Survival Bunker System Developer

Visiting Brownsville

Helen was brewing coffee when her doorbell rang.

“Coming!” the scientist hurried to the front door, not bothering to check who it was.

“Come in,” she smiled at Caleb who held up a bag of fresh bagels.

Helen accepted the bagels and told Caleb to make himself comfortable. The system developer noticed a change in the apartment from how he remembered it to be last week. Helen had done some packing and while the apartment was still neat, it was looking emptier.

“Have you packed everything?” he couldn’t help but ask. There were heavy carton boxes stacked against the wall.

Helen frowned and poured the freshly brewed coffee into two cups. “Milk or sugar?” she asked and Caleb shook his head.

“Black is fine.”

Bringing the cups over to the coffee table, Helen took a seat beside Caleb who offered her some of his bagels. The scientist accepted it and they ate breakfast in silence for a while.

When they finished eating, Helen started the conversation.

“I saw the news last night. It’s better to confirm the severity of PXE22 before I can come up with a plan. Is it possible for us to visit Brownsville? I need a sample of the dead animals for analysis.”

Caleb grinned. “Why get dead samples when I have live ones with me? I was rat hunting in the water pipeline tunnels where Dr Fellowes’ body was found. It’s a little strange. Some of the infected rats were aggressive and some of the infected rats weren’t.”

Helen’s eyes bulged when Caleb pulled out two cages from thin air.

“What was that?” she couldn’t help but be amazed.

Caleb deadpanned. “Behold the mysteries of the Survival Bunker System. I don’t know how this works because many things don’t make sense but think of it as a divine type of technology that borderlines magic.”

“How does it work?”

Caleb raised a brow. He summoned the Resource Panel and asked if Helen was able to see anything. The scientist squinted but could not see the blue window that Caleb was talking about. Hence, Caleb borrowed a notebook and started to sketch out what the Resource Panel looked like.

With a quick explanation about the different functions, Caleb summarised everything as a work of God.

“The power and water supply run independently. The law of energy doesn’t apply, there is a dimensional difference and a frozen time zone within the bunker. I can’t explain how the system can consume resources and convert them from one form to another. I’m an atheist but I’m very close to believing that the creator of this strange system that only I can see and use is God. I saw them but only their feet and heard their voice directly in my mind in the void between life and the afterlife.”

Helen placed the cup down gently. “Was it horrifying?”

“What?” Caleb blinked, unsure of what she was referring to.

“The future that you came from. What was it like without the system?”

At that question, Caleb paused for a while. Helen’s question was opening up old wounds and Caleb didn’t want to re-live the horror but for some reason, he found himself wanting to tell Helen all about it.

“The government is to blame for most of the deaths. New York City was clamped down and they were abandoning survivors in the city. The young, weak and old were left to fend for themselves against those monsters while the able-bodied people were conscripted to the army to fight against the ghouls. There wasn’t a vaccine and the world was falling apart. Every country you can imagine was going through something similar.”

Caleb pointed at the ghoul rats screeching on Helen’s floor. “The only difference between America and the rest of the world was that the first ghouls weren’t humans. The rest of the world only had human ghouls but New York was infested with both human and animal ghouls. Of course, some of the other ghoul animals travelled a little further than New York City but that’s not very important. I didn’t figure out where PXE22 originated from until it was too late. I always thought that it was a secret experiment gone wrong commissioned by the government.”

Helen looked ashamed. “The government isn’t involved. I was the lead researcher although Dr Fellowes was the head of the project. PXE22 isn’t a virus. If anything, think of it like a parasite type of cell that lives in other organisms to evolve continuously. There isn’t a cure for it but I can try something else if I have my lab equipment and a steady supply of samples. PXE22 can adapt quickly and evolve fast. It starts learning slowly but it is tenacious. You said that the intelligent human ghoul appeared three months into the apocalypse, right?”

Caleb nodded. “You need to come up with something before that happens or that might be the end of humanity.”

“How many days do we have left until that day?” Helen asked and Caleb checked his calendar.

“Less than ninety days.”

There was a long silence as Helen tried to take in all the new information.

“How quickly can we get to my lab? I need to bring out the equipment to do the testing…”

Caleb waved his hand lazily. “No, we’re moving into your lab. With the system, I can make it homey enough for you so that you can live in it. However, you wouldn’t be able to get out for a while until everything stabilises. You’re probably humanity’s only hope when it comes to finding a solution to counter PXE22. My Survival Bunker System is only a temporary solution. It cannot create a cure or vaccine. It can only mass replicate a prototype.”

Helen was sceptical but Caleb explained that the Survival Bunker System worked magic so they would be fine. The scientist was given much of a choice and agreed to follow Caleb’s plan. The ghoul rats were stored away in Caleb’s temporary inventory and Caleb offered Helen a ride.

“Where are we going?”

“Brownsville. If you want to follow me to check out on the ghoul rats in the tunnel after we visit Brownsville, you should wear something thick. They bite hard what they can reach but aren’t smart enough to know how to climb. Also, like I was explaining earlier, these rats are strange. While both types of rats are infected, only one type behaves aggressively towards humans. The other type simply behaves aggressively to the hamsters but can sidestep most of the rat traps.”

