It wouldn’t have been hard. Every man-made system has loopholes.

To trigger the self-destruct sequence, one condition had to be met. The average population had to be below 5,000 for 180 days, or below 3,000 for 24 hours.

Only under such conditions would Tree determine that the residents of Shelter 100 no longer needed its guidance, that they were capable of living without its sensors, and it would then use the remaining resources to send its children on their final journey.

The Treemen could exploit it too.

As long as the worker ants stayed with them, keeping at least 5,000 people inside, Shelter 100 would believe its children still needed it, and so it would never leave them.

Yet its command-like plea was ruthlessly rejected by the jubilant worker ants.

Almost every member of the shelter refused to even negotiate with the Treemen about it.

It went without saying.

The worker ants had endured Tree’s cold, merciless orders for too long. Even if they knew survival required it, they had no reason to keep it once it was no longer needed.

They would let it die with the shelter.

Becoming a pit was part of its destiny anyway.

A shelter should not be the end of human civilization. The fate of any shelter was to be dismantled, recycled into materials for rebuilding.

As for the Treemen, if they couldn’t let go, the residents would let them go down with it.

Perhaps it was the residents’ hard stance that made the Treemen feel threatened. They interfered with the new organizations, cutting water, cutting power, cutting supplies, and within the limits of the rules made life as difficult as possible.

The conflict grew sharper, but until then it was still restrained.

What truly lit the fuse was something outside the shelter.

In the 52nd year of the Wasteland Era, after two years of recovery, the ice of West Continent Lake began thawing sooner than expected.

Water flooded into the abandoned city of West Continent Municipality, down into the subway tunnels.

The triumphant worker ants suddenly felt fear. Climate recovery was joyous, but if the thaw continued, the shelter might flood before the 60th year.

Some argued they should open the gate immediately and at least send people to reinforce the vulnerable areas.

Shame the residents’ wishes alone meant nothing. The Treemen had to convey them.

Of course the Treemen refused. The lake water surging into the tunnels didn’t scare them, in fact, it brought endless delight.

Even if a few supervisors believed they should cooperate with the residents to plug the obvious breach, most chose what suited their own hides, downplaying the danger as nothing more than a drizzle.

As long as they convinced Tree its designers had foreseen this, and that the perfect rules needed no change, it would continue the original plan.

They could even use it, make Tree misjudge the climate recovery as faster than expected, thus extending the closure.

And so 63 years became seventy.

Seven years... To the first generation, it meant their funerals would be in the shelter, never seeing the great gear door open.

To the youth, it meant their entire prime would waste away inside, their life plans and preparations for rebuilding all turned to dust.

For 80,000 people, Shelter 100 was too small and too crowded. Even the smallest spark could ignite the powder keg.

The first riot soon erupted, leaving 879 residents and 37 supervisors dead.

The blood cooled them for a moment.

All the bodies were thrown into the nutrient recyclers, becoming fertilizer.

Though death had always fed the shelter’s ecology, never had they seen so many people die at once.

Now everyone was forced to face where their food came from.

Rumors spread. Supervisors’ corpses hadn’t gone into the recycler at all, but had been secretly cremated by their families.

No matter how much the Treemen denied it, it didn’t matter anymore. The conflict only deepened.

By the 56th year, lake water nearly covered the shelter gate. As the Treemen plotted to sink the shelter forever, the second organized uprising broke out.

Engineers at the lab had spent three years altering genes of the Crunchies. Farm workers deliberately released them, drawing the Treemen’s attention. While they scrambled to exterminate the bugs, workshops across the shelter rose up together.

This time, with machines and even bio-weapons, the aftermath was beyond anyone’s expectation.

Over 77,000 died or vanished, including 645 Supervisors.

Only 111 survived, among them Bell’s master, Craig.

The fighting was not just guns and machines, but also weapons of rules.

The Treemen tried to use the power of their administrator, releasing sleeping gas to quell the unrest.

