Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

Looking at Admiral Burke face to face for the first time, he looked to be the same age as Oscar but from a quick look and using my own judgemental-ness for a bit, he looked like one of those dads that would wear white New Balances, Khaki shorts, shades as a headband, and some random-ass shirt with a collar—and would mow his lawn at 6:30 in the morning and would always overcook our burgers at family cookouts despite asking us multiple times on how would we want them.

Additionally, he looked to be someone who would get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep every day but would perform a fucking dead drop on his father-daughter dance.

Looks-wise, he was rocking a full head of grey hair, a full beard trimmed nicely, light blue eyes, sun-tanned patches on his face plus a few wrinkles, and a very dignified and proper look befitting of an Admiral.

But yeah, as I pulled out a cold one from my cooler by my feet, I noticed that his ring finger had this particular mark that would've said he was married before. It was one of those things where someone who would always jog or run in the morning while wearing their watch takes it off after some time.

'Not the time to ask that or my business…'

"What's this?" the Admiral asked as he was looking at the cold bottle in front of him.

"Oh, this? I'm not charging you for it now so you'll owe me big time later."

"Hah! Is that so?" He chuckled as he twisted the cap open.

"That's how interest works, right?"

He took a big gulp much to everyone's envy, "Ah~ That hits the spot. Shouldn't be doing this in the morning but damn, I wouldn't mind getting hustled every now and again for this… It's been a while… It's been a while…"

At this point, it seemed like everyone was just watching what the Admiral was doing—though Ella was still deep in her nose with the food I gave her—but no one expected the words that came out of the Admiral's mouth next:

"You know what? For this beer you gave me, I'll give you the chance to completely obliterate one of your enemies with a… What do young folk call them? Ah… Drive-bys? Is that it? We'll just visit them with a few of my F-18s and problem gone. What do you think?"

Hearing him say that, I kept a straight face that slowly turned to amusement when the people behind him either spit out their food or almost had a heart attack. However, seeing him look at me with the same expression as earlier told me he was half-joking or was just simply waiting for my response.

But I just chuckled as I glanced down before looking back at him.

"Something funny, kid?" he said as he took another sip of his beer.

I shook my head, "We're starting with this, huh?"

"Eh. We're only here a few days and we are letting you babysit the people we couldn't take care of. Seems fair, no?"

"By erasing a part of the map?"

"You know the drill."

"Sorry, but no. I only work small-time."

"Shame—"

"You don't understand, Admiral. It's for a reason."

"Do tell."

"Alright. I don't know if you know already and you're just fucking with me but we don't have those mutations you have in your cities you had to send nuclear weapons over and even if you're just gonna drop a few missiles or bore large fucking holes in my enemies' territory, I'm sorry but that's just a—pun intended—a nuclear option."

"It solves the problem, no?"

"I guess that's how you folks really operate, huh? Doing it that way is just gonna create more problems to fix afterward."

"What do you suggest though?"

"Hmm. I just want you to let me handle my own shit because I don't know if you're that rich to not care about resources to go around but it's a problem for us if we just keep destroying everything to achieve our goals. We can make our shit as well but turning some perfectly good facilities into rubble don't help us as well.

For example, wouldn't it be better to get the maximum spoils in a ship you were just in a dogfight with including the ship you just took out yourself? What good does that do if you just sink all that metal in the ocean?"

Admiral Burke was a little confused, "Why would I want another ship if I have the best one?"

"See? That's where we are different. You only want the best one, I want fucking everything."

"Won't it be hard to manage everything at once?"

"It is. But that's what I'm good at. It grinds my gears and slowly makes me insane but it's also doing the opposite at the same time too. Kinda weird but it works for some reason. I already have a fucking lot on my plate but I'm taking on this huge project too."

He shook his head, "Doing that will burn you out, kid. Just saying. Take it from me—"

"A-ha! That's why you need multiple ships. The best one could do all the work but not all of them. You need some small vessels or fishing boats to do simple work and specialized ones like a speedboat or a submarine to min-max everything at the same time. I dunno if you could get that but that's how it goes."

He nodded pensively as he chuckled, "Ah~ I kinda get it, sure. That analogy— did you think of it just now?"

"Yeah? Don't ask for too much though. That's all I got at the moment."

"Hah! Shame," then he placed the empty bottle in front of me, "Can I have a refill?"

"If I gave you another one, does that mean you'll destroy two enemies for me? And does it change with the beverage?"

The Admiral suddenly looked intrigued, "What else do you have though? And why aren't you drinking with me?"