They walked up to the great door of Shelter 100.

Darkest found the communication terminal on the wall beside the gate. From the VM on his left arm he pulled out a data cable and plugged it into the port below the terminal.

As the signal light flashed green, joy and surprise spread across the players’ faces.

Unbelievable!

After soaking in sewage and trash for so many years, this piece of electronics from two centuries ago could still boot up!

One had to admit, the Federation’s technology was really something else.

While Darkest tapped open the squad’s mini-program to import the electronic key and waited for the bar to load, Chu Guang back at Camp 101 was also monitoring Shelter 100.

Perched on his shoulder, Little Seven suddenly opened its eyes and looked at him. “Master, the terminal shows signs of prior use.”

Chu Guang frowned. “Didn’t the main door never open?”

Streams of data flickered across its pale-blue pupils. It touched her chin and muttered, “Mm... the door’s power system was indeed shut down for two centuries, but there’s an access record from 2190.”

2190...

That would be the 61st year of the Wasteland Era?

Chu Guang nodded, thoughtful.

It wasn’t hard to explain.

According to Dr. Methods, Camp 101 had once tried to explore Shelter 100 but abandoned the attempt due to the poor conditions.

Shelter 101 itself had been activated after the Post-War Reconstruction Committee dissolved, around 2174, in the 45th year of the Wasteland Era.

So between the 45th and 61st year, Camp 101 may well have emerged. As Methods said, Shelter 101, though isolated, never completely cut contact with the outside, its people enlightened wandering wastelanders and indirectly conducted scientific surveys.

Back then, the wasteland wasn’t yet swarming with extreme mutated lifeforms. With diving gear, residents of 101 could easily have reached Shelter 100’s entrance.

While man and AI exchanged words, Darkest’s VM had already obtained authorization to start the entrance to the shelter.

And then, a silver metal sphere appeared on the terminal’s screen.

“Welcome, friends of the future! You finally found us, we thought you’d forgotten! By the way, what year is it now? How many colonies do we have? I always said one Aurora Star wasn’t enough! With a hundred Auroras, none of those headaches would’ve happened!”

Darkest couldn’t understand half of it, so he answered the part he did.

“It's the year 2342 of the Federation Era according to you, and the 213th year of the Wasteland Era. Sorry, we’re still in the homeworld... Hey, don’t you even have a clock?”

The sphere froze, jittering anxiously. “Wait, still on the homeworld? You mean we don’t have colonies on a single Aurora Star? Impossible! What about Distant Star? The Ideal Colony Ship had to have arrived there by now!”

Distant Star?

Darkest thought a while, then recalled what it was. The Distant Star was the Enterprise’s Ideal Colony Ship’s original target. His face twisted. “Nope... if you mean the Ideal Colony Ship, they never left the solar system. They grounded themselves in the Among Clouds Province and built a city with the standards of a colony and took in survivors.”

The silver sphere seemed stunned, clacking its hopper-like mouth, and after a long pause muttered, “What a waste...”

Darkest had no clue what was being wasted. He cared more what this thing actually was.

“I’m Darkest. And you? What should I call you?”

“Bell. That’s what they called me, because when I walked or spoke I clanged like a rusty bell. My designer built me 55,845 work cycles ago. He thought when the door opened again, it would be a new world and someone would take me to a museum. Looks like that dream’s gone.” Its antenna drooped as it rambled on, half answering, half lamenting its fate.

Darkest did the math. If a work cycle meant a day, then over 55,000 cycles meant... over 150 years!

The creature had existed since around the 60th year of the Wasteland Era, surviving all the way to the 213th year!

Bell glanced at Darkest counting on his fingers.

“So you’re Darkest... You really are dark.”

Looking at his mud-splattered armor, Darkest slapped his chestplate and rolled his eyes. “Anyway, can you open the door? We already gave you the password.”

Bell buzzed, “Of course. You can enter anytime, just press that open button on your terminal. Or do you think every door should open itself for you?”

Rolling his eyes, Darkest tapped the screen.

With a grinding quake, the massive steel gear rolled aside, opening a passage wide enough for two vehicles.

A stairway led down into a broad hall. At the far end stood an airlock, its two sealed doors bearing small transparent windows.

