Day 5.
Sauget, Illinois.
07:00 Hours.
Dawn hit like a sledgehammer to the temple.
Rust-red light bled through Coldwell's shattered windows, painting the concrete in shades of old blood. The Gutter tanks had bloated to 720kg of biomass overnight—Shambler tides chewing the perimeter fence like starving rats on a corpse. The intake pumps below made wet, rhythmic sounds, processing liquefied dead into fuel-sludge that stank of industrial bleach and rendered fat boiled from marrow.
The Mudroom cycled flawlessly.
Paige stripped for her second decon run, standing naked in the airlock as bleach foam erupted from the nozzles. Eighty-seven seconds of chemical hell shredded yesterday's gore-crust from her skin—breasts, thighs, and ass scoured raw. The rinse cycle hit next, then the dry-blast spit her out sterile and shaking, nipples puckered hard from the cold bite.
Fresh fatigues were slapped over wet skin. No time for modesty. Corporate shame died with Vanessa.
Her loyalty had clawed up to 58%—hate-fueled grit replacing the soft HR executive who'd shown up Day 1.
"Clean," she muttered, checking her hands. They were cracked, bleeding, and alive.
Travis was a serum-pumped freak now. He deadlifted 300lb rebar coils one-armed like they were gym warmup weights. Corpse Cold iced his veins orange under sweat-slick abs that flexed like steel cable. The User serum had dropped his body temp to eighty degrees, turning him into a walking refrigerator with glowing veins.
"Feels tight, Boss," Travis grunted, dropping a coil that cracked the concrete. "Like my skin is two sizes too small."
"That's the armor growing in," I said. "Keep lifting."
Yana ghosted the treeline on scout rotation, her Shadow cloak clinging to her courier gear like smoke. Her hazel eyes had gone feral post-sync, pupils ringed with faint orange fire. She moved with a silence that made the hair on my arms stand up.
Helen triaged a ricochet gut-gash on a Null named Sal by the barricade, her Marlboro rasp cutting through the morning chaos: "Artery nicked—tourniquet now or watch his fucking intestines steam out in ninety seconds."
Miller sat chained grate-side, his broken arm splinted with scrap wood and duct tape. Loyalty: 1%. His cop-stache twitched as he spat mutiny venom at anyone who walked by: "User glow-freaks gonna feed Null cocks to your god-tank next, meatbag."
Boyd had finally surfaced from the vents, wired-gaunt and hollow-eyed. The generator hymn had gone silent. Technomancer sync locked—the kid's eyes glowed faint blue when he looked at machinery now.
"Ready," Boyd whispered, pointing upstairs to the office overlook. "Wiring is hot."
"Good," I said. "Because we're blind out here."
My Fang .45 smoked brass-hot in my grip.
Decay Sight pulsed orange warnings across the tree line: `[RUNNER PRECURSOR: 2KM. JITTER PHASE IMMINENT. INTERRUPT: SPINE T4-T6.]`
Tier 2 twitchers. They were shedding Shambler meat early, evolving faster than the first timeline.
`[ADMINISTRATOR: BIOMASS YIELD OPTIMAL. SERUM PRODUCTION UNLOCKED. EFFICIENCY +18%.]`
`[ROOT: JUICE THE FAT PIG. WATCH HIM SCREAM AND TWITCH.]`
I ignored the stereo skull-fuck.
The economy of the end of the world was minted at 10:00 AM.
Scrip washers came off the punch press in stacks—crude metal discs stamped with the Foundry seal. One washer bought one MRE, one hour of shelter, one basic favor.
Paige sorted them with bloody palms, her voice bitter: "Slave chits for grub? This is corporate hell 2.0."
"It's order," I said. "Paper money is toilet paper. This is labor converted to survival."
Travis boomed approval, serum-high and grinning: "Boss, that juice cranks you to cock-steel. Like gods' own pre-workout."
Helen exhaled calculated smoke: "Eighty-degree veins are next. Then maggots gnawing your sack if you overjuice. System Sickness doesn't fuck around."
Yana materialized from the flank shadows, breathless. "Precursors inbound. Five tangos, flesh flayed raw, muscle exposed. Eyes too fucking alive for dead things."
Noon brought the escalation.
