DEAD CITY: A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

CHAPTER 7 ~ STRONGHOLD

"Pull up the building complex schematic," Riccardo said.

Vasquez had the laptop open on the kitchen island before he finished the sentence, projecting the condominium complex layout onto the wall using a portable display unit that had materialized from the System shop thirty minutes ago. There were three towers designated as A, B, and C that were arranged in a shallow triangle around a shared courtyard and connected at the ground floor by a commercial podium. Tower A was their current position, while Towers B and C were visible from the penthouse windows with their dark lobbies and floors producing the faint amber heat-signature glow that Riccardo's Tactical Awareness skill was reading as occupied.

The mission notification still hovered in the corner of his interface.

[ ACTIVE MISSION: ESTABLISH PERMANENT BASE OF OPERATIONS ] Clear and secure all three towers. Fortify perimeter. Establish civilian safe zone. REWARD: +1,000 Gold | +500 XP | Advanced Troop Shop UNLOCKED

He studied the schematic for a long moment before turning to face the room.

One hundred and nineteen soldiers were standing in organized ranks across the penthouse floor, the kitchen, and the hallway before spilling into the two bedrooms with their doors open. The combined weight of their attention was something he was still actively calibrating to, and it did not feel exactly like pressure, but rather it felt more like standing directly at the center of a compass.

"Alright," he said. "Here is the situation. We have three buildings in total, but we currently control only one of them. The other two towers are active with walkers and have a confirmed civilian presence based on the security camera footage." He looked directly at Vasquez. "How many civilians are trapped in B and C?"

Vasquez pulled up the frozen camera feeds and scrolled through them with rapid efficiency. "In Tower B, I am counting fourteen confirmed civilians across six floors based on their last known positions before the freeze. In Tower C, I see nine civilians spread across four floors." She paused thoughtfully. "There are also several floors that I cannot confirm because those specific cameras had already gone dark before I froze the system."

"So the real numbers are higher."

"Likely, sir."

Riccardo nodded in agreement. "Then we will treat every locked door as a potentially occupied unit." He turned back to face the room. "Alpha team consists of the original nineteen soldiers, and you are going with Hayes to take Tower B. You already know how this works because you have completely cleared three floors of it, so you do not need a tutorial." He then looked at the new troops comprising teams Bravo through Foxtrot, which consisted of one hundred fresh soldiers who had been deployed a mere forty minutes ago and were still establishing their operational baseline. "Bravo and Charlie teams contain thirty soldiers each, and you are coming with me into Tower C. Delta and Echo teams will stay right here because this penthouse is our primary command center and it absolutely does not fall. Foxtrot team will act as floor security for the civilian units we have already identified here in Tower A."

"Rules of engagement?" Hayes asked.

"The rules are the exact same as before, which means the infected are our only targets. Civilians must stay exactly where they are unless their position is immediately compromised, at which point Foxtrot will rapidly extract them to this penthouse. I want absolutely no heroics and no deviation from the established sweep pattern." He looked around the crowded room. "Are there any questions?"

"Sir," called out a voice from the Bravo ranks that belonged to a tall soldier named Garrett, who possessed the particular energy of someone who had been eagerly waiting for an opening to speak. "We currently have a hundred and fifteen combat troops in this building. Why are we not actively pushing into Tower C and Tower B simultaneously to achieve faster clearing and more efficiency?"

"That is because I currently have only one cyber specialist, one communications unit, and one set of eyes actively monitoring the security feeds," Riccardo explained patiently. "Splitting our command structure across three simultaneous operations with troops that have been deployed for less than an entire hour is exactly how you lose good people to friendly fire and missed signals. We are going to do Tower B first and then follow up with Tower C, because while efficiency is fine, surviving is vastly better."

Garrett said nothing further.

"Is there anything else?" Met with silence, he nodded. "Good, then listen closely, Hayes."

"Sir."

"Do not let anyone get bitten out there."

Hayes almost managed to smile. "I will do my absolute best, sir."

Before either team moved out, Riccardo spent twenty crucial minutes focusing on the complex logistics that the morning's chaos had not previously allowed him to address.

The specialist units section of the Advanced Troop Shop had been partially unlocked from the lobby engagement and was fully unlocked now that the mission tier had advanced, revealing that the available options had expanded significantly. He worked his way through the digital list methodically while purchasing and deploying essential personnel in a logical sequence.

