It's Not Easy Making Money in the Apocalypse

"Oi! Don't hold us up any longer!" Daft snapped.

I had frozen in place after hearing what Cecelia had to say. Other than finding out the secrets and the extent of the mirror technology, the Allco stat formulas were the other thing I desired most. It turned out that two things might be related. I was wondering just how I was going to get into that top floor without a six intelligence. Even if I managed to get my hands on all of the alltelligence in this place, I wasn't confident that it would be enough to reach that level. After all, my smarts were only 3 and each injection had a diminishing return.

I had already injected four Allgility, and my speed only went from 3 to 5. By my calculation, I'd need at least eight alltelligence to go to a 6 in Smarts. That was optimistic. As for how many would be found in this school, I couldn't guess, and as for how many I could get without angering the rest, that was probably none. With Daft's call, I snapped out of it.

"Yeah, coming." I started moving, but I was working out how I could become separated from the group.

We had gone down a flight of stairs and were now working our way through a long passage that connected the lab and the school underground.

"How did you guys learn about all of this?" I asked curiously.

"Raided a glass mill a few months ago. There was an email exchange that mentioned it." Scope explained.

"Do you plan to tell him everything?" Daft snapped.

"It's not like it's a big secret." Scope responded defensively.

"Cecelia?" I whispered, ignoring their arguing.

"There is an old proximity alarm." Cecelia declared. "We might be able to trigger it. If you trigger it at the right time, there will be a blast door that drops down, separating you all. There is only one issue with this."

"What is it?" I asked.

"The proximity alarm is loud. You'll alert the grunt colony to their presence."

I winced, but then gave a nod. "What do I have to do?"

"The alarm scans for data transmission. Allco didn't want data from this project being accidentally released to the public."

"I can imagine."

"You see that terminal ahead? You need to plug me into it." I looked ahead to see a flickering terminal that the pair walking ahead of me were passing like it meant nothing. "At that point, I can attempt to send a signal out. That should initiate a total shutdown."

"Alright, good."

"You'll have five seconds to get behind that area with the yellow lines. If you don't, you'll be trapped with them, and if you're a bit slow, you'll be cut in half!"

I looked and my expression turned a bit pale. The yellow lines mentioned were thirty yards away. I had to cover thirty yards in 5 seconds.

"I understand." I slowed my steps a little bit, trying to make some extra distance between them.

They seemed to be still arguing and hadn't noticed me slowing behind them. I quickly got into a sprinting position and then plugged in the Perco. There was a few seconds of delay.

"Go!"

I unplugged and began running at full tilt. At this point, the alarm went off just as the pair noticed me.

"Four."

"Hey! What the-" The two noticed me suddenly sprinting.

"Three."

"The alarm!"

"Stop him."

"Two."

There was a gunshot, and I felt my shield get struck. He did try to shoot me in the back!

"One."

Leaped into a slide, partially because I was afraid I wouldn't make it, and partially because I was afraid they'd shoot again. The blast door slid down as fast as lightning. I could barely see the two men with their guns up in surprise as we were cut off. If I slid a little less, I might have lost my foot. Getting up, my heart was beating nearly as loudly as the alarms. I took deep breaths until I got it under control.

"Where?" I asked.

"The door next to you is their observation lab. Plug me in and I'll open it."

I did as she asked, a short moment later, the door opened up. There was a cool breeze that struck me, along with a stale smell of chemicals. I stepped forward into the dark lab. A red light was flashing, filling the room with just that light.

"Plug me into any of these terminals. I can get the alarm off."

I did as she said, and a short few moments later the alarm was cut off. The door leading out didn't reopen though. With the sound gone, I could hear in the distance gunfire.

"I don't think we're going to be friends anymore," I predicted out loud.

"Your group is currently cut off from the other groups. Now that the proximity has been triggered, a jammer is blocking all communication. If you meet with them first, you can spin the story however you want."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"What, lie?" As soon as I said it, I realized how foolish it was. "Nevermind. Do you have the formula?"

I was debating about my integrity toward bandits. These guys only invited me because they thought they could use me. I just used them too.

"The computer with the formula won't be on their main network." She explained. "We'll need to travel farther."

"Okay, ah… is there anything else on the network of interest to me?"

"Hmph, I would normally say no, but I found something you may be interested in."

Entry 8/23/1993

That's a few months before the beginning of the MGV virus!"

"Shhh! Do you want to listen or not?"

"Sorry."

The new school year has begun, but we've already started to face some problems. These kids' aggressiveness was greater than I predicted. One of the observation posts was very nearly compromised when an aggressive child threw a chair directly at an observation window. Things were resolved quickly. The child was neutralized, as were the other classmates who witnessed the event. The teacher has been placed on permanent leave and will remain quiet.

Over the weekend, the observation windows will be replaced with a considerably thicker bulletproof variety. There is no point in researching a subject if that subject suspects they are being researched. I can't allow another slip like this time. In the meantime, I'll be breaking the children into three groups. A baseline group will be provided a placebo, a second group will be administered the standard alltelligence, and then the final group will be administered my own particular modified formula.

My formula, in particular, is designed to reduce aggression. Allco tells me this is to allow their intelligence to shine through. We all know that is a joke. They want to calm the population to control them. The smarter someone becomes, the more they become unhappy with their circumstances because they know their worldview has been widened. However, if they can also be pacified at the same time, then doesn't this make them the perfect slaves?

Heh, that doesn't sound much different than me. I'm merely a wage slave working for Allco. Perhaps their target audience will be the next wave of scientists just like me.

Doctor Darin

"All of these doctors seem to have an existential crisis at work, don't they?" I muttered once the recording was done playing. "Are there any other recordings?"

"Not on the main network." She responded. "And they're irrelevant to the task at hand."

"I'm not so sure of that."

"Hmph, I'm not arguing with you, waste your time however you want."

I shook my head, but I didn't say anything more. Instead, I left the wall of computer terminals, finding a hallway that appeared to run adjacent to the underground tunnel. If someone wasn't paying attention, they might be forgiven for thinking the tunnel was jus just there for maintenance access. However, this area was undoubtedly the lab portion.

I found a stairway that led upstairs, and so I followed it. Although the beeping had been turned off, the red flashing was still happening. This was the main light I had to go by. Every few seconds I could move for a bit. As for the gunfire I had heard earlier, it seemed to have died down. Either the team had fled, or they had killed all the grunts. Either way, it left an eerie silence.

I came to the top of the stairway, which was far longer than I had expected. I ended up in a long hallway, yet every once in a while there was an alcove. It wasn't until I reached one of these alcoves that a light flashed on. I looked to see Riker's group. He had a gun pointed right at me. I lifted my hand, but a moment later he pulled the light away.

"Who triggered the damn alarm?" Riker growled.

"Uh…" I was about to answer when a girl who was currently cleaning out her weapon spoke.

"It was Daft's group that was supposed to take out security. Why don't you ask them?"

"Something must have happened," Riker responded.

I frowned, reaching out until my hand came to a stop. I realized that there was a glass panel between the pair of us. It appeared like I could only see one way. I only noticed this alcove because the other classrooms were too dark on the other side. Only Riker's group was using lighting, so I was able to see them. However, if it was day out, all of these rooms would be visible to me, but I'd be invisible to them.

"I'm in the observation posts." I realized.

Even the grunts didn't know this area existed behind every classroom work board.