Novel Full Chapter 1346 Alright, old man, who the fuck are you?!
With the ratio between soldiers and civilians, the arrangement Mrs. Cecille made sounds amazing actually because from what my people told me the brief time they were here, there was a divide between them and it was between houses that acted as homes or barracks for the soldiers.
While it doesn’t sound too bad on paper, there were three-to-five families living in one home while there were soldiers—almost the same number—cramped inside one living space.
Though this place was a fortress, if we were talking about numbers, it was a little smaller than Woodlands and their total number was a fifth of mine in my Main HQ. In that case, I haven’t even touched on the critical weakness of this place and it was that they weren’t too keen on building outposts that much.
I said it before, Mr. Garciano poured all his time, people, and resources into maxing out Tierra Del Sueno Homes, and not only did it make everything else in the vicinity hosts for infestations, the viable outposts before—which were former DDR Camps—were left to rot since no one was actively manning them.
And remember, I did use the word “cramped” earlier—and there were already mentions of having the soldiers move someplace else—so to mitigate that other problem, we picked four select spots from their city that were evenly spaced and fairly defensible.
In addition, it’d also serve as a good point to monitor the movement of not only the dead but also the living—good or bad—and it’d allow some breathing room for this place’s residents.
But Mrs. Cecille has some concerns, “I-Isn’t that—”
I cut her off with a chuckle, “A star? Oh! HAH! Are you talking about a pentagram?! It does look like one if we connect it like this…”
“Y-Yes, isn’t it a little—”
“Satanic? Nah, ma’am, it’s straight-up Satanic, if you ask me—though I really don’t believe in any of that shit, sorry. But yeah, if you’re that worried, we can have a smaller outpost built further up this elevation so we could also have a backstop from our only blindspot. Still, I know the people from La Mesa Dam, and they’d have to go through them first before they get to you in this route.”
“I-I see… We were visited a few times before and their representative mentioned building exclusive pipelines straight to our area since they’re trying to shut down the main ones because of leaks.”
“That’s true. It’s because the original ones are that old and have been repaired so much, it just makes sense to have new ones installed which were a cut above the rest.”
Mr. Garciano cut in, “Yes, and we did provide the materials used for their construction.”
“Ah, I see, I see… Then we have to thank you for that, then. While we have a ton of storage, that doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t run out. There are other ways to get clean water but the way we have been doing it in the past is still the best one. Less work for us too.
Rain collectors, water-purifying tablets, and just straight-up boiling them could do the work but they just pale in comparison to a huge-ass dam.”
With that said, even though we picked out four— no, five spots to have soldiers and other willing civilians to move over, we collectively decided to do things one at a time because one, it just made sense doing that, and two, there’s a thing called that’s an adjustment period—and even though it would kind of conflict with Mrs.
Cecille’s idea of having some soldiers move into some of the homes, everyone else would appreciate the gradual free space they’d have individually.
And of course, Mr. Garciano was still worried about this place’s security once they started dividing up the soldiers that would remain here in the future but the supplement of US Marines guarding this very place calmed him down a bit.
I chuckled, “Need I remind you that you have TOO MUCH of them, and having at least a few hundred outside wouldn’t hurt. It’ll also solve some of the problems you’re currently facing. And yeah, you’d have to feel out the difference gradually and I assure you, it’d be great for everyone.”
“I guess we’ll see…”
But yeah, after this part of the conversation over, we moved over to slightly make changes as to how everyone else proceeds with their daily lives. Because while the soldiers here didn’t feel the need to learn other trades that much and focus on defending this domicile, the same could be said for some of the civilians.
And despite the groans and displeasure from some of the people who weren’t that active to begin with, it just made sense to have the civilians do a bit of exercise here and there to keep their fitness and strength in check.
I waved them all off, “Look, I’m not saying you need to pass the FBI’s fitness check—though it’s much better if you can—but doing this would be better for you in the long run, don’t you think?
And of course, like the plan for building your outposts outside, we’ll have the ones less active do simple walking like maybe 2000 steps a day and we’ll add a hundred or two hundred each day until you get to ten thousand or more.”
One random stranger raised his hand, “What about the ones with medical conditions?”
“Like what? Obesity?”
“You—”
I quickly apologized, “I’m just kidding, alright? Lighten up. And everyone here’s not even remotely in that category, you all just need a bit of conditioning, trust me. But of course, we’ll take whatever condition you have into account but a healthy way of thinking about it is that what other fucking can anyone else say if you can finish basic training despite your disabilities?”
He rolled his eyes, “I have asthma, sir. Respectfully—”
“And again, I’m not telling you to run an ultramarathon. And let’s get one thing straight, what would doing nothing do for you when the time comes you needed to get away from a rotting corpse coming for your head? You who tried getting your stamina up bit by bit or the one you are now who’s not trying even a little bit?”
“But we have walls—”
“Okay, fair. Then don’t follow the basic exercises, I’m not your mom. But do know that when that fucking time comes, no one will fucking save you first because you’re lagging behind when it matters.”
“What—”
“And I’m not singling you out here, this applies to everyone hearing this. Our goal here is to survive and thrive on our own, but when the unfortunate happens, we can only do so much to help everyone else and in the end, you can only help yourself. We WILL try our best to help and save you but it’s also on you to make our jobs easier. And that’s just the truth of the matter, alright?
It’s unfortunate you have a condition—”
“Yes! I have a condition! It’s your job to keep me safe—”
“No, the fuck it isn’t! Don’t treat us as lifeguards, it doesn’t work that way. It might sound like it’s a lifeguard’s job to save a drowning victim but it’s also his job to blow his fucking lid off when someone tries to swim in an area that stupid fuck isn’t capable of even waddling through. You get what I’m saying?”
“I really don’t. Explain—”
“If you are in trouble, we’ll do what we can. But if we suggest you do something for yourself that could help your chances of living just by a small amount, you wouldn’t do it? I’m just asking you to walk a few steps a day and we’re having this problem, are you planning to have the soldiers carry you on their back when it’s an emergency?
Look here, you have cars and all—and it’s an exploit of sorts, but how can you reach those exploits yourself when you can’t be bothered to do one simple thing—”
“I said I have asthma! Can’t you get it, kid?! I need help!”
“…” I just stared at him in silence.
“W-What?! Answer me!”
“It’s like talking to a fucking wall… fuck it— sure, how many inhalers do you fucking need? Do you have a nebulizer at home? Are there any more conditions we have to look out for?”
“Now that that’s solved—”
“Fucking dipshit, I’m obviously just fucking with you. It’s great you have a nice conversation with me because when the shit hits the fucking fan, everyone here knows who to avoid. Having a condition doesn’t make you fucking royalty we’d have to serve from each of your beck and call. Thanks for outing yourself, really.”
“That’s— What can’t you understand?! I’m sick and I need help! End of story!”
“And I’m just telling you to fucking walk ten steps a day and add another one the next over and over, could that cause a fucking attack?!”
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“Ten steps wouldn’t!”
“THEN WHAT’S THE FUCKING PROBLEM?!”
“I SAID, I HAVE ASTHMA! IS THAT TOO HARD TO UNDERSTAND?!”
At this point, it was taking everything for me to not gun down this dude in his 50s, because not only was he wasting everyone’s time, he was shouting like he wasn’t even out of breath but the notion of exercise fucking terrifies him, he was willing to have this sorry mental gymnastics with me that I was so fucking done playing.
And yeah, I thought that all this time, this type of people would’ve kicked the bucket but it seemed like the virus didn’t want him at all or he was just that lucky.
So I had to ask:
“Alright, old man, who the fuck are you?”
“Hah?!”