***
Later at night, in the Mall, the remaining members of Fishes of Salvation gather in what once was a fast-food restaurant known as Burger King. However, they don't eat fast food. Instead, they eat canned food stored on the ship and drink bottled water hidden in the storage.
"Today was exhausting," says Ahemd to his group, sitting on a table and eating chicken meat from the canned food. "But we've made it."
"We sure did it," Ri Ku says to Ahmed. Now, we can finally rest."
"These days have been tough for all of us," says Ahmed.
"Finally…" says Li Kay. "We get a break."
"You guys are also wondering about the robotic dogs?" asks Yu Tong.
"Ye," responds Ahmed. "Where the fuck did they come from?"
"The Organization must've hid them pretty well," says Li Kay. "Cause I never thought we'd see them after the Ukraine war. And these were new models, right?"
"Yeah," says Ri Ku. "Looks like it. But why. Why use this technology now rather than months after the First Days of the Apocalypse? That seems fishy."
"Exactly," says Yu Tong. "That's just a theory of mine, so don't call me crazy, but I think they decided to use it when most of the human population died, like… a lot."
"You mean they use it now to escape the headache of helping the remaining billions of humans?" asks Li Kay.
"That's my theory," says Yu Tong.
"Attention, everyone!" says Captain Ralph, entering the restaurant room.
Like everyone in this room, Captain Ralph doesn't wear his fighter armor with the gas mask; he wears a military uniform because he was an army officer before he joined The Organization Fighter Squads. He told anyone who asked why he did this: "Because Fighters are having more fun than us, soldiers, who have to sit on an artificial island and be personal bodyguards to those two hundred people from The Organization.". Captain Ralph walks into the restaurant and the middle of the room. Everyone stopped what they were all doing and looked at him as if he was going to announce something significant.
"First of all," says Captain Ralph to the remaining fighters and the survivors found in the Mall earlier that day. "Congratulations for today. You all did an amazing job defending the Mall. Everyone here was splendid in their work, and Order 9 was successful."
Some of the fighters cheered at this, then Captain Ralph sighed and said the following.
"Second, the helicopters have discovered a swarm coming in our direction from about 100 kilometers or so away. So, we'll need to repair the whole barricade and welcome the incoming swarm."
After hearing the second news, some fighters felt sad and tired, but what could they do? Welcome the zombies to the Mall they had just liberated, hoping they'd live in harmony. There is no chance of ever attaining that.
"And third, the Organization has sent a helicopter equipped with missiles and miniguns to help us with this last swarm. The helicopter is coming from Kuroshima, where an airbase from The Organization is located."
"Helicopter?" asks a fighter with blonde hair. "What kind?"
"Attack helicopter. AgustaWestland Apache."
"Where the fuck did they get that?" asks another fighter.
"I don't know either," responds Captain Ralph. "I also don't know how they gave us this whole piece of equipment to defend ourselves, but we were grateful they gave it to us. But now, what matters is all of you eat your dinner and prepare the defense. If the swarm arrives here, we'll have to fight!"
"Yes, sir!" said some of the fighters and continued to eat.
Captain Ralph walks to the counter, where one of the survivors hands him canned food, a bottle of water, and a peach as a deer. Captain Ralph walks toward a free table, sits there, and eats, which is a joke for someone living with a regular wage but a reality for others. While Captain Ralph was eating, some of the fighters left the restaurant, walked outside, and proceeded to strengthen their defense by taking off the corpses who were impaled on the fences, burning the bodies of zombies, checking the automatic sentry turrets, fixing the robotic dogs, making sure drones are equipped with enough shells to their shotguns and fixing any damaged weapon.
***
Shi Huang group in a building that used to be an office, inside of this building there are a lot of human bodies all around the floors, and the fighters had to double tap them to be sure they are dead. The group enters what looks to be a main hall, where they are welcomed by a zombie slowly rising from the ground but is quickly decapitated by Li Kay, who is wearing his fighter armor like everyone else from his teammates. The group looks around the palace and finds a map of the area.
