Hans and his army rested at night, letting the fatigue escape their bodies for the day. Those in guard duty patrolled on the first floor, peeking outside through the gaps from time to time.
The increase in troop count allowed Hans to assign two more conscripts at the back entrance and another two at the fire exit. Boring as it was, the silence was much better than constant gunfire and sudden emergencies or incidents.
Ravi and Kenji shared the same sentiment. They strolled across the familiar large hallway, trying to ease the drowsiness welling inside their bodies. The floors, dyed in black blood before, had been cleaned and gleamed softly under the white lights.
The disordered counters were arranged into a new formation—barricades that would hinder the zombies in case they managed to tear through the first layer.
Kenji yawned, scratching his eye. He was one of the first conscripts that the Commander has trained, yet he was holed up here most of the time after the apartment was cleared and secured.
Ravi was the same too, his fingers hardly containing the irritability of being unable to pull the MP5's trigger while aiming the muzzle at those zombies.
"The team encountered a large horde this afternooon," he stretched his neck and arms, looking at Kenji's bored face.
"Yeah, I heard so too." Kenji nodded and shook his head, "The Commander said that someone would replace us here tomorrow. Save your energy. We might get to clear an apartment without knowing it."
Ravi chuckled, "Will the Commander let us use our guns for that?"
Hans had been very strict about gun usage due to its great ability to produce noise in a large area.
"He will." Kenji patted Ravi's shoulder, "The first shot has already been fired. It wouldn't be—"
"Kenji, Ravi! Come over here! I see movement!" A conscript soldier called out.
The duo frowned and tiptoed toward the position. Kenji shifted the cover and stretched out his neck.
A faint golden hue had already spawned at the distant eastern horizon. The colorful background shone upon these figures, forming their sillhouettes as they moved across the highway. The group advanced orderly, stopping from time to time.
"That thing is not infected." Ravi commented, his eyes narrowing at the scene.
"I'll call the squad leaders first." Kenji retreated and readied his gun. "Keep watch and avoid conflict with these people."
He rushed into the sixth floor, knocked on the first unit's door three times, then saluted.
"Conscript Kenji Watanabe requesting permission to enter, sir! I have something urgent to report!"
Dmitri, hearing the commotion, jumped out of bed, donned his uniform quickly as he could, and opened the door.
"What is it? An emergency?"
"We have sighted upon an unknown group of people nearby, sir."
"From which direction?"
"From the right, sir."
Dmitri frowned, remembering those survivors at the diner whom he sighted from the rooftop days ago.
Have they gone impatient? No, the gunfire yesterday might have attracted them.
He decided on a course of action and looked at Kenji, "Understood. Go back downstairs and wait for me to arrive. I will handle it. You are dismissed."
"Roger, sir!" Kenji saluted before he turned around and jogged on the way down.
Dmitri was about to leave when Adrian's door opened and the newcomer walked out, laying his back on the doorframe.
"Need some help? I can take point at the rooftop," he shrugged, forming a smile on his face.
"Sure. A bird's eye view isn't bad." Dmitri didn't reject and was actually glad that this slightly annoying acquiantance offered their assistance.
"See you from above." Adrian gave him a light salute and bolted upstairs. Dmitri watched Adrian's back and left, arriving at the fourth floor.
He knocked on each army soldier's room, calling their names and having them convene on the corridor.
"We've got company. Gather your members and assemble in the first floor. You have two minutes."
"Copy, sir!"
The apartment building buzzed as several conscripts and army soldiers marched down, donning their uniforms well and carrying their guns on their hands.
"Situation report." Dmitri walked down the aisle, looking for Kenji.
"They are almost near, sir. Shall we greet them outside?"
"I'll take the lead. Ryan, your squad will cover us. Kenji, Ravi, come with me. Everyone else, take your positions."
The soldiers moved orderly, covering behind the barricades and eyes locking forward. They just had experienced a battle yesterday and their muscles were still taut from the exhilaration.
"The officer looks cautious. Is it another horde?" One of the conscripts murmured.
Dmitri tapped his comm beads and spoke, "Adrian, how's the view outside?"
"You've got company, indeed, but they look afraid of you if that's what you want to hear."
"Survivors?"
"More than just that. A group of them, 10 or more." Adrian slowly investigated the group's composition with his binoculars. "Some might be professionals. Do be careful with words or you'll scare them off."
"Copy." Dmitri took note of Adrian's remarks and nodded to Kenji and Ravi to open the door.
Dmitri stepped out of the apartment—body straight, hands on his back. He stared at the view in front of him, fighting the coldness of the morning breeze. His clothes fluttered under the wind, looking very ethereal towards the converging survivors.
They immediately stopped upon the sight of several armed men walking out in an orderly fashion. The guns in these soldier's hands made the survivors shiver in fear.
"Stop, stop! Sir, officer... uhm, we're survivors! From the diner, yes, from the diner!"
The bespectacled young man took the lead, gulping as he shouted—breaking his voice in the process. He felt very confident of his approach before but now, he couldn't make a sense of everything and what to say next.
Dmitri frowned, caught off guard by the sudden humorous exchange.
