Alex inspected the street lamp but couldn't find anywhere he could connect to.
"Is there no way to locally connect to it? Nevermind then. But now that I think about it, can I hack into the city's traffic management system?"
"The traffic system should have a lot of installed cameras everywhere with the modernization of the city. With it's help, I can do a lot of things. The outskirts should have less cameras but that's not a problem."
Alex is getting excited and a new idea popped up.
"If I can hack into the system, maybe I can access the database. If not, at least I'll have an idea of what's going on."
Now, Alex fell into a dilemma.
Should he continue going to the highway in search of his parents whereabouts or go back to his apartment and try to hack in to the traffic management system?
Continuing his journey would mean he could immediately reunite with parents but only on the premise that they're already on the way and not held up somewhere else, or if they're even alive...
That meant he would be waiting in an area he wasn't familiar with and is located in a high traffic zone where zombies and survivors would frequent to move around.
On the other hand, if he could hack into the traffic management system, he'll get eyes on almost every part of the city.
He doesn't even need to wait and could start looking for his parents on the comfort of his home.
The big question is if he can hack into the system and use it for his own.
The first one is an immediate action with a lot of waiting time while the other is up to chance where he can make immediate benefits.
After weighing his options, Alex chose to compromise.
"I'm choosing both."
He eyed a house on the side of the road and headed to it.
"Since I'm taking this risk, might as well go all out and try all my cards. I'll try hacking into the traffic system first before I continue to the highway."
"If I succeed, then I'll have another advantage on my side."
Alex gripped the wooden bat tighter as he inched closer to the poorly lit house.
Since his encounter with the stealthy zombie variant, he became wary of dark places.
He doesn't want a repeat.
"Looks like no one is home. That's good."
Alex slowly opened the door and peeked inside.
"Seems like someone left in a hurry. Well, they're by the roadside so of course they would be in a hurry to leave this place."
Alex went to each room and made sure they're clear before heading up to a more secure bedroom.
"Alright, let's see if I can do this. I'll try a couple of methods."
Alex used his laptop and plugged in the USB modem.
After a few moments, his laptop was on and connected to the internet.
"Okay, this should work."
"No, no, no. That's not it."
"Ughhh, I didn't think it's like this."
"Wait, this should do it."
He searched far and wide online for the website and as expected he won't find anything about the government's traffic management system simply lying around.
He had to spend several hours encountering promising leads and dead ends, before he finally found something he could use.
He got access to an employee email who kept sending direct links to his own email because he tend to forget things.
It was an old man with a decent position and had enough authority. A cursory glance in his online cookies leads to indecent discoveries.
The man's email was posted on his social media account about page and his password is a combination of his name and birthday.
Alex could feel the fireworks exploding inside him from excitement.
"I hate and love careless people. I would normally hate on you but thank God you're like this."
If Alex could kiss the old man, he would've done so.
Using the employee credentials and information he got from the email, Alex opened his hacking app.
The tool was designed for the exact purpose of hacking security camera systems so it worked its wonders when having legitimate information.
Alex joyfully tapped the table while waiting for things to finish up.
A familiar green check appeared!
"And we're in!"
It's a success!
The traffic management interface appeared.
The next step is to get a live feed from the system and watch the videos.
"There are too many cameras, which one should I pick?"
"Maybe I should start from the beginning. The city center."
The video feeds loaded and Alex was able to see a live video of the city.
He could even see some undead roaming around the place.
"There's no way the city was cleared already, there's too many of them. Maybe the city's too big or the government decided not to waste manpower in a dying place."
"Or maybe both."
"Or maybe they already tried but failed."
Alex was a little disappointed.
He wanted to see the police and military cleaning the city but it seems the situation is much worse than he thought.
He scrolled through the video feed and found himself in the suburbs.
Every location he turned to is crawling with zombies.
"Nothing out of the ordinary I guess? This is how nights on the city look like now."
Alex kept scrolling through the video feed until he reached the outskirts of the city center.
The traffic was so heavy on intersections that cars were already next to each other. Some vehicles crashed into others further blocking the road. Aside from the undead, no human can be seen walking around.
"Oh, I didn't realize the city expanded this much. No wonder I never heard of the highway name."
Alex zoomed in the camera to a particular vehicle.
"I remember this car."
He leaned closer to get a better look.
"It's dad's car!"
"Wait, it's not moving. It's parked!"
"Could they be inside?"
Alex's heart pounded like a drum and he felt his breathing turn faster.
His eyes scanned the area like a hawk and tried to find the figures of his parents. He couldn't find them.
He glared at the car but the area was too dark and the camera angle isn't the best. Aside from the obvious damage on the door, he couldn't find anything else of note from the car.
"Sh*t, where are they?"
The highway is too wide for him to scan and find the exact figure of a person.
"If they're inside, then the car is probably locked. The key must be with them but they can't move because of the traffic."
"I need to help them out! How the hell am I going to get them out? I can't even see them from this angle."
Alex exited the live feed and went to the recordings.
It will be a long night and he will spend every single second of it backtracking what happened.
"It's better than waiting around for nothing."
Alex is a bit frustrated at the fact that he's not moving closer to the highway.
"My gut's telling me there's something wrong and they're in danger. I need to know if they're still hidden in the car or have they already left!"
Alex opened the folder for the same camera feed and found a bunch of recordings.
He found the file for the day of the apocalypse and played it.
The first 30 minute recording showed nothing interesting.
Just cars going and coming from the highway adding onto the traffic.
But the moment the zombie appeared, everything changed.
The recording showed the initial accidents with cars hitting each other. One huge truck even rammed a bunch of cars out of the way and fell to the side causing greater chaos.
A zombie getting out of the truck and going berserk.
Alex didn't dare skip but decided to fast forward the video.
There's a lot of movement initially but it became less and less as time passed by.
He could easily notice any changes now since the zombies have spread out and only wandering zombies remained.
Survivors appeared from time to time escaping the bustling city center. Some of them were successful while a few unfortunate ones got caught by a hidden zombie lurking on their blindspot.
After some time, his dad's car appeared into view and started pushing its way on the sea of cars.