Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

A few things happened in between and we were now gathered in our meeting area. Harold and Morales were present with their groups along with the other representatives from each outpost, camp, or residence.

"Okay, let's start. Harold, If what I heard is accurate, your team will be driving back tomorrow, right? I believe we need to have our conversation now. I'm sorry we've been postponing it by doing a few things here and there."

Harold replied, "It's nothing to worry, really. The change of scenery is good but what I'm about to propose to you is gonna be a little~ troublesome. Well, not only for you but everyone that's been getting their water from our place."

"Troublesome? How?"

Harold stood up and brought up a graph telling us the paths or the pipeline the La Mesa Dam had been using, "As you can see, the La Mesa Dam is the one mainly supplying water to the whole of Metro Manila. With that said, everything else is interconnected but there's one thing we weren't able to keep proper track of ever since this zombie bullshit started. Can anyone guess?"

'Maintenance on the pipelines.'

Johnny and Raphael interjected at the same time, "Leaks."

Harold continued, "That's right. All we've been doing is trying to keep the dam sending water every single day but there seemed to be places where leaks have sprouted up. I'm not the expert but a few of the streets my group has passed through near our place had small areas where there's a small flood due to small pipelines breaking up or due to certain meters getting damaged or getting left unchecked."

Oscar interjected, "Hmm~ There are fewer people in the world but I for one would still conserve clean water as much as possible. I'd do rough work with some of my stuff but water is no joke."

I turned to Harold, "So, what do you need help with? We will do anything within reason even if it's troublesome."

Harold replied, "What we've been talking about the past few weeks is to determine which places have communities such as this so we could be a little more conservative as to where to send water and where to limit the supply."

Matthew interjected, "Wait. Are we having a shortage then?"

Harold waved his hand, "Not exactly. You see, it's a natural occurrence to have our water supply on the shorter end when summer comes. Add that to the leakages all around, we'll have some trouble. We're just trying to minimize our losses, that's all."

Oscar chimed in once more, "I still can't see the troublesome part. All I see that we're doing is just revealing our communities to you. There's something else, right?"

Harold nodded, "Yes, there is. Limiting the supply is one of them but the problem still exists. To be honest, doing that is not the solution, only a simple remedy. What we need to do is fix those leaks whenever we could and as much as possible. That way, we could as easily send water everywhere while only worrying about keeping the dam safe and sound."

I said, "Okay, I think what we need to do first is check if our own pipeline had no leaks before tending to the other pipelines that do have them. Wait, the other pipelines could be manually closed off, right? Not just from your place?"

Raphael interjected, "We just needed to get to their supplier and we could close them off surgically. How it goes is you need to close off the pipelines from where there seem to be no people first and we'll work from there. Maybe we could go from barangay to barangay since we already have a few on our belts without any roamers. It would be a very tedious process but that's all we could do for now."

Harold nodded a few times, "That's a start. One of ours is suggesting that too. However, here's the plan for the future. I don't know how long it would take but it's something to think about."

"What are you suggesting?"

"An independent pipeline for our main players. That includes you, Morales, and Iskoh. In any case, it will only be a matter of time before you get Valenzuela City, Morales gets Navotas City, Iskoh his City of Manila, and the three of you sharing the City of Malabon. Location-wise, you're the one much closer compared to the three of you but there are other people in play."

"And who are they?"

"You see, Quezon City is the biggest city out of everything in our region. Let's just say that there are more groups that formed over there instead of you guys grouping into a single unit. Furthermore, the three of you have been cooperating with each other and my CO wants to be a part of that."

"Are you having trouble with these smaller groups?"

"Some of them are good news while some are not. Truth be told, I'm not sure if we encountered all of them. The only reason that they're not touching us is that we hold the water supply. If our place goes down, everyone will be in trouble. There are other dams too but they're not connected with it. They'd have to bring water tanks like that other group that would visit from time to time."

I just started to have a little headache because a lot of things were popping up without my control. We've already blocked the main path toward Quezon City but like cutting the supply of water from the pipelines, it wasn't a permanent fix. Sooner or later, we would encounter more less than cooperative groups from that city and they would definitely slow down the process of everything we've been working on.

I rubbed my glabella before speaking, "We'll get to work on what you proposed to us but we'll have to take over this city first before creating a separate pipeline. That would take a few months at least and creating one from scratch isn't as easy as it sounds. Besides, I have connections in Bulacan as well and we might also look into the soldiers watching the Angat Dam, the main supplier in the Bulacan Area.

"Don't worry about it. I'll introduce you to the guys watching that dam in the future. We'll just have a few more meetings like these and we'll build proper connections. Anyway, thanks for the hospitality and I hope we could stay a bit longer. Duty calls, am I right?"

"No problem. In any case, we'll send a group to accompany you with some supplies that have some ways to maximize what you have. Your biggest issue is food so I'll be sending you seeds, seedlings, fruiting bags, and some of the stuff we already processed. I'll just recommend rotating your usage with them but I've sent some files to watch or read to learn what I'm talking about. We could only send so much and it's better to be self-sustaining."

"That's great but I'm wondering how we'll proceed with our ammo deal? The president said you'll hook us up, right?"

"Here's how it goes, if you provide us with materials, I'll take a small cut from that as payment for the work I'll be putting on it. Brass casings or lead scrap could work but I'd like it more if you managed to get ahold of gunpowder, primers, or more reloading tools."

"How about ammo that we came upon? You know, the ones that are just too suspicious to use."

"I'll take them as well and process them but we'll work a deal on it. If you don't have the materials for it, just have something of equal value and we'll work on it as well. It could be guns, working gun parts, medicine, or anything else. However, just call me before we make the trade so we'll work on the exact amount and I'll only do trades in this place. If you could work with that, you'll have yourself a great deal."

"Gun parts? Can you do repairs on some of them?"

"That's the idea but it depends on the damage. More than likely, it would be better to replace a bent firing pin instead of hammering it straight or some other stuff. It's not like the whole gun is broken when it stops working, right? I'll take the working parts and see if I could slap them to the ones that need it. I'll do a few tests if it would still work but that's the gist of it."

"Hmm, I see. That's interesting. I'll assume you have all the tools for it and I'll report it back. We have a few just in storage and some of them are just outright garbage. We have a rifle shooting three feet to the left while the other was shooting two feet up despite several adjustments."

"That's okay. I'll take a look at it but I want you to look out for someone."

"Who?"