Chapter 3
On the television screen, the usually composed anchorwoman could no longer maintain her professional demeanor.
"Breaking news! Unknown 'rabies' infected individuals have appeared across multiple locations in Manhattan! Police are urging citizens to immediately lock their doors and windows..."
In the background audio of the broadcast, faint screams and police sirens could already be heard echoing from the streets outside.
The chaos had begun.
But this was far from enough. The current panic was merely a few scattered sparks.
Sitting in the executive leather chair inside my bulletproof command center, my fingers tapped across the keyboard, sending an encrypted file titled [Manhattan High-Precision Distributed Outbreak Map] directly to Uncle Harris's top-secret terminal.
Inside the file, three exact locations were marked with crimson skulls.
Once sent, I picked up the encrypted phone, activated the voice-changer, and dialed.
"Sir!" The moment the call connected, Uncle Harris's voice was laced with extreme tension. "The higher-ups took your first piece of intel extremely seriously, but it’s still not enough to mobilize the national military..."
"Then look at the map I just sent you," I interrupted coldly.
"At those three coordinates, massive localized mutations will erupt simultaneously within thirty minutes. Go verify it yourself."
Beep. I hung up on him once again.
...
At the same time, Downtown Manhattan, in an underground electrical substation.
In the dimly lit service tunnels, Elena and Eric were sneaking through the heavy cabling conduits.
In the duffel bags on their backs were a couple of secondhand AK-47s, bought with an outrageously high-interest loan from the Harlem mafia. Both of their faces were twisted with a toxic mix of resentment and manic excitement.
"Does that bastard Mark really think he’s safe hiding in his penthouse?"
Eric gritted his teeth as he snipped through a chain-link fence and clamped his heavy bolt cutters onto the main power relay hub.
"This substation controls the backup grid for his entire building! Once I destroy this, when the apocalypse hits, all his high-tech defenses will just be a pile of scrap metal! Then we’ll storm in with our guns, chop him into pieces, and take the penthouse and all the supplies for ourselves!"
Elena’s eyes gleamed with greedy anticipation. "Do it! I want to watch him beg for mercy at my feet!"
This was, indeed, the exact dirty trick they had used in our previous life.
But what these two stupid "reborn" fools didn't know was that I had already equipped my fortress with an independent nuclear fusion battery. Furthermore, and far more fatally—
This damp, dark underground substation was exactly "Hidden Outbreak Point #2" on the map I had just sent the military!
In front of the massive monitor, I watched the infrared feed transmitted by a micro-drone. Deep in the abandoned drainage canals of the substation, a dense cluster of thermal signatures was writhing frantically.
"Make your move, idiots," I muttered, raising my wine glass.
CLACK—!
On the monitor, a smug Eric yanked down the main breaker and gleefully smashed the control panel.
The entire underground sector plunged into dead, silent darkness.
"Got it! Hahaha, Mark is dead meat!" Eric laughed maniacally.
However, before the smile could fully bloom on his face...
Gurgle... RAWR——!!
From the depths of the darkness, a bloodcurdling, beastly low-frequency roar echoed out. It was the sound of dozens of throats tearing in unison!
Immediately after, borrowing the faint green glow of the emergency lights, the two witnessed a scene that shattered their souls.
Over a dozen frenzied zombies, their faces swollen with grayish-brown lethal fungi and their eyes a dead, milky white, crashed through the maintenance doors like a pack of starved wild dogs smelling blood, lunging straight for them!
These were the very first batch of fully mutated zombies incubating in the underground shadows. Their speed was terrifying!
"M-Monsters!! They weren't in this district in our past life!"
Elena’s legs turned to jelly. She collapsed to the ground, letting out a pig-like squeal of pure terror.
"Shoot! Shoot them!!" Eric, paralyzed with fear, raised the black-market AK-47 he had bought for a premium and frantically pulled the trigger.
Click.
The bolt let out a dull, hollow sound. A cheap, poorly reloaded bullet had jammed tight in the chamber!
"You miserable black-market bastards!!"
Seeing the leading zombie already opening its jaws, thick with putrid blood, Eric let out a strange shriek. Without a second of hesitation, he violently pushed Elena toward the zombie to act as a meat shield, then scrambled up and sprinted for his life.
"Eric, you animal!!" Elena screamed. Abandoning her expensive black-market weapons, she rolled desperately to dodge the zombie’s lunging bite.
Dozens of zombies chased wildly behind them. The two fled in absolute panic, losing all their weapons and blowing all their borrowed money. Just as they sprinted out of the alley, they crashed headfirst into the mob enforcers who had come to tail them and collect their debt.
Caught in a brutal pincer between the zombie horde and the mafia, the two were forced to scurry like sewer rats into the city's disgusting drainage pipes.
...
VROOOOM——!
Outside the substation, deafening engine roars shook the ground.
Two heavy hazmat armored vehicles smashed through the reinforced walls. Military flamethrowers expelled streams of fire dozens of meters long, violently incinerating the pursuing zombie horde into ash.
The military’s ultimate suppression had descended once again.
Back in the penthouse fortress.
The encrypted satellite phone sitting beside me suddenly burst into a piercing ring.
I pressed the answer button.
"Sir..."
On the other end of the line, Uncle Harris’s voice had lost all of its high-ranking arrogance. Instead, it was filled with deep awe, trembling, and the heavy panting of a man suffering from severe aftershock.
"All three coordinates. Our men barely managed to purge them in time. Your map... it was flawlessly accurate!"
"The highest tier of the Pentagon has directly received my bypassed report! The President has officially signed a top-secret directive authorizing full martial law!"
"From this moment on, you are classified by the Pentagon as an 'SSS-Level Supreme National Strategic Protected Asset'! Please give me your coordinates immediately. I will dispatch our elite forces to secure you!"
Got him.
I looked down at the city and spoke coldly. "I am in the center of Manhattan, at the penthouse of the Starlight Building."
"I do not like being disturbed. Airdrop your Apache gunships and heavy fire support, and have them idle in my airspace. Without my direct order, no one is allowed to approach."
"Yes, Sir! Right away!!"
...
Woooooooo————!!!
The exact second I hung up the phone.
An excruciatingly shrill, mournful city-wide air raid siren exploded across the sky of New York City, howling like a scream of despair tearing through the night!
In the distance, Brooklyn and Queens erupted with consecutive, deafening explosions and pillars of fire.
Countless pairs of crimson eyes lit up in the streets and alleys. Screams, gunfire, and the metallic crunch of massive car pile-ups intertwined into the death knell of the apocalypse.
The countdown hit zero.
The true biochemical doomsday swallowed Manhattan like a global tsunami.
Meanwhile, down in the filthy, foul-smelling sewers.
Covered in thick sludge, Eric and Elena were pinned firmly to the ground under the boots of several heavily armed Mafia thugs. Cold gun barrels were pressed hard against their heads.
"You dare borrow my money to buy fake guns? Since you can't pay us back, we’ll just chop you into pieces and feed you to the dogs!"
"No! Please don't kill me!"
Faced with a dead end, Eric’s bloodshot eyes bulged out as he screamed like a mad dog, "I know a place! The penthouse of the Starlight Building! There are tens of billions worth of supplies and gold up there! Take us with you, and I’ll help you break in!!"
