Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

They came back a few hours earlier than I thought but they looked a little exhausted just from looking at them from my window. They didn't even exit their vehicles immediately since they just took a short breather before the people below approached them. However, Artem and the rest of his team weren't present.

"Let's head down as well."

"Okay..."

I walked away from our spot and we stretched for a bit before we came down, but Rin stayed behind to look after Tatiana who was currently sleeping.

As we came unto them, Jared cleared his rifle before removing the magazine. That magazine was the only one that had a few bullets remaining because all of the mags on his chest rig were empty. Furthermore, a ton of spent brass casings were on the truck bed and each movement would make them jingle.

I waved him over, "Something happened? Where's Artem and--"

Jared cut me off, "Yeah~ Kinda. Huge herd on the way back led by a dozen ferals but we took care of them from a distance. We didn't stop midway because another one was about to flank us. No casualties except the bullets we used. Oh, Artem and the rest just picked up Natasha from the crematorium-- Ibarra is with her still."

"Okay. And the medical center?"

Jared let out a smile, "What do you think, bro? Cleared and blocked off. What about your side-- err… Tatiana? She okay?"

I nodded as I shook my head, "Yeah, but she'll be subbing out for a few weeks up to a couple of months. Clean up and have a snack or something with everyone. We'll take over, for now, great job."

"Sure, sure~"

Everyone that came back was given their much-needed rest while I took over Rin's job for the moment. Cynthia and Kaley helped me take care of everything that needed to be taken care of like: placing all of the used casings in their right bucket, recording and storing everything we took back properly, replenishing the resources used from the run such as bullets, gas, and etc., and making a report about everything that happened.

Footage from their bodycams would be retrieved later and Ken would store them for review.

Speaking of my old friend, he approached me right when I was about to take a seat by the pool area. With that said, I couldn't help but notice several drones flying in separate directions right when he stopped before me. From the looks of it, they were flying in a pattern and they were moving without someone behind the wheel… or the controller.

Ken's eyebrows were going up and down, "I noticed you noticed what just happened."

I said in a dramatic tone, "Oh god, what have you done?!"

"Hah? Wut?"

"The robots are uprising! Didn't we have enough on our plate?! First, zombies, now rob- Ow! My toe!"

"You fucking idiot, I just made a lot of time for myself! Can't you see they could fly independently?! Well, it's limited to the area they could go and the pattern they're coded in but I did it!"

I scratched my head, "Can't we just do that in a day?"

"Dude! I know that we could-- It's easy enough to code it once you know what to do but what matters is the conception of the idea! And no, that's not all it could do. Come with me in my room for a sec."

Ken didn't even wait for me to respond as he pushed himself back to his residence.

'Well, he did sound excited earlier about this...'

I just excused myself with the people present and followed right behind him. However, the first thing I noticed in his room was that one of its walls was now clad with different screens flickering into different POVs. Half of them were from the drones he released a few moments ago while the other half was for the stationary cameras we placed all around our territory.

I joked, "Taking peeping to the next level, I see..."

Ken almost threw a broken hard drive at me, "Heh. Shut the fuck up, dude. Look at this instead. It is easy to make roughly but to perfect it, the timing's a bitch. I've only been working with a few dozen drones and my head's hurting. It's easy for the stationary ones though... they just go on and on without issue compared to doing it with the drones."

"Oh~ Wait a sec... Timing? For what?"

"Just look at it and see for yourself!"

Aside from the monitors mounted on the wall, he had his own multiple screen setup that was showing the same thing as the other displays do. However, I just noticed that on the left-most monitor that it was showing footage of the same drone in two windows.

Well, I thought it was the same footage at first but looking at it for a time revealed that it was comparing what it captured recently to the one before it. And as soon as it was done, it would do the same thing to the footage that the drone would capture after flying through its programmed pattern.

'Hmm...'

What's happening was as soon as a smidgen of a few pixels were different from each other, it would copy the footage from start to end but if the size would be too large, it would just add a line of text on a file that contained the timestamps. It was programmed to do the same thing with our stationary cameras but running the program he made on every footage we had at the same time would be impossible.

