Day 31.
The Gutter Intake (Level 1).
Sauget, Illinois.
06:00 Hours.
The smell didn't just fill the room. It aggressively violated it.
It wasn't the dry, dusty scent of old death. It was wet. It was heavy. It tasted of ammonia, fermented meat, and industrial bleach that had lost the war against bacteria.
I stood on the catwalk overlooking the intake grates.
Below me, the Gutter was choking.
The massive, subterranean grinder we had built to process the dead into fuel was silent. The blades weren't spinning. The pumps weren't thumping.
Instead, a thick, black sludge was bubbling up through the steel mesh.
It looked like crude oil, but it moved with a biological sluggishness. It hissed as it touched the air, releasing pockets of methane and rot gas.
"Backflow," Boyd said.
He stood next to the control panel, his silver skin reflecting the sickly green light of the Phase 2 sky. He wasn't breathing through his nose. He didn't have to.
"The biomass filtration is clogged," Boyd stated, tapping a gauge that was pegged in the red. "We processed three thousand zombies in the last forty-eight hours. The tanks are full. The pipes are calcified with bone meal."
Down on the floor, a Null named Pete was on his hands and knees, retching into a bucket.
He wasn't the only one. Three other laborers were huddled by the blast doors, gasping for air that didn't taste like liquefied corpse.
"Clear the blockage," I said. My voice was muffled by the canvas scarf I had wrapped around my face.
"I can't," Boyd said. "Physics, Jack. Matter occupies space. We have nowhere to put it."
He pointed to the pressure reading.
`[SYSTEM ALERT: TANK PRESSURE CRITICAL.]`
`[CAPACITY: 100%.]`
`[BACKFLOW IMMINENT.]`
"We're drowning in our own kill-count," Boyd said. "If we force the pumps, the pipes burst. If the pipes burst, Level 1 floods with twelve hundred kilograms of pressurized zombie slurry. It will dissolve the seals on the Lung."
I looked at the bubbling black soup.
In the first timeline, we died because we ran out of ammo. In this timeline, we were going to die because we were too efficient at killing.
"It's the bone density," I said. "The Tier 2s and 3s. They have more calcium. It's turning into cement in the lines."
"Correct," Boyd said. "We need a secondary septic field. Or a bigger tank."
"We can't build a tank in an hour," I said.
I looked at the sludge rising. It was an inch from overflowing the containment lip.
"Vent it," I ordered.
"Vent it where?" Boyd asked. "The courtyard?"
"The access tunnel," I said. "The one leading to the old sewer main. Blow the emergency valve. Let it spill into the city drainage."
"That attracts them," Boyd warned. "Pumping a thousand kilos of scent into the sewers? It's a dinner bell for every crawler within five miles."
"Ring it," I said. "Better we fight them outside than drown in them inside."
Boyd hesitated, then pulled the lever.
CLUNK-HISS.
A shudder ran through the floor plates. Deep below us, a valve opened. The level of the black sludge dropped an inch, then two, as it was purged into the dark underbelly of East St. Louis.
The smell intensified for a second—a raw blast of rot—before slowly dissipating as the ventilation fans kicked into overdrive.
Pete wiped bile from his chin and looked up at me with terrified eyes.
"We fixed it?" he rasped.
"We bought time," I said. "Get a hose. Scrub the grate. If I see one speck of rust, you go in the tank."
I turned and walked toward the stairs.
We hadn't fixed anything. We had just moved the problem.
The Command Deck.
06:30 Hours.
The holographic map table glowed green, matching the sky.
I stood over the 5-State Region projection. The red dots of the hostile territories burned like measles on the landscape.
Helen was sitting in the corner, smoking. The smoke drifted through the green light, looking like poison gas.
"Travis is stable," she said, before I could ask. "But he's cold. Seventy-six degrees. His kidneys are processing toxins faster than he can piss them out. I have him on dialysis, but the machine is old. The filters are dirty."
"How long?" I asked.
"Ten days," Helen said. "Maybe eight if he fights. If he exerts himself? Two."
"He's a Tank," I said. "He fights. That's what he does."
