Survival Bunker System Developer

Ten Thousand

Getting the information about apocalypse survivors was easy. All Caleb did was write a post on his blog indicating that he wanted survivors of the apocalypse to fill in their particulars on a website he newly created for contact tracing purposes and thousands of applications came flooding within the first day.

Although the system developer was an atheist, he knew the bible had a story about a man called Noah who built an ark to save two animals of each kind before the Great Flood. Right now, Caleb felt like Noah.

The name list for those residing within New York City alone was at least twenty pages long. Caleb gave it a few days and already, he received twenty thousand applications with more coming in. Alan anticipated that Caleb would be troubled over choosing the right people to save so left his foster son with a word of advice to save the ones he could reach so that they can save the others out of his reach.

Following Alan’s advice, Caleb narrowed the list to only a thousand for now. Those who were too old to move or too young to contribute were automatically excluded. The ones that remained were screened according to their answers to the free write up introducing themselves and their hopes for humanity.

Jeremy sat beside his owner and looked through the answers with a disinterested look. So far, most of the people who answered the last question about their hope for humanity didn’t look promising. Everyone who answered that they hope humanity could be safe and tide through the ghoul apocalypse. Not only was the answer depressing, but the skills that these people wrote also weren’t anything Caleb needed or wanted. If they weren’t cowards, these people were simply too self-centred to be any good to include them in the bunker of ten thousand.

For the first time in his life, Caleb finally understood why humanity was doomed. Not everybody was like the janitor and engineers who chose to remain in the water treatment plant. Most people aren’t selfless enough to give their lives and efforts for humanity and the greater good. Suddenly, he didn’t feel enthusiastic about securing the water and electricity for these selfish people living in the city.

He could understand if the old and young were unable to contribute much but he couldn’t understand the mentality of those who were capable of working and walking. Why didn’t they put in more effort to turn the situation around? The army did their best and eradicated a lot of ghouls during their search for Dr Rockmiller. It wouldn’t be difficult for the survivors in subway bunkers to organise patrol teams to take care of the remaining threats and creating a system so that everyone can survive better in the apocalypse. Instead, most of the subway shelter survivors just remained hidden and shoved the responsibility of scouting for food to the unluckiest person in the bunker. They didn’t even go out to collect the help packages despite Caleb’s advice and sat there waiting for salvation to be delivered to their laps. Most of them who filled in the form had access to technology which meant that they weren’t very poor and were educated enough to understand English. Yet, it disgusts Caleb so much that these people only filled in the form because they expected someone else to save them instead of helping themselves first.

Of the twenty thousand people that signed up for contact tracing in New York City, Caleb only shortlisted twenty people for the bunkers. This couldn’t go on. He needed to visit bunkers in person to scout the ten thousand chosen ones. In fact, Caleb revised his selection criteria. He was going to set up a hierarchy and put up a recruitment notice within the city. What Caleb needed the most right now isn’t to level the system up or create more automated assistants. What he needed most was a reliable team.

After drafting the recruitment notice, Caleb called Alan up to discuss with the experienced engineer his plan.

“Hi, Alan. Sorry to call you when you’re so busy. I have a new idea about choosing the ten thousand bunker residents that I’d like your opinion about.”

Alan smiled. Caleb didn’t usually consult him about matters that weren’t work-related. He was also very independent so Alan didn’t have much to worry about. Only when human relationships are involved will Caleb seek his foster father’s advice. Alan was betting that this Caleb was approaching him for advice on the latter matter.

“Did the answers of those who applied for the contact tracing disappoint you?” he asked before Caleb could say anything more.

The system developer paused. “How did you know?” If he didn’t live with Alan Gomez for years, he would think that the system engineer could read minds.

Did Caleb think he was it difficult to figure out? Alan laughed heartily. For someone as intelligent as Caleb, he could be rather dense at times. Alan didn’t need to know Caleb from birth to know how predictable he could be. Caleb might not have a fixed schedule or routine but his thoughts always revolved around the same patterns. Once Alan knew which direction Caleb tended to head towards, it wasn’t difficult to know what he was going to do. After Alan gave Caleb a word of advice to select people who would contribute towards humanity, he knew his foster son was going to come to him again.

“Humans are predictable. Not everyone out there is like the gentlemen here. I mean, take a look at the leaders of our country. They’ve all gone into hiding and left the survivors to fend for themselves. The powerful army that we have, sit safely at the borders in the name of guarding the city. I honestly cannot think fondly of humans In general.”

Caleb didn’t comment. Alan was right. Not everyone was like Lewis, Jackson or Paul. Even in his previous life, he had been busy trying to do his best so that everyone could make it out of the apocalypse alive. However, there will always be those few people who simply took things for granted and bullied others for personal benefits. Not all humans were self-motivated. Most humans are sheep who follow the flock. If Caleb wanted a change, he had to create a huge wave so that the lost lambs would follow his plan and save themselves under his flag.

