Cave Refuge

Contrary to Zachary who had been idling away, the Thompson family started making significant moves.

After a family meeting where Mr. Thompson came to understand his siblings' thoughts, he decisively abandoned them, also discarding the thought of persuading others.

Mr. Thompson once again contacted his second brother and brother-in-law, and the three started to discuss plans for the future.

Although the plan Zachary came up with was simple, it was a bit challenging to put it into action, primarily because of the issue of moving between floors.

Although it sounds simple, they had to somehow get their stuff upstairs. The office building in People's Square wasn't very tall. It wasn't a skyscraper with fifty or sixty floors like those near Pengville Plaza in the city center, but the height was still thirty-six floors.

Following Zachary's plan, they aimed to occupy the thirtieth floor. This height didn't seem bothersome when there were functioning elevators. But in the present, they had to face the problem of repairing the elevators and supplying them with power.

Power supply had been restored for the time being, but it was limited, and it was uncertain whether the building's power grid could still function normally.

So the key problem that remained was moving between floors. resolving it could be simple, and complex at the same time.

As for the Simple solution, they could always hire people. And although the value of cash is unknown at the moment, Mr. Thompson had cigarettes and alcohol secretly given them by Zachary. It should be relatively easy to exchange these for labor.

But at this point, the three of them were hesitant to hire people to work for them. Making flashy moves like that could attract attention, and after the flood, it could provoke people to investigate their actions.

However, the difficulty of climbing up to the building's thirtieth floor might be a blessing in disguise. It will at least discourage unnecessary complications early on. Nobody would want to climb thirty plus floors just to secure a room in advance.

For the time being, their operations were all floor-related. All the supplies they could get would bring up the troublesome task of getting them upstairs. Additionally, their intended renovation would need materials to be transported upstairs.

The three of them wrote down all the problems they could think of. Seeing the problems summarized on the list, they found themselves back at square one: how to get upstairs.

"Our neighborhood has tall buildings. Let's go and see if we can find someone who knows how to repair elevators. As for the power issue, if worse comes to worst, we'll find a way to get a generator. We're not supplying power to the whole building anyway, just enough to keep one elevator operational."

The three of them thought of many methods, but in the end, only this idea suggested by Mr. Thompson senior seemed reliable.

People who knew how to repair an elevator were easier to find than they'd assumed. After the disaster, young people are again gathered by the authorities to start work while the elderly, like Mr. Thompson, who have reached retirement age, are advised not to work - even if they volunteered.

Although many people in Pengcheng died in the Cold Catastrophe, young and able-bodied males remained in plenty. To keep things stable, officials implemented work-for-relief policies. The main aim was to give young people jobs so they wouldn't idle around.

In all honesty, despite just emerging from the Cold Catastrophe, the necessary reconstruction work didn't require that many workers.

Just like in the virus outbreak when many companies halted operations, yet society's normal function wasn't affected, modern society doesn't actually need many roles crucial for survival.

Even in the construction field, labor has its limits. More hands don't mean more efficiency. After all, the working site is only so large. Too many workers could lead to chaos.

Therefore, to ensure that no young adults idle around, the government has launched many non-essential projects to keep them occupied.

Becuase of this, people like Mr. Thompson were no longer accepted due to their age.

But usually, elevator repairers in residential areas were pretty old. Despite technological advances, the basic principles of elevators still hold. Even though residential elevators seem to update quickly, their core remains mostly the same.

Moreover, the maintenance process doesn't require much physical effort. To save costs, many residential areas contract elevator maintenance to professional companies. The technicians in these companies are generally aged beyond the official recruitment upper limit.

Having nothing to do at home, they came to the office building when they heard someone was hiring. Among them was one who was in charge of maintaining the elevators in this building.

Mr. Thompson bargained with them with two packets of cigarettes and two bottles of alcohol. They guaranteed that even if the inside equipment was damaged, they could restore the cargo lift operation and could power it with a generator.

They even promised that, with extra pay, not only could they find a spare generator for the elevator, but they could also restore the entire building's power supply.

However, Mr. Thompson and the others turned down their proposal, demanding only the restoration of a cargo lift. After paying an extra five packets of cigarettes and three boxes of wine, an agreement was reached.

The other party promised not only to restore the cargo lift operation but also to provide a temporary generator and the oil needed for the elevator to run for five days.

Both sides were very satisfied with this trade. In the eyes of Mr. Thompson and the others, they had solved their biggest problem with just a few items and didn't feel like they had lost.

As for those technicians, they were free lately. After inspection, they found that although the elevator had gone through the Cold Catastrophe, overall, it had no significant problems.

All it needed was to replace some electronic components. They understood the manufacturing principles, so creating a simple, temporary solution was doable even though they couldn't find ready-made replacements.

The generator and fuel were, in fact, available in some high-end residential areas. Regular residents were oblivious to their whereabouts, but maintenance personnel, like them, were very familiar.

The slightly troublesome part might be that the generator probably got damaged, requiring them to craft some spare parts first. But they now had more hands, and many tasks could be done simultaneously, so it wasn't a big deal.

So to them, exchanging a little labor for cigarettes and alcohol was a quite a bargain.

After Zachary's operations, the largest warehouse for finished cigarettes and tobacco had been raided by him. Thus, the value of cigarettes in Pengcheng was much higher than in other cities.

However, there were still stocks in the market and among the public. Like the cigarettes and alcohol used in this transaction, they were from Mr. Thompson Senior's stash. The high-quality alcohol's external packaging was good. Even after the Cold Catastrophe, the liquid inside did not break the bottle when it froze.