Apocalypse Trade Monopoly
Chapter 84: : Exit Wounds

Chapter 84: : Exit Wounds

Ava kept close behind Lucas, boots crunching over rusted pipe casings and fractured walls.

Lucas didn’t hesitate. No second-guessing. He moved like someone who’d drawn these paths in his sleep. It would seem that the upgrate was effective before Lucas had always rely on Ava sytem to lead the way.

They reached a junction of three deadends.

Lucas stopped, crouched by a wall panel crusted in oxidized grime. He drew a slender tool from his belt—the panel clicked open.

Inside: a mess of old cabling, brittle insulation, dust thick enough to write in.

Taped dead center on the metal frame was a black data drive, no label—just a twist of red wiring like veins curling around it.

Lucas peeled it free, spun it once in his palm, and plugged it into a narrow port below the exposed panel.

Ava crossed her arms.

"What are you doing?"

His fingers moved without pause.

"Framing someone."

The screen hummed awake—faint red, flickering like a dying ember.

[FIRE DETECTED: SECTOR 07-PHX]

[TRIGGER OVERRIDE: TAMPERED ACCESS LOGS]

[DETECTING SOURCE IDENTITY: INTERNAL BREACH]

[RE-ROUTING ALERT TO: COUNCIL ENCRYPTED CHANNELS]

A few more keystrokes. One last command:

[LOG INJECTED: AUTHOR - 043]

Lucas leaned back, satisfied.

"Now it looks like sabotage from the inside. Panic cleanup. Maybe someone trying to wipe data before Angel noticed."

Ava’s gaze stayed on the red glow as it dimmed.

"They’ll believe it?"

He glanced at her, eyes sharp and unreadable.

"They’ll want to. Makes everything easier."

She didn’t reply. Just followed when he moved on.

The air thickened. Older tunnels. Dustier. Forgotten. Her system pinged, struggling to auto-map the route.

[TUNNEL NOT IN DATABASE]

[UNREGISTERED PATHWAY – MAPPED VIA PASSIVE TRACKING]

[CAUTION: STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY 52%]

"These routes..." Ava muttered. "They’re not in the bunker layout."

Lucas didn’t stop.

"They wouldn’t be."

"You mapped all this?"

"No," he said. "I built half of it."

Ava paused mid-step.

"Built it?"

Lucas didn’t slow. Just kept moving, voice casual.

"Everyone knew the world was cracking. Earthquakes didn’t start last year."

He ducked beneath a sagging pipe, boots silent on the metal grates.

"Funding for these bunkers? Secured years before the fall. My old man had vision. He helped design over thirty of them—contracts buried in defense budgets and offshore black funds."

Ava stepped over a collapsed conduit, keeping pace.

"So what—he just decided to make his own additions while no one was looking?"

Lucas glanced back, the corner of his mouth lifting.

"No one was ever looking. That’s the point."

They reached a fork—two passageways branching into deeper dark. Lucas turned left without hesitation.

"You think Bai Manor was an accident? Oracle told me I could stay there, run data trades, live out the apocalypse in style. Never lift a weapon."

He tapped the wall as they passed.

"But these tunnels? They’re the reason I didn’t."

Ava raised an eyebrow.

"Why not?"

Lucas gave her a grin that didn’t reach his eyes.

"Because sitting still is for men who don’t know what’s coming next."

Lucas turned down another side passage—less rust, more concrete. The walls here looked intentional. Reinforced with steel ribs. Vents still breathing faint heat.

Ava said nothing, but her footsteps didn’t falter.

They climbed two ladders, bypassed three sealed shafts, until the tunnels finally opened into a compact loading dock—Level 3. Where normal people lived. The ones without systems. The ones the world forgot the minute it broke.

Lucas moved toward a biometric door tucked behind a freight crate. No guards. Just a black panel and a silent red scanner.

Ava stepped forward—then hesitated.