Orange warning lights blinked alive as shadows danced across the floor with clanks and clangs.

The whole shelter was like an old gas engine, begrudgingly coughing to life after ages of silence.

On Darkest’s VM, the fusion reactor was reigniting. Systems were switching from backup to full power.

Watching from Camp 101, Chu Guang was moved.

Shelter 100’s reactor still had fuel!

As Darkest stood stunned, several Ghostface Bugs darted out. He reflexively raised his gun.

“Wait! They’re harmless!” Bell panicked at his motion, but too late, Darkest already squeezed the trigger.

Gunfire echoed. The bugs splattered on the corroded corridor floor.

Bell wailed in protest. “You butcher! You killed them all!”

Staying sharp, Darkest signaled five teammates to sweep the hall while he held the entrance.

Lowering his gun, he sighed, “They’re harmless to you because you’re a machine. To us, they’re hostile creatures, we fought them all the way here.”

Bell froze. “Wait, you mean... you saw them outside?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Incredible...” Bell muttered in astonishment. “Impossible. The door hasn’t opened once since it was sealed. They couldn’t have gone outside... unless there’s a leak? That’s strange.”

Behind Darkest, Ten Punch Man and Broken Leg Kevin exchanged glances.

“Feels familiar, doesn’t it?”

“Yep.”

Frowning at Bell’s surprise, Darkest asked, “You know about those creatures?”

Bell cleared its throat before speaking again. “Of course. They’re called ‘Crunchies.’ Rich in chitin, natural polymer, premium industrial raw material. They also provide protein and nutrients, feeding on nothing but trash. I’m not exaggerating. They are one of this museum’s, oh no, this shelter’s, greatest achievements.”

Darkest twitched his brow.

Aggressive pests like that, great? Really?

“We call them Ghostface Bugs.”

Bell laughed eerily, echoing through the dark tunnel. “Ghostface Bugs? That name works too... call them what you like. This place is yours now.”

“Can you show us around?” Darkest asked.

The silver sphere didn’t hesitate and started to bob up and down. “Of course. That’s my job. Follow me.”

And with that, Bell turned and rolled ahead.

Just as Darkest was hesitating about how exactly to follow him, the iron gate of the hall ahead hissed open.

A silver metal sphere sat quietly on the head of a flat, basin-sized spider-robot.

“What are you waiting at the door for? Come in.”

Darkest exchanged glances with the others, then followed the robot that called itself Bell through the two airlocks and into Shelter 100.

The situation wasn’t as bad as expected. Even after years submerged, no sewage had seeped inside, and even Bell, who had lived inside for a century and a half, couldn’t figure out how those bugs had managed to escape.

Still, the situation was far from good.

The Shelter was overrun with Crunchies, or Ghostface Bugs. They had built nests everywhere, filling every crack like cockroaches. Black feces smeared the floor and their greasy molted shells and fist-sized eggs scattered everywhere.

At the sound of their weird screeches, Darkest and his teammates instinctively raised their rifles.

A burst of gunfire later, dozens of bugs lay dead, their eggs burst into pools of green pulp.

Bell, steering the quadruped’s legs to step over the remains, no longer called them butchers. Instead, he gently reminded them, “These are valuable things. The discarded shells are rich in chitin, excellent for making high-performance polymers. Most electronic devices and machines need it.”

Darkest ignored Bell. Staring at the corpses and filth, he swapped magazines and reported back with a shudder: “... This is Darkest. I’ve entered Shelter 100. The place is covered in bug droppings and eggs. There are tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of them. I suggest shutting down air circulation and coming back in a few days.”

Now, he understood where those mutant water striders came from.

It was these little pests all along!

Static crackled, then Spring Water Commander’s voice came through. “I’ve reported to the administrator. His reply is that Shelter 100’s ventilation system is malfunctioning. The diagnostics suggest the intake filters are clogged, maybe with eggs, maybe with shells. The Ghostface Bugs here must’ve leaked out through that.”

Darkest winced. “So... There are no efficient way to clear them out?”

What, shoot them all one by one? At least give them a can of bug spray!

