Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

Right when everyone was properly introduced, Quinn just turned around and went straight to the main garage, leaving everyone with blank or confused faces. I was pretty sure she mentioned that she'd show us around, but considering that she didn't even try to introduce us properly, I'm assuming that this was her version of it.

The guard named Junie slowly inched back, "We're… We're good to go, right? I can go back to my spot?"

Zyra nodded at him with a sigh, "Yeah… I think so. She always does this, remember? I can—"

I cut her off, "Excuse me, Zyra was it?"

"Hmm? What's up, young head— I mean, sir."

"Sky's fine, no worries. Where~ Umm… Where are we supposed to put our stuff? We were supposed to be shown around this place and I pretty much need to be shown around for obvious reasons."

Zyra facepalmed, "Dammit~ I guess it's up to me. Would you like to do it now or do you want to— but before that, you guys fucked, right?"

I've never been so confused, "I—"

"Just answer. Your lodging depends on whether she had sex with you or not and if it's still a thing."

"..."

"Well? I don't have all day. It's almost sunset too…"

I sighed as I nodded and pointed at Kaley and Tatiana, "Yeah, we three did… and we're still probably a thing, whatever that means…"

Zyra nodded with a smile before she pointed at Jose and Isaac, "How about the prospect and glasses?"

The two quickly shook their heads before I answered, "Just us, so?"

"Alright, you three can bring your bags to her room on the second floor of the garage while the two of you can sleep wherever. But prospect…" Zyra trailed as she gave Jose an up-down look, "You can bunk with me if you want?"

Jose was slightly taken aback but pleasantly surprised, "With me?"

"You don't want to?"

"N-No— I'd very much like to!"

Zyra let out a faint smile, "Good. Glasses, I'm sorry but you'd need to hit the gym a few more times before you get a chance with me."

Isaac quickly waved her over, "Yeah… I'm good, I'm good…"

With that said, I eventually noticed that Isaac was also carrying a katana that looked to be a few centimeters shorter than mine. Still, from looking at it initially, it looked like an entry-level katana that was suitable for beginners.

'I'll take a closer look later…'

At this point, Zyra showed us around while everyone else went back to their posts. She rolled her sleeves and wiped herself with a slightly dirty towel but it looked like Jose wouldn't mind being the towel instead.

"Okay, here's obviously the main garage that Quinn and a few others only had access to, and on the second floor is where her room is located. It gets freaky at times but if you're into what she's into, you'll have a very~ good time… I've been there plenty of times and let's just say… you know what? If you know, you know…"

"What's the next section here?"

"That place is basically our kitchen and mess hall, it used to be this fast food place along with a few others but we kept this one and turned the others into storage areas or just a place where we could lay our heads on. We used to sleep on the roof for obvious reasons but the roof was now the place we erected all of the solar panels we found. It could run the place when it counts but we have several backup generators when it's rainy or if we need to have that extra pump of electricity. And that place…"

Long story short, Quinn's place had almost all of the essentials needed to survive, but in my opinion, some facilities needed to optimized so she could make use of this place with 100% efficiency.

Quinn had a decently sized armory, stocked storage areas for various food items, water, gas, and mechanical parts, a small clinic capable of giving first-aid or basic treatments, sturdy walls and gates, two bars located in her floor and in the mess hall, a decent crew, several machines for machining her own parts, and the other things we discovered earlier.

"Okay, that's pretty much it. What do you think?"

"It's decent but you need to have more guards present. I know you have cameras installed but that could only do so much. You need someone on the roof with a rifle or so—"

"That… We can't do that."

"Huh? Why?"

"It's kinda embarrassing but none of us are good shooters. We can pull the trigger but shooting long distances are not our forte."

"Oh. We can start—"

"But yeah, we have a workaround for that and it pretty much solves the issue."

"Oh?"

Zyra led us back to Junie's post and made him show a different POV from much farther cameras.

"You see those spots?"

"Yeah?"

"Since this town is pretty much ours and everyone else is staying in the industrial parks, we've booby-trapped those spots for good measure. What happens is that when something wanders on that spot, it'll just trigger and we'll get a signal that it went off. After that, we'll just see if it worked or not, and we'll just decide what comes after."

