Buddy had taken her son and mutant father back to Olathe the previous night. With Dustin laid down to sleep and Brad beside to guard him, she opened up the doors of the old lab which was now her home and looked out at the dwellings of her men. Having seen a modern human world un-touched by such catastrophic events as The White Flash, she could almost see what it used to look like here in her mind's eye...A nice neighborhood, instead of this mess of broken, patched-up old houses, scaffolding, and junk laying about. Maybe she couldn't restore this place to its former condition, but survival had been getting easier under her leadership. Progress had been made agonizingly slowly, but it was progress...and at the end of the day, Olathe was HERS. She fought and struggled and killed her way to the top of this world. It was her RIGHT to rule Olathe. And Buddy would not just abandon what was rightfully hers. Not forever.
She would find a way to make this new world-hopping dual life of hers work, or she would MAKE a way, as she always had. She closed the door of the lab behind her, listening until every last mechanical lock clicked into place before she paused a moment more to see if Dustin was still asleep. Brad stared up at the girl who once was his daughter with weary eyes. "You know what to do." Buddy said harshly. She crossed over to a specific panel in the wall and pried it loose. Behind the panel was a secret, unfinished room, one wall of which was mostly occupied by the large, gaping entrance to a tunnel, tall enough for even one of Buddy's tallest men to fit through, and wide enough for two to walk abreast...Well, it was wide enough for Buddy to make the trip to the Underground with Brad in tow, anyway. She gave Brad another long look, thinking of something to say to him, but what would it matter?
The panel was pulled back into place behind her and Buddy began the trip back to the Underground. The people of Olathe who chose to dwell in the wasteland regions often lived in caves, whether natural or man-made, as they provided shade from the harsh sun. Many of them, over the years, had grown interconnected in a series of cave-systems that only an Olathian with years of experience with the harsh terrain could navigate. This cave-system was no different, once Buddy had grown accustomed to its particular twists and turns. The only mystery yet to be solved was HOW exactly this system led to the Underground. At some point, the rock changed texture and at some point, she knew she wasn't in Olathe anymore, but every time it happened, it happened before she knew it. Whether it was some rip in the fabric of spacial reality or a portal of some sort, Buddy didn't know...nor did she have the education to know much about that stuff anyway.
All she knew was that she could find her way to this world whenever she pleased. It was her little secret, her escape, nothing more. And it would stay that way for now. Buddy emerged into the other world through means she didn't quite understand. Were anyone to observe this happening, they would see a woman emerging from what seemed to be a perfectly solid rock wall, but upon closer inspection, find themselves able to pass through the wall as well. She still shuddered involuntarily each time. What a creepy feeling. But, she was growing more and more accustomed to it in time. Buddy continued her long walk until she found herself back at the door of her favorite bar in the multiverse and walked inside...only to be Rickrolled! Thankfully, she didn't even know what the internet was, much less a meme, so to her it seemed like just some cheesy song. Buddy took a seat in a booth and popped open a bottle of potato liquor. "...Tch. Same shit as usual...."