Vice Bunker 9 (Patreon)

Vice Bunker
Chapter 9

-VB-

He greeted all of New Wave with a big, fat smile on his face… and promptly got unsettled looks, including from her.

He quickly erased it.

“Sorry. I keep forgetting that I look unsettling to most people,” Yal’Manus apologized sincerely as he stepped out of the way. “If you would like, then you could talk with Kali, my general manager. I understand if … my looks can be upsetting.”

Vicky thought it was unfortunate that he felt that way about himself. Sure, the fact that he had tentacles for legs didn’t help how he looked, especially with how pale he was, but he didn’t talk like a bad guy.

Just … an unfortunate guy.

“I would like that,” Mom nodded imperiously, and she and Aunt Sarah went off to talk with the cat-eared hot MILF.

She watched the black-haired mature beauty walk along with Mom and Aunt, and had to say…

“He’s got taste,” she muttered to herself.

When Yal’Manus turned to them, he tried not to smile.

“So you must be … Glory Girl, Panacea, Shielder, and Laserdream.”

“We are,” Panacea replied. “Do you have a clinic set up that I could work at?”

“We do. Would you like to see it?”

“Yes, please.”

Vicky followed Manus and Amy as they walked into the bunker.

This bunker felt spacious. The hallways weren’t cramped for one. Instead of being built out of concrete and steel, the hallways seemed more like they were smoothed bedrock.

“Vicky?”

“Huh?” she asked as she looked up. Why was she distracted?

“Are you alright, miss?” Manus asked.

She grinned. “Yeah, I am. Just a lil’ distracted. Say, what’s with the walls? It’s not concrete.”

“You are keen with your observations,” he replied back with a small “smile.” “You are right. You are currently walking on smoothed stone. The deeper we go, the rooms change from regular stone to bedrock, and those are far safer and consequently where the safer and larger clinic is as well as your rooms.”

“What about rooms closer to the surface?” Eric asked.

“That’s where people who have not proved their trustworthiness reside.”

And then they walked up to a steel sliding door, and walked through.

Vicky gawked as she stepped into a cavernous hall. It was at least five stories tall!

“Wait, wait, what?!” Crystal yelled in alarm. “When did we get so deep into the bunker?!”

He smirked. “The elevator ride you took has inertia dampeners, so without visual observation, it’s hard to tell how fast it actually moves when you are inside of it,” he chuckled. “You are currently two hundred fifty feet below the surface.”

Vicky’s jaws dropped.

“There are multiple elevators, though all of them are close by, that connects the deeper floors with the shallower ones. Most of the shallower floors are currently occupied by the members of the Dockworkers Union for … reasons you might or might not be aware.”

Vicky looked around the cavernous hall. There were pillars here and there for support, but instead of being made out of steel beams, they were part of the bedrock itself. There were also marks on the pillars.

They looked … not machine-like.

No, these marks almost looked organic like how someone might have bruises from having a python wrapped around them. There were no scale markings, though, which meant that whatever did this…

“Vicky, we’re going!”

She jolted in place and whirled around before flying over to catch up with her cousins and sister.

-VB-

Mom and Aunt signed up with Yal’Manus, and he introduced himself by his “civilian” name, Alan Marris.

Soon, they spent their time moving their stuff back and forth from their houses.

Vicky hated the fact that she was going to leave the house she grew up in, but it was a necessity for survival.

“Fuck you, Stringbean,” she growled as she dropped another bundle of furnitures in the receiving area of the bunker’s surface facilities. The workers there - members of the Dockworkers Union - quickly moved in and loaded her furniture on large elevators while she went back home to get more stuff.

It took their entire family a whole day to complete the move, and did it in just the right time.

Because Vicky woke up the next day and learned that their old homes got struck by meteors and their basements nor the surrounding neighborhood block survived.

Vicky was sure she might have lived but Amy and Mom?

They would have died.

People died. There were still old people and people who missed out on bunkers in that neighborhood.

Ms. Norris was gone. Mr. Haever was dead.

Brownie sharing Rachael was also dead.

Guilt ate at everyone.

---

With nothing to do for the rest of the day and the city quiet because no one dared to walk outside if they could help it, Vicky ended up exploring the bunker by herself with only a flashlight to light her way.

