The Corporate Apocalypse: Jakarta's Survival Guide to Cosmic

Chapter 6: Resignation Letters and Self-Evacuation Procedures

Adrenaline is one hell of a drug. It makes your heart kick like a jet engine, but it also turns the world around you into slow-motion jelly. Rendy could feel every single speck of dust on his glasses as he spun around and started sprinting as fast as his out-of-shape college student legs could carry him.

"ID CARDS! I NEED YOUR IDENTIFICATION FOR THE ARCHIVES!" Captain Harris screamed from behind. His voice didn't sound authoritative anymore; it was a raspy, forced croak coming from vocal cords hardened by rot.

Behind the Captain, a dozen soldiers in camo started to move. They didn't lunge like wild Runners. Instead, they moved in a perfect tactical formation. The rhythm of their combat boots hitting the asphalt—thud, thud, thud—was a sound far more terrifying than a standard zombie growl.

"Rendy! They’re armed!" Alana shouted, vaulting over a concrete barrier. She glanced back, her hand instinctively reaching for an arrow, but she hesitated. How do you take down something that’s still holding an assault rifle?

"Don’t stop! Chapter 13, Al! Read Chapter 13!" Rendy gasped, tossing his plastic folder toward the Cross-Eyed Guy to lighten his load.

"I can’t run and read at the same time, you idiot!" Alana shot back, but she didn’t slow down.

Long-Hair was at the very back, his legs flying under a floral housecoat in a sharp contrast to his sweat-drenched, terrified face. "Boss! They’re gaining on us! Harris... he’s running with a pen! He’s trying to stab me with a pen!"

Rendy stole a glance at the open book in his hand. The text was glowing a faint yellow, as if reacting to the danger.

"Tip #22: Bureaucrat-type zombies (State Official variant) have a pathological obsession with procedure. They cannot harm anyone whose status is no longer 'Subordinate' or 'Registered Civilian.' To break this tie, you must immediately submit a Resignation Letter or declare yourself Voluntarily Unemployed."

"Holy crap, Coach Udin... is this for real?" Rendy muttered. He skidded to a stop behind an overturned fire truck, nearly causing Alana to plow into his back.

"Why are we stopping?!" Alana barked, her face flushed red.

"I need paper! A pen! Hurry!" Rendy frantically tore through his bag.

"What are you going to write in the middle of a gunfight, huh?!" Alana saw Captain Harris and his squad were less than twenty yards away. Harris raised his hand, and the soldiers stopped in unison. They took aim. Not at their heads, but at their pockets, as if checking for wallets.

"Subjects refuse to cooperate," Harris’s voice echoed coldly. "In accordance with Article 45, Paragraph 3 on Public Order, we are authorized to use administrative force."

"Gondrong! Juling! Get over here!" Rendy pulled them in. He ripped the back page off his plastic folder—the only white sheet left. With shaking hands, he scribbled something with the permanent marker he usually used to label cans of sardines.

"TO: CAPTAIN HARRIS. I RESIGN. PERIOD. NO ONE-MONTH NOTICE. SIGNED: RENDY & CO."

"Here! Gondrong, give this to him!" Rendy shoved the paper at him.

"Are you crazy? I’ll die!"

"No! This is the ultimate charm against dead civil servants! Trust me!"

Gondrong looked at the paper, then at the rifle muzzles pointed his way, and then at Rendy’s face, which was full of a mad sort of confidence. With a roar of "ALLAHU AKBAR!", Gondrong charged out from behind the fire truck, holding the paper high like a white flag.

"CAPTAIN! HERE’S OUR RESIGNATION! WE’RE NOT CITIZENS ANYMORE! WE’RE ALIENS NOW!" Gondrong screamed, slapping the paper right onto Captain Harris’s face.

Time seemed to stand still.

The paper landed on Harris’s chest. The Captain’s hand, clutching a steel pen, froze in mid-air. He took the paper and read it slowly with his one remaining eye. A long sigh escaped his rotting nostrils—the sigh of a bureaucrat exhausted by high employee turnover.

