New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Over on the northern shore of Montreal’s island, David was watching the construction of his bunker from overhead.

Ever since Jack had sent more help, the construction had sped up threefold, and the pace steadied as well. The additional parts that Jack added to his plans were already being added to the original layout, and David smirked.

‘He wanted our bunkers to connect… He should have just asked. Everything is always secret with old men like him,’ he grumbled mentally.

He was glad about the addition, though. Jack had not only made the original plans much bigger, to accommodate the added load, if one bunker emptied into the other, but had also connected the two’s power sources and life support systems.

By doing this, unless both sanctuaries suddenly got hit by catastrophes simultaneously, neither would fall off the grid. And the connections between the two were so deep underground that it would be almost impossible to take them out from the surface.

All in all, the additions suited him as much as they suited Jack. And at the pace of construction, they would finish his shelter by the end of next year.

This meant he only had to bleed his money for another fifteen to sixteen months. He looked at his calendar and smiled.

This was much faster than he had anticipated.

They had marked the original date of the end of construction as the year after, in 2052 instead of 2051. The extra year time would give him much-needed freedom to get stronger.

“September is coming up fast. The first complications have already started occurring, and the elections for mayor will be all-around solutions for these cropping problems. But, last time, the elected mayor failed so hard at his job. He only made things worse…” David mumbled to himself.

But he had a feeling that things would be different this time around.

A candidate that had lost last time had a bigger selling point, in this iteration.

‘Let’s hope Alexander does his job well enough to put wind in Jack’s sails.’

Visions of poorly built underground bunkers, barely a few meters from the surface, flashed in his mind. These bunkers, getting breached on the first wave of invasion.

So many deaths occurred because of terrible planning and cheap solutions. Visions of his friends getting torn to shreds as he fled for his life.

David shook his head, making the thoughts go away. He couldn’t think about the past.

No.

He had to think about this future, not the one that had already been failed. That was their only path to survival.

“This time, we will be ready. The demons won’t stand a chance…” he told himself, fists clenching.

“This time, we will win. At all costs…”

***

A little to the east of David’s bunker, in a suburb that was always so calm, one mansion was on high alert. In the Bianchi mansion, on the outskirts of Bois-des-Filion, it had been a little over two weeks since their control over the facility had been usurped from them.

Many technicians had already been shot dead, as the head of the family lost patience with them for their incompetence. Food was running low, no one had enjoyed hot water in forever, and the morale was all but gone.

Only one person was still living a semi-normal lifestyle. The Bianchi head.

His secret basement bunker, which he had opened up once the generators powered up the house a bit, had everything he needed to weather out an attack if another family suddenly decided to take his head.

It had a separate power supply, as well as commodities that would make all his men tear their eyes out. It was stocked with food, wine, and other things necessary to live well, regardless of the chaos outside.

Of course, he let no one in, not even his closest bodyguard, as he enjoyed all these privileges.

The camera in the basement recorded every one of his ins and outs of this room, time-stamping them, and sent them through an encrypted line toward the oracle.

All the cameras in the mansion were doing the same, keeping tabs on each good in the place, and their pathetic attempts to retake control.

One of them even tried cutting off all the power to the mansion, which resulted in him frying himself as a sudden surge happened at the exact moment he tried cutting the primary power lines.

The Oracle was ever-watching.

And the Oracle wasn’t one to let anyone escape its prophecies once it doled them out.

Things were looking dire for the men in the Bianchi mansion. If the situation didn’t change soon, they would have nothing left to eat, and this would drive them into desperation.

Only a few of them knew about the secret panic room, and their loyalty to the Bianchi head was unwavering. They would live and die for him, regardless of how much of an asshole he was.

So when pictures started appearing on the monitors across the mansion, showing the secret room’s inside, where the Bianchi head was dining like a king, unrest quickly swept the men.

The four men forever loyal to him quickly shot every screen and monitor in the house, cutting off the feed, trying to quell the issue. But some men still ended up getting shot for causing a scene.

Tension was at its peak, when another prophecy echoed inside the mansion, this time through the intercom.

“The Oracle has seen your plight. The Oracle provides to the lost lambs and offers safe passage. When tragedy befalls the head, the hand can choose to cut itself off, to save itself from rotting.”

After the message ended, the mounted machine guns in the yard started firing into the ground. After a few seconds of bullet deluge, they went silent again.

One guard of the compound went to see what they had fired at and instead saw they had carved a message into the grass with the devastation.

**Tomorrow at sundown. South gate. Surrender and live. Resist and perish. The Oracle.**

Gasps echoed through the mansion once the message started spreading through the remaining men. The Oracle had answered their prayers.