Survival Bunker System Developer

Bunker Rules

It didn’t take long before a huge fight broke out within the bunkers. Due to the situation outside, it was only natural that everyone was high on tension. The tension snapped when some people with really strong personalities collided with each other. Although the system developer wasn’t an expert when it came to dealing with human relationships, he didn’t expect things to blow out of proportion so quickly.

Despite appointing bunker managers, the social hierarchy within these bunkers didn’t follow Caleb’s order. In fact, many of these ten thousand bunker residents didn’t know each other and were forced to room with complete strangers. While some bunker residents were allowed to bring their family members with them, most residents came alone. Living together with a group of three other strangers in the same room could only have two kinds of results. The first result that was ideal for Caleb would be for all bunker residents to get along with their roommates. However, that was a very difficult thing to accomplish as people tend to become more wary of each other during a crisis. It was only natural survival instincts.

The second outcome was something Caleb didn’t want to deal with so he appointed bunk managers and cluster bunk managers. The appointed bunker managers were people Caleb thought were very eloquent and good at managing people. It didn’t matter if the bunker managers needed to convince, compromise or smoothen out communication between discontent bunker residents. Whatever method they employed, Caleb thought that they would be able to hold out for at least a few weeks before the bomb exploded. Sadly, it was only the one week mark since the ten thousand bunker residents moved in before Caleb had to personally visit some of them.

Caleb parked his black Benz outside a bunker that was a thirty-minute drive from his apartment and sighed. The bunker manager apologised profusely and reported the situation last night. Caleb didn’t blame the manager for not doing his job. In fact, he understood perfectly why such a horrible bullying case occurred. As the leader of the bunkers, he made a mistake of not establishing the rules strictly before the residents moved in.

Long story short, he gave the word to every bunk manager that he wanted residents to work for him, starting with becoming his eyes and ears. Caleb wanted news and information about ghouls. At the same time, he wanted bunker residents to form ghoul patrol parties to kill wandering ghouls and burn their corpses in areas that Caleb assigned them. The rest of the bunker residents with unassigned tasks were tasked to go resource gathering. Caleb trusted the abilities of bunk managers to assign the jobs to residents equally and only gave the managers the general figure of resources that he wanted them to collect for him. A resource tax quota was given to every bunker as the ‘rental fees’ for living in the comforts of his bunkers. Whatever the other bunker residents managed to collect can be kept for themselves.

However, due to the poor management of bunker managers and the disparity of social status within the bunkers, bullying occurred. A rich man who Caleb accepted into his bunkers for his ability to perform data analysis had a dispute with a homeless man who Caleb accepted for his strong physique. The cause of the argument was simple. The homeless man had mistaken the rich man’s bunk bed for his and slept in it after coming back from a ghoul patrol routine without taking a shower because it was occupied. As a result, the rich man became unhappy. To forgive the homeless man, the rich man abused his rights and ordered the homeless man to go on resource gathering duties for him while he remained within the comforts of the bunkers.

Initially, the homeless man agreed because he thought it was fair. However, after doing it for two days, the rich man didn’t want to go back out gathering resources. Hence, the two men argued. While the bunk manager intervened, he couldn’t stop the horrible words that came out of the rich man’s mouth. Caleb was also enraged when he heard how the rich man threw money at the poor man and told him to work on his behalf because he was getting paid. Naturally, the homeless man was furious and wanted to leave the bunker if he had to put up with this kind of discrimination.

Unable to convince either party to relent or apologise, the bunk manager called Caleb and explained the situation while separating the two men and assigning them both different rooms for now.

Caleb entered the bunker and the bunk manager hurried over to greet Caleb. Nobody except for the promoted individuals and the bunk managers knew who Caleb was. When the two men who argued were brought to a new room with Caleb, he could immediately tell who the rich man was and who the homeless chap was.

“Who the hell are you?” the rich man sneered and the bunk manager remained silent as what Caleb told him to do.

The homeless man glared at the rude rich man and gave Caleb a warm smile. “You must be new here. Don’t worry about him. I hope we can get along. It’s not easy to be accepted into these bunkers. If there’s anything you don’t know, you can look for me. My name is Rick.”

Caleb smiled and pretended to be a new bunker resident. He shook Rick’s hand and gave the haughty rich man a side glance. “Thank you. I’m Caleb. By the way, I heard from the bunk manager that everyone has to go out to gather resources and patrol on a roster. Is that true?”

Rick didn’t answer immediately but he smiled and nodded a little stiffly. Beside him, the rich man snorted. “Well, you don’t have to if you’re not a poor slob like him. Seriously, why did someone like him even get accepted? Not only was he ungrateful with the money I paid him, but he also complains about the work he has to do for me. Can you believe it? Judging from your looks, I don’t think you need to go on patrols or resource gathering. Just pay him and he’ll do it for you. It’s not even a rule that everyone has to go out, we just need to pay the resource tax and gather enough. Isn’t that right?” the rich man turned to the bunk manager.

To demonstrate his ‘influence’ within the bunker, the rich man pulled out his wallet and counted bills as he tossed them to the homeless man one by one. Caleb was seeing red but he held it in. Someone else was still restraining himself and Caleb swallowed. The homeless man’s face didn’t betray his feelings but the hands at his side did. They were balled up tightly and white at the knuckles, trembling as if the homeless man was exercising every last bit of self-control to prevent socking the rich bastard in his face.

