Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

Glowing was supposed to be a great compliment at any time of day but the word had a completely different meaning yesterday so it prompted such a reaction. However, it didn’t take long before things cleared up and everyone just shared a hearty laugh this early in the morning.

But yeah, aside from the older couple we met earlier who were probably a little hard of hearing, some of the folks who were also staying at the campsite were giving us a mix of looks, but the most prevalent one was with a mix of hate because we weren’t exactly that quiet doing that special type of activity.

And to quickly remedy the situation, we offered all of them some goods, either meat or vegetable products—which they jovial accepted—for the trouble we caused then they continued on with their lives.

“Hey~! Good Morning and God bless! Do you kids want to have some coffee?” The older guy waved us over.

“S-Sure—”

“We got pancakes or waffles too—whichever you may want! Can you hear me?! We have some grilled cheese too!”

At this point, we realized replying verbally was a mistake so we just signaled with our hands which he quickly understood.

“Great! I’ll tell my wife you’re coming! That’s the YMCA, right? I was there when it was first aired… Honey~! HONEY! HONEY—”

“WHAAAT?! Don’t shout so early in the morning! It was so quiet last night everybody must still be sleeping!”

In a short bit, all of us were crowding inside their cozy cabin as they kept sharing stories one after the other with huge smiles on their faces. But as they continued on to their more recent topics, we discovered that they had no idea that the dead had come back to life.

Everyone couldn’t be more confused by the sudden revelation but everyone who wasn’t a resident was giving me, Mimi, and Chloe a certain look.

‘Oh, come on…’

I was living in this university for close to four years but that doesn’t mean that I knew everybody.

But yeah, it seemed like Mimi knew something about these two and she took over the conversation from then on.

“Umm… Mr. and Mrs. Flores… Is umm… Can I ask who’s the nursing assistant that tasked for you—”

Mrs. Flores waved her off, “Oh, no! Honey, we’re fine as we are and we don’t need anyone taking care of us— Well, the delivery of groceries and whatnot are a huge help but it seems like they’re pushing more and more local products our way. Not that we mind but you know~ It would be nice to have some variety, right?”

“O-Of course…”

Then her eyes lit up as she turned to me, “Oh yeah! I love how you packaged the ground beef you gave us! You flattened them with a rolling pin, right?! I used to hate having them in big lumps and that really solved the problem!”

I nodded awkwardly, “Yeah, they did… Doing that really helps with thawing them faster and you know, easier to store them…”

‘That’s Chef Ng for ya…’

In any case, we finished breakfast and thanked them before we drove back to my house—with Chloe tagging along—and gave apologies to the neighbors we caused “distress” by means of gifts like food or entertainment like some movies, comic books, or anything that could easily be copied and passed on.

I have my fair share of experience with these kinds of people but almost all of them wouldn’t turn away gifts and I wouldn’t mind giving a few away just to make them shut up for one more day.

With that said, I was lucky to catch all of my friends in one spot because Andy just come back from his shift, Ben and Cass had the day off, and Allyssa and Ron were still preparing to head out so I told them the same thing I did Mimi, but I did get a mix of reactions.

First and foremost, since Ben was in a relationship with Cass and Cass was working at the Academy, the only way that Ben would leave was if I could find a way to convince the General to let her go because this was the reason he didn’t drive to my place with Ken the first time.

And in Andy’s case, he easily made his decision to come with me the moment I promised him a set of firearms and meat at least once a day.

I had to confirm one more time, “Andy, you sure that’s all you want?”

“Of course! The fuck— Do you know how pathetic I look holding this nightstick while all the other soldiers were—” he glanced at the cadets I brought with me and Jose, “No offense, alright?”

Jose nodded, “None taken… I’m actually on your side…”

“See? They understand. And bro… some of the directors here and some elders just have tons of meat lying around in their homes! Fucking hypocrites, right?! Well— Not all of them but if they’re gonna have some, we should have a little bit, right? Besides, I could’ve come with Ken when I had the chance but you know… things happened and— We should really talk man, I have a lot of fucking shit to unpack…”

I chuckled, “You tell me, heh. Anyway, I have something for you later… I’ll make sure to catch you before we leave.”

“Alright~ Alright, I got you bro…”

But yeah, in Allyssa and Ron’s case, they were totally against the idea of coming back with us because of the danger of going outside and from what I thought would be Mimi’s greatest obstacle, leaving behind friends and their students they’ve made in this place. Sure, we were still friends to be completely honest but not everyone retains the same friendship they had with everybody.

“I hope you understand our situation…”

I waved them off, “No worries… At least you two could maintain the house and whatnot? And you’ll have the whole place to yourselves! Who knows? You might have kids—”

Allyssa cut in as she shook her head, “No-no… No kids while this… You know, this thing is still… happening… For now, we’ll just focus on our jobs and accumulating credits for more benefits, right?”

Ron nodded, “Yeah…”

“What benefits are you talking about?”

Allyssa sighed, “It’s complicated stuff. We’re aiming to be the heads of our departments but you gotta have a lot of pull to do that and I do, of course, but we’d need actual funds to make significant changes around here while everything’s going on.”

“I don’t get it—”

“Of course—Ah, sorry for sounding rude… I’m under a lot of stress right now—”

I chuckled, “You’re always stressed. It’s cool. But yeah, tell me a simple way—like what are some of the things you’d need—”

Allyssa waved me off, “Oh, you don’t have to do that. This house is—”

“Just think of it as a parting gift or something. We’ll be back in two weeks but the third time we’ll be here is a huge question mark. We’re still friends, right?”