"How about hordes? How do you take care of them?"

"We used to have a kill zone— Well, it still exists but since Mauro started to collect heads and he can't be bothered to collect scraps from the ones that would wander around, he made that thing to collect heads a little easier. Can you flip to that screen, Junie?"

Right as Zyra pointed to a different screen, we watched as the feed switched to a street that looked like an unfinished construction project, though the most notable thing that was scattered around were long and wide strips of metal rebars made to have deadheads get their feet stuck on it and spiked barricades to either guide them to the rebars or have them stuck in the same manner but by trapping them in place by piercing through their flesh.

At this moment, a few were already caught in the traps but from one corner was a pile of headless corpses waiting to get burned to cinders. With that said, a dump truck was parked right next to it and I can already imagine what were wriggling inside it.

"Nice. You've pretty much automated everything except for the collection process."

"Yeah, it would've been nice if we have a machine that could lop their heads off but we don't want to damage the goods because their height varies."

"I see. But yeah, it doesn't hurt to practice shooting from time to time. Kaley and I— Jose could even give you lessons while we're here."

Zyra chuckled, "I'm sure we'll teach each other some stuff."

"Right. Thanks for showing us around and can you point me to a free CNC Machine where I could make a new body for the Shelby?"

"The Shelby? I thought it only needed some tweaks? Alright, we have one here and it's not being used but I think you need to take a closer look at the car first. You can't just punch in the measurements even if you did it before because each car had small differences."

"Oh. I have already."

"Already what?"

"Looked at the car?"

"Closely?"

"Yeah. Closely."

"When?"

"Earlier?"

"..."

"Zyra?"

"You're messing with me, aren't you? You can't just look at something and—"

"34D-24-38."

"What—"

"You're 5'6" probably 190-200 pounds, 24% body fat while the rest is muscle. Also, it seems like you're right-handed but for some reason, you use your left hand for everything. It's either you had a bicep injury or you're trying to be ambidextrous. And from the way your hair is tightly wound, it's probably up to your butt and you're—"

"Alright, stop! What the fuck?!" Zyra exclaimed as she looked at everyone else.

Junie let out a chuckle, "34D, huh? Who would've thought—"

"SHUT UP!"

At this point, Jose looked like he was about to cry and he just let out a long sigh before placing his hand over my shoulder.

"Alright, you can have her too… I'll just bunk with Isaac and—"

"Huh? The fuck are you talking about?"

"Look at her, man! Even I'M impressed! Even if she stays with me, she'll probably think of you while I'm getting lucky! Couldn't you have told me that first so I could've left a good impression?!"

Junie added, "True~ At least you get lucky—"

"I TOLD ALL OF YOU TO SHUT UP! YOU! HOW DID— DO I KNOW YOU?!"

"I'm Sky—"

"NOT WHAT I MEANT!"

"So… The CNC Machine… I want to get it up and running now so it'll be done by tomorrow…"

"..."

"Zyra?"

"Y-You— F-Follow me…"

With that said, Zyra led me to the machine I was looking for and she was staring at me like a ghost the whole time I was putting in the numbers through the computer. She was still in shock as she was trailing behind us, and even if we were carrying out bags to Quinn's floor, she was making sure I was a few feet in front of her, keeping her distance.

I waved over Jose and whispered, "See? She looked more scared than impressed."

"Uh-huh… she looks a lion stalking her prey. I wanna hate you but I can't. I need to learn that shit, quick."

"I beg to differ. Just try again and I'm gonna be a bro for once. I still have a lot to do and I can't progress quickly if another one comes running for me."

"Fuck you! Suffering from success much?!"

"I—"

"What?! You didn't choose the pimp life, the pimp life chose you?!"

"Why are you so mad? Do you want me to bed her then?"

"Wha— I'm not saying that! Go away! I have to act fast while she's still in shock! You're gonna see how I do work— ISAAC?!"

I was just about to leave him to his own devices but we just saw Isaac leaving with Zyra while he had a firm grip on her waist.

"Damn~ You can't catch a break, can you?"

"SHUT UP! I'M GETTING LAID TONIGHT!"

"Uh-huh, see you later!"

"FUCK YOU, MAN!"