"Check out this map," says Ri Ku to the group, walking to a central desk, moving the broken computer, keyboards, empty coffee cups, and every trash on the floor.
"It sure is a map," says Li Kay, looking at a map. "But what does it signify?"
"It says here about a safe zone," says Ri Ku, pointing at a circle on a map written in Japanese. And also here." He points at another encircled zone, which looks like the Mall they live in, about one kilometer away. "That's where our out spot is."
"Yeah, so?" asks Yu Tong to Ri Ku.
"I'm thinking," Ri Ku says to his group, pointing at the safe zone that was previously indicated. We should check this palace and see if we find something useful there."
"But the swarm, sir?" asks Ahemd to Ri Ku.
"After we deal with the swarm of zombies. How about it?"
"Sur,." says Li Kay to Ri Ku.
Ri Ku folds the map, stores it in his backpack, and continues the search in this building with his team. The group enters a lunch break room, in there they see a zombie body sitting on a chair, the zombie quickly rises from his seat and is quickly killed by a stab in the head by Yu Tong. The group looks around the palace, checks the drawers, and checks the fridge to see if there's something edible on the counters. They found something in there: a walkie-talkie. But one that ran out of batteries alone so Li Kay keeps it in his backpack to refill its juice when they return to the outpost.
After checking the ground floor for about five more minutes, the group walks to the first floor, where they discover the doors are all shattered and everything in there is like on the ground floor: blood, guts, zombie bodies, and messier than a frat boys party. They checked the entire floor for a good ten minutes. After they found nothing there that would be useful to all of them, they decided to check the second floor, and just like the first floor, they found nothing. They heard an explosion from outside while thinking about going to the third floor.
"What the hell was that?" asks Li Kay.
"Class F," says Ahmed after he checked the windows and saw outside a Class F zombie who was smashing a car with his bare hands. "Looks like he is destroying a car."
"What did the poor car do to him?" asks Li Kay as a joke.
"Leave him be," says Ri Ku to his group. We should check the remaining floors and deal with him later.
The group walks to the third floor, where they see only two bodies of humans, who present mushrooms grown all over their bodies. The group leaves the third floor without checking anything; they close the door and use a chair to block the door so as not to let anyone enter the area and not let those corpses get up and assault any survivor. While walking to the fourth-floor staircase, Li Kay asks Xin Yan.
"Aren't mushrooms supposed to be dangerous?"
"Yes," says Xin Yan. "These mushrooms are classified as a source of infection. But a minor one."
"What do you mean minor?"
"They are dangerous for people who aren't wearing masks like us. But it's lethal to people who have a weak immune and respiratory system."
"But we shouldn't risk it," says Ahmed. We will have to burn this building down after we're done."
"That's the plan," says Ri Ku to Ahmed.
Ri Ku is opening the door of the fourth floor, the group is entering the floor and there they see something they did not expect, a body is hanging on the top of a fan. The body is now infected with a Z virus and has become a zombie for a while. The fighters look at the hanged zombie, and all agree to give him mercy. Yu Tong stabs the zombie's head and cuts the rope from the fan. Yu Tong cuts the rope of the fan and lets the body lay on the floor, unable to move and without any sign of moving anymore. The fighters continue to search the floor for anything useful.
"Guys., says Ahmed to the group, walking out of a room with a crate with many supplies. "I found something."
"Look at that," says Ri Ku to Ahmed. "Good find."
The group is looking at the crate to see if everything is in order. And by the looks of it, the crate had no mushrooms or anything that could infect any individual. The squad remains there for three more minutes, checking the other rooms to see if there's anything more valuable there. oup finds two handguns, a sword, and an assault rifle, and they decide to leave the building and walk toward their outpost to present their findings to the other fighters, but not the map they had earlier.