895G shuffled through the vast piles of garbage to find the hatch that led to the bunker. He’d been at it for the past two hours and still hadn’t found any sort of identifying landmark that he recognized. They didn’t call Eldern City’s landfill the biggest landfill in all of Wivern without a reason after all. After accidentally stepping in an unknown green substance, the Scout sat down on a broken stroller and took a breather, wondering if there was some sort of magical stain remover to take out the new decorations he had inadvertently added to his new uniform.
He’d made the trip to the landfill alone, the Scout company issuing him his very own vehicle. At first, he’d been exhilarated that he was really being treated as a Second Commander, but his colleagues seemed less than welcoming when they had announced his promotion at the morning gathering. No one had volunteered to go investigate with 895G so the Head attempted to issue an order for a team to gather to aid the new Second Commander on his first investigation, but 895G didn’t want to upset anyone anymore so he made the decision to go alone. He was regretting his choice now and wished he had more hands to help him dig through the mess to reach the surface of the ground. The landfill was still in use, so there lay the chance the hatch had been completely buried under a new delivery of garbage. Holding onto the hope it wasn’t, 895G got back on his feet and decided to try looking for the discarded remains of the crew he had taken to apprehend the suspects over a week ago.
Attempting to retrace his steps, he found himself standing near a heap of trash that seemed familiar, but then again he could have been experiencing deja vu after traversing through the sea of garbage. He kicked around some discarded shopping carts and debated going back to the entrance and seeing if he could jog his memory there when he spotted a metal hand poking out from underneath a bag of compost.
It took him another hour to uncover the three Combatants and Breacher from the new pile of trash that had formed above them, so he knew he was close to the hatch. With a rush of adrenaline, he spent the next half hour pushing aside anything in his path to the place he had last remembered the door being. He almost collapsed in elation when the rusty metal of the hatch’s wheel made its appearance from under a partially eaten pizza.
Breaking off a piece of the Breacher’s arm 895G used leverage to turn the wheel and open up the door. He laughed aloud when he realized how ridiculous it was to bring a Breacher in the first place to open a door like this; if he had just done it himself rather than letting the robot do it and maybe he wouldn’t have gotten kidnapped in the first place.
He eased himself down into the darkness, fumbling around the wall to try and find a switch to light up the underground house. Cursing loudly as his shins rammed into the corner of the coffee table, he continued to wander along the walls until he found the switch he’d been looking for. Switching it on, the fluorescent lights of the bunker flickered to life. Now that he was getting a better look at the place and his life wasn’t in danger, the place looked quite homely.
Starting his search in the lab he found that the plants that he had once seen living vibrantly under the lights were withering and beginning to die. Curious about the plants he’d only seen in his textbooks, he could identify a few, but the majority of them were beyond his recollection. Feeling bad, he went to the kitchen and tested the faucet. He was pleasantly surprised the water worked and filled it up to water the plants. It took six trips to give the plants a minimum amount of water and all the while 895G was wondering how water even fed through to the bunker’s base. In fact, how were they even getting electricity?
Everything was supposedly carefully monitored by the GreenHouse Energy Council, which meant that there had to be some report of their usage somewhere unless they were somehow creating their own, which seemed highly unlikely. But in order to be able to access water and sewage pipes, Indo and Petri would have had to dig miles of tunnels and lay down pipes that attached to GreenHouse’s pipes, which would raise flags as well.
Once he had fulfilled his personal desire to water the plants, he began digging around in the papers Indo had left behind on his lab desk. Most of it was hand-written notes about the plants around the room and logs of how much light they received and whenever they were watered. There were other books about bioluminescent flora and their impact on the wildlife along with literature about the changing climates. 895G was surprised to find such ancient writings tucked away in the bunker; they were written before GreenHouse had become a powerhouse company that monopolized every major field of technology and science.
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Grabbing the book about climate change, the Scout flipped through it until he found a picture that struck him odd. It was a picture of a city, but the sky above it was bright blue with a mixture of white and grey clouds resting statically in the sky. He took a closer look seeing if he could see the tampering in the image but found none. Admittedly it did look more relaxing than the red sky outside, but it was unnatural; the sky had always been red, so where did this image originate from? He tried to read the text, but there were too many technical terms that his eyes glossed over the majority of the page and he got nothing out of it. Tearing it out, he stuffed the page in his pants pocket in the hopes of learning more about it. Not finding anything about any secret plans or where Indo and Petri got the water and electricity to power their bunker, he left to visit their rooms.
He waltzed into Peri’s room and was thrown off by the lack of a bed and doubled back, peeking his head into Indo’s room. A large bed filled up the majority of the room, much too large for just one person. 895G could feel a blush rush up his neck when he realized how unobservant he had been while watching the two. Shaking his head clear of inappropriate thoughts, he searched through Indo’s dresser and file cabinet but found nothing noteworthy regarding their source of energy. Instead, there were more articles about GreenHouse’s rise in power and what it meant for the economy and environment. 895G had sworn that he had known everything about GreenHouse since they taught its history at the academy but he’d never been taught of the times before GreenHouse.
Flipping through the pages, he found a map of the world that looked odd. The geography of the land was much larger than it was now; cities that didn’t exist spotted the map on coasts he didn’t recognize. What was going on? He continued flipping through the pages and found more images of blue skies and waters, convincing him that the pictures were indeed taken and not fabricated. Tearing out a few more pages of the oddly-colored sky, he continued his search for more information by looking through Petri’s room but found nothing of importance in there besides a few drawings of odd animals and trees.
His ticker beeped, letting him now that it was early evening. Stretching out his limbs from sitting on the hard floor with whatever papers he had found splayed out around him, 895G called it a day and told himself that he would return later that week to search some more. What he really needed to know what how they were powering their bunker. If someone in the GreenHouse Energy Council was turning a blind eye to the unnatural energy consumption for the landfill, there was a possible conspiracy in his hands. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but he couldn’t think of no other explanation.
Lost in thought his foot slipped on the vast amounts of papers and he came crashing down onto the floor of the room, catching himself painfully on his elbows and knees. A resounding echo came from below him and he remained on all fours perfectly still. Rapping his knuckles against the ground, he heard the hollow sound bounce back at him.
He kept knocking his knuckles against the ground until he found a loose metal plate hidden under a bookshelf. Leaning his weight against it, he revealed the plate and pried it open. 895G couldn’t see anything past ground level and he didn’t feel confident jumping down the dark opening without first knowing how far down it went. He felt around on the inside of the entrance and found a metal ladder about a foot down, completely engulfed in darkness.
The Scout set out to search for something to light his way and found nothing electronic but found that the plants he had watered were letting out a slight glow. Grabbing some wire from the hardware room, he tied one of the plants to the end of the wire and lowered it into the dark basement. He ended up lowering four plants to give him enough light on to reveal the area around the ladder. Sucking in a deep breath, he lowered himself down.
Grabbing two of the plants in each hand, he began exploring the dimensions of the room hidden below. It was small, only about ten by ten feet, so it was a very quick exploration, but there was a large canister that stood in the center of the room. He held the two plants closer to the canister and leaned in to read the small print on the large canister.
Aerial Contaminant #36
Highly Toxic
Do Not Store in Confined Space
Must Wear Protective Gear to Handle
Danger of Death if Inhaled