Gabriel locked the heavy steel door behind them, sealing the daylight and fresh air outside, leaving Clara standing in a musty antechamber which led to a staircase.

“This way,” Gabriel said, flitting past them down the stairs. His footsteps rang in the confined space, disappearing underground. A dim fluorescent light shone through the steel mesh of the stairs, but it was too dim to navigate by. Clara turned her headlamp on and followed him, Andy at her back.

The smell of body odour and mould greeted her in the stairwell shaft. Based on the information James had given her, she had expected a vault with many adjoining habitation quarters and facilities, however as they descended the final stairs through the ceiling of the main room, she realised that Gabriel’s domicile was a simple bunker. A large, cluttered space, the bunker was lit by three UV tube lamps, casting everything in a fuzzy glow. Clara lowered the brim of her cap to stop herself getting a headache.

An array of computers in a dusty pile sat beneath a long desk, atop which a handful of monitors hummed, most inactive, their LED standby lights on. Two screens contained video feeds of the exterior door, combined with real-time readings of the bunker’s life support systems and strings of code. One more monitor displayed a sultry cartoon of a young woman, partially covered up by a small alert window. The stylistically drawn, big-eyed, even bigger breasted woman was spilling yoghurt or some other substance over her barely-fitting top, sticking her tongue out like a dog on a hot day.

Gabriel leapt into his chair and quickly maximised a coding window, hiding the image behind it. His ill-fitting flowery shirt draped over his shoulders like a shawl, bleached jeans torn off at the knees to make tight fitting shorts. The sandals he wore exposed his crooked toenails. Clara had never before seen an outfit like it in the wasteland.

Spinning to face them, Gabriel fidgeted with a flip knife, stealing not too subtle glances at Clara while she observed the room.

“Nice place,” she said, holding her breath.

“What a shithole,” Andy said.

Gabriel chuckled, fading to a sigh. “Please don’t disturb that pile,” he pointed. “It’s quite precarious, very carefully balanced.”

“Alright then,” Clara said, avoiding a tower of junk beneath the staircase. Near Gabriel’s computer station was a wide, knee-high shelf covered in piles of clothes, cardboard boxes full of electrical equipment, paper and pens, and magazines. It was only when Clara spotted a stained mattress beneath the mess that she realised it was supposed to be a bed. An alcove in one wall contained a sliding door, behind which was a simple shower, the walls of which were spotted with black mould. The laminate floor beneath her feet was sticky where it wasn’t covered in empty food tins and cartons, each with their own ecology thriving in their scraped-out remains. A large fan spun behind a grate, built into the wall, laboriously spinning to cycle the stale air out of the bunker for fresh oxygen. By the smell of things, the ventilation system was losing the battle.

Gabriel walked over to a tiny kitchen area beside the shower. It contained a sink, a kettle and an airfryer. “I haven’t had guests in quite some time,” he said, turning the tap’s creaky handle. To her surprise, the water came out looking clear, until it hit the sink’s dirty basin. “But be assured, I have requisitioned the finest coffee in all the land.” The short man retrieved a jar of instant coffee from a cupboard and began to stab its contents with his flip knife, breaking the solidified grains into chunks, plopping each into a mug.

Andy started opening cupboards beside Gabriel, looking for something. He was a good two heads taller than their host. The bunker-dweller looked at him alarmed, then shrunk away, fixing his attention on the kettle. “What are you looking for, sir?”

“Booze.” Andy bent to check the draws beneath the worktop. They were full of rations. Clara guessed that Gabriel must have information on a good place to scavenge nearby if he was so well stocked.

Gabriel rummaged through a plastic crate of mostly-empty bottles and withdrew a whiskey liquor, splashing a drop in one of the mugs. “Ah, an alcoholic twist, I can accommodate… in a gist.” Before he could screw the cap back on, Andy swiped the bottle from his hands and took a swig, then picked up the plastic crate and carried it over onto the bed. Andy rifled through the selection of dusty bottles, topping one off at a time.

Gabriel watched helplessly. His mouth shaped words, but no sound came out. Finally, he bowed his head and returned to making the coffee.

“Nice place,” Clara lied, picking through the rubbish to stand behind him. “How long have you lived here?”

“Five years,” he said, absorbed in his coffee-stirring, refusing to face her.

“Where does the power come from?” Clara leant on the counter beside him.

“Underground streams. The primary battery has a large capacity. I upgraded the life support’s root coding to be more efficient, so I can keep this place running indefinitely, assuming I don’t overdo it with electricity.”

“It’s impressive.” If she looked past the mess, the bunker actually seemed like a pretty convenient place to live, assuming the facilities like the shower still worked. “Just you living here?”

Gabriel laughed, then went quiet. His eyes flicked to Clara, then back to his coffee. “Are you joking?”

“Erm… No.”

