Bungalow 42

While the radiation shouldn't hurt me… I don't want to track it into the house. So I look around. Detect Radiation will last an hour, and I can renew it whenever. It doesn't take too long to find an entry that isn't contaminated… and the door isn't locked (not that it would matter: I have the skills, can get the tools instantly, and can simply take twenty because there's nobody here). Or rather, it is, but the magnetic lock doesn't have power, and is the ‘fail safe’ variety that uses active power to keep the door closed rather than the ‘fail secure’ variety that uses power to move a bolt in and out of the way.

The air inside the building smells of ozone, and I walk and trace it down, being careful to avoid touching anything radioactive. The radiation isn't going to hurt me, but I still don't want to catch it, because that could hurt the folks that actually matter. Of course, I am immortal, so if I do get contaminated, I can just kill myself and make a new body… huh. Viable….

I work my way through the building. This level has fabrication equipment: Metalworking tools, mostly, including the kinds of things needed to do foundry work. It also serves as the building's mechanical room… and I find the problem:

They had three small reactors, now they have two.

I'm almost disappointed that there's no eerie movie glow. Of course, the power mains are attached to the melted one. No big deal… I'd just need to walk up to the back, disconnect them, migrate them over to one of the spares, and initiate reactor start-up. Hmm… eh, probably best if this place doesn't have power for now. I can always come back to it. I explore further, walking through the facility; in darkness anywhere there aren't windows to the farm (and my Eidolon gets me Darkvision, so that's not a problem), in that slightly-wrong light anywhere there are windows. I find an elevator… no power, but it has a maintenance hatch at the top, and I can climb. That lets me check the other floors.

The lowest is maintenance and mechanical, next up is a warehouse space (and it is full), followed by what is basically a barracks with about a hundred beds for soldiers, along with a kitchen, exercise room, hygiene area, an armory… still stocked… and a security room with a zillion monitors.

A phone in the security room is actually lit up, so I idly pick it up. It rings without waiting for a dialed number, and is picked up before the first ring finishes, “This is Control, what do you need…” the woman's voice pauses, “Bungalow 42? You guys had a meltdown decades ago. There shouldn't be anyone there.”

I quietly hang up.

The next floor up I dub “officer's quarters”, as it has a dozen suites just like mine at the above ground portion of the facility. Then there's… I decide to call it the President's Suite: The entire floor is one big luxury apartment. Twelve foot ceilings, all cloth is silk, countertops are marble, all wood is mahogany, the ceilings are twelve feet up, and all rooms have Tiffany's chandeliers… and windows to the farm, of course. The next floor I dub servants’ quarters… two dozen small apartments. After that is office space, followed by a library, and then at the ‘top’ there's a small landing (with some very sturdy doors: ‘six inches of hardened steel plates’ levels of sturdy) to a ramp big enough to drive trucks up.

Interestingly, the elevator isn't the standard cable type: It has geared wheels that slide into matching steel grooves along the side... and is big encough to move trucks. The engines are in the elevator itself, power supplied by the facility below. Inefficient… but it does mean anyone above has no way to hijack the thing… and efficiency was obviously not the word of the day for whoever built this place.

I follow the ramp up… and the hatch at the top is welded shut. The bead goes all the way around, just like the back door… but just like the back door, there's glass. A few seconds of concentration, and I'm on the other side… a crowded basement… and I recognize it.

I head up the stairs into the main house… pull out my cell phone, and text Alice: “We should talk.”