A communications specialist named Price smoothly materialized with a heavy backpack full of tactical radios and immediately began distributing wireless earpieces to the designated team leaders with the brisk competence of someone who had previously distributed tactical equipment in vastly worse places than a luxury penthouse kitchen.

Two dedicated field medics named Santos and Kwan deployed completely equipped with full medical packs, and they were immediately assigned to the separate clearing teams actively led by Hayes and Riccardo respectively.

An intelligence analyst named Reeves efficiently set up her equipment right beside Vasquez at the kitchen island. She immediately began pulling comprehensive threat assessment data from the System's accumulated kill records and actively mapping the predicted infected concentration patterns across all three residential towers.

Two stealthy recon specialists named Pike and Tran received the specific lightweight loadouts entirely appropriate to their dangerous role, and they were officially assigned to quietly move ahead of the main clearing teams to serve as the advanced point elements.

"We urgently need food," Ortiz announced from somewhere in the middle of the crowded formation, speaking with the specific timing of a hungry man who had been patient for exactly as long as patience was physically possible.

"Ortiz, you need to be quiet," Hayes started to warn him.

"Sergeant, I say this with all due respect, but we have been highly operational for over three hours, and the initial ration packs from the beginner's kit merely fed eleven people almost six hours ago. Overall combat effectiveness rapidly degrades along with dropping blood sugar, and that is just basic science."

Riccardo was miraculously already navigating through the digital shop interface. He rapidly purchased heavy MRE packs in massive bulk quantities to ensure there was enough food to feed the entire unit twice over, alongside twelve heavy cases of purified bottled water. The newly purchased supplies smoothly materialized and stacked themselves neatly against the penthouse wall in highly orderly columns.

"You have exactly fifteen minutes," Riccardo announced. "Everyone eats right now, and then we immediately move out."

"Sir," Ortiz said with genuine warmth, "you are really starting to grow on me."

"That is incredibly high praise," Riccardo replied flatly. "Please just eat faster."

Tower B fell in two hours and eleven minutes.

Riccardo closely monitored Alpha team's steady progress directly through the digital interface while simultaneously running the grueling Tower C operation himself, and he quickly realized that Hayes was absolutely methodical in his bloody execution. Floor by floor, the localized infected count actively dropped in incredibly steady increments on the shared mission tracker, and the radio chatter remained highly professional and strictly clipped.

"Floor B-fourteen is totally clear, and we have two civilians confirmed safely inside a locked unit with Foxtrot already notified for a later extraction."

"Floor B-eleven is completely clear after putting one infected down in the stairwell with absolutely no allied casualties."

"We are currently on floor B-seven, sir, and we have a dense cluster of maybe fifteen active walkers completely blocking the corridor. I am formally requesting permission to deploy the heavy machine gun team."

"Permission granted," Riccardo replied directly into his radio while simultaneously directing Pike and Tran safely around a blind corner ahead of him in Tower C where his tactical awareness skill was aggressively pulsing a warning in bright orange-red. "Hammer team is fully authorized to engage, but please try to keep the overall noise as controlled as possible."

"That is completely understood, so Hammer One, you are officially up."

Clearing Tower C was a significantly slower process because the specific building's layout included vastly more studio units per floor. This dense architecture unfortunately meant there were many more closed doors, vastly more required clearance points, and a significantly higher potential for an infected creature to be lurking directly behind the single door that the sweeping pattern might almost miss. Riccardo personally moved with Bravo team to actively clear floors eight through three, and he rapidly developed a highly lethal rhythm that his exhausted body was settling into with an incredibly unsettling ease. He would constantly move, swiftly assess the threat, aggressively engage the target, and successfully clear the room. The heavy M9 pistol felt noticeably less foreign in his tired hand with every single floor they cleared, and his accurate headshots were landing significantly faster than before.

The System was tracking all of it.

LEVEL UP — HOST NOW LEVEL 4

The first progression happened on the ninth floor of Tower C as his digital gold counter rapidly climbed and his glowing experience bar completely filled before tipping over in a massive cascade of successfully completed kills. The exact same process remarkably happened all over again on floor twelve.

LEVEL UP — HOST NOW LEVEL 5

"Sir," noted a Charlie team soldier named Morrison during a brief thirty-second pause between floors to reload and redistribute heavy ammunition, "you are noticeably getting much faster out here."

"I am honestly just getting incredibly tired," Riccardo corrected him. "That is an entirely different thing."

"It certainly does not look any different from my perspective, sir."

He did not bother to respond, but he certainly mentally noted the observation.

