Vice Bunker 40 (Patreon)

Vice Bunker

Chapter 40

-VB-

Alan Marris

To my surprise, the body that had been in talks with Alexandria died. The last bits of information that I received from the nanites that made up that unit reported “rapid degeneration of atom to atom bonds.” It sounded suspiciously like one of Bakuda’s bombs… and then I remembered that Bakuda, who should have been here in Brockton Bay, never got sighted.

It would take me at least a few hours of flight to reach New York City in clear weather. With the current worldwide winter blizzard, it would take me even longer. Even if I arrived there as soon as I could, the entire fiasco that led to my unit’s death would have been over.

How unfortunate.

Still, it would be rude to not check up on them after the bombing, so I directed one of my units to redirect itself from Buffalo to New York City.

As for Brockton Bay, it was still more or less dead. There were very few people left on the surface but they slowly began to disappear one person at a time. Sometimes, they couldn’t fight off the cold. Sometimes, they starved to death. Others joined up with my bunker colony. The rest lived on by the skin of their death in the ever-resource-dwindling surface.

Now that I have contacted the wider PRT, even if it was just the remnants of the New York branch, I began to wonder how I was going to deal with my branch of the PRT.

Because I have had a unit in there for the same duration as the others have been exploring the surface. It’s really easy to slip in nanites, even though the caved-in portions of the cave that I dug - and then collapsed myself - to connect us in the first place, never mind their own entrance from the surface.

And …

I learned a lot of shit that was happening in their bunker. A lot of bad shit.

-VB-

Armsmaster

He took a deep breath in and let it out slowly.

Ever since the tunnel cave-in, the actions of the radicals had intensified. So much so that he could not stand by anymore.

Part of it was because Interim Director Renick had been heavy-handed in ensuring that he and other capes did not get involved, and part of it was because the radicals assassinated the interim director just a week ago. This triggered a civil war within the overpopulated bunker. It was a quick civil war that led to the death of nearly a fifth of the entire bunker population because of unknown Masters that had Triggered before and during the civil war itself.

Not wanting to let diseases get to them, the new Interim Director ordered him to dispose of the bodies, including those of their dead. This led to the opening of the topside entrance for the first time in a long time, and everyone saw the devastation that had wrought upon their city. Or rather, what ruins still passed for Brockton Bay. It was in these ruins that their dead were tossed into. Desperate as they had been, cannibalism was a step too far still.

The only whole structure standing was a weird blocky building over where Yal’Manis’s bunker was.

It was a stark reminder how starkly different their situation was. While the PRT was tossing out their dead after a civil war, a pre-winter villain was building new buildings.

What went wrong? Where did they go wrong?

It was why Armsmaster found himself on the surface once again, but this time out of his volition.

He stood in front of a gravestone for one of the Protectorate heroes who had died in the conflict.

He didn’t know why he was here, but it felt … he felt better slightly better being here.

Did he feel guilty?

“... Who knew that you could actually become a person?”

The words involuntarily made him grit his teeth as he turned around. He found myself staring at a midnight, pitch black colored man without a single article of clothes and a pair of dimly lit white eyes with no iris and pupils. He sat on the pile of traitors and their minions that the rest of the bunker had neglected to dig graves for.

“Who are you?”

“It’s me, Yal’Manis,” the being replied

“You changed.” Last time he saw the rogue, he had been some kind of tentacle-legged Case-53, not a vantablack man with normal legs.

“Who else would be out here in the cold? Well, who else but you,” he said and then glanced down at the tombstones with but a small movement of his head. “And your dead friends.”

Armsmaster felt a huge urge to strike this man down for taunting him but he kept his peace. He saw and felt what violence without thought did. It was why the conflict had paradoxically cemented his original purpose of heroism. On top of that, he did not want to deprive another bunker of its leader.

Director Renick rested here along with the other heroes.

“If you are here to taunt me, then I have nothing to say to you.”

“... I heard about what happened. My condolences.”

After a moment, his tense shoulders drooped. “What do you want?” he asked tiredly.

“To ask if you finally got your shit together and if I could reopen some line of communication without having to deal with your bullshit.”

Armsmaster frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know. Assholes from your bunker tried to muscle into my bunker. Even attacked one of my wives.”

He … he never heard about that. The only report he re-.

The report had been written by one of the traitors.

“I think we are … cleaner now,” he gritted his teeth as he replied. Even what little of humanity left had been severed by the traitors. How long had they been working toward their nihilistic goals for?

“Good. I’ll go reopen the cave. Can you send me a list of capes you still have? I got in contact with Alexandria, and she’ll appreciate some information about you guys.”

Armsmaster’s heart stuttered for a second before pounding faster than before. “The rest of the country -?”

“Is buried in ice just like here,” Yal’Manis shook his head. “Alexandria is in New York City because L.A. is gone after a meteor strike.”

And the hope died. Ah, that had been hope. And it died even before Colin realized it for what it was.

But Alexandria was alive, in New York City, and apparently in charge of what was left. That was still good news.

“Very well. I’ll send over the list to you and some more communications that we want to relay.”

“Got it. I won’t look, if that makes you feel better.” Then another pause. “Aside from that, do you guys need food? The situation doesn’t look good in there.”

Armsmaster didn’t even care anymore about how the rogue knew.

“Yes,” he said. “Please,” he added a bit later and hesitantly.

-VB-

A/N: so finally some information on why weird shit happened before Alan collapsed the tunnel; people Triggered, not everyone was nice, someone decided to play games, it escalated, another one pulled shit as a new Protectorate hero and caused diplomatic problems, shit began to boil over from congestion, overpopulation, rationing, and more, and violence broke out. Something that could have been a 10+ chapters of drama condensed into 500 words of Armsmaster coming back to ******’s tombstone on the frozen hellscape of Brockton Bay because he feels something other than a need to do better to not get outshined. Oh, and PRT ENE got neutered.