Caleb made his decision there and then. This cannot go on. In fact, it was better to make an example out of this man so that no future incidents will occur. He would also empower his bunk managers to recommend for bunk expulsion for cases like that and take disciplinary actions.

The rich man laughed when the money fell but he didn’t laugh for long. Caleb flew across so quickly with a poorly clenched fist and gave the guy a good punch that split lips. The bunk manager and Rick stared at Caleb in shock but the system developer only groaned in pain and winced as he flexed his wrist. It was definitely sprained and he sighed at the thought of having to visit Jason for such a silly injury.

Still, Caleb remained calm when the rich man staggered and got up, clutching his cheek.

“Y-You! How dare you! Do you know who I am?!”

Caleb was calm. “Brandon Maxwell. Forty-two this year. Divorced five years ago. You are a business analyst working for banks. Your net worth is two million from last year’s records.”

Brandon was dumbfounded and the bunk manager looked away. Anyone could tell where this was going.

Caleb’s voice was deadly calm but his eyes were burning with rage. “You can throw money at others and get them to do your dirty work. I don’t really care. But you are currently in my bunker. In my bunker, I create the rules and I live by a simple philosophy. If you don’t make trouble for me, I won’t make trouble for you. Right now, do you know how much time you made me waste to listen to your bullshit? If you think the paper dollars you have are worth anything, you can take it with you and get out of my bunker. You can go outside and ask anyone to sell you a sandwich. However, I will bet with my life that you won’t get a single sandwich even if you paid a million dollars for it out there. Do you want to know why? Because there isn’t anyone out there alive who can make you that f*****g sandwich or want to sell you a f*****g sandwich when there isn’t any food. Right now, what you eat are things that belong to me in my bunker. I don’t believe in feeding anyone who is a waste of space. If you don’t work and fulfil that quota, you shouldn’t be here. I have every right and the ability to banish you from this bunker but I’m giving you one last chance. You can either pack and take everything with you so that I can free up your bed for someone who needs it more or you can work double shifts for the next two weeks to make up for it. Take your pick.”

Speechless and scared shitless, Brandon fell to his knees in tears and apologised. Rick felt no sympathy and Caleb was disgusted by such a human. He turned to the bunk manager and smiled.

“If he cannot fulfil the quota, please submit his name to me with the evidence from the security footage as evidence. I will evict him within twenty-four hours and leave the recruitment to you based on the criteria of people I am looking for. Also, I will be sending all the bunk managers an email about my bunker rules, making sure every bunker resident knows them by hard before the end of the day. I don’t want a repeat of this happening. Am I clear?”

The bunk manager nodded furiously with unshed tears of gratitude in his eyes while everyone ignored Brandon. Rick looked at Caleb who patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t leave the bunker yet. I still have a need for you to be my eyes and ears. I heard that you’re very hardworking and I appreciate talent. Currently, I need to put together a team for special ghoul hunting. Will you consider the position? It’s riskier but I will guarantee your share of food and resources. You’ll even get upgraded facilities and a room that you don’t need to share with others.”

Rick smiled. “Thank you. If you think I have what it takes, I humbly accept the position.”

Caleb smiled and gave the bunk manager a few more instructions before leaving. The first thing he was going to do after he returned to his apartment was to set the bunker rules. He thought it would have been common sense but that wasn’t the case.

The rules were kept simple so that Caleb didn’t have to change much. Basically, all bunker residents must pay resource tax individually. In addition, those who killed ghouls and burned ghoul bodies will be rewarded accordingly for their efforts and given priority over luxury-class resources. In addition, he would empower bunker managers to have the final say in any raised disputes. If the dispute could not be resolved internally, they had the right to escalate the case to cluster bunk managers who had the right to take disciplinary actions. If the offender still didn’t learn their lesson, a report should be submitted to Caleb who will make the final decision to expel the resident. Recruitment should be handled by bunk managers and the testing of new residents would be under cluster bunk managers. Shortlisted candidates will be passed on to Caleb to decide who he wanted to register as a bunk resident.

The pettier things like no abusing of power, no bunker politics and factions, no s**t-stirring and monopolising of resources weren’t written down but Caleb made his intentions very clear in the email. Rosters became a very important duty for bunk managers and Caleb wanted it to be submitted to cluster bunk managers for reviewing every week. Any changes should be justified to prevent another case like Brandon and Rick.

Once the rules were clearly stated, Caleb moved on to the second part of his email with slight difficulty in typing. Jason bandaged his hand a little too well. He indicated that he wanted the cluster bunk managers and bunk managers to make arrangements to collect information about existing ghoul shelters outside of his bunks from the bunk residents. Caleb wanted them to make arrangements for each bunker to send a team for weapon distributions. Paul couldn’t possibly manage everything alone and now that Caleb had more manpower, he was going to put them to good use and get them to do the legwork for him.

If the survivors in shelters could get their hands on weapons to defend against ghouls and be educated about the importance of burning ghoul bodies, Caleb would be able to raise the Happiness Meter and keep it there at 75% for a week to unlock the next level of his system. Of course, he would include more incentives at later part to encourage the other survivors to follow what his bunker residents were doing. He still needed more hands to help with the farm, the cooking and food distribution and patrolling. The city won’t recover by itself. There was a lot to be done.