embossed emblem on the shoulder of one of the inactive units.

His Fido ducked through the door.

“Self powering exoskeletons with brains. Of course someone would program ya like a dog with a stupid acronym like that. Field Infantry Defense Operation suits,” Erb sighed. “I shall dub thee Dog. Cause I have a headache, and no other ideas.”

Dog dropped onto all fours with a hiss compressing till it was roughly the size of its namesake.

He then stalked over to the wall, a pair of mechanical arms unfolding grabbing packs of ammo and weapons.

“Whoa, buddy, we aren’t trying to start war crimes over here.” It wasn’t a bad idea to have some protection honestly, but a mounted plasma gun seemed a bit much. “Let’s start off small.”

Erb walked over to the racks and grabbed a pair of pistols with rifle flipgrip attachements.

He’d never seen a handgun sized railgun before, it was so light, firing fast magnetic rounds. He loaded all the ammo for it out of the one locker and put everything Dog had grabbed back. Then loaded some of the spare clips into a holster and harness, belting them on over his suit.

He looked at himself in the mirrored reflection of the glass front cabinet.

“I look so bad ass.”

Dog barked agreeably, but still just sat beside the shelf.

“What is it buddy? Does timmy need a shotgun in the well?”

Dog’s square head looked up at the closet of guns.

“Fine, but be reasonable, just take two.”

Dog began to do a little tippy tap dance that filled the air with happy clicking as his mechanical arms grabbed and inspected several weapons. Eventually settling on a pair, a fully auto rail-machinegun, and a fifty caliber long-rifle.

“For hunting?”

Dog gave a thumbs up, storing his new toys.

“Well, next is food, and finding the elevator up to the surveillance labs in the upper floors.

One of Dog’s arms came up and a holo display showed a little map, sharing the image to Erb’s heads-up display.

“Man, you got it all bud. Now, find me a woman and we’re set.”

But Dog just stared.