Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

As soon as Kaley asked that question, a few heads turned to me, especially the ones that weren't living in this compound. It included Jo and some of the friends of my workers because I never had the chance to tell them more about it. All that Oscar and I managed to inform them was that something bad was about to come and they all needed to go to our place.     

I finished chewing my food before I answered Kaley.     

"I want to tell you guys everything later in the meeting but some people are not here yet. Tell you what, I could tell you about how Oscar and I met, sounds good?" I replied.     

Kaley gave me a nod and everyone else seemed to be very interested.     

"Oscar and I like watching or reading on topics about nuclear fallouts, power grid attacks, alien invasions, economic collapses, and you know, a zombie apocalypse. It first started as a hobby for me but I met Oscar at a convention in San Diego. It was a panel for a TV show that features zombies as the enemy, 'The Pacing Unliving'. I got seated next to him and we began to casually talk about random stuff." I started.     

"Who fucking knew it would come to this, eh?" Oscar chuckled.     

"Yeah, who would've thought? Anyway, we talked a lot after the panel and we exchanged emails. We got to talking about what we would do in case that happened then he introduced me to prepping. To give it a short explanation, it's preparing for a certain scenario, a backup of a backup of a backup plan. It's actually a rabbit hole if I go into more detail since there is a different fit for every scenario. It's like asking someone after you watch 'The Pacing Unliving', about what would they do in that situation? Would you go solo or in a group? What would you bring with you? What would you fortify your house with? Weapons? Guns? Training? Food? There's a few more but it's something along those lines." I continued.     

I got a few nods of understanding though some of them were still more focused on eating.     

"It got really fun when I started though. He helped me buy my first gun, which was a Glock 17 and he taught me how to use it. That's where I learned that he used to be a Combat Medic for the US Army. He's 64 now and it only shows when you see the white strands on his hair. Aside from him mentioning his daughter in the Navy which I've never met, that's pretty much all I know about him. However, we've been close friends ever since. I'm the youngest though, heh." I chuckled as I was slicing off a chunk of potato that was too big for my spoon.     

"Hah! What do you think the age group that I would be hanging with?! Cheh, that Glock 17 should've been a 1911 if you didn't fucking whine about it." Oscar interjected, grumbling.     

"Yeah, I know it won two world wars but I don't want to fucking die if I encounter more than 7+1 people." I held my hands up helplessly.     

"Bah! I- nevermind, bullet capacity has some merits..." Oscar was about to explode but he shrunk down.     

"O-Okay… what else happened then?" Kaley asked me to continue the story.     

"Right, okay, let me continue. When I went back here, we're still in contact. Aside from continuing my parent's business, I still trained with my gun. I even had a membership on a range in Quezon City and I learned to use different kinds. However, I took classes in the US because the trainers here are not as good and the collection is limited. Did you know, unless you're a member of the competition shooters here, you're only allowed to stock up to 50 rounds of ammo overall?" I continued.     

"What? Really?" Kaley was surprised.     

"You don't know? You trained with guns, right?" I was surprised by her reply.     

"Well, d-dad just keep on buying ammo after ammo..." Kaley was in deep thought.     

"Then your dad's something else. I don't know much about him but I'm sure he's fucking American in spirit, heh." Oscar chuckled when he discovered Kaley was doing the same thing as him. Anyone could hoard ammo as long as you're good at hiding it and you have the hook-up.     

'I got a membership just so I could but a fuck ton without anyone's suspicion.' I chuckled inwardly.     

"I see… what else did you do aside from learning to shoot then?" Kaley asked.     

"Hmm, aside from already knowing Kenjustsu and Karate ever since I was young, I took a few more classes for self-defense, be it while using a gun or a knife and even bare-handed. I managed to learn different disciplines but they all vary in proficiency. As it was said in the book that Oscar gave me, you can't always have a gun by your side, learning other forms of self-defense can be the one to decide whether you could protect yourself and those close to you. It's better to have and not need than to need and not have." I said.     

"Yep, you went a little crazy though, kid." Oscar chuckled.     

"Wow, this is very different from the things that you used to geek about." Kaley was surprised.     

"Hah! Geeking out about something could be about anything. I even decided to take it one step further. I learned how to cook, grow my own food, catch fish, farm certain animals, perform basic first aid, fix household problems, and perform car maintenance, and so much more. I learned as much as I could during these years and having a photographic memory helped me a lot. The easiest ones to do are things that only needed memorization." I paused as I drank a sip of water.     

