Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

At this point, we helped clean up the Manila Bay again for at least half a day before returning to the compound with my group—but it seemed like there were still a good number of people who couldn't believe the sonar pings could cause much death. Because yeah, it almost felt like cheating—which it kind of was—and we would've saved a lot more bullets if we used it a few hours in.

Hearing their conversations, I was about to give them some sort of explanation but Unc Zeidrick cut in and pushed Ruben to the pool.

"Wha— BlLhhGFhfGHH! W-What gives?!"

Then he pushed James #1 and #2 as well.

"YOU—/ AHHHHH!!!"

And finally, his kid, my cousin, Russel.

"Da— I ALREADY KNEW HOW IT WORKS! WHY WOULD YOU—"

Zeidrick cut in again with a chuckle, "You do? Huh."

"What—"

He quickly pulled his kid up, "Then grab me a couple of stones and throw a few of them in a pool as well—"

"Fuck yeah!" Russel exclaimed with a huge grin on his fucking face.

"What?! No!"

"LEAVE ME ALONE—"

"How would getting in the pool explain— AHHHHH!!!"

As Russel kept throwing people in the pool, whether they know the secret or not, Unc just shook his head laughing before he picked up a couple of good-sized stones before glancing at me:

"Can I have the honors?"

I chuckled, "You taught me that shit, by all means!"

"Heh! We'll show these kids—"

Funnily enough, even a few from my circle joined in—especially, Chloe, Cynthia, and Ella—for their curiosity, the moment Unc got in the water as well and asked everyone else to go under the surface, a devilish smile formed on the faces of the ones who knew right before Unc smashed the fucking stones together as hard as he could and as fast as he could.

And in three seconds flat, everyone else rose up in panic as if they shot a .50 and forgot to wear ear protection.

Almost everyone above water couldn't figure out why the ones who went below looked like they ran out of air and had to gasp for it, but at this fucking moment, Unc Zeidrick became the public enemy.

However, Unc just laughed in their faces—even as he left the scene like a madman, but it didn't take long before I realized that he left the explaining part on my end while he took care of the application.

In any case, I asked everyone else who went down the water to dry themselves off but there were still curious ones among the mix who wanted to see—or should I say, hear for themselves what everyone else experienced.

And lo and fucking behold, Unc came back like nothing happened with even bigger stones in hand, and let's just say that a similar scene occurred as soon as he asked them to go under. And I fucking kid you not, it almost happened for a fourth time because Unc had to moonwalk back to the same spot—with even bigger-er stones than last time because yeah, humans are just curious fucking creatures.

Kaley then nudged me, "So… How does it really work?"

I chortled, "Hop in the water and find out— Ow!"

"Doofus— You see what— Nevermind…"

"I mean— We were talking about sonar, right?"

"I do know that but—"

"Lemme put it this way… What Unc demonstrated wasn't exactly sonar but what killed the deadheads floating in the water."

"Right…?"

"Heh… You know how sonar works, right?"

"Yeah?"

"How?"

"I mean— T-They send sound in the w-water and they umm… t-they measure how long it gets back to m-map out the area around them or something along those lines, right?"

"Bingo!"

"Then…?"

"I mean— we can't try it out with ultrasonic waves for shit and giggles, right? For one, the soundwave sent is fuck ton times more than smashing rocks together—but nevertheless, Unc's victims are already that discombobulated and disoriented from that. Just imagine what would happen if you can't leave the water and you get hit with it multiple times?"

"I see… But… H-How did your Unc think of that? You know, using rocks as an example?"

"Heh— Because of grandpa, from my mother's side, of course. Even without the knowledge of sonar, we people just find ways to have fun or mess with our kids from time to time, no? Who knows, maybe the same exact thing occurred in the inventor of sonar and they just had more resources on hand or had more time to think about it, making it go a step further."

"Mmmm~ I see, I see now…"

With that said, we still went from one simple experiment to another—and it was much better to do this other experiment at night since it involved the use of fireworks, kinda.

Obviously, we've had some help from Mauricio since the area around the Intercity had an abundance of them but besides upping morale and making Cathy, his wife, happy on some blue days, we really don't have much use for them.

Until our trip to Japan, that is.

While it was true we still had access to tech like radios, drones, RC cars, and whatnot, it'd be a toss-up once we ascend the mountain. So yeah, it would have already been okay to bring our own set of fireworks but we needed something more definite once we set them off for a signal.

And to skip another long-winded conversation, I had some help with mixing certain minerals with black powder used for fireworks to have color-coded signals by means of using a flare gun.

Yeah, we took it a step above since the flimsy cardboard they were in was just too unwieldy and could get wet and what better way to have them on our teams' flares was to make our own flare cartridges.

It was easy enough to do with our reloading equipment and we could easily produce basic colors and assign them our own commands for each one. Right now, what we wanted to know was if they worked better the first time we tried it because let's just say that there was an unspoken incident where a certain fire maniac just made different-colored napalm.

"What are you loading in it now?" Tatiana asked.

"It's marked 'green-ish'..."

"Hope they got the secret formula right this time…"

"Plankton, chill…"

"Huh?"

"Nevermind…"

In any case, what I meant by "better" was not only if the color was distinct from the rest but also if the cartridge could fly at least 300 meters up into the air and burn for at least a minute as it descends. Because one, green should really look like green, not green-ish, and two it shouldn't burn as fast as a normal bullet.

And yeah, I could've tried making it myself and even though I consider myself somewhat of a genius myself, it wasn't my forte though I was tempted to try my hand on it if I didn't have a lot going on.

But as I pulled on the trigger and aimed it overhead, it didn't take long before a bright flash of green shot upwards to the same distance a normal flare cartridge would travel and everyone just watched it slowly burn and fall down as our faces were bathed in its color. It was safe to say that it was a success—much like the rest of the colors, but here's the kicker:

"Great job on this, we're gonna need a thousand of 'em."

"A THOUSAND?!" exclaimed the fireworks expert named Julian.

"Yep, each."

"EACH— WHAT?!"

"Fine, how about 990 each?"

"YOU—"

"Pfft— I'm just kidding. That's long-term, pops. But yeah, if you could teach me or Rin how you mix them, we'll be able to reload the cartridges on our own. I heard you had a hard time using them."

"T-That's true, I admit… even making regular bullets are hard for me…"

If anyone could still remember this Julian fellow was actually the creator of the ramshackled bullets we first uncovered in the Intercity and instead of wasting his talents on shoddy equipment, Mauricio brought him to his fold and made him focus on fireworks instead because why not? Happy wife, happy life.

In addition, the dude knew where to look for the said minerals to mix into black powder, and in our case, all we needed was the formula and he could be back to making fireworks not for signals but for raising morale and garnering awe.

And while there were still subtle differences to actual fireworks and flare cartridges, we just needed to bridge the distance between the two— no, the three, including reloading ammunition.

Then Ibarra who popped up from nowhere had another idea:

"Umm… Can we also have something that could fit the M203?"

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Julian turned to me, "What's that?"

We answered at the same time though Ibarra pointed at the cylindrical 'handguard' of his M16, "Grenade launcher./This M203 Grenade Launcher."

Tatiana cut in, "If we're gonna go that route, I want my Dragon's Breaths color-coded too!"