Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

The moment the words came out of my mouth, the three looked at Tatiana's expression. However, I thought she would argue her case but she slowly smiled brightly after raising an eyebrow. I suddenly got chills when she did that and the three slowly looked back at what I would do.

"W-What? Why are you smiling like that?" I stuttered.

"Nothing. I don't know why, I just like it when you order me around." Tatiana chuckled.

"You? Getting submissive?" I was confused.

"..." the three were confused and speechless.

"That's why I said 'I don't know why', I always follow the orders of my higher-ups but with you, it's kinda different. Well, starting to be." Tatiana started taking down her AKM.

"Thanks?" I was looking at her weirdly.

"Hahaha, anyway, how clean do you want it to be?" Tatiana asked.

"Spotless, obviously." Rin chimed.

"Oh, as clean as before we prep for anal, corr-" Tatiana was cutoff.

"Tatiana!" Rin and Kaley exclaimed while Cynthia was beet-red.

"What? I'm just making a simple comparison." Tatiana was chuckling as she borrowed a brush for the bore.

"Well… if you think about it… s-sure… l-like that..." I was shaking my head as I was brushing the bolt of my rifle.

Tatiana's AKM had fewer parts to go through but she took her time thoroughly cleaning it until it was pristine. The rest of us did so as well and we made sure to properly oil them before we switched to the next gun. Tatiana and I made faster progress than everyone because we were familiar with most of the guns present.

I was picking up the ones with the most moving parts while the rest were picking up the ones they were more familiar with. If there was a gun unbeknownst to them, they have the manuals to look into to make sure the gun was stripped properly.

As I was cleaning some of them, I spotted a few parts that needed to be replaced. The others noticed a few too and approached me to confirm if it was the same case. What we did is we set them aside for now and we would either replace them with new parts or use the other existing ones from the other guns we salvaged the internals.

Noon came and we weren't even done with half of them. We took a small break and we went down to eat lunch. Everyone was present and we ate a simple meal of fish and vegetables. I finished eating and I was about to get Kaley and I water but the kids were holding plates with glasses of water and slowly walking to each one of us. I got two for Kaley and me and I thanked Aya for bringing us our water.

"Now this is convenient, heh." Oscar chuckled.

"Old man, you brought Jared and the rest with you earlier, right?" I asked.

"Yeah, Matthew's with me too, why?" Oscar replied.

"Where did you guys go?" I asked, sipping some water.

"We drove a bit further in the Bulacan Area, way past Lolomboy where the cult was located but still in the same municipality." Oscar replied.

"What? Where? Oh..." realization struck.

"What are you two talking about?" Kaley asked.

"The Intercity." I replied.

"What's in that place?" Cynthia chimed.

"It's a business center solely focused on rice. It's located on the barangay of Wakas, a few more barangays past the place where we did the operation yesterday. That place has lots of mills and that is also where I get my supplies of rice to sell in my stores. There's a few more like them all throughout this country but that place is the nearest one in our location. A single store inside could contain more than a thousand sacks of rice and there are close to a hundred stores." I explained.

"Your uncle asked us to head there earlier and we found people there. They recognized your uncle and we talked for quite a while. Good thing we brought the 8-wheeler and Mark's team with my SUV and we went back full of fucking~ rice. I'm not that fond of it but I know all of you can't fucking live without it, heh." Oscar replied, chuckling.

"What?! They just gave them to you? Where's Unc Zardon?" I was surprised but then I called over Unc Zardon. We repeated most of what we conversed with him and I asked a few questions for clarification.

"Oh, earlier eh? Well, a 'thank you' is the right word for it. The owners from J & E, Jomarro, and Angelica are well and alive along with a few more others. They recognized our truck actually and they made us drive inside. We saw their situation there and they were doing pretty good." Unc Zardon started.

"There's also a ton of people outside trying to get in or get a share as well but the place is seemingly well-guarded and they don't let anyone in without proper trading goods. They're stocked as in fucking stocked." Matthew added.

"Seemingly?" I asked.

"Soldiers from the overrun DDR Camps were hunkered there and protecting the place. They're guarding two entrances and they're putting out a huge front just to scare away or put down hostiles. However, they don't have the means to produce more ammo so they're running a little low. We're looking at a possible survival partner." Oscar said.

"Wait, unc, you also said the rice was a 'thank you', what do you mean?" I asked but Unc Zardon looked at Oscar.

"Yeah, they learned of what happened yesterday and they discovered that we were the ones who did it. They said it was just proper to give us something for it so they filled our vehicles to the brim. Well, they took it from the other stores that were abandoned but who gives a fuck, right? Rice is rice." Oscar said.

"Hmm..." I was in deep thought.

"What are you thinking about?" Kaley asked.

"The partnership idea, I don't think it would be good to partner with them in the long run." I replied.

"I agree." Matthew chimed and Johnny nodded.

"Why? They have a lot of supplies, right?" Rin asked.

"In the end, the Intercity is just a huge storage area for rice now. They have no way to replenish their supplies and as much as I hate to say this, it was stupid of them to just give us several hundred sacks. If it was me, I would've asked for a bit more. Sooner or later their supplies would run out and the only use of having that place aside from a storage area are the mills to grind the harvested grains to rice." I explained.

"So, what's our course of action, kid?" Oscar asked.

"We'd trade them for anything we could replenish easily and we don't have any use for. Let's take everything sack that we could because their price would ramp up definitely when their supplies started to go red. Let's take advantage of it now while they're still feeling a bit generous. Do we have a means of communication?" I looked at Oscar.

"Yeah, they have a HAM Radio Operator and I think it's easy enough to make contact. However, I forgot to ask what frequency they are broadcasting in. Vera, you could figure that out, right?" Oscar turned to Vera.

"Yes, you could all drop by the radio station later after I've made contact. I'll just need a few things like their names or something to make it easier to recognize them." Vera replied.

"Wait a sec, aren't we gonna at least talk it out a bit more and find a way? You know those people, right?" Kaley said.

"Yeah, that's the way to go but we need to secure a lot of their supplies first. We don't know their full situation yet and I'll weigh the pros and cons. To give more context, the Intercity is not owned by any single person. Each owner has varying degrees of ownership inside. It would be difficult to figure out as to who holds the most power inside now and who the soldiers have sided with. It would be great if they're united but if they're not, we need to tread carefully. Their place sounds promising but we need to make sure everything is okay." I explained.

"If everything is okay, how can we make it work with them?" Rin asked.

"Each of them either has a field of their own where they grow the rice that they mill or has some sort of partnership with a farmer or a landowner. The owner of J & E and Angelica are getting their supply from their rice fields deep in the provinces while the owner of Jomarro is getting its supply from imports and local farmers. It's kinda the same thing with the other owners the way they do business and it boils down to who you made the best deal with." I started.

"Um..." Rin was confused with a few others.

"I just added more options but everything is still a hypothetical. We could help them if their farms are located in a great position." I replied.

"And what would that do?" Rin asked.

"They obviously would have no choice but to do other things if they ran out of the items they could trade with us. If we go with the partnership route, we need to know where their farms are located and if it is defensible so we could have a supply of rice when harvest comes. It's either that or we go claim our own. The closer the better." I explained.