It's Not Easy Making Money in the Apocalypse

Once the recording ended, I reached out and grabbed the Perco. To my surprise, it was a Perco 5000, the military-grade that was a step better than the 3000. I noticed it had two mods attached to it. My Perco had room for four mods. At the moment, I had Shield, Inventory, the Overclock mod which was set to Overclocking the Inventory for extra size, and the Lightning spell.

The Shield had already been expended, but its recharge cycle was only an hour. It had almost been an hour since I had been hit. If I removed it, I could attach a new mod, but then the recharge cycle would be interrupted. I didn't know what the future would bring, so I certainly wasn't willing to interrupt my recharge cycle. It could be the difference between life and death. As for inventory and overclock, if I removed one or both of them, the supplies wouldn't be destroyed, but they also wouldn't be accessible until I plugged them both back in again.

The simplest way to describe it was that mods were like little flash drives. The inventory mod, otherwise known as a digitizer, just turned the matter into data and stored the data. If I stored a picture on a flash drive, I'd need to plug in that flash drive to open the picture. Meanwhile, if I attached two drives, and some of the data for the image ended up on each flash drive, I could only see the image if both flash drives were open. That's how it worked.

As for spells, they could be stored on mods, or left on the Perco. The Percos only had limited space though. A normal Perco could only hold two spells without depending on mods. However, that was a Perco that stripped clean. My Perco had a bit more room, but it also had Cici on it as well as the Master Code and the world travel spell. These digital items took up a lot of space and were invaluable to me. They weren't worth replacing with the lightning spell, so I could only leave it on its mod. Honestly, though, it didn't do much to protect me anyway. I was weak with sorcery, and the most I could do was charge some electronics or stun someone small.

I also had a Stealthco mod, but it was in my digitizer. Unless I needed it, there was no point in having it connected. I didn't see instances where I needed to go into stealth so quickly that I couldn't take the thirty seconds necessary to swap out my mods. Plus, it had finite uses, and I wasn't willing to use them for any reason. In truth though, had I not known about the greenhouse door, it would have been what I used instead.

I pulled out the mods and digitized the Perco. I knew I needed to work quickly. There had been gunfire in the stairway as the trap we set came into motion. The gunfire was dying down now, which meant that the grunts had failed. Soon, Riker would be entering the stairway, and he'd be suspicious if he didn't see me there. I would lose all the trust I gained with my selfless sacrifice.

"This is a new spell. No, it can't be…"

"A new spell? What kind?" I asked.

"It's a growth spell. You can use it to accelerate the growth of plants. It can also revitalize nearly dead plants, bringing them back to life."

"Is that it?"

"Is that it!" Cecelia cried out. "Do you know how valuable this thing is? Since the GMV, all plant life has turned brown and barely produced. Where you once grew tons of food you've been lucky to get kernels. This is why food is so valuable in the wasteland."

"Now that you mention it, the plants out in the greenhouse are green."

It was sitting in stark contrast to most of what I had seen in the wasteland. If I wasn't so used to greenery in my world, I would have noticed it sooner.

"The lockdown that filled the school with toxins likely also blocked the spread of GMV. By the time the school opened up again, the virus had already become inert. Although you live in a world full of greenery and can find plants with ease, I can't even tell you how valuable that greenhouse would be to a colony. The fact those ingredients are many of the ones needed for the stat boosters only increases that value. Furthermore, with that mod, you could quadruple the production of those plants. I can't even imagine a person like you being so lucky."

"I get it… I get it…" I responded, "I'll keep the spell."

I pulled out the mod put it in my digitizer, and then plugged in the other mod.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"It's an inventory full of plants… wait… no! It's a vivarium!"

"A what?"

"You… the digitizer is a storage which allows you to store nonliving matter. Anything that goes into it has to be dead or dying. The Vivarium creates a virtual greenhouse. Plants in it are not only alive but they're allowed to grow. Any Wasteland pharmacist would sacrifice their entire family for such a find."

"Valuable, I got it. It has the same supplies in the greenhouse?"

"It does. I believe that the deceased doctor likely used these two devices in tandem to quickly grow replacement ingredients. I'd need you to plug it back into his Perco to see how he rigged them to work together."

"We can worry about that later." I declared. "We're out of time."

It had finally gone silent, and I could hear steps thumping down the stairway. I quickly slipped out of the greenhouse as silently as possible, emerging from the back of the dark stairs. I nearly jumped when I saw something move in front of me. I could see a small form peaking around the back of the stairway, looking up from the shadows. He had a rifle in his hands, but he hadn't noticed me emerge from behind him.

"Hey, kid, are you alive?" Riker hissed as he walked down the stairway.

"Be careful, he might be planning a trap." The other guy declared.

"You don't trust him, do you?"

"The only one I trust is you, Boss."

"You got to admit, he's kind of cute though." The girl at the back said, causing them all the glance back at her. "Hey, he's better looking than most of you skinheads- watch out!"

The grunt had waited until their heads were turned to jump out and lift his rifle. I pulled out Darin's Pistol and fired. It struck the grunt in the arm, causing the rifle to lower. I was afraid he would lift it back up, so I increased the power of the gun from 30% to 80% and fired again.

He barely let out a screech as the light struck him. His body suddenly bumbled out. Dust spread from his wound until it covered his entire body and then he collapsed into a pile. My mouth opened and then closed again. When I had attacked the previous ones, two had survived. After shooting this one and not killing it, I raised the gun strength in a panic. I didn't expect the increase would result in a complete vaporization. I immediately set it back down to 40%.

As I was fumbling with it, Riker and the other two came down. He had a flashlight on me. Once he had a visual, he lowered his gun and gave a breath.

"You scared me." Riker declared.

"Why did you wait until the last second?" The other guy growled. "You could have helped us kill them."

"There were too many and only one of me." I defended. "It was already enough that I hid and survived without getting caught."

"Where did you get that gun?" He asked immediately after.

"Found it," I responded, immediately returning it to my digitizer.

The gun's energy wouldn't recover in there, but I didn't want to tempt him with it either.

"Taking the spoils?" He made a face.

Even though it was true, I did my best to wear an innocent look. "I thought other than the allknowing, we keep what we find?"

"We do." Riker cut the other guy off before he could speak." You claimed the bone blade, didn't you?"

His eyes went to a large crudely made club that seemed to have teeth on it which he was holding in his free hand.

"This is just some crap one of those grunts put together. His is cooler!" He complained, eyeing the pile of ash I created.

"That's just up to luck." The woman declared, winking at me. "If you want cooler things, maybe you should take the initiative and risk your life once in a while."

"I wouldn't recommend it," I added bitterly.

That seemed to be enough to placate the man, who just gave a rough shrug. "Whatever, are we going?"

"Newbie," Riker spoke up. "Can you get through this door?"

"It will take a few minutes," I responded.

In truth, it would take seconds, but I didn't want them to know how skilled I was. Thus, I plugged it in and poked around my Perco for a bit until I launched the Master Code. With that, it clicked open. We were now on the first floor, right where the nurse's station was.