“I live alone, but that’s how I like it.” With a meek chuckle, Gabriel handed Clara her coffee, then carried the other over to Andy, who pointedly ignored him, rifling through the spirits. Gabriel fitted the coffee mug atop a cluttered bedside cabinet, pushing into a stack of junk which toppled at the opposite end, spilling debris onto a pile of dirty clothes. Clara couldn’t help but smile; it reminded her of the cascading penny machines in the arcade where her grandparents had taken her on her eleventh birthday, perhaps a month before the cataclysm had occurred. She had long since forgotten their faces, but an impression remained–a childhood without worries, full of love, where Clara was a little girl being treated by her grandparents, going on adventures, discovering things about the world.

The memory faded, and with it, a warmth at her core. Clara fiddled with her silver watch, hands over her solar plexus, as she reluctantly returned to the present.

Shuffling over to his computer desk, Gabriel crossed his legs and held his mug in his lap. “Like I informed you previously, I don’t have much in the way of earthly possessions to trade, only what you see here.”

“Guns?” Andy said.

“No, I’m somewhat of a pacifist myself.

“Ammunition?” Clara asked. “Explosives?”

Gabriel shook his head.

“What do you do?”

“I enjoy coding.” Gabriel smiled, staring into his coffee mug, too nervous to look her in the eye for more than a split second.

“What do you code?” Clara sat near him on the edge of the bed.

“Oh, just hobby projects. This and that. It’s good escapism. There’s a whole separate world inside each of these machines. A whole other architecture, laws and actors. It’s easy to forget the world outside. Sometimes…”

Clara waited for him to finish the thought, but Gabriel remained silent. He was seemingly shy, yet enthusiastic when on the right subject. “What do you think of this?” Clara showed him her wrist terminal. “It’s Bulwark tech.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Ah, interesting. I’ve dabbled in their OS. But, I prefer my own.”

“Last techie I showed this to lost his nut.” Clara smiled, catching Gabriel’s elusive gaze. “I guess you nerds aren’t all the same, afterall?”

Gabriel fidgeted with his glasses, sipped his coffee, then jumped out of his seat. “How rude, I haven’t shown you my display.” At the opposite end of the computer desk were three rows of shelves, like any other surface in the room, covered in clutter. However, the clutter atop the shelves was especially eclectic: books, magazines and rectangular cases with fantastical front covers provided the backdrop to miniature army soldiers and figurines, a bag of emerald dice, an ornate chess set and pack of cards. Beneath the orange glow of the desk lamp was a painting station. Sat in the centre of the station was a garden gnome, mostly painted except for its eyes, which remained a blank white.

One at a time, Gabriel picked his prized models off the display shelf and showed them off to Clara. She smiled and nodded and acted impressed, curiously analysing the unusual man’s behaviour. Technically, this was a business negotiation, not show and tell. She had learned to appear firm in front of an employer, but not arrogant; to bargain hard, but never insult a man’s honour, because they were often quite insecure about that. Gabriel, however, was like a puppy dog unable to sit still. Though appearances could be deceptive. He must possess some unforeseen quality which had allowed him to survive the apocalypses for so long, and with such a comfortable setup underground. But Clara hadn't seen it yet.

“Any more booze?” Andy was standing over her shoulder holding an empty bottle. The UV light from the ceiling lamps seemed to get absorbed in his long black fringe, casting a deep shadow over his pale face, from which only his long nose protruded.

Gabriel paused, a dinosaur-like alien figurine in his hand. “That was… everything I had.”

Andy glared at him silently.

“Well,” Clara said, keeping a soft touch to her voice. “Normally we ask for more payment than a few half-empty bottles of alcohol.”

Gabriel looked at his feet, then around his bunker. Clara followed his gaze to a stack of dusty boxes. Behind them was an open doorway, barricaded by clutter. It reminded Clara of a caved-in tunnel, where only the roof of the room beyond was visible.

“What’s behind there?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “I used it for storage when I first moved in here, and then, well, I ran out of room, as you can see.”

Rising, Clara rifled through the contents of the boxes: pots and pans were piled amongst computer parts; a framed painting of a nude woman draped in silk, its glass smashed; a road sign with a large exclamation mark painted on it and an acoustic guitar missing all but its thickest string. Curiosity got the better of her. “You play?”

“Erm, yes actually.” Gabriel took the guitar and proceeded to sit with it, plucking a jaunting riff. He stopped and started again, muttering to himself, then after a couple tries atonally sang the lyrics. “Smoke on the water.” A little more guitar. “Fires in the skies.”

“Very nice,” Clara said. For some reason, she had the impulse to encourage him. It was as though the destitution of the wasteland hadn’t reached Gabriel’s bunker. He was adorably meek and with a sporadic excitement. It had its charm.

“It’s getting dark,” Andy said. He was rummaging through a landslide of junk burying a weights machine–colourful shirts exhibiting exotic flowers and birds were draped over the machine’s pulley cables like clotheslines. “If this is a bust…”

“We should leave,” Clara finished, her heart sinking. She’d had high hopes of slipping into a new job, whether it was salvaging the technology of an abandoned vault, or working for its inhabitants. She should have known Gabriel’s distress signal was too good to be true–too conveniently timed after she had rejected the New Patricians’ proposal. Of course, the only affluent faction they’d come across outside of Quadra were crazy crusaders, none-too-subtly eager to breed her for their nation’s glory. Clara would take being a mercenary over that any day, even if that left them broke.