Spring Water Commander snapped, “No shortcuts. Unless you fix the system on level B2. But that means clearing them out from both level B1 and level B2 first, then letting Camp 101’s HVAC masters in. That’s later. Our real job today is different.”

He cleared his throat. “Our main objective is to recover the black boxes stored in the warehouse on level B40. There should be about 20 of them, but you’ll know once you’re there. Next, retrieve the administrator logs in the office on level B51. And, there’s a suspicious human life signal on level B100. Doesn’t match normal readings. The first two are the main mission while the last is optional.”

Optional, he says...

And the Shelter had 100 floors!

Darkest rolled his eyes. “Can’t you come in and help?!”

Spring Water Commander chuckled sheepishly. “Sorry, bro. I’ve got the same bug problem you do... I already admitted I’m a little doggy! I’m better when it comes to commanding than fighting. Don’t worry though! I added 100 brothers to your team and you’ve got a whole company now. And once you’re back, the credit’s yours!”

“Son of a...!”

There were too many things to complain about and he just cursed and cut the channel.

Bell, oblivious to the grumbling, rolled on ahead and spoke like a tour guide. “...The great Shelter 100 once sheltered 30,300 residents. At its peak, 81,711 people lived here.”

Ten Punch Man gawked. “So many people lived here?”

Spring Water Commander had said it had 100 floors, but Ten Punch Man still couldn’t picture the shelter holding almost a Dawn City’s worth of people.

If it did, it would have to be a whole underground city like Shelter 79.

It clearly wasn’t.

Bell, who seemed unsurprised, chuckled sharply. It stopped before a side door in the hall. “... Your imagination is limited. Not just 80,000 people. This shelter can house 200,000 people if needed.”

As it spoke, the door rose open, revealing a vast world inside.

Unlike the claustrophobic tunnels outside, a broad circular corridor ringed an enormous hollow shaft, linking hundreds of rooms.

The shelter was built like a vertical pit, crowned by a glowing dome radiating a pale yellow light.

The glow fell like a sun carved into the cave, shining down the bottomless shaft.

On the inner walls, bug shells formed honeycomb-like towers, shimmering rainbow colors under the light.

It was a solid rainbow. But more shocking still, in the corridor lay heaps of ruined exoframes and machine husks, discarded like trash.

They were classic Federation Type 5 police models and the heavy Type 6 Dragon Cavalry.

Even crablike engineering robots wielding claws could be seen, and it was clear they were once part of the fight.

All of them were pocked with bullet holes, the walls and floor scarred by explosions.

The mutants had devoured all organic material, fusing the machines with resin and shells into the hive walls.

Shelter 100 had become a tomb.

The players stared in stunned silence. Closest to the door, Darkest could only mutter, “Holy shit.”

The lighting! The scene design!

Every frame screamed they had an unlimited budget!

It was awesome.

Pleased at their awe, Bell chuckled like scraping metal. It rode the bot to the edge of the shaft. “Welcome to Shelter 100. You’re likely the first visitors since the doors shut two centuries ago.”

Staring at the wreckage, Darkest asked instinctively, “What happened here?”

Bell answered slowly. “Many, many things. It’s too long to tell. My master recorded it all in his VM, it should still be in the administrator’s office. Go there and you’ll know.”

Darkest pressed further. “Your master was the administrator?”

“The administrator? Impossible. Do other shelters make humans administrators?” Bell laughed. “Here, he was only a supervisor... However, he was remarkable. He lived to the very end. Whether that was luck is another matter.”

Ten Punch Man blinked. “Supervisor?”

Bell replied crisply. “Shelter 100’s administrator wasn’t human. It was an AI, named Tree. It had supreme authority, making optimal decisions based on data from the shelter’s sensors. If a bulb burned out, it knew before the man beneath it, and filed the repair instantly.”

“Supervisors were the residents ensuring Tree’s orders were carried out. They were both shelter dwellers and extensions of its sensors, monitoring the least reliable module of all, the residents themselves.”

It paused, then spoke playfully, “Supervisor was just what my master and colleagues called themselves. Like how you call Crunchies ‘Ghostface Bugs’. The residents didn’t like the official title and they secretly honored them as ‘Treemen’.”