By the time both residential towers were finally called entirely clear, with Hayes' radio check from Tower B coming in exactly at the two-hour mark and Riccardo's own final floor finishing at two hours and eleven minutes, the digital mission tracker boldly read the final statistics.

Infected Eliminated: 312 Civilians Identified: 31 across Towers B and C Casualties — System Personnel: 0 Casualties — Civilians: 2 (pre-existing, found deceased)

Riccardo stood silently in the perfectly cleared lobby of Tower C and solemnly read the civilian casualty number for a very long moment. There were exactly two innocent people who had been trapped inside these buildings when the nightmare first started, and they tragically had not made it to a securely locked room in time. He did not know their specific names, so he simply filed that terrible grief in the exact same growing psychological archive as Amanda Cruz and the young child on floor thirty-two. He forced himself to keep moving because the only other alternative was completely stopping and breaking down.

Back inside the safety of the luxury penthouse, the full military unit quickly reassembled for a debriefing. Exactly thirty-one surviving civilians had been successfully located, securely contacted via the building's internal intercom system, and strictly instructed to remain locked inside their units pending a highly formal extraction to the secured penthouse floors. Foxtrot team had already been actively preparing those safe zones by efficiently consolidating massive amounts of furniture, carefully allocating living space, and establishing a secure makeshift common area directly in the Tower A lobby using the heavy commercial unit furniture.

"I need everyone's names," Riccardo announced while looking out at his assembled troops.

Hayes raised a questioning eyebrow. "What do you mean, sir?"

"I mean proper human names, and absolutely not generic designations like Alpha Eight or Bravo Twelve." He looked directly at Vasquez, at Chen, and finally at Garrett standing proudly with Bravo team. "You all have printed name tapes on your uniforms, so I expect you to use them because I genuinely want to know exactly who I am talking to." He then looked back at Hayes. "I need you to actively coordinate with Price on all the new radio assignments so that everyone officially gets a tactical callsign, but I still want to personally know the human face behind every single one of them."

A brief and highly contemplative pause moved slowly through the crowded room. It was not born of insubordination or resistance, but rather it felt like something much more profound, like a massive psychological adjustment.

"That is completely understood, sir," Hayes confirmed softly.

The interface chimed.

✓ MISSION COMPLETE: ESTABLISH PERMANENT BASE OF OPERATIONS REWARD CLAIMED: +1,000 Gold | +500 XP Advanced Troop Shop: FULLY UNLOCKED

⬆ LEVEL UP — HOST NOW LEVEL 8

⬆ LEVEL UP — HOST NOW LEVEL 9

The intense double level-up notification hit his body exactly like a heavy physical thing. It provided a deep and comforting warmth that smoothly moved directly through his chest and instantly sharpened everything in his perception slightly. His tactical awareness skill was suddenly pulsing much stronger than before, and his tired hands were miraculously feeling vastly steadier than they had all day long.

Stat Points Available: +8 New Skill Unlocked: FIELD COMMAND Lv.1 — Unit morale +10%. Command radius expanded. Troops under direct leadership gain +5% combat effectiveness.

He intelligently distributed the new stat points evenly between his Perception and Agility attributes, smoothly closed the glowing digital notification, and proudly looked around the massive penthouse. It was entirely his penthouse now. It served as his permanent base and his primary command center, and it was entirely filled with heavily armed soldiers who were currently alive alongside innocent civilians who were absolutely going to stay that way, even as a ruined city continued violently burning right outside the expansive floor-to-ceiling windows.

His glowing phone screen currently read exactly 43:28:51 remaining on the critical countdown to save Lucia.

"Alright," he announced, and his commanding voice carried vastly differently now. The newly acquired Field Command skill was actively making itself felt in highly subtle and psychological ways that he could not fully articulate but could absolutely hear resonating in the room. "The base is entirely secure. Everyone needs to rest in strict rotating shifts of exactly four hours. The medical team will conduct a full unit health check immediately. Reeves and Vasquez, I want a comprehensive route analysis detailing the safest path from here directly to Quezon City available on my digital interface in exactly two hours."

He looked at Hayes.

"We move out to secure my sister at absolute first light."

Hayes nodded exactly once in a highly clean and entirely certain manner. "We will absolutely be ready for deployment, sir."

Far outside the heavy penthouse windows, the ruins of Makati City continued to burn steadily into the dark evening. Somewhere entirely across the sprawling metropolitan nightmare, Lucia Gonzales sat huddled inside a securely locked classroom and desperately waited for her older brother to finally come and save her.

He was absolutely coming for her.