My phone started buzzing at six twelve in the morning.
For one awful second, I thought it was the sound of teeth clicking beside my ear. I sat up so fast I nearly fell out of bed. Then I saw the notifications.
SOLD. PAID. SOLD.
"Oh, thank God. Just collectors."
Apparently collectors didn't sleep. I had listed nearly every valuable figure before midnight, and people had spent the night fighting over what remained. I checked for actual payments instead of excited messages, carefully marked each order, and nearly dropped my phone.
Even with shipping paid by buyers, the confirmed total was climbing faster than I'd imagined. Some sellers might have accused me of ruining the market by offering pieces at sixty-five percent of their going value. Those sellers had the luxury of expecting next month to exist.
I made coffee, shoved toast into my mouth, and spent two hours boxing orders. One display shelf stood almost empty when I finished. It hurt to look at, but not nearly as much as remembering the first time I'd run out of food.
A blue panel floated beside the shipping labels.
**SYSTEM NOTICE\~**
**Time remaining until Day 0: 13 days.**
"I know. Don't rush me."
I booked a same-day parcel pickup, then opened the property listings I'd saved yesterday.
One stood out: a scrubby hill several miles outside the city, down a county road that branched away from the highway. The description mentioned shallow bedrock in the area, approximately twenty-five feet down. An old survey report was attached, though I'd need someone qualified to verify it.
Eight thousand dollars, cash preferred.
It wasn't pretty. That was the point.
I called the seller before I could talk myself out of it.
---
By nine thirty, I was driving out of town to meet a gray-haired man named Hal, who looked at my notebook as if it contained instructions for building a spaceship.
"You want to buy a hill?"
"More or less."
"Most folks want the views. You're asking how deep the rock goes."
"I have unusual decorating plans."
He snorted and led me along the track. The hillside was covered in stubborn grass and low shrubs, with a stand of trees screening it from the road. The highway was distant enough that I could hear birds instead of engines. Better yet, the shape of the slope offered a place for a concealed entrance leaving the whole tube underground directly on the bedrock. Then be covered again and have a diagonal stairway come up to a hidden door with a double door security room.
I studied drainage lines, access for heavy equipment, and the old report. The geology sounded promising, but rock at twenty-five feet could make excavation harder, not easier. I needed a professional to confirm where the tube should sit.
"Can you close quickly?" I asked.
Hal rubbed his chin. "With clear title and cash? My attorney says we can move fast. Not today, though."
"I'll pay for a rush if the paperwork checks out."
We shook hands on the asking price, subject to title and site checks. I transferred a small earnest-money deposit through the proper channel. The rest would follow at closing.
No fantasy instant purchase. Still, the first real step.
I drove away smiling so hard my cheeks hurt.
---
The next stop was an industrial fabrication yard that advertised buried utility structures and reinforced modular installations.
An enormous circular steel section sat near the fence. I stopped walking.
"That's it. That's exactly what I've been looking for."
Fifty-nine feet long. Ten feet of clear height at the center. The supplier's paperwork listed a burial rating up to forty feet under specified installation conditions, which was considerably more than my intended cover depth. It was priced at thirty thousand dollars.
For the first time, my ridiculous plan looked like something that could exist outside my browser.
A woman in work boots and a dark ponytail stepped out of the office carrying rolled drawings. She was attractive enough to make me forget my carefully prepared opening sentence, with sharp eyes, a confident stride, and an expression that suggested she'd already caught someone making an expensive mistake today.
"You're the man asking about the long culvert module?" she said.
"Yeah. That's me."
A panel appeared so suddenly I jerked.
**POTENTIAL HAREM TARGET DISCOVERED\~**
**Name: Nadia Vale**
**Age: 27**
**Affection: 0%**
**Interests: Structural engineering, practical design, problem-solving**
**TIER 1 REWARD: Modifiable blueprints for base expansion.**
**TIER 2 REWARD: 1,000 feet of expansion for the base.**
**TIER 3 REWARD: Modifiable blueprint for vehicle creation.**
My jaw fell open.
Those weren't rewards. Those were answers to half my problems.
A thousand feet of expansion? An actual vehicle creation blueprint? And blueprints I could modify instead of paying someone every time I needed a new room?
Nadia followed my stare toward the empty space beside her shoulder.
"Do you need a minute?"
I shut my mouth. "Sorry. I just realized how useful your work could be."
"That's a much better reaction than most customers have when I explain drainage."
I made a mental note: get her number before the day ends. Somehow. Without acting like a complete lunatic.
---
Nadia unrolled a drawing on a workbench and immediately destroyed my first design.
"You can't just seal one end, attach a hallway, and throw dirt over the top," she said, tapping the paper. "Loads change with soil, water, bedding, and depth. You need a properly engineered foundation, end closure, waterproofing, ventilation, and an escape route. And your water tanks alone are heavy."
"So it's possible?"
"Possible isn't the same as safe. But yes, if the site checks out and the work is done correctly."
I told her about the hillside, the old survey, and the deadline. I left out the part about everyone eating each other in thirteen days.
