Jason dragged his feet through the corridor, each step feeling heavier than the last. The sealed workroom door loomed ahead like the entrance to some forbidden place—a line that, once crossed, couldn't be uncrossed.
He stood outside for several moments, hand raised to knock but frozen in place. What could Richard possibly want? The man had barely acknowledged his existence for weeks, and now this sudden summons felt ominous. His father had always been demanding, exacting, but never mysterious. This new version of Richard—the silent observer—was infinitely more unsettling.
Finally, Jason rapped his knuckles against the metal, the sound sharp in the quiet hallway. He almost hoped for silence, for some excuse to turn around and walk away. Instead, the lock disengaged with a mechanical click that made him flinch.
The door swung inward.
Jason stepped into a room unlike any other in the bunker. Where the common areas felt sterile but lived-in, this space was purely functional—cooler, clinical, almost like stepping into another world entirely. Dim overhead lights cast everything in a bluish glow, supplemented by the harsh electronic light of three monitors arranged in a semicircle on Richard's desk.
His father sat with his back to one wall, his face illuminated by the screens' glow. The room was meticulously organized chaos—piles of papers arranged in perfect stacks, schematics spread across a side table, coded notebooks with colored tabs protruding from the pages. Mechanical parts, tools, and what looked like electrical components were sorted into labeled containers.
But what caught Jason's attention was the unmarked steel door behind Richard's desk. Unlike the standard bunker doors, this one was massive—reinforced around the edges, with a keypad lock that glowed red. Something about it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
"Sit down," Richard said, gesturing to the chair across from him.
Jason obeyed, lowering himself stiffly into the seat. He couldn't help but scan the room again, taking in details he might never see again—the shelves crammed with data drives, the sealed crates stacked against one wall, the faint hum of equipment he couldn't identify.
Jason shifted in his chair, running a palm across the seam of his pants. He didn't need to read Richard's face to feel the pressure—he could sense it in the silence. Several seconds passed in uncomfortable silence before he finally spoke.
"I've been thinking about this for a long time. And today, I finally reached a decision. That's why I called you here."
Jason's jaw clenched. The formal tone, the deliberate phrasing—whatever this was, it wasn't good. "What kind of decision?"
Richard didn't answer directly. Instead, he leaned back slightly, his eyes never leaving Jason's face. The fluorescent light overhead cast harsh shadows across his father's features, making him look older and more severe than usual.
"I'll get to that topic but first I want to ask you something. You know the situation in the outside world is uncertain. What if... it's just us? What if humanity ends with this bunker? What would you do?"
The question caught Jason off guard. His throat went dry as the implications sank in. Of course, he'd thought about it—how could he not?—but he'd never voiced those thoughts aloud. It felt too much like giving up, like admitting that everything beyond their reinforced walls was truly gone. The weight of potential extinction pressed down on his shoulders, a burden he'd been silently carrying for months.
"I've thought about it," he admitted, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. The cool air of the lab seemed to grow colder. "But there's no way to act when we don't even know what caused the Collapse. There's no clear threat. No explanation. So how can we build a plan around that?" He watched his father's expression carefully, searching for some hint of where this conversation was heading.
Something flickered in Richard's gaze…a moment of hesitation, as if he was debating whether to reveal something. It was brief, but Jason caught it, and the doubt it planted bloomed into fear. He'd become adept at reading these microexpressions on his father's face over the years, especially in the confined weeks since the Collapse. That split-second of uncertainty, the slight tightening around Richard's eyes…it was the look of a man holding back crucial information. Jason's chest tightened as he waited. Whatever his father was about to reveal, he knew it could shatter what fragile stability the bunker still held.
"Forget the cause," Richard said, waving his hand dismissively, that familiar gesture that always signaled his impatience with what he considered irrelevant details. "Just answer the question. What if we are alone? What if continuing humanity is up to us?"
Jason felt a chill crawl up his spine at the implications of his father's words. The way Richard emphasized "us" carried a weight that seemed to press against Jason's chest. He'd heard his father use this tone before…sterile coldness, detached, as if discussing theoretical scenarios rather than their actual lives. But there was something different now, something in the slight forward tilt of Richard's body, the intensity in his blue eyes that suggested this wasn't merely a philosophical exercise.
Jason shifted uncomfortably in his chair, his fingers instinctively tightening around its metal arms. The conversation was drifting into the kind of territory that made his temples throb.
"I don't know. Keep broadcasting, I guess. Hope someone answers eventually." The words felt hollow even as he spoke them, echoing the same tired optimism they'd clung to for weeks. He attempted a weak joke, forcing a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "So... what, you want me to start repopulating the Earth? Like some twisted Adam-and-Eve reboot?"
As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them. Something in his father's expression—that emotional vacuum mixed with intense focus—made Jason's skin crawl. The bunker suddenly felt smaller, the air between them charged with an unspoken tension that Jason couldn't quite name but instinctively feared.
Richard didn't smile. Didn't blink. "Yes. That's exactly what I mean."