"Who are you people, and why have you come here? Answer me properly, or my subordinates will not hesitate to shoot you down."
The bespectacled young man's body tensed up. If he messed up, it would be the end of any cooperation between the soldiers and them. Worst, they'd die.
"We... we are survivors from the gas diner over there," he pointed at the gas station right of the apartment building with a small restaurant near it.
"I am Cody Black, I'm an undergraduate student... uhm, I studied Electrical Engineering..."
"Get to the point. What are you doing here? Why have you come?" Dmitri interjected. The surrounding soldiers raised their guns' muzzle at his questions.
The survivors huddled, placing all of their hopes on the five people leading them.
The middle-aged man part of the five leaders frowned and stared at the bespectacled young man.
"You fool. Look, these soldiers are getting agitated."
"Wha—what do you want me to do? I'm not very good at this…" the young man lamented. Right, he was great when it came to calculations and reasoning, but to put them into words himself for others to hear wasn't a skill he had practiced.
"Then why did you stubbornly want us to approach them then? Are you looking for death?!" The middle-aged man gripped his fists in anger, wanting to strangle this idiot.
"Sir Marco, please calm down. Hope is not lost yet. Let me talk to them." A young woman wearing a fitting white nurse outfit stepped forward.
"Lira…" Marco and young man muttered at the same time.
"Okay, but please be careful." Marco nodded, sighing at their plight. He stepped back and glared at the young man before shifting his eyes back to the soldiers.
Meanwhile, Dmitri calmly watched as the leaders argued by themselves. However, he had all the time he needed for them to come up with whatever they could come up with.
Then, he noticed that one of the survivors replaced that young man. Her blue eyes calmly met theirs, her beauty radiating such confidence to meet their suppression.
"Officers, please do not be aggressive to us. All we want is to find a shelter, and we just happened to encounter your group."
Her angelic voice somewhat broke the tension between the two parties, making everyone who heard her lower their guards.
However, Dmitri was unaffected, and so were the army soldiers.
"And you think we'd just take in anyone?" Dmitri questioned, wanting to extract more information from them. He wanted to know their stance, their perspective, anything that could let him assess their loyalty, usability, and value to the base overall.
"Officer, I am a professional nurse, and I am experienced in treating wounds and injuries," she explained, then pointed at Cody beside her, "You've heard him, he's an electrical engineer student. Surely his expertise in electricity would be favorable to you?"
"We also have a cook from the diner who survived. She can feed you all with her great skill."
"We also have a mathematician here, Mr. Marco."
"Our survivor group also has…"
The young nurse continued explaining until her voice became hoarse. Dmitri listened to all of what she said and contemplated.
"Okay, stop explaining," he interjected, forcing the girl to close her mouth. "Soldiers, lower your guns."
The survivor group sighed in relief after hearing his words. Now that the immediate threat was gone, the next step still made them nervous.
"We'll take you in, but we shall check your conditions first. If somebody is infected, we will have no choice but to kick them out. Understood?"
"Yes, officer! Thank you, thank you so much! We'll cooperate with you..." the young nurse nodded and looked back to her subordinates.
The bespectacled young man was embarrassed, his cheeks turning red, but he didn't take it to heart. He knew that he made a mistake somewhere but now wasn't the time to ponder over it.
The soldiers approached them, leading them into the entrance and took them inside the apartment building. They were held at an area before the soldiers checked them individually.
"Female soldiers, check those girls. Men, inspect these people carefully." Dmitri ordered.
Selene, Nadia, Elise and the other women troops approached their targets and inspected their bodies and belongings with care and softness.
Meanwhile, Alexei grinned and tapped the bespectacled young man's body, watching out for suspicious things. He handled the inspection so roughly that the young man resented him inwardly.
Damn you, soldier!
The inspection lasted for a while before the survivors were held up in the same area once again, waiting for Dmitri's analysis and decision.
"Some scars, injuries, a lot of starving people." Dmitri frowned, glancing at the report that Ryan gave to him.
"Sir, where shall we place these survivors?" Ryan asked.
The fifth to the third floor were reserved for the troops.
The eighth and ninth floors were off limits for now, though Hans was reconsidering their use for other matters.
"Put those five leaders at the sixth floor. As for the rest, scatter them across the second floor. I will report this to the Commander." Dmitri massaged his temples, opting for a temporary solution of this problem.
Hans once mentioned to him that the survivors will be placed on a different apartment, but since the meteorite shard hadn't been dealt with, they could only be put together with the soldiers in the first apartment building.
"If you have nothing else to report to me, you can go now. Dismissed."
"Yes sir!" Ryan saluted and left Dmitri's room. Though it was quite awkward to act militarily inside a private apartment unit, they had no choice but to deal with it for now.
Dmitri took a deep breath and stood up, realizing that it was almost 7 AM now.
"The Commander said that he will go over the third apartment building today. The reports for yesterday was postponed until now. Even the gold bar hasn't been given to him. The Commander must have been quite exhausted."
He pondered while picking up a few stacks of paper on the side of his desk. The papers were filled with notes, reports about the horde incident yesterday and the short exploration within the manager's office building and basement.
"The Commander will be very pleased about this."