Then again, the ce I wanted to be in and where I thought we would be in the first ce, the Marine Base, wasn''t in any of the coves I listed—and was just part of Subic Bay, nothing less—but aside from what a naval base could offer, it was also where a shipyard and this ce''s power grid.


    It was the only thing the US owned after they gave us everything they took, but yeah, they had now taken sce in what they had left plus extra.


    And going back to our current situation, Oscar just introduced me to this man named Mitch Davis. He looked to be a few years or a decade younger than the old man but he didn''t look like he was retired but more like… tired. He was of average height, caucasian, short dark blonde hair, blue eyes, cool messy beard, but with a slight favor on his left leg as he was standing.


    "Here''s the kid I was talking about First Lieutenant— err~ Mitch. Whatever works…"


    The dude gave me a slightly surprised look as he offered a handshake, "Ah~ Pleasure to meet you. I now understand the nickname, heh."


    I returned his tight grip with a smile, "Pleasure—"


    "Ah— Strong grip, Jesus! I was just teasing, alright? I heard you''re working with the Colonel?"


    I chuckled as I pointed at Oscar, "This confusing-ass piece of shit?"


    Oscar had to cut in, "Woah! Woah! What''s with the sudden hostility?! We did clear the base, alright?! And you did see us where we told you to drive through."


    "Still misleading as fuck—"


    Mitch chuckled, "Be gentle with the old folk, alright? It happens. Don''t even get me started with the Captain."


    "Who?"


    "Ah— Captain Priest— Umm, Stan D. Priest to be exact. He''s with everyone else in the Marine Base where you thought you''d being to… I''ll apologize in Oscar''s stead for the confusion but we do need your help. Your old man says you''re great at that."


    "Great at what?" I replied as I nced at Oscar.


    Mitch waved his index finger around, "This… This whole thing… I have ns of my own but I want to see you work. We''ve only secured this Main Harbor but there''s much to be done since we just reimed this ce yesterday—"


    "Excuse me, what?"


    "We— We reimed this ce… yesterday?"


    "Uh-huh," I answered with a fake smile as I was subconsciously letting out a murderous aura directed at Oscar.


    "Something wrong?"


    "N-Nothing… Can you give me some info on what went down yesterday?"


    At that point, he asked us to talk in their office instead while I let my group help around the area. Not only would it make everyone else''s job easier, but my group could get a glean on things from their own perspective.


    And since this was a newly created outpost, there was lots of work to be donepared to the Marine base which was supposedly up and running "just fine" as Oscar and Mitch coined themselves.


    Matthew looked like he had a few things to say, but he decided to talk to his daughters first while Lois caught up with his brother, Jared.


    But yeah, as I was informed, they started their raid by closing off the bridge that would lead to this area from the big residential area we just passed through before heading straight to that other bridge where a flour mill supposedly had an ident.


    After that, they went straight for this ce, taking down anything and everything that shouldn''t be moving, and with the help of the gear Oscar gave them and the ones they uncovered from the Marine Base, they were already closing off the area, burning off the bodies, and looting all the other buildings closeby.


    They haven''t fully checked everything else in this area—aside frompletely clearing it off dead people, outside the Main Harbor included—and their current problem was creating a full inventory so they could go forward with much better fortification and move on with more exploration.


    "What about the Marine Base? Are there any issues on that end?"


    Mitch answered, "Well, to be honest, I''d prefer this harbor because you can just iste it—like what we''re doing with by closing off the bridges—but that ce has far more important facilities and our families are there. It does have high walls and we have people that could patrol all around but as I said earlier, I prefer this harborpared to the Marine Base.


    As long as we close off those bridges, our people could live in much nicer beds because of the beautiful hotels here instead of the bunkers that I''m very much used to."


    "How many people are there anyways?"


    "Well~ We''re around this number initially but more and more of us came at the same spot so we''re 500-ish strong, mostly. A good number of us are Marines, ex-Marines, able-bodied civilians and whatnot though we do have children and older folk we have to take care of.


    Some of them were not even rted to us but we were tasked to take care of them since most of us were still driving off the dead from our soil."


    "..."


    "I do believe that more of us will arrive in theing days because we''re sessful in setting up, but as soon as we''ve established a working system andmunity plus a good rtionship with our neighbors, some of us will go back to fight while bringing back some people… depending on the circumstances."


    "What circumstances?"


    Mitch then turned to Oscar, "You haven''t told him yet?"


    "Told me what?"


    Oscar''s face was solemn as he looked at me, "I think it would be better if he hears it in person…"


    I had a bad feeling in my stomach, "Hear what, exactly?"


    Mitch let out a deep sigh as he rubbed the back of his neck, "Oh man… I didn''t think I''d be the one to tell you this but umm… Yeah… You guys had no fucking idea…"


    "What are you talking about?"


    "Everyone sent nukes—"


    "Hold up, wait a fucking—"


    "Kid. Let him finish, alright?" Oscar said with a somber tone.


    "As I was saying… Everyone, the whole world, decided to send nukes to every major city or cities in the countries where we''ve lost radio contact for the past three months—"


    "Wait—"


    "That includes New York, Boston, San Francisco, Miami… Cali, many, many more but—"


    I said with a dark tone, "Mitch."


    "Yeah—"


    "What about Japan?"


    The motherfucker replied without a fucking clue, "Oh, that ce? It went down early on so we sent them a few just to be sure— GACKKK!"


    "KID! KID! STOP— GODDAMIT, KID! LET GO OF HIM!"