SORRY MISS CEO, YOUR BILLIONS ARE USELESS!

Chapter 5: Unfriendly Eviction, RPGs, and the Zombie Dinner Bell

Rangga leaned closer to the microphone. "I don't think you understand how renting works, man. The landlord holds the keys. Also, you're loitering. I’m going to have to ask you to step off the grass. Well, the asphalt."

Zahara grabbed Rangga’s arm. Her grip was surprisingly strong, her nails digging into his skin. The baggy sleeves of her "REBAHAN 4 LYFE" t-shirt slipped down, but her eyes were all Ice Queen.

"Rangga, stop joking," she hissed, her voice frantic but low. "That’s Rizal. He’s not bluffing. He’s got two modified armored SUVs out there and at least ten heavily armed men. If they have RPG-7s with tandem warheads, they can crack a Level 1 bunker door with enough repeated hits."

Rangga looked at her, raising an eyebrow. "Tandem warheads? You guys brought anti-tank weapons to a corporate takeover?"

"We're a mafia syndicate! What did you think we used, strongly worded emails?!" she snapped.

"Time's up," Rizal’s voice echoed outside. He turned to one of his men holding a long, olive-green tube. "Light them up. Aim for the center seam."

"Hold on to your oversized pants, CEO," Rangga muttered, bracing his hands on the console.

WHOOSH.

On the screen, a trail of white smoke streaked from the mercenary's shoulder straight toward the bunker.

KA-BOOOOOOM!

  The impact was deafening. The entire concrete floor of the bunker jolted like it had been kicked by a giant. Dust rained down from the ceiling. The lights flickered, buzzing violently before stabilizing into a dim, emergency red.

Zahara yelped, stumbling backward and landing hard on the folding sofa bed.

Rangga checked his coffee cup. It had spilled a little. He sighed. "Okay, now I’m annoyed."

A red panel materialized in his vision.

$$SYSTEM ALERT: EXTERNAL KINETIC IMPACT DETECTED.$$$$MAIN BLAST DOOR INTEGRITY: 92\%.$$$$WARNING: 3 MORE DIRECT HITS WILL CAUSE STRUCTURAL BREACH.$$

"Alamak! They are scratching the paint!" the System yelled in Rangga’s head. "Host, you cannot let these hooligans damage our beautiful property! Initiating Defense Protocol!"

$$NEW DAILY QUEST GENERATED: THE NOISY NEIGHBORS$$$$OBJECTIVE: Repel the Nusantara Syndicate eviction attempt without using the roof turrets (Ammo is expensive, Host).$$$$REWARD: 2000 System Points & 1 Box of Premium Arabica Coffee.$$$$PENALTY: You become a zombie chew toy.$$

"Arabica coffee? Oh, they are so dead," Rangga cracked his knuckles. He turned to Zahara, who was staring at the red emergency lights, her breathing shallow. The reality that her own people were actively trying to kill her was fully sinking in.

"Hey. Maid," Rangga snapped his fingers, breaking her out of her trance. "Focus. You said they use Kestrel-9 drones for recon, right? How are they controlled? Radio frequency or satellite link?"

Zahara blinked, her corporate survival instincts kicking through the panic. "Local radio frequency. It’s a closed-loop mesh network synced to Rizal's command tablet. Why?"

"System," Rangga said aloud. "Can you hack a closed-loop military drone network?"

"Host, please," the System scoffed, sounding deeply offended. "I am the Pusako Fortress. Hacking a 21st-century toy drone is like taking candy from a blind toddler. But I need energy to establish a brute-force connection. I need... spite."

Rangga looked at Zahara. "I need you to get really, really mad at Rizal."

"I am already mad!" she yelled. "He just fired a rocket at my head!"

"Not mad enough. I need you to talk to him. Distract him," Rangga pointed to the intercom button. "Insult his mother. Insult his haircut. Make him angry. The longer he talks, the faster we hack his drone."

Zahara stared at the button. This was it. The point of no return. If she talked trash to Rizal now, any illusion of her taking back her empire was gone forever. She would officially be a traitor to the Syndicate.

Another rocket slammed into the door. BOOM!

$$MAIN BLAST DOOR INTEGRITY: 81\%.$$

Zahara didn't hesitate anymore. She slammed her hand onto the intercom button.

"Rizal, you steroid-pumping, backstabbing ape!" Zahara’s voice, amplified to maximum volume, blasted out onto the street.

Outside, Rizal froze. The mercenary reloading the RPG paused.

"Zahara?" Rizal replied over his loudspeaker, a smug grin slowly appearing on his face. "So you are alive in there. I was starting to think the guy on the mic was just playing a recording. Come on out, Boss. We can do this the easy way."

