Chapter 7 :THE WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING

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 off the square on the map where they had spotted the horde of zombies with a bright red X and scanning the shortwave radio with growing unease.

"There's something wrong with this," Julian muttered on the fourth morning, taking the black coffee that Siera offered without a word.

Julian took the mug from her and stared into the dark liquid. "The timeline is wrong. The General was supposed to be the book 2 villain. We killed him off in chapter 6."

Siera sat across the table from him. "Maybe there isn't a new conflict."

Julian gave her a long, hard look. "In a novel, the plot doesn't just stop. If the main antagonist is dead, then the author has to introduce a new one. Unless... unless one of our group is the traitor."

Before Siera could answer, the bunker's security system beeped in alarm.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Frank rushed into the room, nearly knocking the coffee mug out of his hands. "We've got movement at the north gate! Not zombies. Humans," He said.

Siera brought up the camera feed on her screen. A group of five people stood at the fence, waving a ragged white flag. The group was made up of three adults and two children. Their clothes were tattered and their faces were bloodied from the ordeal of the past few days, but their most outstanding feature was the terror in their eyes.

"Please!" the woman in the front said, her voice shaking through the intercom. "We have children! We just need a place to stay for the night! We have no weapons!"

Siera narrowed her eyes at the desperate group. She was about to tell them that the safest place to stay was in the shallow grave they would be buried in when the zombies came, when Julian spoke.

"Survivors often make the best traps," he said, reading the expression on her face.

"I know," Siera said, already reaching for her rifle. "I'll take care of them. Frank, keep the turrets on standby. Julian, keep watch from the tower. I'll talk to them in person."

Siera walked out the blast doors and onto the rocky ground. The woman in charge rushed to meet her, her eyes wide with hope.

"You're real!" the woman said. "Thank you so much for coming out! We've been wandering for days and this city is a death trap. We heard there was a safe zone up north."I don't run a safe zone," Siera replied. "I own this land. Why should I let you in?"

The man holding the unconscious little boy stepped forward. "Please. My son has a fever. He isn't bitten, I swear! He caught a chill in the rain and if we don't get him warm, the noise in the woods will attract the undead. We just want a place to sleep out of the rain for one night. We'll sleep in the dirt outside your door. Please."

Siera looked at the little boy, his hot little body shaking despite the chill of the night air.

She wasn't a heartless monster. She had defended her life against her abusive parents and the brainwashed NPCs with her bare hands. These were just scared survivors with no one left to love them.

"Open the gate, Frank," Siera said into her radio.

The gate hissed open. "Come on in," said Siera. "Now keep your hands where I can see them. If anyone tries to be stupid, they'll be very dead."

The survivors piled into the bunker's outer intake room, sobbing their relief to Siera.

Siera led them to the inner room, leaving the blast doors open just in case, and handed them out blankets and protein bars. She was a good hostess.

She would have been a better mother.

Siera didn't realize how bad her judgment was until 3:00 AM when she awoke to the smell of burning plastic.

Siera grabbed her Glock from her bedside table and rushed into the command center, her eyes widening at the sight that met her.

The emergency lights were strobing crimson and the backup generators were smoking.

Julian staggered into the room, a fresh gash on his forehead. "The generators were sabotaged. Someone slashed the coolant lines. The whole system is on fire."

Julian turned to look at her. "It was the survivors. The children picked the lock to the storage room."

Siera ran to the storage room, slamming her fist into the steel door. The room was empty. Her eyes widened as she scanned the barren shelves. The boxes of noodles, the crates of ammo, the medical supplies, all gone.

"How did they take it all with them?" Siera hissed. "They don't have a vehicle!"

"They couldn't have taken it all," Frank rasped, holding up a sheet of paper. "They left this."

Siera read the paper, a furious blush rising to her cheeks. It was a hand drawn map of the mountain with a red circle around a quarry nearby. At the bottom in mocking scrawl was a message that said: Thanks for the supplies, sweetheart. The Black Serpents appreciate your donation.

"The Black Serpents," Julian spat, hitting the wall in frustration. "They're a notorious raider gang from the novel. They use children as bait to get into safe zones. These children were just pawns."