“Holy shit!” she uttered as she discovered another cave, this one much rougher and larger than the giant cavern she found before.

They could probably fit an entire city block into this place!

And then she eyed the hole in the middle of it.

Her house could have fallen through it and not hit the walls. That’s how big the hole was.

She walked around the cave, and then froze when her shoe landed on something squishy.

With a disgusted ew on her face, she pulled back and wiped the bottom of her shoe on the ground.

Seeing now that there were weird stuff, she chose to fly and hovered over the hole.

She frowned as she stared deep into it.

The hole was very deep. So deep, in fact, that despite shining her flashlight directly into it, she couldn’t see the bottom.

What was Manus keeping here? It didn’t smell at all, so it couldn’t be the sewer.

She slowly lowered herself down the hole.

Down and down and down…

“It goes on fucking forever,” she muttered to herself.

And then it stopped.

She gently hit the bottom of the hole, and looked up.

Yeah, she couldn’t see the room she came from.

Instead of going back up, she looked around.

And then …

“Is that a door?” she said out loud in utter shock at what appeared to be a normal cheap metal door and doorframe on one side of the cave wall.

Curiosity gnawed at her, and she couldn’t help herself.

She floated over to the door, grabbed the clean handle, turned, and pulled the door open slowly.

It was dark on the other side, and so she turned on her flashlight… and still saw nothing except for the ground.

Frowning, she walked in and then jolted when the door closed behind her.

And then her eyes widened in irritation when she saw that this side of the door didn’t have any handle!

“What the f-?”

“Oh. Another person.”

She whirled around and wildly flashed her flashlight about until …

“... Oh,” she muttered quietly as she stared at the giant pile of squirming tentacles that looked awfully familiar.

“Hello, Miss Dallon. Why are you down here?”

“Manus?!” she hissed out.

“Congratulations on finding my real body, Miss Dallon,” he hummed. “Again, why are you here? I swear I locked the doors this time.”

She flushed as she remembered a door she might have broken the locks of.

“There was no locked door,” she lied.

“No, I’m sure-. Miss Dallon, did you destroy Door 32GB?” Manus rumbled from the large pile of tentacles that was rapidly changing shape sa they flicked about. “My smaller body is looking right at the remains of the door’s locks.”

She felt cold sweat run down her back. “No-?”

“... Victoria, no one else on this base is a Brute strong enough to push the door so hard that the locks break off the doorframe.”

She blushed.

“It was a mistake, okay?!”

He chuckled.

“A brute force mistake, huh?” he chuckled.

She glared at him… but she wasn’t sure where his eyes were.

“Where are your eyes, anyway?”

“My body’s not as consistent as yours. It can be everywhere and anywhere.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine.”

“Would you like to go back up? I do have a elevator over there,” he said and one of the tentacles slithered out and pointed towards the other side of the cave.

“... Yes, please. I don’t think I’ll make it in time for lunch otherwise.”

He chuckled.

“So this is your main body or something?” she asked as she walked around the edge of the room.

“Yes. Moving this body is such a hassle, you know? It weighs around fifty tons.”

She did a spitake.

“50 tons?!” she yelled hoarsely as she stopped and looked at him. “You’re barely bigger than a semi-truck!”

“This is actually the top third of my body. I’m digging more tunnels.”

She blinked.

“Wait, you dug all of the bunker, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

“... Damn, so that’s why there was no concrete, huh?”

His entire body - and all of the tentacles - chortled. “Yes. I was surprised you pointed that out. It is why the bunker is so irregular. I broke through all of the weak points so that only the strong supports remained behind.”

She hummed as she started making her way again.

“So two bodies, huh? What’s that like?”

“Double vision is a thing.”

She reached the door and hesitated to leave immediately.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Just … aren’t you lonely down here?”

“A little,” he hummed.

Again, why wasn’t she leaving?

“... What do you do here anyway? It’s not like you can watch TV. Not that there’s any good channels these days. The meteors took most of the broadcasters down.”

“Life is boring,” he laughed, and she found herself floating in the air as she started talking with him.

He wasn’t a bad guy. Just a little creepy.