Chapter 22: Enjoying the Luxuries Part 2

Four thousand miles away, in Site 3 beneath the Swiss Alps, the celebration was just as wild, if not more chaotic.

Bloodhound was sprawled out on a massive leather sofa in the bunker’s mezzanine lounge, his muddy combat boots tossed into a corner. In his left hand, he held a crystal tumbler filled to the brim with twenty-year-old Scotch; in his right, a lit Cuban cigar that filled the lounge with fragrant, blue smoke.

Around the low coffee table sat Viper and four other survivors. They had dragged out an entire spread from the preservation vaults: blocks of aged cheddar, cured prosciutto, smoked salmon, and fresh crackers.

"To the thirty!" a man with rock-hard skin yelled, raising a bottle of champagne into the air. "To the survivors!"

"To the survivors!" the room roared back in unison.

Glasses clinked with sharp rings. Alcohol spilled across the glass tabletop, but nobody cared.

Viper took a long, slow drag from a cigarette, leaning her head back against the leather cushion. Her skin, which had been pale and sickly from the mountain frost, had regained a healthy, flushed glow under the warmth of the overhead heat vents.

"I still can’t believe it," she muttered, letting out a thick plume of gray smoke. "I really thought we were going to drown out there. When that mudslide took out our camp last week... I thought that was it."

"We survived because we had the guts to do what needed to be done," Bloodhound grunted, his voice rough from the smoke. He took a heavy swallow of whiskey, feeling the burn settle comfortably in his gut. "Those eight idiots outside? They hesitated. They thought we could talk our way through a locked door. In an apocalypse, hesitation gets you killed."

"Damn right," another player laughed, pouring himself another glass. "We made the cut. Thirty spots. And look what we get for it!"

He gestured wildly to the massive cavern around them.

Beyond the lounge lay the viewing gallery for the underground farm. Through thick glass panes, rows of lush green lettuce, ripe red tomatoes, and leafy spinach bathed in soft violet grow-lights stretched as far as the eye could see. Below the hydroponic racks, large tanks of clear water were bubbling, filled with swimming fish.

"Food for thirty years," the man grinned, shaking his head in disbelief. "Water that tastes like mountain spring. Medical pods that can heal a severed finger. We’re not just surviving down here, boys. We’re living like kings."

"And what about Julius Vance?" a woman asked from the edge of the couch. She was sipping a glass of sweet red wine, her hair still damp from a long shower. "The guy who built all this?"

The room went quiet for a second, then Bloodhound let out a loud, mocking bark of laughter.

"What about him?" Bloodhound sneered, tapping the ash from his cigar onto an empty porcelain plate. "The guy is an idiot. A complete, total moron."

"An idiot with infinite money," Viper pointed out with a lazy smirk.

"Exactly! An idiot with money!" Bloodhound leaned forward, his yellow eyes flashing with drunken arrogance. "He spent hundreds of billions of dollars carving these mountain palaces, stocking them with the best food, the best booze, and the best tech on Earth. And then what did he do? He gave the keys away!"

Laughter rippled through the group.

"He literally broadcasted the coordinates on open radio!" the rock-skinned man chuckled, slapping his knee. "He thought he could buy safety. He thought he could sit on his lonely little island in the Atlantic and feel like a god. But he handed the strongest players on Earth an impregnable base!"

"Once the storm passes," Bloodhound said, his voice lowering into a dangerous, gravelly purr, "we don’t even need to leave. We rest. We train our abilities. We eat his steak and drink his whiskey until our powers evolve. And when the water levels finally drop..."

Bloodhound raised his glass toward the simulated blue sky above them.

"...we take the heavy utility helicopters parked in the lower hangar, fly straight to his little rock, crack his shell open, and take the rest of his toys."

"To Julius Vance!" someone yelled from the bar. "The greatest sponsor in human history!"

"To our generous host!" the room cheered in drunken mockery.

They drank. They sang. They turned the automated kitchen’s fryers on and gorged themselves on fried chicken, burgers, and salted nuts. Two players got into an arm-wrestling match on the granite bar counter, using their enhanced strength to splinter the wood while the crowd shouted and placed bets with gold watches and rings stripped from the dead outside.

In the gym sector, others tested the state-of-the-art weights, reveling in the feeling of fresh air filling their lungs instead of the damp, moldy rot of flooded basements.

They felt invincible.

The Trial had tested them, broken them, and pushed them to the absolute brink of death. But they had conquered it. They had made it through the door. They were the chosen thirty.𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