Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

Funnily enough, even June couldn't relate to us even if she was kind of a nerd through and through, but yeah, I was surprised for a gear head like Quinn to know something about toy cars from an anime I used to watch when I was a kid.

For some context, when Kaley and I were in highschool, the show came back on one of out local channels and it just boomed for a year or two which meant some hobbies formed and I may have purchased a few from saving up on my allowance.

In addition, they used to be raced in this track just above the store itself and seeing the railway gave me an idea to make shit easier for us.

With that said, once we got back home, I quickly fished my own keys to let myself in Jude's House—which technical was still mine—before taking out this old dusty box from one of the safes. And yeah, the fucking wave of nostalgia once a few dudes and dudettes my age saw it put a smile on my face.

Chris Kenneth straight up lost his shit, "BROOOO! Is that a fucking Tamiya?!"

"Yeah, custom-built."

"That's with the silver magnets and everything, right?! We used to race ours back then!"

"I rewound it myself too and—"

"Holy— What's with the front and rear bumpers?! Those are some fancy-ass bearings! You fucking still played after it died off, huh? This is pro shit, dude! Jeez!"

"A man can't have a hobby? That's the plan for this afternoon, anyway."

"What plan? And don't give me that crap, you have ALL the fucking hobbies!"

"Heh— You'll see, you'll see… Can you please call over Raphael for me? He'd love to see this, for sure."

"Alright, bro, I will— Maaan~ So cool to see stuff like that! We can make it ourselves, right?! Create a league of some sort—"

"Easy now, heh. One at a time. We gotta restart making the barriers first."

"Huh? What? Why?"

Quinn cut him off, "You're not even in the same group—"

"Hey! I mixed the cement, alright! I helped!"

"Sure~ Sure~ Carry on~" Explore more stories with empire

In any case, it didn't take long before we huddled up and thought of a way to cut into our existing barriers to put train wheels at the bottom—with solid brakes, of course—and the most crucial part, the side profile, which would have thick springs from shock absorbers and a large ball bearing or any type of wheel—almost stacked on top of one another—that would push onto the protective barriers to the side of the railway system so that it would tightly fit in within a certain width.

"This is cool but if we cut it straight on each side, we'd have to put something to hold them up since the weight of the concrete would push them down—"

"Nah, nah, just cut in the same holes we'd have with the wheels at the bottom and cut in more narrower inside for the shock absorbers."

"Wouldn't the space between them be too thin? They'd break if we do it like that. I say we scrap everything we made before and make something new by pouring the cement into the mold with some metal bars to act as bones."

"Hold up, hold up, just make the fucking indents larger so we could slip in metal plates in between."

"Oh, an exoskeleton instead of bones? That'd save us more time and resources."

"We gotta have a pair though."

"A pair? AH— It's supposed to move right? Why not make it a mining cart of sorts from the get-go? It'd be better if it could carry a bunch of people and have it run with a motor."

"Hmm~ If that's the case, wouldn't it still be better if we make it from scratch? It can't be too heavy and they'd still have to assemble it on the train platforms so… you know, I'm all for saving us some time and resources but we could always reuse the other stuff for other projects."

"Hmm… I would've argued against it because it needs to be heavy so that the dead couldn't push us back but since we're putting on breaks on 'em, it'll work just fine. A few wedges here and there works wonders too."

"Hmmrghh~ A wedge behind the wheels is good. Can we also make the front in a shape thay gets them thrown overboard if they push too much?"

"Ooh! You're right, you're right… We do it from the top. No need for a blueprint, right?"

"Eh~ Just make one for documentation. There are other train lines too so let's have the other places do their shit for them."

"True, true…"

"Heh, all this from the race track of Tamiya's, huh? A bit niche but it works very well in this case."

"Just had a brain blast moment. It'd be useless once we make the trains themselves running."

"Still. Nothing wrong with going manual from time to time. Shit needs to be pushed gradually or that lever thingy those mine carts have, right?"

With that said, once I was done drawing the blueprint, the motherfuckers threw me out of the warehouse and politely asked Quinn to leave in fear of getting bludgeoned to death. For some reason, everyone else was adamant that I had more important shit to do besides bringing some ideas to the table and resolving some issues.

But yeah, I didn't care much if I was doing something I could easily delegate to other people because one, it's fun, and two, before all this started, I'm used to doing things myself. Still, it was a nice thing to have people to rely on but I just spotted Rin with Nancy, using a pushcart to deliver a couple of large Colemans filled with ice to our big gym.

'I guess it started, huh?'

So I quickly offered help:

"We got it, we got it, you have—"

"Better shit to do?"

"Don't you?"

"I mean— I've been all over the place recently—"

Rin chuckled, "That means you should focus on one thing at a time."

"But the important shits are all pending! That's why I'm juggling different tasks at the same time! Have you seen Kaley though?"

Nancy answered, "Ah, she's with the lady— I mean, she's with Edith, June, and Ella. They're on the range again just across the gym. Are you going to join them or…?"

"We'll see. Kaley's already good at teaching them, especially the women, so I think I'd rather see Tatiana figure out how to make everyone else use all this ice you brought."

Rin shook her head, "She already is…"

Nancy couldn't agree more, "It's actually our second trip…"

"Haah?"

"Well, this is both for pain relief and punishment. She's been doing something weird too."

"Weird how?"

"You'll see."

"Alright."

On that note, the weird thing Tatiana was actually doing was not knocking everyone out from one blow but akin to wearing them down from—guess what—more cardio, a three-minute educational spar with her, weight training, a match with a participant, and a quick five-minute break before doing the same shit over and over.

It was like CrossFit with MMA involved but the smile Tatiana gave me when I arrived told me I'd have to do the same thing for my "beloved" students.

So yeah, she can't just give them the educational spars all at the same time but with me present, she'd have an easier time as I take on all the boys—but let's just say that even if we're a proponent with equality, outside our gates, we can't just choose our opponents at any given time.

"H-Ha! HA! HAA! H-Haa! H-Hold up, YOU'RE STARTING WITH ME?!" Alexa couldn't believe her eyes as I stepped onto the mat with her.

"Yeah. You're gonna die—"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"