Survival Bunker System Developer

Automated Delivery Drones

Ten thousand people filled his bunkers within a week after the government announced that it was cutting the power and water supply to New York City. If one didn’t think through it carefully, it would seem like the government was actually taking better care of its people and supplying them with necessities through care packages. The army guarding the city borders were tasked with delivering them but only the people who were trapped in New York City knew what that meant.

Before the government announced the cut in power and water, very few people applied for Caleb’s recruitment. It was easier to remain in shelters created by the army and accept help from the others in these shelters despite the crappy situation. While it wasn’t ideal having to share a single toilet with a few hundred other people, it was still better than risking the possibility of death out there with an unknown person recruiting people into his private bunkers.

The people of New York City knew about the recruitment and the man behind it. Some of the hot-blooded youths unafraid of deaths applied for the job before the announcement simply because they idolised the popular blogger who gave good advice and survival tips for the apocalypse. Caleb quickly accepted those first few applications and welcomed them into his patrol team, assigning them bunkers in strategic locations to purge the areas with fewer ghouls to set up small safe zones and camps.

After the government’s announcement, the smarter people of New York City understood the implications. Most of the resources were scavenged from stores that were currently running on the grid’s power supply and the water supply controlled by the government. As long as the supply wasn’t cut, the refrigerators and tap water will continue without a hitch. Survivors can still head out to get the thing they needed without problems if they avoided ghouls.

However, that announcement changed everything. Once the power is cut, the refrigerators will stop working and microwave ovens will not work. Frozen food will not be available and all the fresh food has gone bad so that left canned food for everyone. Canned food wasn’t going to feed the survivors for long and with the number of survivors left, they were not going to make it through a month. Water was more crucial. While some stores still had mineral water in stock, it wasn’t enough to last everyone even if they rationed. The taps don’t work so taking showers will be impossible and the toilets won’t flush. The survivors wouldn’t last even a week without water supply and when the realisation sank in, the panic ensued.

Not many people noticed the strange robots patrolling the area even if they left their shelters. However, after the disappearance of the Statue of Liberty, these robots have become the new symbol of hope. Someone caught a video of the robot in action. The Statue of Liberty vanished as soon as the robot made contact with it. On the side of the metal frame, an advertisement was seen. Nobody knew who the camera person was but it was a brilliant marketing move. The word spread far and wide to every New Yorker. Soon, people who never once left the shelter started chasing down these robots to apply for the recruitment position. Working for shelter, food and water with the risk of death was better than waiting for death to come in the shelter doing nothing.

The positions filled in very quickly and Caleb selected the bunker residents based on their physical ability, intelligence and ability to contribute to his plans. It was a purely logical decision and the system developer didn’t feel bad about leaving the unsuccessful applicants to their devices for a little longer. He didn’t want to abandon them but he needed them to start pestering the army so that he could progress with his other plans in the meantime. It wouldn’t do well if the army found out what was happening. Devouring the Statue of Liberty was a risky move with huge calculated risks. Caleb filmed his automated assistant in action from an angle that would be easy to view the recruitment notice and made the video viral. Of course, when a huge statue with the symbol of freedom suddenly disappears it is a huge issue.

Unfortunately, the government isn’t able to investigate anything because they made their stand about not involving the army with the ghouls and the city after the lockdown. It was highly embarrassing for them to say one thing and then change their minds because of something like that. People would judge them for being hypocritical if they showed more concern over a missing statue than the lives of nearly a million people in a ghoul infested city. At the moment, after the announcement to cut power and water from the city, the government had their hands tied and were unable to do anything.

Caleb watched from the comforts of his bunker as the government was pressured from both sides. The citizens weren’t happy with them and the world didn’t like them either. Once Caleb had a solid footing in New York City, his next move would be to overthrow the current world’s ruling system and take matters into his own hands to steer humanity out of the ghoul apocalypse.

The system finally levelled up to Level three the moment Caleb registered the last bunker resident. Tomorrow was the day of the official move-in. Caleb assigned all the short-listed candidates their bunker rooms and roommates. It took a long week to get to this point but fortunately, Caleb only had good news this time. Alan and his team were also ready to resupply the city with power and water after the government stopped their supply.

The system developer modified his website for contact tracing and was now asking for a representative from every known survival bunker to step forward and report the number of survivors especially for New York City after the power and water supply was cut. The website gave a long-winded explanation for why it was collecting such information. In short, Caleb simply wanted to know the estimated numbers to prepare the resources he needed to take care of these people. While he might not like all of them, Caleb had a job of protecting humanity. Even if these people weren’t brave or smart or capable, they could still do their jobs of eventually repopulating the world after the apocalypse. He couldn’t simply abandon them and overwork Helen to repopulate the world from her lab. It would be unfair to the scientist.

