2026-06-22 12:43:59The blue screen didn't vanish. It hovered there, translucent and cold, flickering every time I blinked. People brushed past me in the apartment hallway, grumbling about me blocking the stairs, but nobody else seemed to see the glowing text.
“Get a move on lad,” a guy in a suit barked as he shoved past.
I didn't even snap back at him. I was too busy staring at the mission log.
[Mission: Stockpile and Secure]
[Objective: Spend at least $10,000 on essential survival gear before the Mist hits] [Reward: +200 SP, Level 1 Space Warehouse Expansion]Space Warehouse. My heart skipped. In my last life, I was a low tier “human pack mule” because of a weak storage ability. If I had a real warehouse, I could carry an entire grocery store in my pocket and never let anyone use me again.
I checked my phone, it was 8:30 AM. The clock was ticking.I ran out of the building and flagged down a hello cab. “Green’s Wholesale Club. The big one by the docks,” I told the driver. “And I'll give you an extra fifty if you ignore the speed limit.”
The driver's eyes lit up. “You got it boss.”
As we swerved through traffic, I started a list on my phone. In my last life, I wasted the first day crying and trying to find Anna. Not this time. This time I was going for the basics: carbs, protein, and meds.
I walked into the wholesale club like a man on a mission. I grabbed three massive flatbed carts and started tossing stuff in.
First stop: The pharmacy. I cleared out the shelves of ibuprofen, bandages, and every bottle of multivitamins I could reach. When a worker tried to ask if I needed help, I just pointed at my cart and said, “Big camping trip.”
Next: The canned goods. Cases of tuna, spam, beans and peaches. Then fifty pound bags of rice and flour. I looked like a crazy dude, but I didn't care. I could feel the weight of the nine hours pressing down on my shoulders.
[DING!]
[Mutation Level: 0.02%] [Reason: High Stress. Warning: Keep your cool, Host.]“Shut up,” I whispered to the air. I had to keep it low; if that meter hit 100%, I’d be nothing but a mindless Hive King. I reached the checkout line with four carts overflowing with gear. The cashier, a guy with too much eyeliner, stared at the mountain of food.
“Are you throwing a party or something?” He asked, scanning the hundredth can of tuna.
“Something like that,” I said, swiping Anna’s gold credit card. The machine beeped — Approved. I felt a surge of petty joy. Let the “Narcissist Parasite” deal with the debt.
Once I got the stuff to the parking lot, I realized I had a problem. I didn't have a truck. I was standing there with a thousand pounds of food and no way to move it.
The Space Warehouse, I thought. How does it work?
I focused on the blue screen. I reached out and touched the icon that looked like an open crate.
[Space Warehouse: Level 0 (Capacity 10 Cubic Meters)]
[To store an item, place your hand on it and think ‘collect’.]I looked around. Nobody was watching. I put my hand on the first crate of canned peaches and thought, Collect. Poof.
It was gone. Just like that. No sound, no light, just an empty spot on my cart. My eyes went wide. This was the high level interface meant for “Architects.” I moved closer, tapping every crate, every bag of rice and every box of meds. Within minutes, my carts were empty.
[Storage Capacity: 85% Full]
“Damn,” I muttered. “I need more room.”
I headed back inside. I still had six grand left to spend. I went straight for the hardware section. I grabbed a high end crossbow, two dozen bolts, a heavy duty machete, and a portable solar charger. I needed to be ready for the shamblers and the fast seekers.
I was at the back of the store looking at a set of tactical gear when my phone buzzed. It was a text from Anna.
ANNA: Mateo, you psycho! My card just got flagged at a wholesale club. What are you doing? Bring my money back NOW or I'm calling your boss.
I felt a cold laugh bubble up in my throat. My boss? My boss was probably going to be a Tier 1 zombie by sunset. I blocked his number.
I had a few hours left before I had to go find “The Human Anchor,” Commander Jaxen. According to the system, his Null Gene blood was the only thing that could keep my virus from spiraling out of control.
But as I walked toward the exit, my suddenly flashed red.[Scanner]
[WARNING!]
[Lesser Infected nearby. The Mist is Leaking]My heart dropped. Already? The “Collapse” wasn't supposed to hit for hours.
I looked toward the butcher's counter. A guy in an apron had his back to me. He was twitching in weird, jagged movements and I could hear a wet, slurping sound.
“Hey, Gary? You okay?” another worker said, walking toward him.
‘Gary’ didn't answer. He turned around, and my stomach turned over. His eyes were milky white orbs. He lunged at his coworker, teeth sinking into the man's neck with a sickening tear.
The store erupted. Screaming started in the bakery and spread like wildfire. People were dropping their groceries and sprinting for the doors.
I didn't run. My hand went straight to the warehouse. I felt the cold grip of the machete materialize in my palm.