"The easy way?" Zahara laughed, a cold, bitter sound that sent chills down Rangga’s spine. "You think you can run the Syndicate, Rizal? You have the strategic planning of a concussed baboon. You were nothing before I picked you up from that illegal fighting ring in Priok. You're a guard dog trying to sit in the master's chair!"

$$BINGO! TENANT RAGE HARVESTED: 800 POINTS!$$$$ENEMY IRRITATION HARVESTED: 500 POINTS!$$$$HACKING DRONE... 40\%... 70\%...$$

Rizal's face flushed red on the screen. The smugness vanished, replaced by a twitching, violent fury. "Fire another one!" he screamed at his men. "Blow that door wide open! I want her alive so I can skin her myself!"

"Host! I’m in!" the System announced gleefully.

A new window popped up on Rangga's hologram console, showing the camera feed from the Kestrel-9 drone hovering above the street. Rangga now had full control of it.

"Perfect," Rangga grinned. "Zahara, cover your ears."

"What are you doing?" she asked, stepping back from the console.

"Taking out the trash."

Rangga swiped on the console, navigating to the drone's external speaker system—usually used for crowd control or broadcasting warnings. He maxed out the volume dial. Then, he selected a highly specific audio file from the bunker's pre-loaded emergency database.

It wasn't a siren. It wasn't a gunshot.

It was the sound of a baby crying, layered over the high-pitched squeal of a dying pig, pitch-shifted to mimic the exact frequency of a mutant zombie's mating call. It was the loudest, most obnoxious, blood-curdling sound imaginable.

Out on the street, the Kestrel-9 drone suddenly dove down, hovering directly over Rizal’s two armored SUVs.

And then, the drone started screaming.

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

The sound was so piercing that Rizal and his men immediately dropped their weapons to clutch their bleeding ears, falling to their knees on the asphalt.

"What the hell is that?!" Rizal screamed, trying to shoot the erratic, fast-moving drone above his head, but his aim was ruined by the agonizing noise.

L777

Inside the bunker, Rangga watched the radar map on his screen. Red dots were appearing from every direction. Hundreds of them. Thousands.

"Zombies," Zahara whispered, watching the screen in absolute horror and awe. "You're ringing the dinner bell."

"Zombies are highly sensitive to sound," Rangga explained casually, crossing his arms. "And right now, Rizal's convoy is the loudest thing in a five-mile radius."

Within seconds, the street corners flooded with infected. They ignored the bunker entirely. Their dead, milky eyes were locked onto the source of the noise—the hovering drone and the screaming mercenaries beneath it.

Among the horde, three massive, grey-skinned Brute mutants—just like the one they had killed yesterday—charged down the road, tossing abandoned cars out of their way like toys.

Rizal saw the swarm approaching. The color drained from his face.

"Get in the cars! GET IN THE CARS!" he shrieked, abandoning the RPGs on the street.

His men scrambled, but it was too late. The horde crashed into the armored SUVs like a tidal wave of rotting flesh and bone. The mercenaries who didn't make it inside the vehicles were instantly pulled under, their screams completely drowned out by the drone's continuous shrieking.

One of the Brute mutants leaped onto the hood of Rizal's SUV, smashing its massive fists into the bulletproof windshield. The glass instantly spider-webbed.

"Reverse! Get us out of here!" Rizal screamed, the vehicle’s tires smoking as it desperately backed up, plowing through dozens of zombies as it fled down the ruined highway, a swarm of thousands chasing right behind it.

Rangga tapped the console, and the drone abruptly went silent before flying higher into the clouds, hidden from view.

The street outside the bunker was completely cleared of mercenaries. The only things left were a few dropped weapons, an empty RPG tube, and the straggling zombies wandering away to chase the fleeing SUVs.

$$DING! DAILY QUEST COMPLETED: THE NOISY NEIGHBORS$$$$REWARD: 2000 POINTS & 1 BOX PREMIUM ARABICA COFFEE ADDED TO INVENTORY.$$

Rangga let out a satisfied sigh. The red emergency lights clicked off, replaced by the warm, white LEDs of the bunker.

He turned around. Zahara was staring at him. Her mouth was slightly open. She looked from the screen, which showed her former head of security fleeing for his life, back to Rangga, a guy in faded shorts who just wiped out a mafia hit squad using a toy drone and a sound file.

"You are a monster," she breathed.

Rangga walked over to the wall dispenser, which popped open to reveal a fresh, vacuum-sealed box of high-grade coffee beans.

"I'm a landlord, Ms. Nasution," Rangga said, popping the seal and inhaling the rich aroma. "I just don't tolerate property damage. Now, if the excitement is over, I believe you still have my underwear to wash."

Zahara looked at him. She looked at the pink laundry basket.

For the first time since the apocalypse started, she didn't yell. She didn't threaten to kill him. A tiny, almost imperceptible smirk tugged at the corner of her lips.

"Fine," she said, picking up the basket. "But I'm using extra bleach on the Batman ones."