Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

Everyone suddenly looked at Jared and I looked at the top of the screen of the phone that he's holding. The signal for the cellular data is grayed out and has a red 'X' on the bottom but the WiFi signal is indicator is grayed though it has a '?' mark on the side.

[New WiFi Network Located. Tap to see more.]

I tapped on the truck to stop in the middle of the road about to reach the bridge which is between a bank and a small elevated road that leads to a small grocery store with several food shops that has their roll-ups closed. However, there are several smears of blood on some of them and a few bodies are killed and piled on the side of the road.

I looked at the phone again while the others started on clearing a few that are starting to approach our truck.

The network that is broadcasting is public and anyone could connect to it though I doubt it would be connected to the Internet since it was already gone before. I checked the name of the network and it was just a generic name for a WiFi router that hasn't been changed by the owner.

"Is the Internet still working here?" Jared asked.

"No, just someone who left their router unplugged." I replied.

"So, someone alive then?" he asked.

"Not sure. The signal could belong to a house further in or one of the stores here. Most routers could broadcast as far as 300 feet give or take and it seems that we're on the lower side when we're receiving the signal. It has connected successfully but the bars for signal strength is almost nonexistent." I explained.

"Are we gonna look for it then?" Mark chimed.

"Hmm, it could be anything at this point and we don't even know if the place where the router is located has people in it. We'll head home first but keep an eye out on some places that m-" then Jared interrupted me when I gave back his phone.

"Bro, several files have been downloaded in this phone! Look! Wait! The signal is gone!" he gave the phone back to me again.

I started on looking at the files and it was several text files that has normal paragraphs that seems to be from a story of an old folk tale while the other files have a random set of numbers within.

"Is it Roi?" Kaley asked.

"Hmm, let me call him. I think he's not the one who did this though." I said as I picked up my Sat Phone.

He picked it up and Roi said, "Password."

"Fucking cut the that bull!" I shouted.

"Wrong password, two tries remaining." I heard from the other line.

"Fuck! Listen!" I said as I almost threw my phone in annoyance.

"Wrong password, one try remaining until the 24-hour cooldown." he said again.

"Your 24-hour cooldown is bullshit! If it's 24 hours, you shouldn't be picking up since I called earlier!" I shouted.

*line disconnects*

"..." the group looking at me.

"I fucking hate unreasonable people. Well, we're sure now that it's not him. That is a different person who sent those files to your phone." I said while trying to calm myself down.

"I should start to figure out the rest of the messages that he sent me." I thought to myself.

Jared's eyes lit up and said, "So, the person who sent this is a hacker then? Can he hack this phone again if he wanted to?"

"The hackers from movies are very different from hackers in real life bro. You can't just tap on your keyboard like there's no tomorrow and the next thing you know you hacked inside the Pentagon. That's impossible to do in a single sitting and within a few moments." I said while smirking.

"Really? Are you a hacker like the group Anonymity then? You used to be a programmer, right?" Jared grew curious.

"Me? I hope I'm like them as well but I just dabble a bit on that occupation. I just dive in the deep web every now and then to check for news but I'm not like the ones who does it for a living." I said.

"Weird place to check for news..." Kaley chimed.

"Heh, me checking that place saved everyone in here and in the compound. Anyway, back to the person who sent that, it's probably one." I said.

"Really?! Then shouldn't we chase after him then?! We could help each other! You said routers could reach around 300 feet, right? We still got a lot of time." Jared said excitedly.

"If he's a good one, then it's happily ever after. We still don't know what those files meant. I doubt we'll find him, it's hard to find someone that would only let you find him if he wants to. I'll add those to the ones that Roi left me and we'll figure this out first. We don't just rush into it since it would be too dangerous." I said.

"Why can't just people get straight to the point?! They kept on giving me cryptic messages!" I thought to myself as we drove back.

There are still a few spaces left for a few more boxes so we stopped by a few more stalls to completely fill the truck before we headed back. The new ones we took was filled with different kinds of feeds but these would be used for our compound and not be sent to Borris' house. I killed a few more on the way home though I would mostly let my group take care of it while I watch them.

"Hmm, I think we'll make something like that back home. That would be really great if we ever made one. Well, we should get started on it. The earlier, the better. It could help with Chris' footwork problem." I thought to myself.

I handed the animals to Derek and Jeremy while we unloaded the truck for a while. Anthony has started on the gate and it would be a sliding one though much heavier than the fence that we made. He's now making some sort of metal bar where there is an indent in the middle that would keep the gate in place when we're sliding it on the side unlike the fence that we made that could be slid easily by small wheels on the bottom.

Tatiana and her group on the other hand has come back several times since they have started on sweeping everything else they could on the places that are much nearer than we went through.

I approached her and said, "If you go out after unloading those, grab all the barricades that you can from the street. The plastic ones, metal ones, and if you can, the concrete ones. I'm gonna make something for the people here."

"What? For the people? Barricades?" she asked.

"Yeah. Some sort of obstacle course where they could practice tracing." I replied.

"What?" Kaley chimed.

"Let me show you guys." I replied and I headed to my old house.

I placed my foot on the small space on the stairs and I jumped up to the small gate that leads to the stairs that leads to the door. I then placed my hands on the rails as I lifted myself up on the other side but not falling since my feet are placed on the small spaces under the rails. I lifted myself up again as I walked on the rails then placing my hands on the pillar on the corner of the house after I jumped on it and finally making my way to the 2nd floor of my house after making myself a foothold on the said pillar in a fluid and quick motion.

I made my way down by climbing down on the other side of the pillar towards the huge gate where a few vehicles are and finally jumping down while rolling to break the fall.

"Like that." I said.

"I see, burglary, correct?" Tatiana said with a smirk.

"Something like that... *shaking my head* yes. We'll start on a few obstacles first since we won't always be climbing houses. It could help us by maneuvering on the right places in case we need to avoid a few of them if we're in a rush. I noticed that I'm the only one doing it. I'll be glad to teach another class that is different from the ones we always do. I'll start on making a few obstacles from the materials on the covered court while you gather a few outside."

"Why do you call it tracing then? Isn't parkour the commonly used word?" Kaley asked.

"Well, when I do it, I visualize the places I'd go to. Where I'll place my foot, what I'll grab with my hand and many more. In a sense, I'm tracing the place I'd be going into. Different people have different terms for it, tracing, parkour, free-running, and etc. I just preferred to call it that." I said.

"Hmm, I think I could also perform that but not as fast as you. We have a few obstacle courses in the military when they trained us. Mobility is key now specially when the situation is you should never get hit by any means." Tatiana said, nodding.

"We mostly just pick a position to kill them without getting hit but we never made a maneuver to escape them. Is doing this for the new ones that we found?" Kaley chimed.

"New ones?" Tatiana asked then we told her the story.

"Anyway, what I'm doing could be fun too with more people. I have an idea." I said as a gleam started to form in my eyes.