Presently, Caleb had a new project for Alan. He drove to pick the man up at the power plant and drove back quickly to his apartment. Alan didn’t question him about his plans for humanity but congratulated Caleb on the levelling of his system when he heard it.

“I assume that your request is related to the new system’s features?”

Caleb didn’t like how Alan was always able to read him like an open book but he nodded. “I’m looking for a few more people to help out with the project in future but for now, it’s going to be you and me. I’ll go straight to the point. I need help designing a flying drone that can help to deliver army care packages to survivor camps. They have to be able to sit one person as well and run on electricity provided by the system.”

When Alan heard that, an image of a fighter jet came to find but he brushed that aside. Caleb wanted a drone and not a plane. “What other functions do you want the delivery drone to have? Ghoul killing?”

Caleb shook his head. “I can leave ghoul killing to the patrol team for now. However, these drones must be able to carry and distribute weapons that come from Paul’s gun shop. I will also be sending supplies from Target to help them improve on their flimsy bunkers. The ultimate aim of those bunkers will be to stop the awakened ghouls from breaking in and killing everyone or converting them into more ghouls than we can deal with. I’m not confident of anyone’s capabilities to kill an awakened ghoul but I’m confident of luring the monster into a trap to hold out long enough for us to figure out a way to kill it when it appears.”

Alan didn’t say anything. He heard about the awakened ghoul that his foster son met in his previous life and he didn’t like the sound of it. Caleb’s recount of the ghoul sounded very different from the ghouls he saw on the way to Caleb’s apartment from the power plant. The awakened ghoul was like an animal with the intelligence of a human. It was able to overpower and outsmart humans. The fact that it had terrifying regeneration abilities put humanity at a great disadvantage. There was nothing much they could do to such a monster short of bringing out the tanks and missiles. With just the efforts of apocalypse city survivors, there was no way they could deal with the awakened ghouls alone.

“Are you not going to make a ghoul-killing automated assistant at all?”

Caleb hummed. “The system has given me the quest to unlock the next level and the third automated assistant slot. I can do that when I level the system up next. For now, the priority is to create a delivery drone. It won’t just pass care packages and resources. In future, these delivery drones can act as emergency evacuation transportation. However, due to the limitations of resources I cannot afford to design anything more than a single-man pod. These drones will help to transport the ill to hospitals.”

Alan nodded. “You’ve thought ahead.”

“I know,” Caleb said and checked the area before getting out of the car.

They arrived at Caleb’s apartment quickly and Jeremy greeted his owner at the door. The new guest didn’t seem like a bad person so the cat eyed Alan for a little while before turning away haughtily.

“I see that the old cat is still doing well. Do you want to go through your drafted ideas or wait till we have lunch?”

Caleb checked the time. “We’ll talk about it over lunch. I didn’t do much so far and aerospace engineering isn’t my area of expertise. I’ll pull out the list of resources I currently have at my disposal for your consideration, feel free to get anything you like from the fridge. Also, my apartment is a bunker. There is a rule that anyone else apart from Jeremy and myself can only remain here for a grand total of seventy-two hours per visit. The cooldown between visits is twenty-four hours.”

Alan raised a brow. “Are you telling me to come up with a design in three days?”

Choking on his water, Caleb coughed. “What? No! I was just letting you know in case you find yourself sent packing for no reason in the middle of our discussion. Also, I don’t think it’s possible to come up with a final design in three days. I took two solid weeks working on the first automated assistant. The modifications you made to them took you a week. Even with both our heads combined, the project would take a minimum of two weeks.”

Agreeing, Alan looked through the rough sketches of Caleb’s design references. The drone was really taking after a space pod that had propellers attached. They looked like something out of a sci-fi movie and weren't practical from an engineer’s perspective. Caleb made them look more aesthetically appealing than functional and Alan threw those designs to the ground before tearing a new sheet of paper and started from scratch.

Caleb let Alan work and went back to his laptop. He knew his foster father’s temper well. When Alan Gomez wasn’t working, he was a goofy man with an easy-going nature. However, once work started, the engineer transformed into a robotic perfectionist who didn’t take well to people not doing their jobs right. Now that his foster father was in working mode, Caleb left the man to do what he did best in peace. Nobody wanted to get on Alan’s bad side when he was working and it was this serious working mode that made him feel at ease whenever the man had his back. Even though they might argue overwork, Caleb knew that he could always count on Alan who had many years of experience to cover his blind spots. He trusted Alan with his soul and the man had never let him down before so he wasn’t going to start doubting now even though it stung when Alan threw the designs he painstakingly drew onto the ground.

Jeremy looked from his owner to the guest. The silent apartment was filled with typing sounds and scribbling sounds. The cat didn’t know what was going on but he sensed that something was different. The mood was too serious and the atmosphere in the room was too stifling. Both men gave off the smell of serious warriors and Jeremy knew when he wasn’t needed or wanted. The cat selected a cosy spot near the window and basked in the warmth of the sun before falling into a light nap.