Apocalypse: King of Zombies

That night, the Fallen Star Squad gathered again and invited the Great Chefs over to make a lavish dinner.

”Miles, we’re leaving Fallen Star City tomorrow for Atlas City,” Ethan said, looking at him.

”Mm.” Miles nodded, not surprised at all.

”Atlas City isn’t like other places. You guys are strong, but you still need to be careful. If you need backup, Fallen Star City’s twenty thousand Tier 9 Enhanced can move out at any time.”

Ethan laughed. ”It’s not that serious. You just focus on growing Fallen Star City. Don’t worry about us.”

Then he pulled a satellite phone from his spatial storage ring and handed it to Miles.

”Keep this. There’s only one right now. When I get to Atlas City, I’ll find another one. That way we can stay in contact anytime.”

”That’s perfect.” Miles took it, clearly pleased.

They chatted a bit more, then everyone headed back to their rooms.

Ethan had Skinny Pete pass a message to the white-furred ape leader: guard the compound, and keep the other white-furred apes on a tight leash—no trouble.

That was the beauty of having Skinny Pete use Beast Control on the leader. The ape leader would carry out Skinny Pete’s orders to the letter.

That was also why Ethan was willing to delay their departure until the leader was under control.

Otherwise, if the squad left and those white-furred apes went berserk… all of Fallen Star City would be the one paying for it.

Early the next morning, five massive flying mounts lifted off from Fallen Star City and soared into the distance.

People in Fallen Star City watched with longing written all over their faces.

They knew it meant their Base Commander was taking the Fallen Star Squad out again—off to make things happen.

In the apocalypse, being able to go wherever you wanted… that kind of freedom probably only existed for the Fallen Star Squad.

If only we could go with them someday, everyone thought, quiet and hopeful.

Atlas City…

As the capital of the Atlas Federation, its prosperity didn’t need explaining.

After the apocalypse, a city of more than twenty million people naturally became a disaster zone.

But Atlas City’s response had been lightning-fast. Federal military forces secured Atlas City within just two days of the outbreak, cleared out the zombies inside the city, then rapidly established a compound and launched rescue operations.

With huge numbers of soldiers and powerful weapons, Atlas City’s districts were brought under control quickly.

The federal officials proved highly capable. The compound kept expanding, and everything was managed in tight, orderly fashion.

Still, Atlas City’s politics were a tangled mess. After the president was lost, they’d never been able to choose a new federal leader.

The five great families had deep-rooted control over power. Every family had people holding key posts at the top. Every family wanted to push their own candidate—but none of them would accept the others.

In the end, the five families reached an agreement: they would jointly run Atlas City’s compound—cooperating while also keeping each other in check.

At that moment, in Atlas City compound’s conference room, more than a dozen people stood around a huge sand table, discussing something in low, intense voices.

The table displayed an enormous map of the Atlas Federation, with every county, city, and town rendered in precise detail.

Right then, the sand table was stuck full of flags in different colors.

”Everyone,” the uniformed soldier said, ”after continuous observation and analysis of the satellite footage we’ve been receiving, we’ve basically identified all existing compounds within the Atlas Federation.”

”But because of interference from unknown factors, the satellite images aren’t very clear. We only have rough locations—we don’t know each compound’s exact situation.”

”Alright.” A middle-aged man in a suit spoke calmly. ”Let’s hear it.”

”Yes, sir.”

The soldier nodded, then pointed to the red flags on the sand table.

”The red flags represent super-large compounds—populations over one million. Based on what we’ve observed, besides Atlas City, there are four more: Clearford City, Nova City, Goldcrest City, and Silverlake City.”

”These compounds were all established by the government, and we’ve already made contact with them.”

He moved his finger to the blue flags.

”Blue flags are large compounds—under one million but over five hundred thousand. There are currently eighteen. Sixteen were government-established, and we’ve made contact with those. Two we still haven’t been able to reach.”

