Ninety Days Before The Apocalypse

Building the Fortress

"Eight hundred millimeters of solid reinforced concrete," Director Zhang said, tapping his heavy knuckle against the bare grey wall of the penthouse. He pulled a yellow tape measure from his leather belt and let it snap shut with a loud clatter. "Mr. Lin, I have retrofitted bank vaults and government server rooms for twenty years, but I have never seen a private residential buyer demand four-inch steel casing on every interior wall."

"Can your crew do it or not?" Lin Feng asked, standing by the bare concrete pillars of the empty living room.

"We can do it," Zhang said, rubbing the back of his neck, leaving a smudge of dark grease across his skin. "But it is going to weigh down the floor structure. We will need to weld structural steel support beams directly into the load-bearing pillars first. And those triple-pane thermal vacuum windows you requested? They have to be imported from a specialized cold-storage manufacturer in the north. It is not cheap."

"I am not interested in cheap, Director Zhang," Lin Feng said, stepping over a pile of loose copper wiring on the floor. "I am interested in speed. I want a vault door at the main entrance with three independent mechanical deadbolts. No digital keypads. No smart locks. Just raw forged steel."

Director Zhang raised his grey eyebrows, looking at Lin Feng with a mix of suspicion and greed. "No smart locks? If you lose the physical key, you will need a thermal plasma torch to get back inside your own kitchen."

"I will not lose the key," Lin Feng said softly. "How long until the diesel generator unit is mounted on the private utility balcony?"

"Four days for the generator," Zhang replied, waving a calloused hand toward two workmen hauling heavy steel plates down the corridor. "Another six days for the wall insulation, thermal sealants, and air filtration scrubbers. If your payments clear on schedule, my men will work twelve-hour shifts until the place is an absolute bunker."

"I will wire the second installment of one million yuan to your corporate account in an hour," Lin Feng said. "Make sure your men keep their mouths shut about the structural layout."

"My men get paid enough to forget their own names, Mr. Lin," Zhang grunted, turning back to shout orders at a welder setting up an arc torch near the hallway.

Lin Feng walked out of the apartment unit, taking the heavy service elevator down to the underground parking garage. The North Star Plaza complex was perfect for his plans. Situated thirty floors above the city, it offered a single access point through a reinforced concrete core, far above the flooding water and freezing slush that would drown the lower streets in eighty-five days.

As the elevator doors slid open into the dim, cool basement level, Lin Feng stepped out onto the slick concrete floor.

A harsh screech of tires echoed through the underground cavern. A yellow sports car swerved around a concrete pillar, its high beams flashing bright, blinding white light directly into Lin Feng's eyes. The car skidded to a halt sideways, blocking his path to his black SUV.

The driver door flew open, and Su Ming stepped out, carrying a heavy metal crowbar in his right hand. Two broad-shouldered men in dark tracksuits stepped out from the passenger side, their faces shadowed under low baseball caps.

"Look who finally decided to come down from his little tower," Su Ming spat, swinging the crowbar back and forth with a low metallic whistle. "You thought you could ignore my calls, didn't you? You thought changing apartments meant I could not find you?"

Lin Feng did not stop walking. He kept his pace steady, stopping five meters short of the yellow vehicle, his hands loosely tucked into his jacket pockets.

"How did you find this building, Su Ming?" Lin Feng asked, his voice calm and unhurried.

"My mother has friends at the city registry," Su Ming sneered, taking two wide steps forward. "You used your asset liquidations to sign a purchase contract on this floor yesterday afternoon. Do you really think you are smart, Lin Feng? You sold our family home, took out bank loans, and now you are spending all that cash on building renovations?"

"It is my cash," Lin Feng said.

"It belongs to my sister!" Su Ming roared, his face flushing dark red under the yellow ceiling lights. "She gave you three years of her life! My mother cooked for you! And now you leave her with nothing while you buy out penthouses? Give me your phone and open your banking app. Transfer two million to my account right now, or my brothers here will tear this place apart with you inside it."

The two men behind Su Ming stepped forward, pulling long folding knives from their pockets. The metal blades clicked open in the quiet garage with a sharp, lethal snap.

"You always lead with your right shoulder when you get angry, Su Ming," Lin Feng said softly, his dark eyes fixing on the young man's tense frame. "You raise your elbow high because you think it makes you look bigger. In the old days, I used to step back to let you feel powerful."

"What the hell are you rambling about?" Su Ming barked, raising the crowbar above his ear and lunging forward with a wild, clumsy swing aimed straight at Lin Feng's head.

Lin Feng did not step back.

He leaned his head three inches to the left, letting the heavy iron bar whistle harmlessly past his ear. Before Su Ming could pull the weapon back, Lin Feng drove his left palm upward into Su Ming's exposed elbow joint.

A sharp pop echoed through the garage, followed by a high-pitched shriek of pain as Su Ming dropped the crowbar onto the concrete floor.

Lin Feng grabbed Su Ming's collar, turned his body weight into a sharp pivot, and slammed Su Ming's face directly into the yellow sports car's side window. The tempered glass shattered into a spiderweb of white cracks.

The two thugs froze, their folding knives mid-air, their jaws slackened in total disbelief.

"What are you standing there for?" Su Ming screamed, clutching his dislocated elbow as blood trickled from his nose down his chin. "Kill him! Cut his throat!"

The taller thug lunged forward, thrusting his knife toward Lin Feng's stomach.

Lin Feng sidestepped the blade with practiced ease, grabbed the man's wrist, and twisted it inward with a cold, mechanical flick of his arm. The knife fell to the floor, and Lin Feng drove a heavy knee into the man's solar plexus, knocking the air out of his lungs in a wet gasp. The man collapsed onto his knees, clutching his ribs on the oil-stained floor.

The second thug backed away three steps, his blade trembling in his hand as he looked at Lin Feng's empty, emotionless eyes. He dropped his knife onto the ground, turned on his heel, and sprinted back toward the garage exit without looking behind him.

Lin Feng picked up the fallen crowbar from the floor. He stepped over the groaning thug on the ground and walked over to Su Ming, who was slumping against his yellow car, pale and gasping for breath.

Lin Feng raised the heavy iron bar and brought it down hard on the yellow sports car's front headlight.

*CRASH!*

Plastic shards and shattered glass burst across the floor. Su Ming flinched violently, covering his head with his good arm, sobbing in terror.

"Go home, Su Ming," Lin Feng said, throwing the iron bar onto the hood of the yellow car with a loud metallic thud. "Tell your sister and your mother that if any of you come near this building again, I will not stop at a dislocated elbow."

Su Ming scrambled into his car seat with his left arm, choking on his own tears as he started the engine with trembling fingers. He backed the yellow car away in a wild, erratic arc, scraping the bumper against a concrete pillar before speeding out of the basement garage.

Lin Feng wiped his hands on a clean napkin from his pocket, pulled out his phone, and dialed Director Zhang back.

"Director Zhang," Lin Feng said, stepping into his SUV and starting the motor. "Add two security cameras with high-resolution infrared sensors to the basement elevator hall."

"More expenses, Mr. Lin?" Zhang asked over the line. "Did something happen down there?"

Lin Feng looked at the broken glass shining under the yellow lights of the empty basement.

"Just clearing out some garbage," Lin Feng said, stepping on the gas. "Make sure the steel doors arrive tomorrow morning."