“I understand. In that case, I will be recalling all my automated assistants. I’m not scouting for survivors, I’m going to make them step up and come to me. Also, once you have completed fixing the distillation chamber and connecting the water to the city’s pipelines can you let me know? I would like to withhold water and electricity for a while after the government announces that it will be cut.”

His foster father grinned. “You’re giving them a reason to be motivated huh? Sounds good! Just let my guys know when you want it back on. We can control which areas to supply water and electricity. The guys at the power plant have given me a map and the keys to the control room. They’re a lovely bunch.”

Caleb agreed and ended the call. Now that he knew what he wanted to do, the system engineer summoned the system for a grand recall of his automated assistants by batches. He was going to make them multitask and needed time to modify some designs to gather the ten thousand bunker residents that he required.

>>Xxx Destiny Aitsuji xxX<<

The big day was finally here. Now that the city was left to its own devises, the casualty counts rose once again and the second wave of ghouls could be seen taking over the streets. Caleb knew that it was a calculating move but he honestly did not feel sorry for the thousands of victims who suffered in the second ghoul wave. He stopped supplying them with food and water but kept the weapons coming so that the shelter survivors can help themselves.

The results were obvious. Unhappiness rose and so did the true nature of humans. Knowing that help wasn’t coming, the survivors who were fed up of the unfair treatment volunteered to fight and left the camps. The assholes who thought that they could bully others to do their dirty work for them were now treated harshly. Some were banned from shelters while others were starved for not contributing their share to the shelters.

Caleb smiled. It was about time for him to make a huge statement. His blog followers were now at its peak and Caleb decided that it was time to make the Statue of Liberty disappear. His automated assistants were also armed with a new function to advertise his recruitment posters with a broadcasting system. For survivors interested in applying, Caleb armed his automated assistants with portable terminals so that survivors can register on the spot. Caleb would review the applications from his laptop and select the successful applicants before assigning them to the bunkers. Every successful applicant will receive a letter informing them where to go to and what to do if Caleb selected them. The application form was also edited so that Caleb was able to contact applicants via his automated assistants. It didn’t matter if it was a bunker location, a phone number or even a meet up point that the applicant frequented. Caleb had the resources to search the entire New York City so he would make full use of that ability to keep his identity as mysterious as possible.

The aim was to recruit survivors who wanted to fight for a change and provide them with the means to do so. At the same time, Caleb wanted to remain away from their conflicts and observe them from behind the scenes. He will monitor them through the bunker systems and automated assistants to assess them from time to time and ban trouble makers to invite new bunker residents if needed. For those who Caleb found to be capable, he would promote them according to their skills to fit the position of bunker managers and patrol group leaders. At the moment, he knew that he would be choosing a special team shortly for research and development, farming, logistics and medical support when the situation stabilised a little more.

After two seconds of deliberation, Caleb hit the publish button for the latest blog post. The post wasn’t anything special. All he did was include some of the new information about Helen’s research into his ‘ghoul observations’ and added a line of announcement recruiting individuals who were not afraid to lay their lives down for a change to fight against ghouls and end the apocalypse even without the government’s help. The recruitment notice was only targeted at those within New York and many of Caleb’s overseas viewers complained about not having the opportunity to travel over because all flights were cancelled.

The system developer felt slightly sorry for the overseas viewers who were also suffering and added an explanation in the comment section that there was a limit to the number of people he could recruit. To justify his choice of location so as not to appear overly suspicious as a man who resided in New York City, Caleb posted a lengthy list of proof that PXE22 originated from America and from New York City to be precise. He gave a lot of theories about how PXE22 originated from animal ghoul carriers that were later transferred to humans. He pulled out videos of aggressive birds and rats from before the apocalypse to support his claims before finishing what he had to say.

The drama that happened after Caleb made his statement escalated wildly and even the government became involved when the media blew it up. Many countries now had reason to blame America for the disaster and demanded compensation. They also wanted to know why such an experiment was carried out and where the source was from.

Too busy to prepare for war against the other countries, the government announced that they were cutting funds to New York City.

[Breaking News: America’s President announces that they will be cutting power and water supply to New York City to divert that budget into care packages for survivors still living in the city.]

The push feed of the sudden news three hours after Caleb’s blog post made the system developer wonder if he had cornered the government and the people of New York City too much with his influence. It was true that he was hoping for such a result but he thought that it would take a week before he forced the government’s hands and make the people desperate enough to fulfil his system levelling criteria.

Now that everything was snowballing, Caleb decided to put off preparing Jeremy’s premium tuna for a while to look through the recruitment applications pouring in. His cat was too pampered these days. It wouldn’t hurt for Jeremy to go back to eating kibble for a week.