"Resigned...?" Harris muttered. He turned to his squad. "Soldiers, lower your weapons. They are no longer under our administrative jurisdiction. Status: Terminated Outsourcing."

A dozen rifles were lowered instantly. The soldiers stood at attention, and then one of them pulled a stamp out of his tactical vest and slammed it onto Gondrong’s forehead with black ink that appeared out of thin air.

"APPROVED."

"Thank you for your dedication," Captain Harris said flatly. He turned and began trudging back toward the transmitter tower with a heavy gait, his squad following behind. They stopped caring about Rendy and the others entirely, as if they had suddenly become transparent in the eyes of the law.

Alana collapsed onto the asphalt, her bow sliding away. She buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. "This makes no sense... this makes absolutely zero sense..."

Rendy stepped closer and awkwardly patted her shoulder. "Told you, Al. The world doesn't need logic anymore. It just needs... creative conflict management."

"Management my ass," Alana looked up, her eyes watery as she teetered between laughter and a total breakdown. "We survived because you wrote a resignation letter? In the middle of a zombie apocalypse? Do you have any idea how stupid that’s going to sound to anyone sane?"

"The problem is, Al, there aren't any sane people left," Rendy pointed at Gondrong, who was still standing there like a statue with 'APPROVED' stamped on his forehead. "Look at him. He’s tax-exempt for life now."

"Boss... I feel... weird," Gondrong muttered, touching his forehead. "When he stamped me, I felt like... the weight of the world just lifted. It’s like all my old motorcycle loans were suddenly paid off."

Rendy gave a small laugh, but it died in his throat when he looked back at the transmitter tower. Captain Harris and his men hadn't gone back inside. Instead, they were lining up along the perimeter fence, facing outward, as if guarding against something much bigger than four survivors.

Rendy opened his book again. Page 45 was filling up with new ink. This time, it wasn't a joke. The handwriting was small, neat, and felt incredibly urgent.

"Warning: The Bureaucracy of Death is the final line of defense. If they start accepting resignations, it means the Company Owner is coming for a Total Liquidation. Leave Kuningan immediately."

Search for the 'Burnt Archive Warehouse' in the South. There, you'll find the original contract for this reality.'

"The Company Owner?" Alana asked, reading over his shoulder. "Who? God? Or does this virus have a CEO?"

"I don't think it's God," Rendy said, closing his book. His face went serious—a rare expression for him. "God doesn't use Comic Sans for a guidebook. This... this is something else. Something that treats the apocalypse like a business project."

Suddenly, the ground shook. A low, heavy boom echoed from downtown, followed by a plume of black smoke that billowed high into the sky, forming a silhouette that looked like a giant bowtie against the horizon.

"Rendy, look!" Si Juling pointed toward the skyline.

It wasn't just smoke. Thousands of crows were swirling inside the plume, and in the center of it all, something massive began to descend. It wasn't some bloated flesh monster; it was a clean, shiny, hyper-modern geometric structure. A new skyscraper seemed to sprout from the ground in a matter of seconds.

"Liquidation..." Rendy whispered. "Coach Udin was right again. We have to move now, before we all get physically laid off."

"To the south?" Alana stood up, grabbing her bow. This time, she didn't argue. She gripped Rendy’s arm tight. "Promise me, Ren. Don't die before I find the guy who wrote this book and punch him in the face."

"I'll try, Al. But Chapter 14 says dying is actually just 'Unpaid Long-Term Leave,' so maybe it’s not that bad."

"Rendy!"

"Okay, okay! Run!"

The four of them sprinted away from Kuningan, heading down the increasingly deserted streets. Behind them, Captain Harris and his squad gave a final military salute as the new building began to pulse with an eye-straining neon purple light.

The apocalypse had just entered its corporate phase, and Rendy was the only one holding the employee manual.