The scientist thought about it for a while. “It would be best if I can see it for myself. Your description of their behaviour sounds like the late first stage of awakening in PXE22 and the awakened stage of PXE22. It doesn’t look like PXE22 is self-conscious yet but I need to do more testing to understand how it evolves.”

Caleb didn’t comment about how Helen rambled on about the technical details as they drove to Brownsville. His mind was occupied with thoughts about how they would sneak into the university later. He could carry a metal ladder and make his way in without issues but the same isn’t the same for Helen. She was rather famous on the campus and there was no way the security would allow her in. The scientist was still banned from entering.

“We’re here,” he told Helen who stopped talking and looked out of the bulletproof window.

“I don’t see any corpses,” she said.

True enough, the streets were clean even though they were quieter. Caleb frowned. Something didn’t feel right. “Let’s drive around a little more till we see something. It’s very quiet for Brownsville for a weekend afternoon.”

Helen agreed. She kept her eyes peeled while Caleb drove around aimlessly. They were hoping to catch a glimpse of ghoul animals in action but there was no such luck. Caleb then remembered the basic bunker in the area and decided to take the chance to use Helen as a testing subject.

“It’s still slightly early for lunch,” he commented. “Do you mind helping me test the bunker system before we settle down somewhere for a bite? I’m sure the locals know better what’s going on. It’s impossible to not see any corpses lying around after the news report yesterday.”

Helen looked at Caleb warily. “Do I have a choice?”

The system developer smiled. “No. You’re going to help me either way. Don’t worry. I’m not going to get you killed. You’re just going to help me enter a basic bunker that I created a while ago. Just give me a moment. I need to set it up.”

With a heavy sigh, Helen sat in the passenger seat and waited. She unbuckled her seat belt and looked around. They were in one of the shadier places in Brownsville where the crime rates were high. Feeling slightly nervous about being in such a neighbourhood, Helen couldn’t help but look around.

“There we go,” Caleb grinned. “Alright, follow me.”

They got out of the Benz and walked to a broken-into apartment with graffiti covering its walls. The front door was broken just like how Caleb remembered it to be. After filing a long list of bugs, the system finally fixed it. Helen was registered as a bunker resident and Caleb expanded the basic bunker’s capacity by one so Helen should be able to automatically walk into the basic bunker once she crosses the doorway line.

Helen walked forward without suspecting a thing. When she was suddenly pulled into a new room full of white walls, she screamed. Turning around quickly, the scientist tried to escape the room but the door wouldn’t budge.

“Caleb?” she knocked on the door but heard no replies. In fact, she couldn’t hear anything going on over the other side of the door.

Panicked, Helen looked around the empty room trying to find a new way out. If the magic trick of pulling rats out of thin air shocked her earlier, the new dimension scared her. What if she couldn’t return?

Caleb tinkered with the setting outside. Helen was in the bunker now and as the creator of the bunker, he could pass by freely. There wasn’t anything wrong with the settings for bunker occupants either. Earlier, Caleb set the entry option as default and Helen was sucked into the bunker as soon as she crossed the line. Satisfied that it was working, Caleb decided to test the other functions outside of the bunker, unaware of Helen’s panic on the inside.

Satisfied that all the options work as they should, Caleb decided to enter the bunker and ask for Helen’s opinion. He walked in and was instantly knocked back by a frantic Helen trying to escape.

“What took you so long?!”

Caleb apologised and rubbed the back of his head. “Can you get off me now? You’re not very light,” he groaned.

Helen looked at their compromising position and got off the man without further questions. It was a good thing the streets were empty. She didn’t think that she would be able to remain composed if other people were judging her. At thirty-six, Helen was still a virgin and didn’t have any relationship experience. As a scientist, her calling for greater discovery hindered her love life’s progress but she wasn’t complaining. She loved science more than anything else even if PXE22 did go wrong.

Caleb got up and immediately froze. “Get in the car,” he barked and ran to the boot to grab his golf club.

From the alley across the deserted street, three big black stray dogs growled and started running in Caleb’s direction with their jaws snapping and saliva dripping. They didn’t look like ordinary strays and Caleb was very sure these dogs were already ghoulified. Helen scrambled to get into the car and watched with horror from the inside of the sedan as Caleb struggled with the dogs. Thinking quickly, she got into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

Caleb heard the screeching of tires and dodged just in time as the car hit two of the dogs. The last dog was easily taken down by Caleb who clubbed the beast over its head with the heavy golf club.

Helen wound down the window. “Are you hurt?”

Caleb checked himself and was relieved that the dog didn’t actually get him even though it bit through his pants. His jeans was now riddled with holes and Caleb turned back to look at a dishevelled Helen. His heart hurt a little at the sight of his battered Benz. Helen did save his life with her quick thinking but Caleb felt remorseful over the smashed headlights and dented bonnet.

Without another word, Caleb dragged the body of the third stray dog that wasn’t squashed beneath his car tires into his boot. They had their carcass and the bunker tested, it was time to get out of Brownsville.