Then the green flags.

”Green flags are mid-sized compounds—under five hundred thousand but over one hundred thousand. There are more than fifty. We’ve made contact with more than thirty of them. Over twenty are still unreachable.”

Then the white flags.

”White flags are small compounds—under one hundred thousand. There are a lot of these, one or two hundred. Most are scattered across smaller cities and towns, and most of them haven’t been contacted.”

”Mm.” The suited man nodded once, then said, ”Arrange for people to establish contact with those compounds as quickly as possible. It doesn’t have to be our people going. We can have nearby government compounds we’re already in touch with send people over.”

”Yes, sir!”

”Issue one satellite phone to each compound.”

”Understood!”

”You can go.”

”Yes, sir!”

The soldier snapped a salute and left the conference room.

Once the door shut, another middle-aged man spoke up. ”Whitaker… you’re planning to move to the next step?”

”Yeah. More or less.” Charles Whitaker’s voice was steady. ”The crystal-core fusion tech has already broken through to Tier 9. But the number of crystal cores we have is still nowhere near enough. We can’t mass-produce Tier 9 Enhanced. We have to gather up crystal cores from every compound.”

”It’s General Kane’s fault,” someone said bitterly. ”He killed too hard at the start. Before the zombies could even grow, he’d almost swept them clean!”

”Blame me?” a man shot back. ”If I hadn’t moved fast, whether you’d even be alive right now would be a question!”

”Enough.” Charles cut them off before it could turn into a full argument. ”The priority is still making contact with every compound.”

He looked around the table. ”Whitaker, how are you planning to handle these compounds?”

At that, the room fell into a brief, heavy silence.

It was the thing they’d been losing sleep over lately.

They’d sent out plenty of people to probe different compounds over the past few weeks. The reports that came back left them grim.

Forget the smaller compounds—even a lot of government-established compounds were starting to slip out of their control.

They’d expected some of that.

They hadn’t expected it to be this bad.

In the apocalypse, human ambition didn’t shrink. It exploded.

After people got a taste of being the local king—of unchecked, emperor-level authority—once they’d tasted absolute power, very few were willing to give it up. Almost no one still wanted to be managed by someone else.

”If you ask me, we just suppress them with force,” said Dominic Hale, the Hale family’s representative. ”You think just because it’s the apocalypse, people get to do whatever they want?”

”Force is for zombies,” Maxwell Kane, representative of the Kane family, said with a frown. ”Not for our own people. The entire Atlas Federation has less than a hundred million survivors total now, and you’re talking about turning weapons on them?”

”I think for any compound that refuses to follow orders, we send higher-Tier Enhanced over to take over,” Benjamin Caldwell, the Caldwell family’s representative, said. ”I don’t believe there’s any compound in the Atlas Federation that dares openly oppose the federal government.”

”They built their compounds with their own hands,” someone snapped back. ”You think you can just ’take over’ because you feel like it? It’s not that simple.”

”Why do we have to control them?” Gabriel Mercer, the Mercer family’s representative, cut in. ”Why not let everyone develop on their own?”

”That won’t work.” Charles Whitaker’s voice hardened. ”If we let that happen, the federation becomes a pile of loose sand. And some compounds have already descended into lawlessness and brutality. They have to be brought back into line.”

He paused, then made the call.

”First, we contact every compound. We notify them to send representatives to Atlas City for a conference.”

”Some places are too far,” someone pointed out. ”They might not make it. And some people might have… other ideas. They may not come at all.”

”It’s fine,” Charles said. ”Just make sure the message reaches them.”

Then he added, ”Tell them they can bring low-Tier crystal cores their compound doesn’t need and trade them in Atlas City for high-Tier crystal cores. And tell them that once they arrive, we’ll take them to visit the special spatial world.”

His eyes swept the room, confident.

”I don’t believe they’ll be able to resist coming.”

”Alright,” the others answered. ”We’ll do it.”