Siera stared at the empty storage room, her heart twisting into a tight knot of anger. She had let her guard down. She had trusted these survivors and they had stolen from her.

"Where is the quarry?" Siera asked.

"About ten miles east," Julian said. "But Siera, we don't know exactly how many of them there are. We're low on ammo. We need to retreat and regroup."

No! said Siera, walking over to her personal storage locker. The raider hadn't found it. It was the one place in the bunker that was protected by her magic. She pulled out her crossbow.

[Warning: Base compromised. Stockpile raided.]

[System Note: Host's combat readiness is compromised. Use intelligence to retrieve stolen goods.]

"I gave them a chance," said Siera, loading an explosive bolt into her crossbow. "I gave them food and shelter and they stole from me."

Siera looked at Julian and Frank. "We're going to that quarry. And we're going to take back everything they stole. And then we're going to burn that little gang of theirs to the ground."

The quarry was a large open pit mine with walls of jagged rock. The Black Serpents were using the vehicles and camping supplies they had stolen from Siera's base to build a makeshift fortress.

Siera lay in the tall grass on the ridge and peered through her binoculars. She spotted the stolen goods that the Black Serpents had looted from her base. She saw the smiling faces of the people from the camp. She saw the laughing children playing with shells.

"They have sentries at the north and south walls," Julian whispered, lying down beside her. "If we go in guns blazing, they'll surround us."

"Who said anything about guns blazing?" said Siera.

She opened her space, her inventory still containing the turrets, greenhouses, and animals that the Black Serpents hadn't looted. She still had her weapons, the ones she kept in her personal space.

"Julian, how good are you at making a distraction?"

Julian smirked. "I was a soldier, Siera. Making distractions is my middle name."

"Good," said Siera. "Give me ten minutes to get down there. When you hear the explosion, open fire on the north wall. Make them think we have an army."

"What are you going to do?" Julian asked.

Siera smiled, a predatory grin curling her lips. "I'm going to be the monster they think we are."

Siera crept down the rocky hillside and into the Black Serpent's camp. She saw the stacks of supplies they had stolen from her and crept closer. Instead of the food, she took the guns. With a snap of her fingers, she opened her space and dumped all the stolen bullets and weapons into her inventory. She took the fuel tanks from the trucks and placed a small block of C4 explosive where the fuel line met the engine.

Siera climbed the scaffolding of the crane at the center of the quarry and peered over the edge. She spotted the woman that had begged for her mercy and smiled.

Julian opened fire on the north wall of the camp.

"The army is here!" a raider yelled. "We're under attack!"

The camp erupted into chaos, firing wildly at the shadowy figures on the ridge.

Siera stood up on the crane and nocked an arrow to her crossbow. She let loose an arrow and the first raider to run past her fell dead. Another went down. Another. She was an angel of death in the night, cutting down the monsters who had stolen from her.

Within twenty minutes, the Black Serpents were nothing more than corpses, their bodies lying in neat rows around the camp. The woman who had pleaded with Siera to spare the children was running, but Siera leaped from the crane and blocked her path.

"Please!" the woman cried, falling to her knees. "They forced me to do it! They had my son!"

Siera looked at the cowering woman. "I gave you a choice. And you chose to steal from me."

Siera leveled her crossbow at the woman's head.

"Wait!" the woman sobbed. "What about the boy? He's innocent!"

Siera looked at the child, who was hiding behind a truck, and lowered her crossbow. "I'm not going to kill the child. But I'm going to leave you here. Just you. With no weapons. No supplies. Nothing."

Siera turned her back to the woman and walked to the edge of the ridge. She opened her space and pulled everything she had taken back into the game. Her inventory was filling up faster than before.

Julian came up behind her. "Did you get everything back?"

"Every last noodle," said Siera.

She looked over the edge of the ridge at the smoldering remains of the Black Serpents camp. The world was filled with monsters, but so was Siera.

[Ding! Stolen goods retrieved.]

[Bonus: Space Level 8 unlocked: 800 cubic meters.]

[New System Feature: Stealth Camouflage for Base Perimeter unlocked.]

"Let's go home," said Siera.