Vice Bunker 42 (Patreon)

Vice Bunker

Chapter 42

-VB-

Alan Marris

Migraine.

For the first time in a long time, I felt migraine.

Apparently, being an eldritch-machine god-warlord-savior didn’t exclude me from feeling this pain, which was why - for the first time in a long time - none of my bodies were out and about having fun with my ladies but all of them were lounging about with ice packs on their heads.

Did the ice packs help? No but it made me feel better.

Worse, my migraine broke out a literal week after the tunnel was reopened, and by now, people were passing through the tunnel for all sorts of reasons, and people from my side, despite the issues the other side caused, felt horrified by the condition people in the PRT ENE bunker was suffering through and was petitioning me to do something about it.

Fucking bleeding hearts…

That’s the down side of inviting good people into your life. Even if they got burned, they will get back up, dust themselves, and try to help others again. Of course, not everyone was a bleeding heart, but there were enough that it was slowly starting to form a schism within my people. It was a minor schism, just a disagreement on whether or not we should help those who are less fortunate, but it was one nonetheless.

Whatever.

Just … whatever. My head hurts, even though I’m not even a biological thing with a brain and arteries and veins in the head. Don’t care right now. I’m just gonna go to sleep.

I sent out an order to all of the roaming bodies to find somewhere safe to hibernate for a few hours, and then after that, I shut myself down.

When even was the last time that I slept?

---

When I woke up, I felt much better.

I looked around. This body was currently in a bed in the bunker proper, not the unfinished underground caverns. Kali was also sleeping next to me.

Hmm, where were the others?

I began activating all of the bodies and started assessing the rest of my surroundings.

… What’s this?

One of my bodies were being carried away?

-VB-

John Marriam

He grunted as he finally managed to drag the black mass thing onto the back of his truck.

He wiped the sweat off of his brows and let out a sigh. He didn’t know what this thing was, but it was weird, which meant it was unique. It wasn’t an asteroid or moon piece, which was slowly becoming more common these days. Hopefully, the tinker he went to will buy this for a high price, because he needed that money.

John opened the door to his truck and then got into the driver’s seat and started the truck. It took a few tries but the engine sputtered to life. He shivered as he closed the door and drove on, not daring to touch the heater. In the old days, he would have just turned it on like it was nothing but these days? These days, fuel was more important than food.

He drove his truck slowly across the icy and snowed roads. Thankfully, there was no blizzard today.

A lot of scavengers went out during blizzards and never came back.

He hummed a tune he didn’t remember the name of as he drove. The drive itself took thirty minutes, and after cresting over a hill, he was home. New Kensington was not the sort of town he expected to survive the apocalypse, but it did because of an old Tinker. His truck grumbled as he came to a stop by what used to be the Dollar General store next to the river. There was a thick pipe that drew up water from underneath the frozen river and into the Tinker’s workshop. The front of the building was boarded in layers of now-frozen plywood planks.

“Ronald!” he shouted as he got out of his truck. “Come see this shit I picked up!”

There was a scuffle inside the workshop, and then the front door opened up. An intense orange light poured out along with heavy steam, and John really wanted to go in that shop.

For all of the dangers a Tinker’s workshop had inside them, it was at the very least warm in there.

Ronald, a burly old man in his late 50s, grunted as he walked out in a hastily donned fur jacket, thick pants, and boots.

“What did you get me, John?” he grunted as he walked up to the truck. John, in response, opened the rear door, showing Ronald what he had. “The fuck is that supposed to be?”

“Don’t know,” John shrugged. “Found it by the side of the road.” When Ronald glanced at him from the corner of his eyes with the “are you stupid?” look, he grunted back. “Look, man. It’s heavy, at the very least. Has to be made up of some kind of metal. You’re always in need of metal, aren’t you? And not the rusted scraps some assholes try to sell you.”

“Yeah, I guess I do,” the tinker grunted. “But I can’t possibly know what this is.”

He turned around to talk to John but John froze, staring at the black metal blob that just … pulsed.

“What?” Ronald asked.

“Hey, Ron.”

“What?”

“I think that’s tinkertech.”

The two of them stood there very quietly, not moving, and then jumped away from his truck.

Ronald whirled around to glare at the truck, and John only hoped that whatever was about to happen wasn’t going to end up with his truck destroyed.

The truck lurched and the open door swung out from the movement.

And then -.

A tall man walked out. Black as the darkest night with speckles of white spread throughout, it was very clear that this was a cape or cape-related.

It looked around and saw them.

“Oh, survivors,” a double-layered voice of a man rumbled out. “Where am I?”

“New Kensington, Pennsylvania!” John quickly shouted out.

The creature nodded slowly before it noticed something behind them.

Ronald whirled around and grunted. John looked, too.

Oh, the pipes.

There was a crunch.

Both of them whirled back around and saw the creature stepping forward.

“Woah, there, sonny! You aren’t going anywhere near that pipe!” Ronald snapped.

John stood ready to fight… even though he wasn’t sure what he would actually do because this was a cape, right? There was no way he would win if he got into a fight with a cape. But that pipe was the only thing keeping the town warm and habitable.

Ronald reached into his coat and -.

The thing tilted its head when Ronald pointed a weird steampunk pistol at him.

“I don’t know who you are, sonny. I’d suggest you back the fuck up.”