Chapter 160: Jimmy’s Mortal Enemy

Jimmy was led to the North Side of the large corridor, where he was shown that there was a staircase behind a small, insignificant looking door. If he was being honest with himself, he would’ve checked every other room before this one, and yet, Terrence claimed that the most important part of this entire bunker was at the top of this particular staircase.

This was a stamp of how strongly his intuition was letting him down, and he was aware of it. He didn’t like it, but he pushed his mild self-loathing aside, and carried Terrence across the staircase.

To his surprise, they were walking upwards too, which was counter-intuitive to the bunker’s design. For example, one would need to walk a flight of stairs which stretched a thousand feet long, or well over three hundred meters long, straight down, just to get to the bunker’s main corridor. It seemed senseless to build a staircase that went up, but he tried not to judge the needs of whatever alien race lived here before. He was just after the cool stuff, after all.

Anyway, much to his dissatisfaction, the staircase he was climbing now, also seemed endless. He was climbing a set of box spiral stairs, and his mind exaggerated the journey as if he was climbing to the moon and back! He really hated stairs.

“In all their infinite wisdom, they couldn’t build an elevator to the most important part of their bunker?” He sighed, after climbing twenty full flights of stairs, “Stupid bastards!”

“They were stupid, yes, but in this case you’re the imbecile,” Terrence corrected him, “Every higher being, no, even mildly intelligent beings or higher, knows that the most important part of a bunker, or any research lab, really, shouldn’t be easily accessible. They could’ve built traps, and stronger doors, sure, but the threat of physical exercise works well against most species who aren’t supposed to be here.”

“It’s working against me, that’s for sure,” Jimmy took a break, just to take a deep breath. “I’d kill for an elevator.”

“Quit complaining, plenty of more flights to go,” Terrence said, his voice smug, “I would’ve climbed up here the moment I outsmarted you back in the cloning room, but knowing that there can’t possibly be any ships left in the landing zone, it seemed pointless to make the climb. I can’t waste my time.”

“Landing zone?” Jimmy repeated, “You mean, we’re climbing up to where the UFOs used to land?”

“UF-ooh? Why would you call them that? Call them ships, like a normal human would.” Terrence sighed, visibly disappointed. “Ships, not UFOs.”

“Every space ship is a UFO to me, quarter pounder,” He defended himself, “I don’t know any damn aliens other than you, so of course I cannot identify their flying objects.”

“Oh right,” Terrence gave in, “I keep forgetting that you come from the backwaters behind the backwaters of a planet. I can’t believe your former planet hasn’t met with any aliens yet, it’s absurd. Even this planet that’s infested by dinosaurs had better luck.”

“They’re trying their best, alright?” Jimmy said, and he started to get irritated at this point, “Where I come from, we were in an Ice Age just 13,000 years ago. It takes time to recover from that shit.”

“Oh? I was not aware.” Terrence nodded, “My apologies.”

“No problem,” He said, and started to climb up the stairs again, “So why are we going up to check the landing zone, if you know there aren’t any ships up there?”

“Oh, I bet you wish we were going there, hehe, no,” Terrence chuckled, “We’re going to the tower. You’re not prone to radioactive waves, right? There is so much radiation coming out of the technology that’s stashed up there, that each visit will probably take a year from your life, if you’re sensitive.”

Jimmy stopped in his tracks, grabbed Terrence by the chest, and lifted him off of his own shoulder, just to look him in the eye. It was fair to say that he was pissed.

“You tell me now that we’re going somewhere radioactive?” He tried to remain calm, but inevitably, he ended up yelling, “After I climbed twenty flights of stairs!?”

Despite the indirect threat he was given, a threat where he could essentially be tossed down to the bottom of the staircase, or get simply crushed on Jimmy’s palm, Terrence did not give in. He stood his ground, so to speak.

Terrence doubled down, “How is it my fault that you’re prone to radiation? If I was prone to radiation I wouldn’t walk anywhere without a suit. This is your mistake.”

Jimmy took a deep breath in, and tried to calm himself down. There was a seemingly endless amount of stairs to climb, and he did not want to climb twenty flights of stairs back down just to get the Hazmat suit, so he had to assess the risks.

“How much radiation are we talking about?” He grinded his teeth, “Will I be okay without a Hazmat suit?”

“Probably,” Terrence winced, and he started to feel a little sorry for the guy, “I don’t know how many ’mSv’ of radiation you can handle, but we won’t be there for long. I just need to scan the mountain for some important minerals I need, and of course, I’ll show you how to use the tower, in case you ever need to use it in the future.”

Slightly concerned, he also asked, “What are you, three-hundred pounds? You’re too light for radiation to have a real grip on you.”

“Dude, I’m 180 at most,” Jimmy felt the need to defend his weight.

“180 what? Years?” He asked, and he was genuinely concerned, “Humans aren’t supposed to live that long, did you clone yourself before you freed me?”

“Dude!” Jimmy exclaimed, “Not years, I weigh 180 pounds. That’s my weight.”

“Alright, dude,” He used two of his six fingers to make air quotes, “That’s even better, then. You should be fine, and if I can make a wild guess, an hour in the tower will only take half a year of your total life expectancy.”

Jimmy sighed, and put the little man back on his shoulder. There was no point in arguing with someone who was vastly different from him, and not only as a species, but as a sentient being too, so he didn’t bother. It was best to play along, and since the radiation up there shouldn’t kill him on the spot, according to Terrence, it was best for Jimmy to gather his nerves, and keep climbing.

The tower was a few tens of sets of stairs upwards from them, and if he was to climb them today, it was best if he didn’t waste any time in albeit pointless conversations.

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