Season 3 chapter 24
The Vandalized Doorway
The four of them piled into Kniya's private emergency elevator, dropping deep beneath the subterranean parking garage.
The elevator doors slid open to reveal a massive, heavily fortified concrete corridor ending in a giant, impenetrable titanium vault door. Bolted directly onto the center of the heavy metal door was a massive, glowing, highly expensive neon banner that proudly read: KNIYA'S BUNKER.
Kniya stepped out of the elevator, gesturing grandly at the titanium door.
"Behold!" Kniya bragged, puffing out his chest. "The ultimate survival facility! Located just beneath our main building! Completely nuclear-proof! And you know what it clearly says? Kniya's Bunker. Because I paid for the concrete."
Malesh stopped dead in his tracks. He stared at the glowing neon sign. His petty, highly vindictive instincts instantly flared up.
"Oh," Malesh said, his voice dropping to a dangerously flat register. "So you haven't included my name in this?"
"Why the fuck would I include your name in this fucking bunker?!" Kniya yelled back, highly offended. "You didn't pay for it! You are just a guest!"
"Okay," Malesh deadpanned. "So this is the exact time I need to get my revenge."
Without breaking eye contact with Kniya, Malesh calmly reached into his briefcase. He pulled out a piece of plain white printer paper and a thick, industrial-grade glue stick. He clicked his pen, wrote his name in perfectly neat block letters, uncapped the glue stick, and aggressively slathered the back of the paper.
He walked right up to the multi-million credit titanium door and violently slapped the piece of paper right next to Kniya's glowing neon name.
It now read: KNIYA'S AND MALESH BUNKER.
"What the fuck are you literally doing?!" Filoska yelled, her brain completely frying. She had just been threatened with her brother's murder, and her bosses were currently vandalizing a nuclear vault with stationary supplies. "Can you please just tell me how you got to know about everything?! I understand the phone call, but how did you get to know about the other things as well? The things that happened inside the villa?!"
"Ah! Great question!" Kniya cheered, spinning around to face her right in front of the glued paper. "You know what happened after this thing?! Let us go back to the past again! It is really, really required to understand the sheer genius of my bribery—"
"Bro!" Salesh aggressively interrupted, throwing his hands in the air. "Are you seriously going to explain all of these highly classified espionage things right at the fucking doorway of the bunker?! We should at least have a seat in there and you can discuss it!"
Kniya blinked, looking at the heavy titanium door. "Yeah, alright, alright. Fair point."
The Audio Feed
Kniya punched in a sixteen-digit code, and the heavy vault doors hissed open. They walked into a sprawling, hyper-luxurious underground command center.
As soon as they sat down on the plush couches, Kniya eagerly launched back into his story.
"Okay, so let's go back to the past again," Kniya grinned, leaning forward. "While you were driving to Dontils Villa, I officially texted the royal guard I had already bribed. I paid him to plant covert audio transmitters directly inside Leon's private lounge and the main meeting hall. And as soon as it went live, Malesh, Salesh, and I were sitting right here in Seistain, listening to every single word through the receiver."
(Flashback to six days ago...)
Kniya, Malesh, and Salesh were huddled around the heavy metal audio receiver, expecting to hear a highly sophisticated, terrifying royal conspiracy.
Instead, the speaker crackled to life, and they heard Leon Debestez completely losing his mind at his own bodyguard in the lounge.
"I am officially going to cut your salary down to exactly twenty credits per month! You are going to starve!" Leon's voice shrieked through the speaker.
"Sir, you can't," the guard's voice replied, completely unbothered.
Sitting around the receiver, Salesh's jaw dropped. He immediately pointed a finger at Kniya.
"Kniya!" Salesh yelled over the audio feed, highly amused. "He is literally a royal version of you! Leon is just like you in this way! He is also reducing the salary of his employees to a really, really low amount!"
"I am a pioneer of cost-cutting!" Kniya defended aggressively.
"And look!" Salesh laughed, pointing at the speaker. "His employees are always treating him like a jackass and not giving him that kind of respect he deserves! Just like us with you! He is basically your aristocratic twin!"
"Shut up and listen!" Kniya hissed.
