เข้าสู่ระบบThe base was deemed abandoned.That was the first mistake.Siera turned the wheel of the truck and listened to the crunch of the tires on the dead leaves and crushed concrete. The military base loomed before them, a desolate landscape of Quonset huts, chain-link fences, and a crooked watchtower.Julian raised from the back seat and pointed. “Tracks,” he said. “Fresh.”Siera narrowed her eyes at the tire marks in the dust that led directly to the administrative building. Eva aimed her rifle. “You said it was empty,” said Eva.“It was in the book,” said Siera. “But the book is changing.”They got out of the truck and fanned out. Dead silence reigned over the base. Not a bird, not a squirrel. Only the swish of leaves stirring in the wind.Siera reached into her space and produced a little drone. One of the toys she had stolen from the underground lab. She tossed it into the air and watched it vanish behind the administrative building, vanishing into its shadows. A picture formed on her w
They had to leave before sunrise.Siera drove the truck, with Eva in the front seat and Julian in the back with a mounted machine gun. Frank stayed behind to guard the bunker."You sure you can trust her?" Julian had asked just before departure."No." Siera had replied. "But she would make a good shield if she is immune. If not a good target."The road to the city was littered with wrecks and cracks, with occasional wandering zombies.Siera drove with the grill guard on, running over the minor obstacles.Eva navigated to the north side of the city. "The lab is located underground. It was a black site military base. I know the way to the lower levels, most entrances are blocked by debris."They parked inside an abandoned hospital parking lot, from there they had to navigate through the corridors and halls of the hospital before reaching the entrance to the lab.Siera kept her crossbow at the ready, scanning their surroundings.The entrance was a maintenance shaft with a ladder leading
The system interface flashed with ominous red lights, an unpleasant sensation akin to the putrid smell of decaying fleshThere will be generated a new ‘Protagonist’.Siera couldn’t sleep that night, with her feet on the control panel and Julian busy wiping the barrel of his rifle. Meanwhile, Frank was baking bread using the stock of Siera and the flour.“If the system wants to write a new protagonist,” Julian muttered, “that means the laws of fiction still apply. We’ve got to not just fight the undead but the author as well.”“Let him write,” Siera said, chewing on a piece of jerky. “Doesn’t matter what he writes I’ve hijacked the story arc. I’ve got the base, the shelter, and the resources. Even if a new ‘Protagonist’ appears, what can he do? Send a nicely worded letter?”“The system will give the new protagonist exceptional plot armor,” Julian said. “Every conspiracy theorist’s dream finding weapons caches, meeting survivors who turn out to be immune, and sneaking past roadblocks
The bunker seemed colder, when they returned.As Siera walked down the empty storage bay, the sound of her boots on the concrete echoed back at her the mistake she had made. She had let her guard down. She had been merciful, when the Black Serpents had stolen her shelves bare.But as she walked the space, she checked her system. The stolen goods were back in her inventory, but she would need to replenish the physical shelves in her bunker, because she had made a mistake, trusting her space. If she were to be separated from her pendant, or if the technology were to fail, she would need to have alternate supplies."Frank," Siera said, her voice reverberated within the large room. "I need you to seal the intake room. Weld the door shut. From now on, nobody is to be allowed inside the perimeter fence, without a full background scan."Frank gave a grim nod. "I'll get the blowtorch."Julian was already at the command center, inspecting the newly upgraded stealth camouflage technology along
The days after the massacre that Siera had helped orchestrate in the canyon were eerily calm.With the dead General, his massive horde of undead soldiers buried under a mountain of rubble, the threat to the bunker was over. The automated turrets Siera had armed were working in perfect harmony, shooting down the occasional wandering zombie that had wondered too close to the perimeter fence.Siera took advantage of the peace to make improvements to their current base. The hydroponics bay was a godsend, a ten square meter ecosystem of nutrients that allowed her to grow strawberries, lettuce, and herbs with no soil needed. She harvested her first batch of potatoes in the garden patch and prepared a lavish meal of roasted chicken and fresh vegetables.Frank was thrilled. "I haven't tasted food this good since my wife passed," he said, chewing on a mouthful of mashed potatoes.Julian, on the other hand, grew restless with the peace. He spent hours poring over the maps of the region, marking
The next three days were incredibly long.Siera immediately used Julian's information of where the General was going to attack from, and set up an ambush.Julian, thankfully, lived up to his end of the bargain, being a former solider.He was undoubtedly efficient, calculating, and scary.Julian remained behind at the base bunker with Frank to guard and reinforce the blast doors while she and Julian went out in her truck to the mountain pass.They used Siera's fertilizer and Julian's detonators to form a series of explosive devices."We need to funnel them," Julian said, drawing lines on the map with a piece of chalk, "if the General attacks with a mega-horde, we can't take them on an open field. The cliffs on the eastern trail, we can use that to our advantage and cause a rockslide.""If I blow up half of this mountain, it might draw more zombies," Siera said. They were right; half of this mountain could easily take half the zombies with them."That's okay; we can use them to our adva