The only solution was to put them through in batches and manually review them later.

Ken's job made him sit around and just look at screens all day but this thing that he did would almost automate his work if it was polished even more. It was because the program he created would still clip people walking, leaves rustling, vehicles running, and etc., but it was a step in the right direction.

I nodded approvingly before I chuckled, "It's like watching porn but fast-forwarding to the parts you'd fap to!"

Ken glared at me but his face twisted before he laughed uncontrollably, "WHAT THE FUCK, DUDE?! CAN'T YOU JUST THINK OF A BETTER ANALOGY TO DESCRIBE THIS?! I SPENT A LOT OF TIME MAKING THIS! FUCK!"

"What? It's a compliment! This would save you a lot of time reviewing things over and over. I can't believe you didn't think of doing this sooner."

"Yeah… I kept using the same system over and over not thinking if I could improve it. Well~ I'll just be doing different shit in the same room anyway. With this, I could start improving the trackers we placed on those hollowed-out motherfuckers. They disappeared long ago but I think we could make something better. Oh! I have another idea on the back burner too! I'll need Raphael or Anthony for it but I think it'll work."

"What do you have in mind?"

"For the trackers: aside from placing them on the dead, we could also hook them up in our people and the vehicle they used. In case they got abducted or went AWOL, we'd know where they'd go. The latter's quite impossible to happen but we never know, right?"

"Hmm~ That's limited by the relays we put in place. We'd have to find a way to make the actual cell sites work so we'd have a larger coverage."

"Ah… It's not that easy to do that but that's not what I think we should focus on. How about we start making a gun turret? You know, a couple in each entrance? It's better than human guards, right?"

I almost slipped and fell, "Turrets? Are you fucking serious?"

Ken answered innocently, "Yeah. We'll start small."

I shook my head as I chuckled, "I'm telling you, dude; if we didn't have zombies, one of the people that would make the robots that would wipe us out will be you… and me."

"Hah! I guess turrets are a little too much right now. Besides, I think it'd require more engineering."

"But dude, why don't we start smaller?"

"Smaller?"

"RC Cars. Mount a camera on--"

"What? That's lame..."

"Hey. It has longer battery life, quieter in most cases, and almost everyone could easily drive it in tight spaces compared to flying a drone. Do you even remember how many you had to repair when you taught other people to fly them in obstacles?"

"Hmm..."

"I'm not telling you what to do though. Just put it in a basket and decide on something when you have free time--"

"Can I arm them?"

"Wut?"

"Can I arm them?! You know, a surprise shotgun shell in the foot or even a C4 if you'd give me one would be nice. Some with flares or with noisemakers are very easy to do too."

I chuckled as I nodded, "Sure, figure out--"

"I'd just scan the frame and print a body where it could hold--"

"Yeah, yeah. Do that, dude. But I'm not giving you any angry putty. Just make sure it could take the recoil of a shotshell first."

"Oh… right. That would be an issue. Okay, I'll think about doing it but I'd like to focus on drones more-- Oh, your elite team is arriving. They just passed by the gate at the back of the DDR Camp. Ah, they're heading to the--"

I cut him off, "The hospital. I see the same thing as you, right?"

"Right..."

"They're probably gonna inquire about Tatiana's situation or they're gonna have something checked. Before they arrive, let's think of a bit more projects you could start working on."

"Sure… I thought I'd be able to have some free time but turns out, I'd need to do more work..."

"Heh. Just like real life, right?"

Ken and I discussed a few more things in his room but what we managed to do in the small timeframe we had available was to help him build another PC that would be able to help carry the load with running his creation. We still have a fuck ton of parts and components available and it wasn't difficult to make something almost similar to what he was currently using.

With that said, I spent more time cleaning up his room for my sake and for my own sanity because any and all attempts of Rin and his sister to help him stay tidy were for naught. The guy had his own way of 'organizing' his things and I just needed to clean up a bit while I was there.

Aside from that, talks of tearing a hole on the opposite wall to give him more room were discussed but we'd need to relocate and convince the inhabitants first.