Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

It only took a moment before Tatiana caught up to me because I tried to climb up an elevated horizontal bar by kicking against the wall opposite me. Pulling myself up caused a small delay and it made her catch up with me even if she used a roundabout route.

However, before I even tried to jump ahead the other horizontal bar, I felt someone grabbing my ankles with impeccable timing.

"You're not going anywhere!"

"What?! Kaley?!"

"Tatiana! Go!"

Kaley just fucking used the same route as me but instead of trying to race me, she pinned both of us down, forcing a 1 VS 1 between Cynthia and Tatiana.

"You're turning crazy, you know that? If I wiggle my feet like this, you'll fall down..."

"Shut up! You wouldn't-- No! Stop moving!"

"Heh."

Kaley glared at me, "Hmph! I could still break my fall… Tatiana taught me..."

"Come up here, let go of me..."

"What are you-- Stop!"

I tried to pull Kaley up so she could watch the 1 VS 1 with me but instead, she easily pulled herself up without any issue. I nodded my head approvingly but she jokingly pushed me, making hold on to the bar while squatting down.

"You little..."

"Hehe..."

Once we stopped fooling around, we still managed to see the last few seconds between Tatiana and Cynthia.

Despite my fast pass to Cynthia, Tatiana still managed to catch up to her by leaping across great distances by using the obstacles, which a flat surface couldn't allow. There were horizontal bars, tall ledges, and etc. that she could use to her advantage and she caught up sparingly because Cynthia still needed to dribble the ball while doing the same thing.

'These two trained their bodies well...'

Tatiana was going at full speed as she tried to body block Cynthia's advance but the latter wouldn't let up. Cynthia actually tried to force her way against Tatiana but she was slowly leaning to the losing side. However, that was when Cynthia pulled out a few tricks from her sleeve.

Cynthia, or should I say, all of us were mainly dribbling the ball with our hands not only because it was easier, but it was also faster to get through the obstacles. In her case, only a trick play would work on Tatiana for now because she was too overpowering.

I muttered, "It's coming..."

Cynthia kept pushing it until she was close to the basket and she was barely hanging on. She was dribbling with her left hand and the moment Tatiana tried to swipe the ball off her hands, the angle and the power of the ball as it left her hand changed dramatically.

It was almost as if she let it fall down and Tatiana failed her steal.

The ball rolled down to their feet but Cynthia placed her right foot forward before scooping the ball with her left foot, locking it between her ankles before she lifted it a few inches from her side.

It spun in the air due to a simple butterfly lift but Cynthia followed it up by kicking it with her right heel. Her body was now leaning against Tatiana and the two could only watch the ball fly past their heads.

The ball hit the board before going in and Cynthia celebrated by hugging Tatiana as tight as she could.

"I DID IT! DID YOU SEE THAT?!"

"SHADDAP! LET GO OF ME! KALEY! BALL!"

Tatiana threw the ball straight through us and we were once again on the opposing side. We continued on for almost an hour and our final score was 21-13. Cynthia was so happy, Tatiana was fuming mad, while Kaley long forgot I smacked her hard with a pillow.

Bing and Russel soon took up Rin's shift of watching the kids and the rest of us watched them get destroyed by little demons clad in protective gears.

"HEY! NO BITING! WANT ME TO SMACK YOU IN THE HEAD?!"

"BLEEEHHH~ CATCH ME FIRST, YOU OAF!"

"THE FUCK DID YOU SAY TO ME, YOU LITTLE SHIT?!"

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

"YOU FREAKIN' SLOWPOKE!"

After another hour, we were back at my house and I decided to cook a little snack for everyone. I made some Crispy Kangkong which was simply breaded water spinach that was seasoned and then fried in vegetable oil. It also came with some dipping sauce but it was already delicious the way it was. We paired it up with some juice and the living room only had crunching sounds for a few short minutes.

Tatiana almost got into a fight with the kids from stealing from their plate but I just had to make more to please everybody.

Time continued to pass and instead of conducting our meeting at the back of our houses, we did it at the DDR Camp for obvious reasons.

Not everyone was pleased with the house-to-house inspections at first but some of them realized the safety it could bring if they traded a bit of privacy into it. It was not only from the earlier incident but also from discovering that complacency would almost always bring carelessness.

Not everyone slipped up but it still needed to be discussed.

I took everyone's attention once more, "Okay~ First off, the people who were given severe warnings from the inspections had to attend a few more classes, evaluations, and lose some privileges for a time. We'd conduct more random inspections in the future and you guys better keep yourselves in check and not just when we're about to knock on your door. There's a reason for not living like a slob, I'd rather prevent a mistake than clean up after it."

Jomarro raised his hand with a smile, "How about the guys who did well? A small reward, maybe?"

I chuckled, "I would always prefer to have people doing good stuff because it's common sense but yeah, send me a request for anything and if I see it fit for a 'small reward', I'll give it to you. However..."

"However what?"

"I have someone who went above and beyond the guidelines we provided and that someone will receive an extra care package. You'll get it after a time and I wish that everyone would be like that someone."

Then everyone turned their heads in Rin's direction.

Rin instantly waved everyone off before glaring at Tatiana, "I live with someone really~ messy. It's not me… I would've won but… it's not me..."

Tatiana defended herself, "It's called chaotic organization!"

Cynthia shook her head as well as everybody close to her, "In short, messy..."

Everyone else started to look at each other but I decided to bring our next topic of discussion.

"Listen up! Now that we've established a proper connection with the City of Manila, what we need to do next is try to maintain it. Starting tomorrow, we'd have three teams: one from us, one from Morales' group, and another one from Iskoh's group that would plant their feet in these three points we encircled on this map."

Jay raised his hand, "And do what exactly?"

"Our place from Iskoh's place is still a city apart and if anything goes wrong, it'd take a while to get reinforcements or even medical help. We're turning them into small relief centers or outposts that would slowly fan outwards until we could walk from point to point without any interruption."

"Wait, an outpost with just a regular team?"

"Something like that but they'll be twice as big compared to a normal 6-man team. Of course, we'd need that group to have people that have knowledge of medicine, communications, engineering, and such. Obviously, you don't need to be a Chief of Surgeon or something similar to qualify but just enough to get an SOS answered at the earliest."

Bing also raised his hand, "So, they just wait around for something to happen?"

"Let me clarify then. We're sending a lot of cleanup crews outside to lessen our zombie threat and since everyone's been doing a good job cleaning our backyard, the backyards left to clean got farther and farther. We had a few hiccups here and there and I want a safety net for the people we send outside. A tire blowout could be easily fixed but what if they need a pickup?"

Some of the people who got in trouble nodded in kind.

I continued, "We're training all of you to give first-aid but what if the person needed more than that? We could throw a bandaid to a small cut what if someone's chest got lacerated from end to end? What I'm saying is, we need a group just a level above the team we'd normally send out there so all of us could share a hot meal when we get home… Also, Tatiana and I would miss the people we'd always slam on the mat when we're training… heh."

Everyone just chuckled then I eventually showed them the list of people I'd be assigning tomorrow.

"Any questions?"