New World Order (TNE) [Original]

Chapter 3 - The Botanist's Club

"So, what's your name hiker man?" Plum asked the hiker. They had been walking with Geoffrey through the city for the past 10 minutes just processing what had happened. There were holes through buildings, buildings had fallen over, trees had been uprooted and shops were empty asides from shoplifters. The sky had turned a dark musky purple and the clouds had seemed to slowly drift over to the center of the city. By this point, the sky had become clear as Plum already had in mind exactly where to go.

"My name's Timothy, sorry for not introducing myself earlier," The hiker responded with his beard muffling his voice. At this point they had abandoned their sun hat. Timothy was the shortest one in the group with a light raincoat a short stature and awful posture along with a short but obnoxious brown beard. If not for their numerous supplies and rations Plum would have thought they were in poverty off of how they dressed, but they were simply unconcerned about fashion. At a time like this, Plum and Geoffrey could hardly blame him for the soot and and dirt sprinkled all over his pants. They were more concerned about what to do now.

"So how come you two didn't undergo a transformation but I did?" Geoffrey asked feeling puzzled and a little bit cheated. Their transformation added bits of metal unevenly throughout their body giving them a magnetic attraction to things they could control. Geoffrey always thought the idea of becoming a cyborg or getting robotic enhancements would be cool but just having metal scattered throughout his body was not his ideal scenario and occasionally painful.

"I brushed it off earlier but I think I have a theory now." Timothy proposed

"Go on," Plum encouraged.

"Well, I was inside that fast food joint since I live in a small apartment above it. Meanwhile Plum seems to have spent the past couple days inside. My theory is that the transformations were triggered from being outside," The hiker concluded, feeling proud of their discovery. Geoffrey and Plum pondered it and feeling unable to come up with anything better settled for the simple theory.

"Where are we going anyways?"

"To the Botanist's club," Plum announced with a spring in her step just thinking about them made the current state of things all the more unreal. Neither Geoffrey nor Timothy seemed to have quite the same reaction though as neither of them seemed to know of the group, even the most basic of details. Plum stopped on the shredded concrete to turn around and elaborate as their puzzled expressions weren't going to get them anywhere. "There were a group of people a year ago who locked themselves underground in a bunker filled with plants vegetation and an experimental new form of power. They swore an oath that they would come back up if the new power source failed or started running low. But, they've done nothing of the sort."

"Why would they let us down there with them though; there must be a whole town of people down there pleading to be let in," Geoffrey counter-blasted hating the idea of getting trapped underground for any long stretch of time. That was a fear of theirs after all. The hiker didn't particularly like the idea of this either, but they were curious enough not to intervene.

"There may be; but none with the keycard to get into the bunker," Plum commented proudly, holding up their keycard with a "Botanist's Club" logo. Geoffrey took a large sigh and continued walking in silence. It seemed Plum had made up her mind and they didn't have any better ideas. 'At least they'll most likely have some food down there' Geoffrey thought.

Suddenly they came to a towering building. Far enough out from everything and on a dead end street making it nearly unaffected by the disaster if not for the nearby uprooted trees and vegetation. Likely caused by one of the burrowing worm creatures from earlier, Plum still found it baffling that they had once been humans. The group entered and they descended down a pitch black elevator to basement 3. The lighting was spontaneous and unreliable whether it was on or off. Eventually the elevator grinded to a halt and the sliding doors opened. There seemed to be nobody else in the government owned building strangely enough. Plum used their keycard and the bunker doors opened...