“…” Allyssa didn’t know how to react.

Ron nudged Allyssa, “Asking for someone’s help does not make you weak, alright? He’s offering as a friend, not one of your sneaky colleagues—”

Allyssa harrumphed as she glanced at Ron, “You’re lucky you’re in the agriculture department… It’s hell in— Ah, shit— I’m sorry… I always…”

Ron just made his eyes bigger as he nodded, “I know, WE all know! Sheesh, just tell him what you need, alright?”

Allyssa took a deep breath as she looked me in the eye, “This is gonna sound mean but u-umm I don’t know what you can actually do for me but anything that you think could help the university in any way is great—”

“How about some books?”

“B-Books? Oh, right! Books! D-Do you have any—”𝒏𝒐𝓋𝞮𝗅𝓃𝖊xt.𝒸𝑶𝔪

“About all of them, I think?”

Allyssa was looking at me like I’m an idiot, “I… I don’t follow…”

I chuckled, “You see, we’ve been outside around 90% of the time ever since it started and I— you know that I’ve been somewhat of a hoarder.”

“Y-Yeah?”

“Let’s cut to the chase, I have several drives’ worth of books in my collection but I only have a few terabytes of random files with me at the moment. But yeah, it’ll definitely expand the collection here and you won’t be able to get them anywhere else though most of it is—”

“H-How?”

“I made sure to scan each page of a book from cover to cover—”

“I mean, how did you collect—”

“Are you even listening? I said we’ve been outside and even though schools and other universities were the difficult ones to clear in a single day, it’s one of the most rewarding ones, and the books are almost always left untouched—you know, unless they’re used as kindling or something similar. And yeah, we’ve been to several schools and a few BIG universities so— oh yeah, I know a guy who cleared the National Library too and he gave me copies of the books and other things they managed to save. And whaddayouknow? The place was basically empty and almost all of the important books were still preserved.”

Ron was a little confused, “W-Who’s the guy you—”

“Oh. Mayor Iskoh. You know him, right?”

“NO FUCKING WAY!”

“Yep, and they’re expecting a baby anytime soon too—”

“Dude! Why didn’t you tell us this yesterday?!”

“First of all, you two were late… We had to give you the shortened version and—”

Allyssa cut in once again, “T-That’s great and all but h-how can you send over all of the files you have? It’ll be a huge contribution to the academy but you said—”

“That’s some greed you have there, heh. But yeah, I have my ways…”

“W-What exactly?”

I chuckled as I turned to Andy, “Can you get me to one of the closest cell sites? You know, the private ones? You can still power them, right?”

“O-Of course, as long as you’ll provide some gas.”

“Then consider it done,” I said as I turned to Allyssa.

Allyssa looked like she wasn’t convinced one bit, “O-Okay? I still don’t get half of what you’re saying but the books are really a good addition. God knows how much credit it would cost for a group to bring even a truck full, and convincing them would be the hardest part! I’d do it nevertheless but there are other things I need to use our credits for…”

Cass glanced at me weirdly before I had a realization.

“Hey… How much credit would it take to send an… an expedition? Is that what you call it over here?”

Allyssa sighed once again but she asked Andy to explain for her.

Andy just shrugged his shoulder as he looked at the ceiling for a moment, “For a single day? Around 10 credits per person but they’ll take less if you share whatever they procured but they always skim from their actual takes and— you know, since none of them are interested in procuring books, they almost always opt for just taking the full price for that kind of errand. And it’s not even sure they’ll be able to take back anything…”

“What?”

“It’s for the attempt, not the actual goal…”

“Like Evil Knievil…”

“Exactly!”

Allyssa sighed once again, “See my problems?”

“I see,” I nodded as I turned to JP, “The ones who do these expeditions are—”

He instantly cut me off, “Most of them are from our place but there are other people around besides us, alright?”

Allyssa turned to me, “You see, I’ll be able to use the credits I’ve saved up for other goals here or for other… more inclined-to-produce-some-results expeditions but generally… more credits would solve a lot of problems for me…”

“Then how much have you saved up?”

“A-Around a thousand? I’ll be paid in a few days so I’ll maybe have twice that but it’ll all sink down to my other projects I’m working on. Ron’s saving up too but his savings are used for our general expenses… food and water, gas, etc. I’ll probably need around twice— no, thrice that amount so they’ll recognize me and give me a shot for the next quarterly meeting…”

“Oh! Then problem solved! Here ya go~” I said as I threw her my ID.

She never looked so confused, “What—”

“Right! Wait! Throw it back to me—”

Ron took my ID from Allyssa’s lap and flicked it back to me, “Catch!”

Cass was already losing her mind by the sudden exchange, “You— What the hell are you doing?! BE CAREFUL WITH THAT!”

“I’m sorry?” Ron and a few others were confused by Cass’ reaction.

I rolled my eyes, “What? I gotta replenish a bit of our stuff before we drive, alright? I’ll give Allyssa everything that’s left after!”

Cass grumbled under her breath, “She has no fucking idea—”

Allyssa turned to Cass, “What did you say? What—”

“I said you have no fucking idea! Stocking up their vehicles to the brim will probably cost 200+ credits at the maximum—”

“Wait, how much do you still have on your ID?!” Allyssa suddenly had an inkling as she was eyeing my ID suspiciously.

I chuckled as I had a thought, “Around 2k. Right, Cass?”

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