But the residents, who maintained the vents, had foreseen it, tricking the air monitors with a bit of ozone and venting the gas onto the wasteland instead.

On the brink of despair, the worker ants tried their own rule hack, hiding residents in cold storage to fool the life detectors, lowering the count below 3,000 for 24 hours to trigger the self-destruction.

The Treemen saw straight through it.

As life signals plummeted, they yanked the power, using an old bug they had never fixed, to overload and shut down the reactor.

The shelter’s designers could never have imagined their descendants would dare such a gamble.

But thanks to that, Shelter 100 did not become a reservoir in the 56th year.

Yet cutting the power doomed over 50,000 survivors in the cold stores.

Less than 3,000 people remained. The Treemen could not restart the reactor, or the dome would collapse in 24 hours.

Naturally, the survivors could not breed to increase their numbers back to 5,000 within 180 days.

Batteries barely kept ventilation running, while Crunchies spread through the shelter, consuming what little remained.

As Bell had said, no one won the war. It hadn’t even ended.

After horrific losses, the Treemen abandoned reconciliation, and the residents no longer hoped for sacrifice.

Both sides shrank into their zones, silent, licking wounds, waiting for the other to stop breathing.

That was until the 61st year, when the last human-like life signal vanished.

That last signal was Craig, Bell’s master.

“... My master asked me to carry this absurd memory to you, the starfarers of the future, hoping it might help. Never foolishly think AI can solve the problems you yourselves cannot. But sadly, you haven’t reached the stars, so it seems useless after all.”

“So... Some residents turned into bugs, others into data?” muttered Ghostbuster, unable to hold back. “This wasn’t a prison, it was a madhouse!”

Darkest’s expression sank completely.

He thought the same. Everyone had gone mad.

The supervisors sneered at residents as “worker ants,” while the ants mocked them as Treemen.

To keep the shelter alive forever, the Treemen fought for more time even as the lake lapped at the gate. To see the outside world, the ants turned themselves into insects, tearing apart a future they might still have endured.

They picked every insane option until no proper man walked out alive.

Just then, a piercing alarm blared outside the warehouse, yanking Darkest back to reality. “What happened?!”

The others gaped whileBell chuckled. “This alarm’s familiar... Oh right. I told you, to stop the ants, the Treemen shut down the reactor. Didn’t you just restart it? Maybe the life monitor and dome self-destruct sequence rebooted. It’s not a big deal.”

Darkest’s eyes widened in surprise.

Not a big deal?!

It wasn’t a century ago!

Who knew what the self-destruct would do now, with that bug-shell tower in the atrium, they could all be buried alive!

“Then why didn’t it trigger when the reactor first restarted?” Ghostbuster pressed.

Bell chuckled, still detached to the entire situation. “What’s strange? The Tree’s mission is over. You have admin rights. Canceling the self-destruct is as easy as opening the shelter door.”

Darkest blinked. “Wait, if we have control, why would the self-destruct still trigger?”

Bell sneered.

“Maybe your boss wants you silenced? Haha. But more likely, you tripped some unfixed bug, rolling back settings to before the rules were changed. That was common in the Treemen-ant war, covering Tree’s eyes to settle grudges.”

Darkest immediately ruled out his own actions. He had only touched black boxes.

Then he thought of Ten Punch Man, who’d rushed through Level B51 and gone straight to B100 for the side quest.

Without hesitation, he slapped his helmet. “Ten Punch, report! What’s going on? Bro?!”

All he heard was static.

His face hardened as he shot Ghostbuster a look. “I’m going down!”

Catching his intent, Ghostbuster gestured. “Okay.”

Wasting no time, Darkest flicked his rifle’s safety, laid it down, stretched flat on the floor, closed his eyes, and logged off.

Bell scuttled around his suddenly limp body in astonishment. “Incredible! You can sleep at a time like this?”

Naturally, the offline player gave no answer.

Watching the AI’s fuss, Ghostbuster just chuckled. “That’s nothing. It’s how we roll.”