S04E01: Aftermath

Dean Smyth (0:02)

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Bunker 8 is a horror and sci-fi audio drama that explores disturbing themes and intense moments. Some content may be unsettling for certain listeners. Listener discretion is advised.

The Midnight Mystery presents Bunker eight, season four, episode one, Aftermath.

Maganda Marie (1:53)

Atlas Documentation Log, Entry 473, Dr. Amira Harper, Senior Research Liaison, Bunker Zero. Subject designation, 7 Operative name, Jack. Former military, Australian National. Recruited into the Atlas Initiative by Director Maddox, following his discharge from service. Assigned to Bunker 8 as a solo containment monitor. I'm recording this for the official record. As of this moment, subject 7 has been transported to Bunker Zero. And is currently with Director Maddox for purposes that have not been disclosed to me. I want to note for the record that I was not briefed on the nature of their meeting. I was not consulted. Director Maddox authorized the subject's presence here directly, bypassing standard research protocols. I have submitted a formal request for inclusion. It has not been acknowledged.

For the record, I will summarize the subject's activities across the Bunker network to date.

Subject 7 was stationed at Bunker 8 in Antarctica as a solo operative. Standard role, systems monitoring, cell block management, core observation. During his assignment, the core door within Bunker 8 opened during a containment cycle, while the subject was inside one of the cells. The circumstances surrounding this event remain unexplained. No authorized personnel triggered the opening. No system malfunction was logged. Following the core door event, the subject was transported. Not relocated, not extracted. Transported. He reappeared inside Bunker 3, a deep ocean containment site in the Pacific, in the year 1952

I want to be clear about what I'm documenting here. The subject claims and available evidence supports that he was displaced approximately 72 years into the past through an interaction with the Bunker 8 core. Atlas has no record of this capability, no experiment, no protocol, no theoretical framework within the initiative accounts for temporal displacement of a living subject. And yet, it happened.

While in 1952, the subject encountered the Bunker 3 operative at the time, a woman named Emily. The subject also made contact with an anomalous entity within the well. He survived a containment breach and eventually found a way to return to the present timeline. The specifics of his return are still under review.

What happened next is where the record becomes incomplete. The subject returned to the present timeline. How? We don't know. Bunker 8 experienced a catastrophic event. What internal reports refer to as the fall initiative? The facility collapsed. Containment failed across multiple levels. By every measure we have, no one should have walked out of that site alive. And yet the subject did. Atlas has no explanation for how he survived. And the subject himself has offered nothing useful on the matter. Beyond that, we have no record of how the subject escaped Antarctica. Bunker 8 is in one of the most remote locations on earth. No extraction team was dispatched. No transport was arranged. He simply reappeared. What we do know is this. David Harlen, the transport operative originally assigned to deliver the subject to Bunker 8, was found dead, murdered. Evidence points directly to the subject. David was Atlas' personnel. He had a family and the subject killed him. Following David's death, the subject went dark, off-grid. No contact with Atlas, no known associates, no trail. He was on the run for a considerable period before Director Maddox was finally able to locate and apprehend him. The subject was brought to Bunker Zero in Maddox's custody.

Current network status, the bunker containment system is under a significant strain. Fluctuations have been reported across multiple sites. Bunker five in the Alps is experiencing escalating temporal distortions. Bunker three is showing instability in the Wells containment field. Communication blackouts with at least three remote sites in the last 48 hours. Power failures at two others. The system is degrading, slowly but consistently. Every diagnostic we run shows the same trajectory. Without intervention, containment integrity across the network will continue to deteriorate.