Created G.H.O.S.T. System - A Cyberpunk Story

Trace parked the truck well off the road and beside the bunker. The vehicle was still in full view of anyone passing by, but it was less visible than the semi and its trailer would have been. Unfortunately, there was little they could do to actually hide it at their current location. All that was in the area were the burned remains of trees, scrub brush, and rocks.

Once upon a time, the entrance to the bunker would have been completely invisible due to all the trees in the area. After they had burned down though, only the blackened spires that had slowly fallen to time remained. There were plenty of new-growth trees, but their growth had been largely stunted. Despite the number of years that had passed since the fire, none of them had grown taller than ten feet tall at the highest point.

Now, the bunker's entrance was invisible more due to having been buried in rocks. The husks of old trees helped as well, just not as much as they once had.

They each grabbed one of the loaded duffel bags Monroe had prepared. Inside the bags were shovels, picks, and various explosives.

Monroe stretched himself out with a slight groan. Menders always added extra items to their patient's bodies when they performed a cyberware upgrade. Titanium bones, or ceramic-coated carbon fiber if they needed something even lighter, along with countless sections of synth-muscle. All of that was done in order for the user's body to have as easy a time adjusting to the changes as possible, among other things. Normal bones and muscles would struggle with the sudden increase in weight.

Despite these changes, they were still limited, and only done on part of the body. Monroe's arm was large and heavy. He had, of course, had those same synth-muscles and bone replacements performed on the side that his cyberware arm was on.

What that meant in this case was that the muscles on the other side of his body were always tensing in odd and subtle ways in order to keep his spine and general posture straight.

Everyone had to stretch out the odd kinks and tightened muscles now and again. Some just had it worse than others was all. Trace's cyberware arm was far lighter than Monroe's. Vinna-Kwoi had done a good job on it on the whole.

Monroe finished stretching, loosening the muscles that had tightened uncomfortably during the drive over. Grabbing one of the picks, he gave it a single spin and then slammed its chisel top down on a large rock. It took a couple more swings before the rock broke down the middle, each hit breaking off small chunks.

While he was busy breaking rocks, Trace had put on a pair of gloves and was moving the smaller pieces out of the hole. Over the next hour, they worked together to break up the rocks and dig out the space, making the hole larger as they did so. The explosives ended up being unneeded with how strong Monroe's arm was breaking the rocks with relative ease.

The door itself was a piece of heavy metal construction, not quite on the level of an old vault door, but definitely bunker quality. It was designed to swing inward and absolutely covered in rust everywhere that the protective paint had been worn off.

Trace took hold of the wheel on the door, and with a light twist, the metal flaked away, and it fell to the ground in a useless lump.

"Haven't you ever heard of having a gentle touch?" Monroe joked from behind him. "No wonder you and Ko haven't made any progress. I wouldn't let you touch me either, if that is your idea of being gentle."

Trace flipped him off and took a few steps back. "I'd like to see you do better."

The large man knelt down and peered at the spot where the wheel had been. There was a small piece of undamaged metal that had been holding it on, while the rest of the metal bar had been rusted through.

"Yeah, there is no way we're getting this door open the normal way. If this is what that looks like, then I can pretty much guarantee the inside is a complete rusted and seized mess as well."

"Hmm, explosives or guns, then?" Trace asked, wishing that they had brought one of the welding units. Those had been useful to have around more often than not. He just didn't have a unit for the truck or the car, for that matter. The small laser welder he had was in the basement because that is where he used it. "We might need to get a couple of extra small welding units to stick in all of the vehicles we use." He suggested as an afterthought.

"That's a good idea, though a small unit wouldn't be effective on this door, outside of the rust portions." He shrugged. "The revolvers will shake all the rust free and possibly punch through the door itself. But it would still be locked. Your railgun will obviously punch through it and then keep ongoing, ruining anything on the other side. I think explosives are our best bet."

The explosive in question was some sort of paste that you brushed on with the provided applicator. It was something another one of Monroe's mysterious 'friends' had whipped up. There were apparently two different versions of it, depending on how stupid you wanted to be.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

They had gotten the first version, which could be controlled. The batch they had came with six timer charges and six remote charges. Just stick the one you wanted in and run, after having set the timer, of course, if that was the one you used.

The second version of the paste was far more explosive, and generally uncontrollable as it held a degree of randomness to when it actually went off. That particular variant was sensitive to oxygen, moisture, and air in general. Each batch needed to be created special as no matter how well you sealed it, the timer still tended to begin during the process eight times out of ten.

Needless to say, his friend didn't particularly enjoy making that variant, either.

