novel
| ← Ch.165 | Ch.167 → |
Luo Xun walked beside Li Tie and asked in surprise."What else was found?"
"An experimental base." Li Tie suddenly stood and added mysteriously, "A test site before the end of the world!"
Luo Xun and Yan Fei's eyes brightened and they rushed into room 1601.
Several people were gathered next to the same computer. Before they had to share among everyone so the team had since saved up enough to have their own electronics stashed in their respective homes.
"Here we are!" Li Tie exclaimed as he walked through the door. The team looked up and greeted the pair.
He Qiankun was sitting in front of the computer, despite his appearance, his computer skills were not slow at all. His fingers flew across the keyboard as he pulled up a file and revealed a few pictures.
"Brother Luo, Bother Yan take a look! This is what we found in the middle of the night."
Not sleeping in the middle of the night but stayed up to play on the computer... This was only done by otakus who stayed at home all day. Well, some internet addicts and patients with insomnia would also play computer games during the night. They would not use the time to find data, playing games and watching movies was more likely.
Luo Xun snapped back to attention from who knew where and looked closely at the pictures at the top. It was a mission prior to the new year. The orders were for a team of military to exit base and head towards A-city. The goal - a factory that professionally produced solar panels!
That time, a total of five trucks were dispatched, as well three armored vehicles and jeeps. The target items were the solar panels and the route was relatively safe with the number of zombies on the road. Afterwards the base would arrange follow up tasks for more equipment.
Seeing that both had finished reading, he showed a few more photos of the team members as well as satellite photographs of the factory.
"Satellite photos?" Luo Xun froze, it was clear why they sent so many people in advance.
Li Tie misunderstood Luo Xun and explained."The satellites are still operating normally. In fact they could receive distress signals but..." He helplessly shrugged.
Wang Duo continued the explanation."Unless it's a special person, they cannot judge how dangerous the situation is. So this kind of signal is largely ignored but will be sent to the mobile phones of nearby people." It was impossible for those people to return alive, the only ends were death or becoming a zombie.
Luo Xun was clear about these things so there was no need to explain further. He pointed at the screen and asked, "This mission was before the zombie siege, was there any follow-up?"
He Qiankun quickly searched and brought up something but Luo Xun could not understand."I found these in the military network. The team lost contact after three days, after the siege, we think..."
Han Li interrupted."We think that the leaders don't know about this over not wanting to manage."
"Don't know?" Luo Xun raised a surprised eyebrow.
"I don't know which database this data turned out. I went and checked, it was not touched since the zombie siege. So we think they either do not know or do not care." These students who had been left by their former colleagues had slightly strayed. When considering certain things, they no longer considered morality.
Coupled with the new teammate, the little baby who had been abandoned by his father in such an inhumane way, they could no longer only judge people and things by the surface.
"What about his team? There are no news after the zombie siege?" Yan Fei suddenly asked. They said that no one had read the document, but there were no results mentioned...
Several people exchanged looks before shaking their heads."There is no record of them returning to base."
Leaving base before the new year and not returning before the zombie siege, even now they were unaccounted for...
Everyone's hearts were afraid, would they be able to return safely from this trip?
"Where did they last contact the base?" Luo Xun approached the computer again.
"Here, close to the factory, they should have made it inside and got lost on the way back." He manipulated the map."The factory is not too far away from A-city... according to conditions, it should be a two or three days walk with good road conditions."
Journeys after the apocalypse could not compare to before. The base was not far away from where people fought zombies? Before the end it would be a short two hour drive, but after the apocalypse? They had to spend half a day to arrive. Not to mention if the roads are bad, it took more than half a day the last time they drove a sled to hunt zombies.
There was an excited light in Li Tie's eyes."Luo Xun, since we're going outside anyway... let's go over and see when the weather warms up and the roads are better."
"Yes, it's impossible for people to take everything away, even if they take some solar panels, we just need to find the rest?!" The group nodded and looked towards Luo Xun.
The captain helplessly smiled."We will go for sure but we have to wait until the roads are traversable. Don't forget how treacherous the roads are with snow."
Due to previous cleaning work in base, at least Luo Xun's neighborhood had little trace of heavy snow. That was not the case in other places. The days were cold, heating measures were scarce and many places were covered in snow, making it difficult to walk.
Li Tie and the others nodded, they were anxious to get solar panels. Free good things like those were rare, but they also had to wait for the proper conditions to act!
"And with what the hell is going outside of base, who knows what we could face." Yan Fei's words washed over them like a basin of ice water. The excitement from the solar panels had been replaced with solemn looks.
Luo Xun laughed and changed the subject."By the way, what happened to the testing ground that Li Tie mentioned?"
The group got excited again and quickly opened another document while adjusting the map.
"Brother Luo take a look, we found it while looking for a route to the solar panel factory. It was marked as an experimental field at an agricultural base before the apocalypse..."
The test area was not very big and a distance away from base so the military never had any ideas. Even more so after the end, although autumn crops needed to be planted, what could grow on that mediocre piece of farmland? Besides who knew what was growing in that test ground.
Li Tie found that the test fields were under the name of a university that had many high-tech agriculture experiments before the apocalypse. So the reason they were so excited was towards the devices. As for farmland... even if they could take it and clean up, how would they take care of it?
It was relatively close to the base, but if the field was cleared and scanned by a satellite... how would they defend? They would have to defend against people and zombies.
So this time they were not aiming for land, but for equipment that they could bring home as well as intact seeds!
Luo Xun obviously followed their train of thought and touched his chin in thought before clapping his hands."No problem, wait a while before leaving base so we can be sure of the situation outside!"
While outside, the ultimate goal was the solar panel factory, but they would check out the test ground to see if there was anything of value to bring back.
Unlike in urban areas, there was a lower concentration of zombies in the countryside - provided of course there were no zombie waves nearby. If one did show up... they would get completely washed away!
Luo Xun finally felt he heard good news since the apocalypse had started but hoped that those places had not been torn apart by wandering zombies.
| ← Ch. 165 | Ch. 167 → |