Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

"Marvin, you and Ashley bring him outside and just do what I did with the water. Give him small amounts and watch him." I said as I handed him my canteen.

The two asked slowly brought him out and the rest of my group was now in front of a cache of weapons and equipment. The keys for the military vehicles outside were also in a tin box, labeled with the corresponding plate numbers.

We already found a pile of handguns from the bodies we took down consisting of M1911s, RIA 1911s, Glock 17s, and Beretta 92s. A few of them were carrying M16s, M4s, AKMs, and Remington 870s through their slings but in this cache, we found more still in perfect condition.

The ones just piled over on the shelves were slightly used but the ones inside the huge caches made each of us excited.

It wasn't as much as the ones we got from the Valenzuela City Hall but a good haul was a good fucking haul. The variety was also commendable because the standard-issue M16 for the Philippine Military had different refurbished versions in one of the caches. Some of them even had the M203 Grenade Launcher attached while a few had shorter barrels compared to their usual carry. There were also a couple of M60s and K3s that would have a special place in my home base.

"Hey bro, isn't this a Dragunov? The one Alexei uses?" Lois waved me over.

"Hmm, it's- no, it's not." I replied after a quick glance.

"What? It looks the exact same, right?" Lois was scratching his head.

"It is but that's a Norinco Type 85, developed in China. It's a look-alike but the internals are different from the real one." I explained.

"OHOHO~ OHOHO~ BRO~ I think I'm in love~" I heard Russel losing his shit.

The moment each one of us present looked in his general direction, panic almost ensued. Russel was pointing a loaded Milkor MGL at the ceiling and I never dashed so fast in my life just to get it off his hands.

"Let's put it down and let's open a few more boxes eh? That shit would blow us up and I don't trust you holding that so casually with that fucking look in your face!" I carefully unloaded it before placing it back where he found it.

"B-But it called to me!" Russel exclaimed.

"Yeah, yeah that sounds kinda sus. We'd vote you out of the ship if we could..." I turned him around and made him pick casings outside.

There were a lot more guns to go through but no one gave a fuck. It was a while before we managed to get a good haul of guns and ammo after an operation. Everyone seemed happy except for one person.

"No RPGs eh? Even mortars aren't present. We acquired a few last time, right? Even the ammo left is not that many." Jared commented.

"Yeah, it should vary from camp to camp. Don't forget the huge number of spent casings outside, they probably used a fuck ton of it. The only good thing was that they still had a lot of grenades left in some of the boxes and they have good comms equipment." I replied.

"Well, some of the M4s had optics and other attachments and a couple of jeeps had an M2 Browning on top of it, like the ones we collected before..." Jared sighed.

"Why are you so fucking dejected? Heh, this shit is all free dude. Well, we used our guns to get here so let's just say that it was a good investment." I chuckled.

"I was hoping we'd stumble upon a fucking SCAR here..." Jared continued.

"Our country would get broke if we equip everyone with that one, heh. I'm still saving mine for a good occasion but if you really want one, you better start dealing with Oscar. You've been inside his armory, you know he has a few he's using as a paperweight. He bought a few to annoy me but little did he know I'm more inclined in the AR platform still." I chuckled again.

"Bro, how could you say something so controversial yet so brave? Heh, fuck it. This SIG still kicks ass so I'll bear with it." Jared was shaking his head, joking.

"Bear with it? Hah! Better start hauling them in the trucks outside before I switch that back with your old M70." I was laughing my ass off when he moonwalked out of the Police Station to escape me.

Looking through most of the stuff laying around, I also found their record book that contained information about the number of people they have inside, their food storages, guns and ammo allocations, and etc. I made sure to place it inside my pack for a reference after we include everything we hauled to our own inventory.

We hauled everything we could and there was still space for the items left on the love hotel. The people from the groups we sent to watch over the other points eventually joined with us and they even managed to scavenge a few food items on their own. They even filled out a few Jerry Cans with diesel and they marked a few spots where we could acquire more in future runs.

The sun was already down when we got reached Lawrence's outpost but the fact that there was no activity from the City of Navotas made me thought of a few things while I was driving. They could be flying high in the clouds when everything went down, oblivious from what happened the previous day, Cyrill lying about the information he gave me, or yet, they were all dead or worse… killed.

It could be anything now and it could be the doings of another group that either came from land or sea or something else we weren't expecting. It could also be overrun by the dead and as bad as it may sound I was hoping for the latter. I would rather face a horde than a group of armed hostiles wanting to take half our shit.

"Should I send a group to probe in that city first or continue to make a path towards the City of Manila?" I thought to myself but I always had the answer.

"Both. It'll always be both. The fuck am I making stupid choices now?" I chuckled inwardly.

We dropped Lawrence off in his outpost while we dropped Ibarra and the rest of the soldiers that came with us in our own DDR Camp when we reached home. The protocols for sundown were already in place and they were on alert when we came in with a lot more vehicles than what we went out.

"Take the crates from that truck and secure them in your armory. They contain guns that you guys are trained for and a few hundred rounds of ammo. They're mostly M16s and Glock 17s but I added a few grenades in another box. Have our doctors check on Ibarra and make sure he gets the right treatment. He's the only one that survived that place and we need all the information we could get from him." I said to one of the soldiers that we met first when we arrived.

"Y-Yes sir. We'll take good care of him." the soldier replied.

"Okay, just hand him a pack of anything he wants when the doctor clears him and tell him it's from the house." I gave one last order before we head home.

We also parked some of the vehicles on their parking area while a couple of jeeps were driven towards Woodlands. The rest followed us inside the compound, directly to Anthony's house for maintenance or repairs since not all of them were in a good condition to be driven long periods outside.

Oscar was cackling nonstop as he got his hands on the Milkor but I made a deal to swap with one of the guns from his collection. Like the car parts salesman, I used the situation to my advantage and managed to hoodwink an old man that let's just say had an extreme liking for guns, cars, and spending too much just to get what he wanted.

What I got from him was an I.O.U. which was the best deal I could get from him.

I just couldn't stop scratching my head when I saw three V8s in my workshop with other parts laying around and nothing to put them in.

"This is the bad side of hoarding… We better secure a body for at least one of them or I'll tie him up every time we go there… well… as long as he doesn't put in inside a Prius I'm good..." I thought to myself.

Then I felt a tap on my shoulder.

"Hey, Cynthia decided on taking a small break tomorrow and I said you wouldn't mind. She's pretty shaken but she's now talking with her nephews on the phone. Rin is with her now but mom would drop by later to check on her." Kaley said to me with a solemn expression.

"That's good, that's good. She could hang around with Chris and Charlotte tomorrow if she wanted to. The kids kinda like her too but she's a little shy around them. She'll bounce back soon but tell her she's free to do whatever she wants. She's here on permanent vacation, not conscription." I replied.

"Hmm, she really wanted to help around but that was too much for her. To be fair, she hasn't been out much compared to us..." Kaley sighed.