A few minutes later on the audio feed, they heard Filoska finally enter the lounge. Leon cleared his throat, trying to put on his terrifying, formal voice to greet her.
"Ah. Well, Filoska, you have—" Leon started on the wiretap.
"—to become my girl for tonight, Filoska," the guard interrupted seamlessly on the receiver, his voice dripping with sleaze. "It would be a really great dream of mine to take you out."
Around the receiver, the three corporate warlords completely lost their minds.
"Oh my fucking god!" Kniya howled, falling backward onto the sofa, crying with laughter. "The disrespect is absolute!"
"Kniya," Malesh asked, his deadpan voice cracking with genuine amusement as Leon started screaming at the guard on the tape. "Is that the specific guy you hired or basically bribed? Because the dubbing is insane. He completely hijacked the royal greeting."
"Yeah, I know that! He is a total shitjack!" Kniya cackled, wiping a tear from his eye. "He is worth every single credit I paid him! You know what? We should fix Filoska's marriage to Leon eventually! This would be a really great idea! Imagine the corporate synergy!"
"A highly efficient merger," Malesh agreed smoothly, nodding along as they sat around the bunker receiver, mercilessly mocking the supreme leader of the royal family.
The Present Annoyance
(Back in the present time, inside the bunker...)
Filoska sat on the plush bunker sofa, staring at the three men with absolute, hollow disbelief.
"Okay," Filoska said, her voice trembling with pure, unadulterated annoyance. "So on my behind, while I was literally standing in a locked room being threatened by a royal warlord... you guys were literally down here doing this shit? Just eating snacks, listening to the wiretap, and making marriage jokes?"
"Yeah!" Kniya confirmed proudly, completely missing her furious tone. "It was the funniest audio broadcast of the fiscal year! The guard completely ruined his villain monologue!"
The Bunker Broadcast
Deep inside the hyper-luxurious, nuclear-proof bunker, Kniya walked over to the heavy metal audio receiver on the coffee table. He reached behind the machine and pulled out a thick, magnetic audio tape reel.
"Okay, so obviously we already listened to this entire conversation live exactly six days ago," Kniya explained, aggressively loading the tape into the playback deck. "But we specifically recorded the transmission. And for your educational benefit, Filoska, we are going to play the recording again with you so you can understand what a bunch of absolute shitjacks you were dealing with."
"It is highly inefficient to listen to a conversation twice," Malesh deadpanned, grabbing a handful of imported truffle popcorn from a bowl on the table. "But the psychological entertainment value of this specific recording is undeniable."
Kniya slammed the 'PLAY' button.
The bunker speakers crackled to life. Leon Debestez's incredibly formal, exaggerated villain voice echoed into the room.
"The highly classified matter for which I have summoned you... is of the absolute utmost, geopolitical importance," Leon whispered dramatically on the tape.
"Oh, look at him trying to lower his vocal register to sound intimidating," Malesh critiqued immediately, chewing his popcorn. "His pacing is entirely flawed. He sounds like a theater student who forgot his lines."
"You need to write their exact coordinates down on that paper right fucking now," Leon threatened over the speaker. "And if you don't... I will personally verify the coordinates with my top-class, highly elite assassins." "Top-class assassins!" Kniya mocked, doing a spooky ghost wave with his hands. "Ooooh, I am so scared of the royal ninjas! Watch out, Malesh, they might aggressively critique your tie! They might also steal some toilet papers to wipe the ass for Leon!! Ohh ! I am scared !! Hahahaha"
Filoska glared at them from the armchair. "I was literally fearing for my life in that room, you absolute psychopaths."
"Yeah, yeah, hold on, the best part is coming," Salesh grinned, leaning closer to the speaker.
On the tape, Leon yelled for his elite assassin to enter the room. Instead of a terrifying mercenary, the bunker speakers picked up the unmistakable sound of a man loudly chewing on a sandwich.
"Hey. What the fuck is your actual problem, man?" the assassin groaned on the wiretap. "Why do you have to yell like that, you pretentious, royal pain in the ass?" Kniya absolutely lost his mind. He fell sideways onto the sofa, clutching his stomach. "He is eating a fucking sandwich during a classified briefing! The disrespect is legendary! This guy is my new personal hero!"