A man younger than them, twenty-two years old, maybe even less. Tall, dark-haired, with noticeable Caucasian features. He was dressed in a dirty field uniform with false sergeant's collars.
There were three automatic rifles on the floor - an AKSU and two Kedras.
The three unknown men looked at us - me, my namesake and Oliver Wilson - with hope and fear.
- Are you thirsty, hungry? - the elder asked them, did not wait for the answer, unbuckled the flask with water from his belt, took a pack of sandwiches in foil from his rusks. - Here you are.
- Thanks," - the Caucasian thanked him, taking the food from him. Unwrapping the foil, he gave two sandwiches to the girls, leaving one for himself. - And who are you? And they are-" -He nodded cautiously at the golems I had sent down the corridor.
- Rescue Malibu," - I answered.
- Oh, shut up, lifeguard," - said Oliver angrily. - You made such a fuss. Our guys from the yard almost came in for the noise, I couldn't hear anything on the radio, - then looked at the sergeant. - Like they told you - we're almost all locals. And these are his work. - He pointed at me. - Do you realize we're in a different world, and the rules and laws are very different here?
- Yeah," - he confirmed, taking a bite out of his sandwich and swallowing greedily.
- Because of such laws here there can be the living dead, mutants and undead creatures, golems like. Do you know what they are?
The guy looked questioningly at the girl with the epaulettes with a gray-blue clearance. She nodded and mumbled something.
- Chew on that, girl, - Oliver advised her.
- Are you after the weapon? - The Caucasian asked. He ate his sandwich in three seconds and now kept swallowing his hungry saliva.
- How long since you ate last? - I asked him, taking out my reserve. - You won't get sick, will you?
- Today we ate and drank, but our rations are very small, - he sighed. - A loaf of bread, a glass of water and a tin for three. Good, it rained three days ago, we managed to take some buckets of water.
- How long have you been here?
- Since the very beginning.
- Wow!
- Oh, yeah?
My namesake and I exclaimed in surprise simultaneously, Oliver only opened his eyes wide and shook his head.
- You are very lucky, - said the elder. - There are some beasts that can walk through walls.
- We've seen them, the black ghosts, haven't we? - The girl with the red shoulder straps said. - I am Kianna. Kianna Kavanagh, juvenile affairs inspector.
- Milla Rangel, investigator.
- Aden Ritter, I'm the head of the security team. The extra-departmental security service.
- That's right, - Oliver confirmed the inspector's guess. - They didn't come to your place?
- Yes, they did," - she sighed. - There were ten of us here from the start. Five were killed by those same ghosts at the start. Then we thought of stretching the silver all around. You see?
She pointed to the fine wires that were strung all over, even on the floor, though the golems had ripped them off with their feet.
I squatted down and picked one up off the floor:
- Silver?
- Silver," the investigator confirmed.
I looked around the room, and then I remembered that in the corridor I had seen thin strings of it stretched about twenty or thirty centimeters apart. That's not a bad total. I wonder where the OP got so much silver wire.
- And where did such a wealth come from? - Oliver Wilson was interested and voiced his question before me.
- Just luck, - said the girl. - In two days we found a place where they made fake jewelry from technical silver, amber chips, glass instead of rhinestones. Almost one hundred and fifty kilograms of silver wire were confiscated.
- Does this kind of silver work on zombies? - Oliver continued to question his new acquaintances.
- It works, but not immediately.
- Exactly? - He was astonished.
- Exactly," - Aden answered in place of the girl. - If it hits the head, it takes about five hours to die. But if you hit my body, it lasts a few days, then it just rots.