Covering the "fancy party" at "Fennec Hall" ended up being something that Miles was assigned to because he lived there in the staff apartments that his parents had. Thus, since he was already there, Animalia Ambassadoria liked having an inside man there, just for the fact that many business leaders and officials that became Animalians might be expected to come and visit, particularly while they were going through their "acclamation" process and while any homes or apartments they already had were tested to see if they could accommodate the new Animalian, depending on what animal species the new Animalian was. It worked out well, but for Miles, it also came off as pretty tame and wasn't really "newsworthy."
Joanne Mabel had had pretty similar parties in New York with members of the fashion industry before her husband died and the events that surrounded Nicole coming to Animalia and Joanne nearly committing suicide over the prospect of losing her daughter. The present party was like those old ones, except now, the bulk of the guests and others present were Animalians. The thing that Miles found more interesting was the discovery of an old Cold War era bunker and his coverage of that, as while the bunker was old, the fact that it was out on Animalia's territory and represented territory that had belonged to the Brown family or some of the others that owned land outside of Lyre when Animalia was founded, and had been completely buried was quite striking, particularly as no one seemed to know the bunker had even been there... and Miles found his mind drifting back to that...
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The discovery was odd and surprising, but Miles was unafraid to cover it as he came out and found Sappho and Susan standing by a large pile of dirt and small stones that was just by the Rose House that the two of them lived in. Miles pivoted the phone he was using for the camera to look at the pile that was big and piled high enough that the hole that was dug had to go deep, and that because it was so close to the Rose House, it filled Miles with some clue as to what he had been told.
"Wow..." Miles found himself speaking as he looked at the pile of dirt and rock that was there, and mentally cursing himself for how unprofessional that sounded, "so, Sappho, Susan, you've found what you think to be an old Cold War era bunker?"
Some of that interest was likely a result of the present war between Russia and Ukraine and as it reignited concerns in the US that hadn't been there since the 1980s.
"It would have to be," Susan commented, "though it was really Sappho who found the spot..."
"You found the spot?" Miles asked.
"I'd think anyone with experience in digging would have found the spot, actually," Sappho commented, "my species will dig into ant and termite nests to eat their queens and may eat workers on the way... and in that there is some instinctive knowledge with digging and the effects of it."
Miles nodded, "though, I would imagine that this was a very different project."
"Oh, yes," Sappho nodded, "Susan and I had to borrow a shovel from the Bara House residents when I found this area to do the digging, but in a way, I'm glad we did."
"And how did you find this spot?" Miles wondered, "If I may ask?"
“It mostly just started with some walking, you know before things get to cold for those of us that are cold blooded to be outside,” Sappho spoke, “and I stepped on a spot where the ground just felt different from where it does where you’re standing.”
“Different?” Miles asked, keeping his phone’s camera pointed to Sappho and Susan.
“Loser than it does in other areas here… which can be rather rocky,” Sappho answered, “so it felt different, and had to indicate that someone had dug something around here before. And I saw somewhere that someone found a car buried underground here before… not to mention the gold mine and the thermal springs in the area, so I figured there had to be something here.”
“So, we went and borrowed the shovels from the Bara House and began digging in the area that Sappho had found something different,” Susan added, “and thankfully we didn’t run into a wire or water line… but that didn’t change the surprise…”
"The surprise, you said you found a bunker," Miles spoke.
"Yeah," Susan said with an excited smile, "it's not huge or anything... like it'd be a government bunker and we found on the door a private name..."
"We have a flashlight, if you'd like to see the bunker," Sappho added and held up a small black cylinder.
Miles nodded and Susan and Sappho lead him toward the hole. As they entered, he noted that they had crudely shoveled out steps. They weren't perfectly level, but they did seem to do just enough to let things work. As they began to move underground, Sappho pressed a button on the flashlight, and Miles was able to see more and record more with his camera. He did not that there were some aspects of the soil that reminded him of something he'd found in a science article that there were differences between ground that had been disturbed and then put back in and ground that had been the result of a more natural deposit. Some of it was the placement of rocks that were in the sides of the stairway.
"You didn't break any shovels, did you?" Miles asked.
"No, though some of the larger rocks that we found were pretty big," Sappho answered, "the Bara House guys actually volunteered to help with the excavation when we told them about this. I think it was an excuse to exercise their muscles."
As they reached the bottom they then came across the front of the bunker, though, Miles also noted that part of the top of the bunker was also cleared off, which indicated that the whole bunker had been buried there at some point. It raised questions on Miles's part on the history of the bunker, but Sappho and Susan likely didn't know the answer to them. It wasn't a government bunker as there was nothing of that nature, and to a great extent, Lyre was never close enough to the sorts of military or nuclear test locations that would require a bunker being present as a security measure in case it was targeted. Miles also thought this part of Animalia was on the part of the area that had been the ranch that the now WSA art teacher, Rebecca owned. After Ganondorf was uplifted and took Rebecca as his mate in the early days of the outbreak, like a lot of the land the Browns owned, the region was converted into what would become Animalia, and likely left this bunker buried and forgotten.
"The thing we don't know was what this was doing down here," Susan commented, "I mean, Ms. Rebecca and Ganondorf live about a mile west of here..."
"I'm not familiar with who originally owned the area, and maybe the teacher did own the ranch originally," Miles commented as he looked over the large metal door and noted that it looked like the door was slightly ajar now and that the exterior handle had been broken, "but I could theorize that in the 1950s, as the fear of WW3 and MAD escalated, those that had the money for these things took it on themselves to do something like this. Burying the bunker away from the house was likely something that came with the expectation that the house could be a target and the bunker would be safer by being in a different location."
"They would have had to know WHEN the strike was coming, though," Sappho commented. and moved to open the door and then shown the light in. The door did open and audibly creaked as it did so.
"True," Miles agreed, "but we have to remember that the 1950s brought out a lot of paranoia over the what the Soviet Union may do, and people may have made decisions that make no sense to us now with the feeling that it made sense to them at the time."
They then looked over the inside of the bunker. Sappho and Susan showed Miles around and he could film the areas where a kitchen had been, a living area, and bedroom and bathroom... though, many fixtures and other things were empty. Any food had been removed, as had fixtures within the bunker. It was something that told Miles that the bunker was kept open for some time and was then buried, likely in the 1980s as the Cold War ended.
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It made for some interesting discoveries an showed that Lyre/Animalia had its own connections to America's Cold War history and could provide points of investigation later. But for the moment, Miles had the party at Fennec Hall to cover.