Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

Everyone was silent for a moment but I started laughing with Kaley, Cynthia, Mikhail, and Jared while Tatiana was shaking her head in annoyance with Rin, Vera, and Ibarra. Enrique wasn't the brightest of characters but it was sure making everyone, that finds his sense of humor funny, smile a little bit.

"Did they say anything else?" I asked.

"Not much but Ilya said that Mr. Cuervo told him to tell you that the finals would take some time to organize. It might start a couple of months next year because it was hard to get all of the players in one place." Vera replied.

"With our schedule, that's good to hear. Things popping up one after the other made distributing manpower for jobs finicky." I said.

"Oh, they also said that four buildings had their roofs repurposed so you could park your helicopters. I'm not sure why they made a few extra but could it be connected to the finals you're talking about?" Vera added.

"Hmm, that could raise some concerns. Anyway, what's the status of the other stuff you're dealing with?" I asked.

"The connection with the Intercity, the Meycauayan Outpost, Pulo Outpost- wait, do we call them outposts or DDR Camps?" Vera inquired.

"Hmm, whatever will do but make sure to add the real name of the place they're in." I replied.

"Okay, aside from the three I mentioned earlier, I also managed to establish open communications with Iskoh's Camp, Irene's Camp, Mr. Cuervo's Compound, and Jessica's Camp. I'm still trying to reach out to other places like the News Network where the helicopter that crashed came from and that guy named Hill that's been nothing but misses. There are also other places that are making contact but they've been mostly elusive of their exact location. Most of them were just trying to get a lot of information while giving as little as possible in return." Vera explained.

"Any news about Isko's camp? About Jade?" Jude suddenly popped out from nowhere.

"Oh- umm- okay… You're Jade's brother, right? I've talked to her a few times and she told me to tell you to stop eating ramen all the time or just add pieces of vegetables. Better yet, add some real meat in your diet so you wouldn't be as skinny..." Vera was shocked by Jude but she continued to answer him.

"I see. Thank you." Jude just nodded before heading back to his house.

"..." everyone else.

"Oscar said they're making progress there, any details?" I asked.

"Oh, I discovered that they're making use of boats to clear the dead." Vera replied.

"Boats? Why?" Mikhail asked.

"Well aside from taking over the harbor, they're also in the process of clearing the Pasig River. In any case, opening up a water route between their main base and the outpost they're trying to make would require clearing out the floating bodies on the water. It also gets a tad difficult for them because some of them are still moving. I also heard discussions that a few floating bodies made a miniature island where some of the dead were using them as rafts. I didn't believe what I hear at first but they're pretty serious about it." Vera replied.

"It's because the Pasig River is not only full of floating water lilies, it's also full of trash floating freely because of the people not disposing of their garbage properly. Combine them with the undead bodies and we'll get fucked up floaters." I explained.

"Why is that river so important though? They could just drive around, right?" Vera inquired.

"That's true but keeping the water channels open such as the Pasig River could lead us to a few different places. It could lead us to other cities without needing to clear the road and it could even lead us to Laguna Lake. It's situated in the province of Laguna which is right next to the Province of Batangas. Driving through a few barangays and a couple of cities could lead us to Mr. Cuervo's Compound and Irene's Camp." I replied.

"But we would need to acquire land vehicles the moment we reached a pier of some sort, right?" Kaley asked.

"Yeah, but we'll make sure and bring some fuel along the ride. Even better, we'll occupy a little area in that place and make it an outpost so we could reach more places we haven't been to. We're gonna assign more people, plan routes, etc. etc." I replied as I was rubbing my chin.

"Didn't you just say that getting more work is getting a little too finicky?" Jared added as he was scratching his head from the work I suddenly piled on them.

"Hah! Spend a few minutes in my head and you'll see the chaos I've been sifting through every single day. It's like a million earphones that were pulled out of a giant's pocket we needed to untangle. Trust me, you'll fucking hate me once you discover everything I'm thinking about every single day." I chuckled.

"Okay, okay. I get it, bro, could we please finish what we started now? This is a little too much..." Jared shook his head.

"Okay, great work Vera. Just update me whenever and as soon as possible, okay?" I ended our short conversation.

Vera decided to return to the Radio Station and continue her job then I received a couple of taps on my back.

"Here, I charged them before I fell asleep but if they're only running the app we coded, it could last for a while. However, I also hooked them up with a spare battery as an added measure but it just looks a little ugly. But hey, as long as it works, right?" Kris said as he handed me a box of cheap smartphones.

"Yeah, you don't have to add cosmetics to this thing." I chuckled then Kris bid goodbye.

"Are we gonna leave bro?" Jared was lazily standing at the back of the Raptor we would be using.

"Heh, one more stop, I promise." I said as I chuckled.

"One more? Where?" Kaley asked.

"Nah, just kidding. We'll head back to the chapel where we left the bodies to install these things. We never know, they might not be there anymore." I replied.

"By 'install', you mean we're gonna dig up-" Jared misunderstood so I immediately corrected him.

"No, we're just gonna place it inside their pockets or something then we leave it alone for a while. If they relocated or something, the phone would send a signal through the relay every minute so we could track its general location." I explained.

"Finally, I really wanted to know how they could do that bro. It just changed the fucking dynamic of how we approach them. It's like in the show where they have to figure out the dead ones from the masked ones but in our case, we have to figure out the dead ones from the deader ones..." Jared added.

"Really dude, 'deader'?" I chuckled.

"Heh, what else could we call them? Deaderer?" Jared piled on.

We just shook our head in amusement as we drove towards the chapel. It was a straight shot towards it and Jared and Kaley were enjoying the drive. It was because the two of them were behind the Raptor, freely shooting anything that moved. I could barely see Ibarra wearing an astonished expression seeing the two shoot with great accuracy. However, I discovered I was wrong because he was just stunned by the number of bullets the two were going through.

'After the number of bullets I showed him we could make everyday...' I sighed inwardly but I was slightly amused.

It took us a few minutes but we managed to reach the chapel.

Mikhail and Ibarra immediately jumped down for two different reasons. Mikhail jumped down to test out his new weapon while Ibarra jumped down to clear the dead with his machete, making Jared and Kaley stop shooting even for a moment.

I almost felt sorry for the ones Mikhail was chopping to pieces but even I wanted to let loose seeing him felling body after body with one swing. The added weight with the weapon he was using made it unwieldy for a normal person but it offered great destructive power even more so when you use the hammer side. It was the perfect weapon for him because it greatly synergized with his physical strength. Even I would have a hard time wielding it but I know one other person that could as easily handle that.

It took us a short while clearing the bodies that littered the streets but we eventually managed to open the gates to the chapel where we stored a dozen bodies for recon work.

All of them were still inside and they never moved a muscle.

"I hoped at least one moved, but they didn't..." Jared muttered.

"Play 'Baby' or 'Friday' and maybe that'll work." I joked.

As soon as I said that, their faces contorted to a smile but I continued to work on our little idea.

I brought out the box of smartphones we had and I started to nestle one inside one of their pockets. Some of them were wearing skirts or robes so we used bandages to hold the phones close to their bodies and left the area while leaving the gate open. We also sprayed their clothes with paint so it could be classified as a 'avoid for now' zombie that we needed to get information out of.

'We'll see if my idea has some merit to it...' I thought to myself.