Mutagen

Mark stood there for a while browsing through the internet with his phone but as the mall's Wi-Fi was too slow, he wasted most of that time waiting for the pages to load. Still, he found good information about the outbreak albeit little.

As he got fed up with the slow loading time, and the girls were not done yet, he decided to go to the shoe store that he entered earlier. He rummaged around trying to find some kind of shoes in the storage and he was not disappointed.

After looking around and opening boxes to boxes, he found the stack of boxes that had the kind of shoes he was looking for, a pair combat boots. He found one pair with the right size and immediately switched into it and set his black chuck taylor aside. There were different styles and materials the pairs of boots had in that stack but the one he chose were a pair of synthetic combat boots that had straps instead of leather ones and those that had strings. He chose this pair as it would be easier to wear and clean.

He then found another small pair when he felt someone approaching but he did not raise his guard up expecting who the person was.

When Mark turned around, he saw Mei standing by the door and the two college girls behind her who wore bitter smiles for some reason.

Looking at Mei, he could only feel two things, amazement and lament. Mei was now wearing grey hooded long sleeves with a denim vest with several pockets over it, a black above knee length black denim shorts, black stockings and black below knee-high socks. As for her feet, she was now wearing strap sandals. There was also the gel plaster on her cheek. He felt amazed as her appearance really suit her despite being within what he advised them to choose. He lamented because she would likely face the greatest obstacles the most beautiful women in every story suffers in an apocalypse.

Beautiful girls were beautiful no matter what they wear after all.

The two college girls also changed girls also changed from their dirty blood stained uniforms. Paula was wearing a buttoned denim jacket with a crimson hood and a denim skirt that paired with the hood's color. She wore black tight leggings under her skirt and back cotton socks.

Ange on the other hand wore a grey jacket draped over her black ladies tank top inside and a dark green cargo pants. Both college girls also looked good on their new clothes. The only thing that was out of place was that the two were still wearing their school shoes.

Mark thought that there would mostly be fashion shoes in a female oriented clothing store so he beckoned the three inside. He then gave the female styled combat boots he found to Mei and helped her wear it. Ange and Paula also rummaged at the stacks of shoeboxes and found the shoes they liked. Ange chose a brown leather combat boots while Paula found a grey calf length leather combat boots for her to wear.

When the three girls were all dressed up, Mark could not help but ask himself if these girls were going to a fashion show and was not experiencing a zombie apocalypse.

Mark wanted to return to the TechZone and prepare but Ange kept pestering him on bringing her to the sports store where he got the sports armor. He pointed at the bag she was now carrying as he knew that the contents of that bag were the armor she was wearing earlier. She then said that she wanted to get one for Paula and Mark could only bring them there reluctantly.

Unfortunately for Ange, there are no other armors that were the same as they had. The only ones they found were common motocross armors which did not seem to catch her attention.

What they found though was something that got Paula's interest. It was a compound bow. From Ange, Mark learned that Paula took an archery class during high school.

Mark started to become suspicious about the background of these two girls. One was an experienced fighter while the other had taken archery classes before. Those were things that could not be found on common college students who were attending a state university in this country.

Before leaving the store, Paula took the bow and bagged several sets of arrows while Ange took a new bat and replaced the one Mark gave her. Mark on the other hand found a metal javelin so he took it with interest.

Mark looked at Mei, there seemed to be nothing here that would suit her to use as weapon. With a spark of idea in his mind, he remembered the tools and equipment at the rooftop. He then started bagging several things under the confused of gazes of the girls.

As Mark already wasted too much time, he now wanted to proceed with his plans. He returned inside the TechZone with then girls in tow.

When he entered, he saw that there was a distinct separation within the survivors. As he did not really think that it would affect him too much, he decided to ignore it. He was more concerned about the attention they were gathering. Almost all of the survivors were looking at their group. Amazement and lecherous gazes towards the girls and stares filled with envy and respect towards him.

'Just what are these people getting at?' He thought that time.

Proceeding with his plans, he told Ange and Paula to ask about the passwords of the available Wi-Fi and internet connections his phone could detect which the two immediately followed.

After sending off the two, Mark brought Mei into the largest PC Store in the TechZone and occupied it as he saw no one within the surviving employees had the logo of this store on their uniforms.

He gathered the best laptop units of the shop and set the units up for his use. Mei helped him with what he was doing, though it was not much, but at least Mark did not have to do what she already finished doing.

Mark also gathered flash drives and external hardrives with the largest storage capacities and put the items over the table he was going to use. Then, he looked for the best model of phone, tablet and video camera he could find outside.

Before he could even finish setting up, Ange and Paula entered the shop with Bernard following them. The girls gave the list of passwords and left leaving Bernard behind.

Apparently, he was there to apologize about his son's actions which almost brought them to danger. Mark accepted the apology as there was no actual damage done and Bernard left afterwards. Still, Mark decided that he would not have anything to do with Joseph anymore. If Joseph did not adapt to the harsh changes around him, it was likely that he would drive someone to death and Mark did not want to be included in those.

After setting up, he saw that Mei was dozing off as she sat on a chair behind the counter though she still tried her best to stay awake. He could not blame her if she was tired as it was a very awful day for her. He stood and looked around the store for something she could sleep on and found a folding bed inside the storage of the shop.

He had already seen some storage that had at least one folding bed inside before so it was not new to him and also understood why those are there. It was likely that employees use these beds to take a nap inside the storage rooms during their breaks. He then let Mei sleep behind the counter away from the sight of the people outside the store.

Everything was set up and Mark could finally start doing what he wanted to do. He sat down on the chair in front of the laptop he set as the server and started working. He sat there for a long time and only stood up a few times to check up on Mei as she slept and stretch his legs that were getting numb.