Ethan looked carefully, but he didn’t recognize that young firefighter, and he didn’t know why, during the chaos, he had come to this base looking for him. As soon as he entered the room and confirmed who he was, he fell into complete silence with his eyes staring aimlessly. No one dared to say a word as they swallowed hard, looking at his axe that was still dripping blood. After a few more seconds, his gaze turned to me again, and he finally broke the silence:
"My name is Rick, your brother sent me here, he said you were a Space Engineer, and that you could help us..."
I froze for a moment. What could I do? Some kind of large-scale EMP completely bypassed the defenses of our entire race and fried everything that had any trace of technology... I had no idea where to start to fix something on this scale... But I kept my thoughts to myself and answered.
"Nice to meet you, Rick, thanks for helping us! If my brother is with you, then I’m willing to help you in any way I can, but how are we going to get out of the base? It’s surrounded..."
"First of all, give me your prototype bracelet..."
"Hmm? Take it, you can keep it, but it’s not working like the rest—"
Just as Ethan was about to explain that his bracelet wasn’t working either, it disappeared in a flash of silver light as it touched Rick’s hand, interrupting his speech. Ethan’s eyes widened when he saw something familiar on the firefighter’s arm. There was a silver bracelet with black details, something that should only belong to colonizing astronauts...
"Rick, how did you get this? Did you happen to find the stolen colonization ship?"
"Hm? Stolen colonization ship? What are you talking about?"
"Half an hour before we lost contact with everyone, we received an alert that someone had stolen one of the colonization ships and entered Jyera’s atmosphere... That bracelet you’re wearing is something extremely rare that should only belong to members of the first colonization group..."
The Fireman was silent for a while, and before he could answer about the origin of his bracelet, the girl who was the receptionist of this building asked:
"Mister Fireman, how do you plan to get out and take Ethan? Can we go with you?"
"I can clear a path and help you get through the horde, but it’s still going to be dangerous with all the mutant crows outside, plus all the electric cars don’t work anymore, and I only have a motorcycle..."
The receptionist girl bit her lip, and one of the men wearing a mechanic’s overalls said in response:
"The underground parking lot!"
"What about it?" asked another survivor wearing a suit.
"There’s a vehicle there that should still be working, an old jeep. I know because I’ve done some maintenance and repairs on it at the owner’s request. We can use it to leave the base!"
"That’s right, there’s also an emergency exit that leads to the outside of the base. I have access—" Ethan stopped in the middle of his speech, realizing they wouldn’t be able to leave through that easy exit."
Everyone fell silent, understanding that it wouldn’t be possible to open the emergency exit without anything working inside the base...
"I’ll try to get the vehicle, I can put it on my bracelet depending on its size. Stay here and wait for me to come back, but before that, I need to see something on the upper floors... And I also need to know where the base’s medical wing is..."
After I left the group of survivors, which consisted of Ethan, the Receptionist, the Mechanic, a high-ranking government official, and a woman who was too shocked to introduce herself, I collected the last prototype bracelet that was on the fifth floor of the main building.
I left the building and headed towards the medical wing that the survivors had told me about. In addition to having rare medicines that I couldn’t buy even if I had money, I wanted to check if there were any doctors still alive. Taking any extra survivors on the motorcycle was out of the question, but if there was a jeep, it might be possible. The new missions in the system were strange, but for me, who knew the future, they had an urgency that only I could understand.
[Build a base in the next 30 days]
Reward: Level 3 Mutant Crystal
-Recruit a Doctor for your base
-Recruit a Computer Technician for your base
Reward: 7000 Survival Points
Creating a base was something I was already going to do, with such a valuable extra reward, I even wanted to stop everything and build a base right now...
Since the underground parking lot was connected to all the buildings in the base, I only needed to enter there after checking the medical wing building. Avoiding the dead that were still roaming the base, I quickly reached it. The place had not been blocked off like the main building where Ethan was. Therefore, it was invaded and taken over by zombies.
Killing only the zombies that got in my way, I avoided fighting on the ground floor and went down to the first underground floor, where the morgue and a quarantine laboratory were located. This is where Ethan said there might be someone alive, but it must be a dangerous place since most of the sick and dead from the base were brought here.
When I arrived at the place, I didn’t even need to go inside to see that it was full of zombies. They roamed everywhere to the point that there was barely room to move among them. I put my axe in my inventory and took two daggers with custom handles, but after thinking for a while, I put one of them away, keeping only one in my left hand and closing my right hand in the shape of a fist.
Taking a deep breath, I went towards the horde, releasing all the potential of a level 2 mutant human, punching with my right hand and stabbing with my left hand.
Each punch with my full power sank the zombies’ skulls and threw them away, the blows with the dagger almost decapitated the dead completely, or I simply pierced their skulls quickly with ease... Through several narrow corridors and without stopping to rest, I killed a total of 79 zombies, and among them were 2 more level 1 mutants. Which was already a lot for a first day.
While cleaning, I passed by two quarantine laboratories and two morgues, putting everything I saw of medicines and other valuable items inside the inventory. Then I finally arrived at a different yellow door, full of CDC symbols and completely sealed. I knocked on it several times, but there was no answer from inside. Just as I was about to break it down with my axe, a female voice shouted from inside: