Survival Bunker System Developer

Ambrosia

People didn’t call Timothy McCallum a young genius of his generation for no reason. Armed with just a laptop, Timothy could transform into a man feared by even the police. It didn’t matter if it was a politician with a mistress to hide or a teenager who had shop-lifted. Ambrosia always stood on the side of justice. There was nothing more that he idolised than heroes and before him, stood the greatest hero of mankind.

Caleb was deeply troubled. Timothy was a smart kid who was very helpful when it came to coding the new logic for his automated delivery assistant. Alan got along well with the hacker but if there was something that Caleb felt uncomfortable with, it was Timothy’s sparkling stare of adoration.

It didn’t matter what Caleb did. Timothy would praise his elegance when sipping a cup of coffee and enjoy the smell of his fart like the most expensive perfume to a point where it started creeping Caleb out. He understood that Timothy was a huge fan of heroes but Caleb was tired of explaining over and over again that he wasn’t a hero and shouldn’t be receiving that kind of worship from anyone.

“Sir!” the chirpy hacker grinned. “The prototype is ready. Alan and I have tested it twice and everything worked as it should. Please have a look at it. Behold the Delivery Drone Becky!”

If there was something else odd about the hacker, it was his love for nicknames. Caleb took a peek into Timothy’s laptop once and found many strangely labelled files. From “Madness is a man’s medicine” to “The Dark Side”, Timothy’s strange naming sense was truly a presence not to be reckoned with.  The hacker took to giving his cat many new names and Caleb declined the suggestions for a ‘sprucier’ name. Even the word ‘sprucier’ was invented by Timothy, a combination of spicing and sprucing up.

For the week or two that Caleb knew Timothy, he was deliberating if he should add this to his list of regrets. On one hand, Timothy’s skills were exactly what Caleb needed right now. On the other hand, Timothy’s personality was something Caleb struggled to keep up with. He couldn’t strangle the kid even though he was annoying. Yet, he wanted this hacker out of his hair. Caleb’s normal and orderly life had been turned upside down and inside out by Timothy McCallum and even Jeremy couldn’t sleep in peace with the hacker in the apartment. Even after he left, it took a long time before Caleb’s apartment regained its usual atmosphere.

With a reluctant expression, Caleb let Timothy pull him over to the other apartment unit in the building that Caleb had upgraded and converted into a garage bunker for Alan and Timothy to work on projects and conduct various kinds of tests. Additionally, he converted some of his neighbours’ empty apartments into guest bunkers for Alan and Timothy so that they didn’t need to constantly travel to and fro.

The delivery drone was brilliant. There was a pod for a single person to sit in as well as a huge storage compartment. Caleb didn’t doubt that Alan wouldn’t be able to deliver good results. He had to admit, Timothy and Alan worked very well in a team. According to his foster father, the hacker helped to design the circuits and drone testing. Caleb saw Timothy’s proposal for subsequent improvements to the delivery bots and decided to include them in phase two. Timothy was far-sighted and thought ahead. Caleb felt assured having Ambrosia on the team even if the hacker’s personality grated on his nerves.

“This is better than I expected,” Caleb admitted. With Timothy around, Caleb was able to focus more on understanding the system and managing resources to improve bunkers. He was too busy holding meetings with the cluster bunk managers and putting together the special ghoul hunting team to monitor the research and development progress.

Timothy grinned proudly and Caleb thought that the hacker resembled a puppy waiting to be praised.

“Good work. I think we’re good for now. I saw the proposal to improve the delivery bot but we won’t be able to do it yet. Instead, can I trouble you and Alan to think of something that can patrol the area and scan for ghouls to kill them? I need a patrol bot ready to protect humans and bunkers. They have to be capable of killing awakened ghouls. At the same time, I want these patrol bots to destroy the bodies of ghouls when they come across it. There isn’t a time limit for this patrol bot. I’ll leave the management of the development and improvement of automated assistants to you and Alan.”

Hearing that there was a new project, Timothy whooped in delight. Caleb smiled in defeat when the hacker rambled on about the ideas he had before excusing himself to start writing down his inspiration.

When Caleb was finally alone again, he turned on his laptop. Helen’s research was reaching a stalemate. She still could not get the ghoul rats to evolve into an awakened ghoul. The scientist didn’t know if it was due to the difference in species and asked if Caleb could recall seeing any intelligent ghouls in his past life that were not humans. Caleb tried his best to remember but by now, all his past life’s memories were foggy. The system developer was too busy monitoring the progress of the Happiness Meter. It wasn’t looking good.

Many of the survival shelter survivors were giving up hope and the Happiness Meter was going down despite the things Caleb was providing for them. The farm bunker was finally set up but the progress was slow. Caleb couldn’t even get the Happiness Meter to reach 50% and it was frustrating.

Everything that he could think of, he had tried. Caleb distributed food and clothes as well as necessities like toiletries and blankets to the shelters. Lewis coordinated the operations smoothly and kept track of the inventory in Target and Paul’s gun shop. The bunker residents were behaving themselves and working hard to ensure every known survival shelter has enough to last.

Electricity and water were reserved for Caleb’s use for now because he didn’t think the city needed it when he had better use for them. The care packages that were collected from the army started becoming stingier and stingier. Survivors weren’t happy and people started to starve. Fresh produce was no longer included in the weekly care packages so Jason reported more cases of malnutrition. The doctor prescribed pills for the bunker residents so that they wouldn’t suffer the same fate and Caleb was thankful for the doctor’s initiative.

Zephyr managed to put together a special ghoul hunting squad. Rick was a commanding officer of a regular squad. Both men were doing well on the ground. The ghouls were quickly purged from the less populated areas. Caleb highlighted a new area on the map on his laptop. Three more new ghoul-free zones were established and Caleb told the bunk managers to tell residents to spread the word so that survivors living in cluttered shelters can start moving out. It would be better if survivors can have their own living space instead of sharing it with a few hundred other strangers. With more privacy and freedom, Caleb was hoping his efforts over the next few weeks will increase the overall Happiness Meter.

One piece of good news that he had despite the gloomy results was a list of names from the known survival shelters. His bunk managers were reporting that these people applied to volunteer to help Caleb even though they didn’t succeed in the initial recruitment selection. This came to Caleb as a surprise. The system developer wasn’t expecting people to volunteer to work for free in a dangerous situation. Of course, to thank those volunteers, he held a meeting to tell his cluster bunk managers to make special arrangements for these volunteers to be given priority into moving into the ghoul-free zones.

With more volunteers offering to go on ghoul body cleaning duties and care package collecting, Caleb could reduce the manpower he assigned for those duties. Instead, he assigned more people towards the special ghoul hunting squad for training. Caleb’s ultimate aim is to train all ten thousand bunker residents to be able to defend against ghouls. New York City was his first bunker base of operations. Caleb understood that to save humanity, he would eventually have to expand his influence once New York City’s situation stabilises.

Caleb thought about it. Strategically speaking, everything was progressing in a favourable direction. Logically speaking, he was doing a good job. Yet, Caleb felt as if he wasn’t doing enough. The lack of progress from Helen’s side was making Caleb nervous. It was coming to the end of July but Caleb still didn’t know anything about PXE22’s evolution. Humanity was still very vulnerable. The people were not armed well and not trained to be able to fight ghouls. If an intelligent ghoul appeared now, they could only hide in Caleb’s bunkers and cower in fear while the rest of the shelter survivors get slaughtered outside.

Shaking his head, Caleb picked up his phone and dialled for Ambrosia. He needed the hacker’s help to gain more intel on Helen’s behalf. If he could watch the city from his apartment like how he watched the ten thousand residents in his bunkers, Caleb might be able to think of something.

“Hello?”

“I need Ambrosia’s help. There isn’t enough information about ghouls for us to come up with a successful plan against them. Can you get into the city’s network and pull up all the surveillance cameras you can reach?”

Timothy grinned, thrilled that Caleb was finally putting his real talent to work. Programming automated assistants and electric circuits was fun. However, Timothy still preferred digging up information about the unknown.

“Roger that! Every surveillance camera, you say? Are we talking about New York City or every surveillance camera I can reach in the world?”

Caleb thought about it. “Every single camera you can reach. It doesn’t matter how many laws you break, I will take responsibility. Right now, we need information.”

Timothy was about to agree when he remembered something and hesitated. “About that… it’s not a problem to hack everything. I’d be willing to try hacking NASA if you need it too but where should I push the information to? It’s always better to copy out the source for future use after infiltration. We need a place to store and host them.”

Caleb gave it some thought. He cleaned places in New York of resources already. Currently, most of Brooklyn and Queens were considered ghoul-free zones other than a few problematic areas. If he wanted to steal servers and storage, the best place would be in Manhattan but it was too risky. That borough was crawling with ghouls and even if Caleb wanted to send a team to retrieve what he needed for Timothy, he didn’t know if they would be able to carry everything back successfully.

“Let me figure out how to get the servers you need. You can start working on it for now. I just want all the cameras in New York City with Manhattan as the priority. The more ghouls in sight, the better. Once I get the servers you can start working on other areas.”

Timothy didn’t know what Caleb was planning but he felt uneasy. “Are you going to be alright? The only place with what we need is in the business district. The other places are cordoned off by the army.”

Sometimes Caleb wished Timothy wasn’t as smart as he was. “I know,” he told Timothy and the hacker immediately rejected the idea.

“It’s too risky!”

Caleb sighed. It was a risk he had to take. Apart from him, there wasn’t anybody else capable of carrying hundreds of servers and storage systems out of the place alive. Caleb had the system to help him. The only challenging part was returning alive. However, he had a plan. Zephyr was a very good fighter and the team he was training seemed promising.

It should be time that the special ghoul hunting squad went out for a live training exercise.

“Don’t worry,” he told Timothy. “I know what I’m doing. Just do what you have to do and leave the rest to me. I can’t die until I save humanity.”

Reluctantly, the hacker agreed.

After the call ended, Caleb got up and grabbed his jacket. He was going to pay Zephyr and the special ghoul hunting squad a visit.