The construction began sooner than anyone expected. When Benedict first presented the bunker proposal, the company executives had been visibly confused. A twenty two year old billionaire demanding a massive underground survival facility was unusual, but not unheard of. The director of the company had simply shrugged after reviewing the advance payment. In his years managing a major construction firm, he had seen far stranger requests. They had built private islands with hidden rooms, underground luxury shelters, and facilities meant to house powerful people far away from the public eye. Compared to those projects, a billionaire wanting a bunker designed to survive the next hundred years was almost reasonable.
With the first billion transferred as advance payment, work began immediately. Hundreds of workers rotated through the site under strict contracts and non disclosure agreements. Excavation machines carved deep into the ground outside Austin, Texas. The original plan targeted completion within four months, but certain specialized materials proved difficult to obtain. Titanium reinforced plates, military grade air filtration units, and geothermal drilling equipment slowed the timeline slightly. Even with the delays, the entire project was finished within six months.
The result was something extraordinary.
From the outside the bunker was nearly invisible. The entrance was concealed beneath a reinforced dome structure designed to blend naturally with the surrounding terrain. The dome itself was angled so nothing could remain standing on top of it, preventing enemies from camping above the facility. Beneath that dome, an armored blast door made of layered steel and titanium alloy sealed the main access point. The bunker extended more than 300 meters underground, protected by thick earth and reinforced concrete designed to withstand missile strikes and seismic shock.
The walls themselves were massive. Three meter thick reinforced concrete formed the primary structure, strengthened by titanium steel plates embedded every meter through the walls. Surrounding the facility was a network of motion sensors, cameras, pressure traps, and defensive positions that could detect movement across several kilometers. The surface terrain had also been reshaped with hidden trenches and minefields to slow large groups of infected or hostile humans.
Inside, the bunker contained five primary floors. Only the third level was meant for daily living, while the others served specialized purposes. One level housed massive storage areas for food, medicine, tools, and fuel reserves. Another contained geothermal power generators capable of providing energy for nearly a century. Water recycling systems filtered underground groundwater while hydroponic farming sections allowed fresh vegetables to grow under artificial sunlight.
The air system was perhaps the most advanced part of the bunker. Multi stage filtration units could remove biological spores, chemical toxins, and microscopic contaminants from incoming air. Given the nature of the Cordyceps infection, this system was reinforced with additional fungal filtration layers and ultraviolet sterilization chambers designed to neutralize airborne pathogens. Separate sealed airlocks ensured that anyone entering the bunker would be isolated and scanned before reaching the living areas.
By the time construction finished, the structure beneath Austin had quietly become one of the most secure private shelters ever built on American soil. To any normal observer it would have looked like the ultimate survival bunker.
To Benedict Black…
It was simply the first step in surviving the apocalypse he knew was coming.
Now came the real use of Benedict's dimensional storage.
He already knew how the outbreak began. Thailand. Contaminated flour supplies spreading the Cordyceps infection through food distribution networks. That knowledge alone changed how he prepared. Instead of stockpiling random goods like most survivalists would, Benedict focused on essentials first. Massive quantities of raw materials began disappearing from markets and warehouses across the country. Rice, wheat alternatives, canned meat, beans, sugar, salt, cooking oil, dried vegetables. Some came through legitimate bulk suppliers, others through black market traders who asked fewer questions.
Just the raw food supplies alone filled nearly ten percent of his storage space. Considering the interior volume was roughly comparable to a city sized warehouse, that amount of food was enormous.
But Benedict didn't stop there.
Raw ingredients were useful, but prepared meals were far more valuable during emergencies. So he began placing massive catering orders across multiple cities. Hotels, restaurants, food chains, bakeries. Thousands of meals prepared in sealed containers. Every major cuisine he could think of. Barbecue, Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Middle Eastern, Indian, fast food, desserts. Around one thousand catering meals from each supplier. Chocolates, chips, candy bars, canned drinks, energy drinks, soda packs. By the time he finished, the ready to eat food alone filled another one percent of the storage.
Water was next.
He purchased twenty five thousand gallons of mineral water, storing them in sealed containers before moving them into the dimensional space. That alone took another one percent of the storage capacity, but water was something no survivor could afford to gamble on.
Then came logistics.
Fuel tanks filled with gasoline and diesel. Portable generators. Vehicle batteries. Spare engine parts. Entire cars and motorcycles disappeared into the dimensional space one by one. Pickup trucks, dirt bikes, ATVs. Enough transportation options to move across entire states if necessary.
At this point the dimensional storage had effectively become a giant underground supermarket capable of supplying entire towns for years.
Only after those essentials were secured did Benedict move to the next category.
Weapons.
Assault rifles, sniper rifles, pistols, ammunition crates, body armor, suppressors. Some more… explosive equipment that he casually referred to as "boom boom." Grenades, claymores, improvised explosives. Anything that might be useful when dealing with either infected or hostile humans.
And finally, the least practical but most comforting category.
Entertainment.
Books, movies, game consoles, music players, batteries, portable solar chargers. Even boredom could destroy a survivor's mind after enough time underground.
By the time everything was finished, only one month remained before the outbreak.
For the first time in nearly a year, Benedict decided to slow down. The bunker was finished. The supplies were secured. There was nothing left to prepare.
So he returned to his house and allowed himself something he hadn't experienced in a long time.
The quiet, ordinary comfort of normal life.