“Nine hours,” I hissed, my eyes narrowing. The System lied. The black Mist catalyst was already here.
[New Mission: First Kill]
[Objective: Kill your first Tier 1 Shamblers] [Reward: +50 SP, Weapon Sharpening Stone]I gripped the machete until my knuckles turned white. “Fine by me.”
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00135
Up close, Red Sun's headquarters looked less like a military installation and more like something grown out of the bones of an older world, concrete bunkers and reinforced steel fencing wrapped around structures that had clearly started life as a research facility before being retrofitted for war.I studied it from the ridge for a long moment, trying to reconcile the sheer scale of the place with everything we'd planned against it over these past two weeks, and felt the plan we'd built so carefully in the safety of the war room suddenly feel much smaller against the reality standing in front of us.We'd spent the better part of the morning working our way down from the ridge, staying low, using what cover the terrain offered, until we reached a position close enough to actually study the perimeter properly through Ruby's salvaged optics."Three layers of defense," Rourke said quietly, passing the scope to Jaxen. "Outer fence, patrol road, then the actual walls.
00134
The strike team gathered at the gate just before dawn, a hundred and twenty fighters drawn from every allied settlement, their breath visible in the cold morning air, weapons checked one final time in the gray predawn light.The fortress behind us stood quiet, most of Haven Ridge still asleep except for the small crowd who'd gathered to see us off, faces I recognized from months of shared survival watching with expressions that mixed hope and fear in equal measure. I searched the crowd briefly for Priya and Ward, found them both near the wall, and let myself hold their steady presence in my mind for the journey ahead.I stood beside Jaxen near the front of the formation, watching the last preparations settle into place, and felt the weight of everything riding on the next several days press down harder than it had at any point during our two weeks of planning."Ready," Jaxen asked quietly, close enough that only I could hear him over the murmur of the gathering
00133
Ruby's workshop had transformed into something resembling an armory over the final days before departure, every surface covered with weapons and gear laid out in careful, methodical rows, each piece checked and rechecked with an intensity that spoke to exactly how much she understood was riding on this mission's success.I watched her work for a while before she noticed me in the doorway, her movements precise and practiced despite the visible exhaustion, every screw tightened, every wire tested twice, the particular focus of someone pouring every ounce of control she had left into the one part of this mission she could actually manage completely."Twelve pulse devices, fully calibrated," she said, walking me through the inventory one final time, her voice steady despite the exhaustion visible in the dark circles under her eyes. "Modified specifically to counter Red Sun's known defensive tech based on everything Rourke could remember about their standard equipment load
00132
The two weeks of preparation moved fast, every day filled with training drills and equipment checks and endless logistics, but Jaxen found ways to steal small pockets of quiet for us anyway, insisting we needed them as much as the fortress needed our leadership.I'd argued with him about it the first few times, certain we couldn't spare even an hour with so much still left to organize before the mission, but he'd been right, the same way he usually was about the things that actually mattered. We needed these small, stolen evenings more than either of us wanted to admit out loud.Tonight he'd led me to the old orchard behind the fortress's northern wall, a small stretch of surviving apple trees that had somehow weathered years of chaos, their branches heavy with fruit nobody had gotten around to harvesting yet."I found this place a few weeks ago," he said, spreading a worn blanket across the grass beneath one of the larger trees. "Thought about telling you soone
00131
The war room felt different this time, crowded with more people than it had ever held before, representatives from every allied settlement gathered around a table that Ruby had extended twice already to accommodate the growing maps and schematics spread across its surface.I stood near the head of the table watching everyone settle into their places, faces I'd only recently learned alongside ones I'd known for months now, all of us bound together by a shared understanding of exactly how much this next mission would cost us if we got any part of it wrong."This is what we're working with," Ruby said, pulling up a detailed layout of Red Sun's central headquarters, pieced together from Rourke's firsthand knowledge and fragments of documentation salvaged from the facility. "Heavily fortified, multiple perimeter checkpoints, and somewhere at the core, the primary activation node for the Global Stabilizer network.""How heavily fortified," Delacroix asked, studying th
00130
I found Ruby in the workshop late one night, long after most of the fortress had gone quiet, hunched over a small, battered photograph she quickly tried to tuck away when she noticed me in the doorway.The rest of the workshop sat dark around her, tools and half finished projects abandoned for the night, just a single lantern casting warm light over the small space where she'd chosen to sit alone with whatever she'd been holding onto."You don't have to hide that," I said gently, stepping inside.She hesitated, then set it back down on the workbench, and I moved closer to see it properly, a faded image of a younger Ruby standing beside an older woman with the same sharp eyes, both of them laughing at something outside the frame."My mother," Ruby said quietly. "Before all of this.""I didn't know you kept photos.""I don't, usually. Too easy to lose things like this, and losing them hurts worse than never having them at all." She traced the
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