"The only thing I've taken time to learn is where you need to practice something over and over since it takes time. You can say that I've become a jack of 'most' trades but there are differences in skill level for each one. Oscar even introduced me to one of his old buddies in the US Army a few years back and they gave me this training from hell. It was actually the training for real soldiers and he left me there for 6 months! I thought I was gonna die at that time!" I exclaimed as I threw Oscar a glare.     

"Well, you finished it, kid. I would've told them to keep you there for a year but my friend there told me you were ready. They would've drafted you but I know you'll fucking refuse." Oscar chuckled.     

"Hah! Ready for what? Vietnam?" I joked.     

Oscar was fucking shocked as he almost choked from what I said. However, he just shook his head in amusement after managing to drink a healthy amount of water.     

"Jesus, kid. Fucking chill." Oscar was still flustered.     

"But how did both of you managed to get this place? It's really~ big." Olivia inquired.     

"Well, listen here young lass. Most of the veterans in the US are treated very poorly after they retire. Some of them would have a hard time transitioning back to society when they come back after a number of years. A few of them would be lucky to have a roof on their heads because most of them would be left with no money, homeless, cheated on, and much worse I don't want to tell you. So much for being called a hero, eh?" Oscar gave a solemn expression.     

"That sounds awful… I'm sorry..." Olivia's face was somber.     

"Hmm, good thing I have saved a lot of money to help myself. I could say that I'm one of the lucky ones. My daughter is in the Navy but we haven't had much contact since my wife died." Oscar continued.     

"T-Then what did you do after you retired?" Olivia followed up with another question.     

"Oh, I lived alone in my old house and though I'm getting by good from working 40 years in the army, I felt really bored. To counter it, I started to watch different shows online. I got really into the end of the world genre and in the art of being a prepper so I went to one of the conventions where I met this kid. I don't know what it is but I got really intrigued by this little shit. The way he looks at things and how his head works is different from normal people." Oscar chuckled.     

"What do you mean by that old man?" I replied with a raised eyebrow.     

"Bah! You'll never get what I mean. To make the long story short and to tie our stories together, we became really good buddies. When I got the news that he's flying back, I decided to sell all of my property in Texas to move here. There's nothing keeping me there anyway and most of the stuff here is very fucking cheap. That means I could live the life of a king here while expending only a fraction of my savings. I contacted him immediately and said that I need his help to find a place I could move into. He generously offered his home to me so I stayed with him and we 'remodeled' it while I started to look for a place to get." Oscar continued.     

"Oh~ so it's this place, huh?" Olivia nodded a few times.     

"Yeah, this is what we bought. This place here was owned by the Cruz family, right?" Oscar looked at me.     

I nodded, "Yeah, that's right. The Cruz family back then was planning to move to Australia and they were selling this place lower than the market price. It even helped us greatly that my parents knew them so it's basically a steal. They planned to sell everything for PHP 64 Million (1.25 Million USD) but they sold it to us for PHP 42 Million (825 Thousand USD). It's still pretty steep but Oscar footed most of it."     

"And what we got to thank for that is the conversion rate, kid. US Dollars converted to Philippine Pesos goes a very long way." Oscar added.     

"Hmm, that's the reason why most people here tried to work abroad. Anyway, did you guys buy this place already like this, or did you guys 'remodeled' it as well?" Kaley asked.     

The moment Kaley asked that, Oscar and I started laughing.     

"W-What's wrong?" Kaley was confused.     

"Why don't you answer, kid?" Oscar was shaking his head with a huge smile.     

"Umm- essentially, we tore the whole place down and built it from scratch. Everything you see here was built through our design. It took a lot of time and money but I still couldn't say that it was fully completed. I wanted to add more things to it but this fucking zombie thing happened. Well, we'll still continue to work on this place while we're dealing with our other problems." I explained.     

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! THE FUCKING LOOK ON THEIR FACES WHEN WE MOVED IN WITH A WRECKING BALL!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" Oscar started to lose it.     

"A-Are you two serious?!" Olivia was shocked as well as the few people that were listening to our conversation.     

"Yep, every word of it." Oscar and I simultaneously said.     

"B-But why though? Just from a thought that something might happen?" Rin chimed in.     

"Yeah, and because we can." Oscar answered then we looked at each other.     

We stared at each other for a short moment before we started laughing once more. My relatives and friends that thought we lost our minds before couldn't utter a word because this place was fucking something else.     

"Seriously though, we really just wanted to build something of our own. There's nothing bad to come out of that, right? We just wanted to feel secure and not blame ourselves when shit hits the fan. Honestly, I just started prepping as a hobby at first too. We just rushed on building this thing when we witnessed 'that' shit. However, if you wanted to do something, you need to do it right or it'll come and bite you back in the ass." Oscar put a lot of emphasis on the word 'that' that made Kaley and the rest of them give him a questioning look.