"He's a dying man," Helen snapped. "He needs rest. He needs clean blood. He doesn't need you using him as a battering ram."
"I don't have a battering ram," I said. "I have Travis."
I zoomed in on the map.
Sector 1 was a pulsing blue dot in a sea of grey.
We were full. The barracks were full. The food stores were at capacity thanks to the Scavenger Compact. The Gutter was full.
We had optimized ourselves into a corner.
"We have to expand," I said.
"We just secured the perimeter," Helen argued. "We barely survived the siege. Now you want to stretch our lines?"
"Expand or explode," I said. "You smelled the air downstairs. We are at maximum density. If we don't bleed off some pressure—if we don't find a place to put the bodies and the resources—we suffocate. Literally."
I tapped a location on the map.
It was 8 kilometers south. A cluster of white cylinders next to the Mississippi River.
RIVERSIDE GRAIN SILO.
"It's abandoned," I said. "Structurally sound. Reinforced concrete. It has industrial dryers and massive storage capacity. We can convert it into a biomass processing plant. A satellite outpost."
"It's eight klicks away," Boyd said, his blue eyes analyzing the terrain data. "Through the ruins."
"It's worse than that," Yana said.
She stepped out of the shadows. She was wearing a loose sweatshirt to hide the anomaly in her stomach, but I could see the tension in her stance.
She pointed to the violet smear on the map that covered the South Sector.
"It's Zealot territory," Yana said. "Prophet Eclipse controls everything south of the railyard. If we take the Silo, we're planting a flag in his backyard."
"Good," I said. "I owe him a bullet."
"You shot him in the chest yesterday," Helen said. "He laughed."
"I shot him with a pistol," I said. "Next time, I use the turret."
I looked at the map. The Grain Silo was perfect. High ground. Thick walls. Deep basements for storage.
If we took it, we could offload the biomass processing. We could clear the air in Sector 1. We could grow.
"You want to split our forces," Helen said, standing up. She crushed her cigarette on the floor. "With Travis dying? With zombies learning how to avoid tripwires? With the sky turning green and God knows what spawning out there?"
"Yes," I said.
"It's suicide."
"It's math," I said.
I activated Decay Sight.
I looked at the structural integrity of our own base. The wireframe overlay appeared in my vision.
The Eastern Wall—the one we had patched with the dump truck and bone concrete—was glowing orange.
`[INFRASTRUCTURE STRAIN: 87%.]`
`[MATERIAL FATIGUE: HIGH.]`
`[EXPANSION REQUIRED.]`
The patch was degrading. The acid from the Pus-Bomber had weakened the foundation. The dump truck plug was rusting through.
If we took another wave like the last one, the wall would crumble.
"We aren't a fortress anymore," I said. "We're a pressure cooker. And the lid is rattling."
I looked at Yana.
"Get the scout team," I ordered. "You, me, Ronnie. Six Nulls. We move in twenty minutes."
"Daylight recon?" Yana asked.
"The green sky messes with their vision," I said. "They're sluggish in the morning. We hit the road before the sun burns off the fog."
"And Travis?" Helen asked. "Who protects the base if the big gun is in a coma?"
"Travis stays," I said. "Boyd has the turret. And we have the fear."
I checked the load on my Fang .45.
"Nobody attacks us today," I said. "They're all too busy staring at the sky wondering why the world didn't end."
`[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: QUEST UPDATED.]`
`[OBJECTIVE: SEIZE SATELLITE TERRITORY.]`
`[TARGET: RIVERSIDE GRAIN SILO.]`
`[REWARD: BIOMASS CAPACITY +500%.]`
"We move," I said. "Pack light. We aren't coming back until we own it."
FOUNDRY PROTOCOL - DAY 31
SECTOR 1 (JACK MONROE) █████████░ 9/10 Nodes
RANK: 172 (Phase 2)
STATUS: CRITICAL STRAIN
Infrastructure: Gutter Clogged (Vented)
Objective: Expand to Riverside Silo (8km South)
Threats: Zealot Territory, Structure Fatigue
Next Event: Farmland Recon