In this particular instance, Monroe smeared the goop all around the edges and then ran lines toward the middle where the wheel had been. He gooped some more into the rusty hole and then stuck a remote-activated charge in it. The last step was semi-optional and involved the use of a UV light to quickly cure the mixture. It would work either way, but the curing process helped to direct the force of the blast in the chosen direction.

"That going to be enough?" Trace asked, eying the thin lines his partner had made.

"If anything, it's going to be too much. This is some potent stuff." Monroe pushed him away from the hole they had cleared, and together they hid behind the truck. "I'd cover my ears if I were you." Taking his own advice, he covered his ears while holding the detonator in one hand.

He checked to make sure that Trace had his ears covered and then pushed the button.

The ground trembled and even with everything muffled, the explosion was LOUD. They hadn't moved nearly far enough away for how much of the paste Monroe had placed on the door.

Dust and dirt clogged the air for the next few minutes, lighting up the area of the explosion like a beacon for anyone curious enough to investigate.

Covering his face with a scarf, Trace cursed and opened the passenger side door of the truck to grab his railgun. If they were going to have visitors, then he wanted to be prepared.

"Oh, son of a-" He glared at Monroe. "You owe me a new window!"

The window on his driver's door had spider-webbed from the force of the explosion. It was supposed to be bulletproof glass as well. He was just lucky no one had thought to toss any Mach 10 baseballs at him. Raiders were a weird bunch sometimes. They would spend top credit on their modifications, ask them to do the same on their armor though… and well, this happened.

"Sorry, I told you, the stuff is potent." He said with a shrug, already heading toward the bunker door that was hopefully now taken care of.

"Yeah, I would say it's potent." Trace agreed softly when they saw the crater where the door had once been. "Can I put in an order for like a gallon of that stuff? I have no idea what I would use it for, but if I ever need to destroy a building…"

"Yeah, right, like I would ever trust you with this stuff. I've seen the destruction you reap with that toy you're carrying right now. I don't even want to imagine what you might do with this stuff. Maybe in ten years when you're more mature."

"You suck-But, that is actually probably smart," Trace agreed as they picked their way down the hole.

The door and the first six or so feet of the hallway directly behind it had completely vanished. Either vaporized or sent to the special place where cosmic dust particles were made.

Cracks lined the walls of the corridor, and an entire section of the ceiling had collapsed. For all of that, it was still passable. They would just need to be careful not to cause a cave-in or they would be screwed.

Treading carefully and turning on their flashlights, they wound past the debris and farther into the bunker.

"As strange as it sounds, I think we might have entered through the backdoor," Monroe said after they had entered the main section of the bunker. "I'm pretty sure this ladder was the main entrance. All of this must have been built beneath someone's house."

"It doesn't look like it has seen use in years either way," Trace muttered, running his finger along a surface and creating a clear line through the thick layer of dust. "I counted seven doorways. Let's go through each one and see what we can find."

Monroe waved him on. "You get started with those; I want to see what is inside this desk."

The first room was the desiccated remains of a bedroom. The bed and its coverings had all been eaten away over the years, leaving nothing but the frame and a few scrap pieces of foam. The dresser to the side was little better. Each drawer that he pulled open released a cloud of mold and dust, revealing the husks of dead bugs and what had once been clothes. There was nothing useful, or even useable, in the room.

The second room was a bathroom.

Next up was a kitchen with an attached pantry. After that, came what was undoubtedly the largest room in the form of an underground grow room. Surprisingly, the lights still worked, though all the plants had long since died from neglect.

The fifth room was a storage room, the sixth was another bedroom in the same condition as the first, save for the leathery skeleton lying on the floor. He assumed it had once been on the bed, but it had been eaten away. The last room was a mixed water-filtration and hydro pump in case the power grid failed. It had happened, though not for a very long time.

Then again, there was no telling just how old this bunker was, outside of old.

Having checked each of the rooms, Trace went back to the storage room and began scouring the items there. Much of the paper-based goods had been nibbled to pieces by the bugs and were complete losses. There were hundreds of unidentifiable store-bought canned goods, and several dozen homemade canned goods.

He didn't really want to touch the homemade goods, considering how dark the inside each of them was. Even he had his limits on what he would willingly eat and anything that resembled sewer material was it.

Unfortunately, around half the cans were bulging obscenely, marking them as spoiled. There was probably still a market for them, but he personally wouldn't be responsible for feeding it. Not now, at least. He had finally gotten somewhat comfortable credit-wise. If he had stumbled across those cans a year ago, well… He probably would have eaten them instead of selling them anyway.