"Why the rush?" she asked.
"Family circumstances. I need a place that's mine, secure, and functional as soon as possible."
She looked skeptical. Reasonably.
A stocky man named Brent wandered over with a tape measure hanging from his belt. He caught me watching Nadia sketch a stronger entrance connection.
"Careful, buddy," he said with a grin. "She's easy if you've got enough money and a love for engineering." He winked so broadly I thought something had gotten in his eye.
"Brent," Nadia said, without looking up, "the last man you told that to tried buying me flowers instead of reading the load specifications. I rejected both his proposal and his terrible drainage plan."
Brent burst out laughing and retreated.
Easy, my ass.
Nadia looked up. "If you're trying to impress me, ask a useful question."
I pointed to the drawing. "What happens if groundwater collects along this seam?"
For the first time, she smiled without reservation.
We spent the next hour working through the practical details. She drew a reinforced entrance corridor reaching the surface, a weather-sealed door, and a second emergency egress to be included in the final engineering review. I explained my priorities: rechargeable battery banks, solar charging, hand cranks, and a bicycle generator rather than gasoline fumes in a closed space.
"Good," she said. "A generator indoors would be dangerous. But don't confuse a bicycle charger with enough power to run a freezer all day. You need real energy storage and a sensible load plan."
"So the hottub is probably not my biggest electrical problem?"
She blinked. "You're putting a hottub in underground?"
"I'm kidding I'm more financially responsible than that."
She laughed, then started penciling layouts into the plans.
---
By early afternoon, we had a preliminary estimate: around sixty-eight thousand dollars for the land, thirty-thousand-dollar tube, excavation, engineered support, sealing, entrance work, and initial installation. Appliances, power equipment, and other furnishings would have to be budgeted separately. The estimate depended on site conditions; nothing was guaranteed until checks and contracts were complete.
I also gave her the list of things I'd eventually want inside: my fifty-two-inch television, gaming computer and console, a shelf of cheap paperbacks, the used pool table, a large refrigerator, a deep freezer for hundreds of pounds of food, an electric stove and oven, and easy-clean cookware.
Then I described the five-hundred-gallon clean-water tank, separate dirty-water tank, and the thirty-stage purification system I'd been researching.
"That's ambitious," she said. "A treatment system needs to be matched to what you're filtering. We'll need a specialist to verify the water is safe, not just a machine with thirty impressive labels."
"Fair. I'd rather drink boring water than exciting bacteria."
Before leaving, I asked, "Would it be all right if I sent you the rest of my sketches? I don't want to make an expensive mistake overnight."
"Use the office email," she said, handing me a card.
I nodded and started toward the door. No pushing. She'd been generous with her time already.
"Wait," she called.
I turned.
"The office closes at five, and your deadline is absurd. Here." She took the card back, wrote a number on the reverse, and returned it. "That's my personal number. Project questions only until I decide whether you're as interesting as your bunker."
"That's a pretty high standard."
"It's a very interesting bunker."
I smiled. "Then I'll bring better questions."
Her answering smile was small, but real.
**NADIA VALE — AFFECTION: 6%.**
I walked out feeling like I'd won an entire kingdom without drawing a sword.
---
The afternoon turned into phone calls, invoices, and shipping labels. My collectible listings kept disappearing as buyers snapped them up. By dinner, the very last piece had a confirmed buyer, and the sale records showed one hundred twenty-three thousand five hundred dollars in gross sales. Some payments were still processing, but every item was spoken for, with buyers covering shipping.
I stared at the total, then laughed until I had tears in my eyes.
"I was hoping for ninety thousand. Grandma, I actually did it."
I'd sold an entire room of treasures in less than two days. I felt a small pang of loss when the parcel pickup rolled away, carrying the first batches, but the money could become something far more valuable than plastic and paint.
A place to survive.
I listed my house for fifty-seven thousand dollars, explicitly seeking a fast cash buyer and a closing schedule that would let me move my remaining furniture first. Then I reserved a consultation for solar storage and rechargeable power systems, and checked the used armored-van listings again. I wasn't buying a fuel-hungry metal monster before I knew the real costs.
At nine, Nadia texted.
*Your entrance sketch needs another support connection. Don't order parts until I send the correction.*
I replied, *Understood. You may have just saved my expensive underground coffin.*
*That's what engineers are for. Also, the pool table is still ridiculous.*
I grinned at my phone.
*You haven't seen my trick shots.*
*Goodnight, bunker guy.*
---
I stayed awake finishing an inventory of everything I wanted to move. At eleven fifty-six, I finally shut the laptop.
Then something thumped against my front door.
I froze.
Another thump came, followed by a long, wet scrape. My new lock rattled in its frame.
I crept toward the peephole, every memory of my first death screaming at me to stay back.
A blue panel flashed across my vision.
**SYSTEM WARNING\~**
**Infected life-form detected immediately outside Host residence.**
**Current countdown: 13 days until Day 0.**
A third impact shook the door.
And from the other side came a voice I recognized.
"Please," my neighbor whispered. "Open up. I think something bit me."