Runners jittered through the fence breach—Tier 2 adrenal fucks, Shambler husks sloughing rotted meat for speed, throats bubbling with gurgle-screams that mimicked ex-lovers' moans.
`[VARIANT: ADRENAL.]`
"Funnel them!" I roared.
My Fang cracked with surgical precision: two knees pulped to bone confetti and black jelly. I triggered Regression Echo for a thirty-second Tier 3 speed spike—borrowed power from the corpse version of myself. The lead bitch's spine shattered at T4, her torso folding as her tits burst wet against the concrete.
The paradox backlash hammered my chest like a sledge. Void-ghosts replayed Travis melting in acid, screaming in the last loop. I collapsed against the barricade, gasping.
Yana shadow-slashed the flankers, courier knives parting throats in crimson sprays that painted her cleavage. She moved like smoke given murder.
Ronnie's AR chattered: "Twitcher cocks down! Slurry's a nut-bath!"
The Gutter gorged 290kg of premium biomass. The Tier 2 serum meter teased unlock.
Then Miller exploited the chaos.
He'd been eyeing Ronnie's spare sidearm, left carelessly on a crate while the welder reloaded his AR. As a Runner slammed into the grate, Miller lunged. He ignored the pain in his broken arm, snatched the pistol, and leveled it.
He didn't aim at the zombies. He aimed at Travis.
"User cull starts now, you glowing prick!"
BANG.
The round grazed Travis's deltoid, ripping meat.
Travis didn't even flinch. The serum had dulled his pain receptors to nothing. He turned, eyes glowing orange, and raised the Remington 870.
He didn't ask for permission. He buckshot-returned without hesitation.
BOOM.
Miller's good knee exploded in pink bone shards and piss-spray. He went down screaming, his cop-stache howling as he shit himself mid-fall.
Aggregate loyalty tanked 22%. Whispers spread among the Nulls: "Tyrant let the pig shoot first?"
`[ROOT: FUCKING GLORIOUS. CHAOS OVERFLOW +15% POWER. GUT THE PIG'S COCK NEXT.]`
`[ADMINISTRATOR: INEFFICIENT. LABOR LOSS 31%. RESTRAIN, DON'T EXECUTE.]`
Echo cooldown locked for twelve hours. I walked over to Miller, kicked the gun away, and dragged him by his collar back to the decon tank.
"Work or slurry, Sheriff," I whispered. "Your balls are next."
`[MUTINY RISK: 97%.]`
Dusk fell. The attack was repelled, but we were blind. It was time to open the eyes of the Silo.
"Boyd," I said. "Level 2 office. Now."
We climbed the rusted stairs to the foreman's office overlooking the factory floor. I had spent 1000 System Points—my entire reserve—on the blueprint.
COMMAND DECK (TIER 1) - 1000 PTS.
"Sync it," I ordered.
Boyd placed his hands on the dusty table. His Technomancer blue glow flared, racing through the copper wiring he'd spent two days installing.
HUMMM.
A holographic projector in the center of the table sputtered to life. Blue light washed over the room, constructing a 3D wireframe map of the entire region.
The "Fog of War" peeled back from Sauget. I saw it all.
The Silo (Us): A pulsing blue beacon in the center.
The Threat: Red jagged lines marking zombie migration paths along Highway 40.
The Rivals:
To the West: A massive Blue marker. The Enclave.
To the East: A chaotic cluster of Red signals moving fast. The Road Hogs (Red Faction).
And then, the global ticker appeared, hovering above the map in terrifying neon numbers.
`[CULL COUNTDOWN: 25 DAYS.]`
`[GLOBAL RANKING: JACK MONROE - 1847.]`
"We're on the board," I said, staring at the map. "And we're surrounded."
My mortality index eased slightly: `[89%. DAYS REMAINING: 25.]`
The eastern wall stood triple-reinforced. Travis's graze was sealed. Miller was productive in his hate.
But the map showed the truth. We weren't just building a shelter. We were building a target.
Day 5 ended. The eyes were open.
FOUNDRY PROTOCOL - DAY 5
SECTOR 1 (JACK MONROE) ███░░░░░░░ 3/10 Nodes
MUDROOM: OPERATIONAL | GUTTER: 720kg | COMMAND DECK: ONLINE
Threat: Red Faction Convoy (Proximity: 12 Miles)
Users: 3 | Nulls: 7 | Loyalty: TENSE