Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

It took a bit for everything to calm down but we had more prototypes to check on. One of which was a custom-built RC Car Ken made from scratch and this mysterious weapon our engineers built to possibly 'one-shot' a Hulker.

Since Artem and his group would only return before sunset, Kaley and I made our way to Ken's residence first.

There were essentially two of us in our current group because Jared, Mikhail, Ibarra, and even Cynthia came with our elite soldiers.

"Woof!"

Well, I was mistaken, there were essentially three of us in our group. Since I just arranged a casual inspection of our walls outside, Zeus came with us and tried to lead the way. He finally had some time off with his little brothers and sisters so he was a little too excited that he got to come with us.

It's just that his happiness was short-lived because we were already walking back inside our compound and he was immediately spotted by the little puppers.

With that said, he never ran so fast to lose them in a split second and it would be a fascinating sight to see him sneak back in. However, business calls and Ken was already expecting us.

"DON'T EVEN KNOCK! IT'S OPEN!"

"Heh, coming through then~"

"You brought Kaley? Why?"

Kaley was slightly taken aback, "Wha– Am I not even invited?"

"That's not– I mean– There's no room to–"

"IT'S BECAUSE YOU DON'T FUCKING CLEAN UP!"

"IT'S BY DESIGN!"

"Stop shouting, you two! It's quite easy to clean this corner so we could have a seat…"

"See that, dude? You're making my wife clean up after you."

"Eh~ There's a difference, dude. She volunteered. It's totally different from making her do stuff for me. If I was in charge, she'd be in a maid outfit, at least–"

I cut him off, "Easy now. That's my wife we're talking about. Besides, maid outfits suck–"

"YOU FUCKING TAKE THAT BACK, YOU FUCKING COCKSUCKER!"

"Nope! I'll face the consequences!"

"DRONE ATTACK!"

"WHAT THE–"

As soon as Ken yelled at the top of his lungs, a small drone the size of a palm suddenly flew straight for my head. It came in from a blind angle with such speed but I was quick enough to catch it before it collided with me.

"That's some fucking bullshit! How the fuck did you catch that?! Ow! Don't throw it at my head!"

"You started it, you sick fuck!"

"I flew it toward you, not throw it!"

"Let me try again then!"

Kaley suddenly bonked the two of us with a broom, "Are you two always like this?! My head fucking hurts just listening to you two! I thought we came here to see the RC Cars he made? All I witnessed were the pervy maid outfit talk and a drone programmed to hit someone's head!"

"Ah…"

"You're wife's a demon, a dominatrix outfit would– NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO~!!!"

Let's just say that Kaley did break something even I would consider inexcusable but Ken didn't stop talking and had to pay the price. With that said, the two of us quickly went back to business because Kaley was holding hostage a few limited figurines from Ken's collection. One wrong move and it would be sacrificed to get the soul stone.

"D-Dude… T-This is the smallest I could make it…"

"It's almost as small as our relays if you remove the wheels, right?"

"Y-Yeah… I made the shell to fit one of your Raspberry Pis but it's a little thicker to have the cameras at both sides and the wheels to fit nicely."

"So what does this model could do?"

"It's remote-controlled obviously… you could drive it for around~ 3 hours and a range of… give or take 300~ feet. Oh! You see the way those cameras are mounted? You could make them move around 180 degrees up and down and you could drive this thing even if it flips over."

"Oh~ nice."

"The only issue, as far as the design goes, is that there'll be a bit of blindspot from the space between both cameras. It's small but I know you'd–"

"Wait, we got a small problem."

"Hmm?"

"The clearance. It's only a few centimeters. I doubt it could–"

"Don't worry about that, dude. I already made this thing run around my mess– customized room and it never got stuck. It even drove over the wires that are tangled over by that outlet."

"Hmm, there are more obstacles than that outside though… Do you mind we take this one for a spin?"

"Ah~ Sure, sure."

"Before we go, have you told me all the features?"

"Yeah, aside from the ports where you'd be able to check the footage it took if you'd hook it on a tablet or a phone, that's about it. I spent more time designing the frame and shit before I bothered to add more. The next model I'm working on would have a speaker where you could make distractions or even send messages through your radios. Still a ways away from putting some C4 on it."

"Uh-huh… let's figure out more utilities before we could use it for that…"

"Sure!"

"Right… We'll get back to you l-later… You're still looking through a few more body cams, right?"

"Right. I'll just see the places you drove it through later."

After some time, Kaley just followed me around while I drove the RC Car over humps, mud, ditches, puddles, gravel paths, slanted edges, and etc.

To be brutally honest, it was driving slower than what I thought it could do and it had some problems going uphill. The engine would either start to have an asthma attack if I tried to push it harder but the silver lining was that it was quieter than most RC Cars I've ever driven.

Kaley tapped me while I was wearing a slightly disappointed expression, "You'll find some use for that in the future. Besides, it's not yet 100% finished, right?"

"Yeah, the tires need some upgrades too. It just slides off when I let it stay on that muddy slope. Not only that, it smudges the camera mount too. I doubt we'll ever see anything from this until we wiped the mud off. We'll find some use for this but the way things are, the uses I could find for it are limited. It's gonna be hard for it to get an edge over our drones…"

"Well, that's gonna be close to impossible if you put it like that! You won't use your katana to drive a nail in, right?"

"Ah– Well, you're right about that. Maybe it's seeing the monster truck earlier made this RC Car kinda subpar…"

"Yep, and Ken's the only one working on it, right?"

"True, true… I guess this one needs more time…"

"Let's head back?"

"Sure."

Once we got back to our compound, I returned the custom RC Car Ken made for our use and I told him what we've discovered. To my surprise, Ken just jot down all the issues that needed fixing and he started to alter the design he was currently working on.

The first thing he needed to work on was obviously speed because the moment he starts to put more things on it, the more it would just crawl its way to its intended location.

Its stealthiness could be a great feature but its features should be more balanced than favoring one aspect. It could be a great tool for sneaking in nests or places where our drones couldn't get to but its pros needed to outweigh the cons.

After some time, I left him with some of my suggestions but since we still got a lot more sunlight to burn through, I went to my room and picked up two cases that Kaley and I didn't get to use as much.

Kaley remarked, "Oh, we're gonna head to the shooting range?"

"Not quite."

"Hmm?"

"We're gonna drive to our outposts in Meycauayan. We need a shooting range that's gonna give us a lot more… range."

"Just us though?"

"Hmm, we could bring Olivia and Lois? I bet they'll love the change of scenery."

"Oh! I'll tell them to bring their M70s!"

"Okay, I'll wait in the car."

After some time, it didn't take long before the four of us were heading straight to the Bulacan area bringing a set of rifles made for long shooting. I brought enough ammo and equipment to teach a class and I'll just make do with the fact that Kaley and I would be using 6.5 Creedmoor cartridges with our DDV5s while Olivia and Lois would be using .308 cartridges with their M70s.

It'll be a tad challenging to juggle two DOPE Cards in my head as I teach them a class but the class I'm gonna be teaching them will be a little different.

Instead of a duo of the shooter in the front and the spotter at the back, it will be a duo of snipers side-by-side, fulfilling both roles at the same time.