Clara checked her terminal. Ever since updating her maps with James, they displayed the locations of several small pockets of human civilisation throughout the wasteland. Gabriel’s bunker was currently on the outskirts of a relatively minor apocalypse zone and within two-days’ uninterrupted drive of two major settlements they hadn’t yet visited. Those settlements might not be friendly, nor have the expendable resources to hire mercenary work, but it was a good place to start. Still, it might be months before they sorted out a decent employer, all the while they’d have to sleep rough and dodge apocalypse zones.

Then an idea occurred to her.

“You might want to turn that distress signal off now,” Clara nodded at the computer monitors. “Wouldn’t want to attract any undue attention.”

“Ah, yes.”

“Can you receive signals too?”

“Of course.” Gabriel turned on two of the idle monitors, tapping on his keyboard, pulling up several windows and diagrams. “There’s an array on the hilltop which I added to my network. It allows me to send and receive signals from quite far.”

“Interesting,” Clara said. “Are you looking for tenants?”

“Tenants?”

“Andy and I could use a place to stay for tonight, and maybe for a couple weeks after that. Maybe a month.”

“I don’t think…” Gabriel started. “It’s very cramped.”

“I’ve slept in worse. And there’s a spare room there, right?” She nodded at the cluttered cave-in. “Though, you might want to open the door and let some fresh air in. Andy, wanna go do that?”

Andy marched up the stairs wordlessly.

Gabriel stammered. “Hold on. But what about the trolls?”

“You don’t need to worry about trolls for the time being.”

“I don’t think all of this is necessary. There isn’t exactly the room for three people down here.”

“Yeah, we’re going to need to clean up a bit,” Clara said. “You can start by clearing the bed.”

“I don’t know you. I don’t want you living with me. I’m sorry.”

“Well, until you can figure out another way to pay us, that’s what we’re going to be doing.” Clara slung her backpack onto the floor, making a show of loosening her submachine gun strap.

Above them came the sound of the exit door creaked on its heavy hinges and a draft of cold air wafted into the bunker. Using two plastic bags for gloves, Clara boxed up the mouldy cans of food littering the floor, instructing Gabriel to attend to the worst of the mess. After three trips of carrying the rubbish outside, Clara had cleared the bed and made a neat path to the toilet and kitchen. It would take days to clean the bunker properly, and supplies like bleach, which Gabriel didn’t possess. Sitting on the bed, she examined her work while Gabriel openly sulked at his computer desk, playing with his flip knife. If it were anyone else, she might take the blade as a threat, but it seemed more like a toy in Gabriel’s hands.

“You said you can receive signals.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel said sullenly.

“Bring up the list, please.” Clara examined the log, but the identifiers were all unintelligible to her–strings of seemingly random numbers and characters. “What am I looking at here?”

“This is the data log for the past twelve months,” Gabriel said, changing the filter. “And this is current activity.” The list was blank for a few seconds, then a signal blinked.

“What was that?”

“Oh, that’s always been there, on and off. Errant signal from a site of interest.”

“A distress signal?”

“Erm, no, more like a radio footprint. Nothing of the spoken language, however, if you spend four years decoding the information like I have…” Gabriel flicked on two more computer monitors, accruing an array of windows displaying graphs, schematics, strings of code and notably: a video feed. The feed displayed grainy, static footage of a cliffside. The only reason Clara could tell it was a video and not a photograph was the red ‘recording’ circle and clock counter in the bottom right. Gabriel manipulated the video feed, zooming out to reveal a highway jam of derelict vehicles.

“What’s powering the camera?” Clara asked.

“Solar panels.” Gabriel spun his cursor in circles around a shady patch of the cliff’s edge. “That’s where the entrance is.”

“Entrance to what?”

“A vault. Pre-cataclysm, from what I can decipher of their netcode. No communications. Nobody going in or out. It’s been silent as long as I’ve been here. Abandoned.”

Clara eyed the data on the monitors. “Are you sure it’s abandoned?”

“I’m certain.” Gabriel paused for a moment, then his head snapped around to face hers. “What’s more, I’m sure that it possesses a fully stocked armoury, and supplies and habitation facilities for five-hundred people. I can direct you there, if you’d like?”

Clara leaned forward intently. “And the front doors are in-tact? Nobody has blown them in yet?”

“Nope, it’s all in-tact. Perfect condition, unopened, still in box. Now, doesn’t that sound like a finer place to live than this?”

“If the salvage there is as good as you say, it would cover your debt to us.” More than cover it, Clara thought. “But how do we get inside?”

“With this.” Gabriel picked up a dome shaped device. Its reflective metal surface was hexagonally segmented, with a control panel on its flat bottom. “Modified military-grade tech. I call it the dimachaeron.”

“Explosive?”

“No,” Gabriel said, holding the device aloft, letting the light of the UV lamps shimmer across its domed surface and reflect in his glasses. “A hacker’s delight. A key.”