She hadn’t been through this door in months. Not since Lucas had her working twenty-hour stretches wiring weapons, fixing scavenged tech, and building combat suits no one else understood. No one else could.

Lucas glanced over, already punching a code into the wall.

"You look like you’re about to get drafted."

Ava narrowed her eyes. "I forgot what sunlight looks like. Sue me."

He smirked, opened a side compartment, and pulled out two long coats—charcoal grey, lined with biotech fibers. He tossed one to her.

"Put it on. Standard issue out there now. Not everyone gets a full suit, but I don’t do cheap."

Ava shrugged it on. It was warm. Fit like it’d been tailored. The inner lining clung lightly to her skin, temperature-regulating tech humming softly beneath the fabric.

Lucas adjusted the collar of his own. Sleek. Expensive. Armored in places no one could see. The kind of gear only high-tier traders or command officers wore. The kind people didn’t question.

The scanner lit green.

The door unsealed with a soft hiss.

They stepped into the Level 3 checkpoint.

The air changed immediately. Stale. Processed. Faintly metallic. Rows of white lights overhead blinked in strips, and beyond the main checkpoint glass, a steel elevator waited—leading up to the surface gates.

Security was present, but half-asleep. No one stopped them. No one even looked twice. Lucas’s coat was a uniform of its own.

Ava stood silent at his side, letting it happen. Just another accessory on his arm.

The scanner at the final gate pulsed once.

[IDENTITY CONFIRMED: BAI, LUCAS — CLEARANCE: GOLD]

[COMPANION CONFIRMED – TECH ACCESS: VALIDATED]

The doors opened.

And for the first time in a long time, Ava stepped out to the scavenger zone—a shattered perimeter reinforced with barricades, motion sensors, and hastily patched drones. It smelled like ash, sweat, different from Ava memory.

People sat on crates, bartering for food packets or boot soles. A kid—maybe twelve—sharpened a rusted blade on a firestone while his sister clutched a ration box like it was gold.

Lucas walked through the checkpoint like it was a hotel lobby.

No one questioned him.

Ava’s coat flared slightly as they moved, drawing eyes but not curiosity. No one here asked questions. Not when survival cost so much.

She glanced at a distant tower—collapsed halfway into a crater.

"That wasn’t down last time."

Lucas followed her gaze. "An explosion three weeks ago. They haven’t cleared the area yet."

Ava’s stomach turned. "Monsters?"

Lucas’s voice dropped, casual. "A few stage Ones. Still look human if you squint. Crawl on all fours. Fast as hell."

A scavenger sprinted past them, wild-eyed, clutching something wrapped in canvas. Another followed. A few seconds later, a siren trilled from the far wall.

[WARNING – PERIMETER BREACH]

[SURFACE ALERT: QUADRANT D6 – UNREGISTERED ENTITY DETECTED]

Ava looked back—security lights shifting red. No one screamed. Screaming meant energy. Out here, no one wasted energy on fear.

Lucas slowed, turning toward the outer gate. A shadow moved behind the wreckage ahead. Four limbs. Too smooth. Too fast.

He didn’t reach for a weapon.

Ava did.

Lucas noticed.

"Relax. This one’s not for us."

She watched as bunker guards moved in—not soldiers, just men in patchwork gear and overcharged rifles. They surrounded the movement. Fired. The creature shrieked—almost human—before falling with a hiss of steam and blood.

Ava exhaled slowly.

"So. Remind me again why we came up here?"

Lucas’s smile returned—light, careless.

"Because you’ve been hiding in the basement too long, Beauty. And I need you to see what this world really looks like before I rebuild it."

Ava raised an eyebrow. "You planning to do that between charming guards and planting fake sabotage logs?"

Lucas looked toward the broken skyline.

"One move at a time."

They walked on, the ruined city stretching before them, teeming with smoke and monsters and broken people.

Somewhere beyond it all was Bai Manor.

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