My MCV and The Apocalypse

The heavy rain that was announced by the appearance of dark clouds 2 days before started in the middle of the night, and reached its full power in the morning.

Still, it was a pleasant morning for the inhabitant of the truck. The tension of the previous 2 days had disappeared. Liushi was greeted by a small hug and a kiss on the cheek by Xiaotian, and seeing this, Lu followed with a more pronounced hug of her own. She whispered in his ear that she was happy they had made up. Since they were all still in their thin sleepwear, it was quite stimulating. Liushi barely kept himself from getting hard, or letting his hands roam lower when he held them.

Unfortunatly for him, there was more important things to do than enjoy his time with the girls. With the new equipment promptly distributed, and the last instructions given to the rest of the group, the exploration team boarded their vehicles and left.

The Doomsday Ride was opening the way, towing the double trailer, with Lu scouting ahead using the drones in turn. It was also done to test their capabilities in bad weather. Zhang Hai and Sun Kun were in the middle, quite happy with their improved vehicle. Liushi, Zhuying and Qingping were at the rear in the Doomtrooper. All vehicle were keeping contact with each other with the hands-free radio.

"Isn't something strange going on?" Xiaotian asked after nearly an hour of travel.

"It's too calm" Lu replied. "There are nearly no zombies around."

"They are all indoor" stated Liushi, surprising everyone.

"They took shelter from the rain?" Qingoing asked, perplexed.

"Yes" was his short answer.

Just like he did in the giant hive, he had asked the Starseed to enhance his own vision by providing additional informations from its sensors through the optic nerve. Despite the low visibility and the lack of light in the buildings, he could easily see the infected inside as they passed. All the buildings with open doors had their ground floor packed with the zombies that would ususally be found in the streets. Some took refuge in narrows alleys

The sound of the rain muffled the noise of the engines, and the zombies only noticed them once they had passed. Only a few of them tried to pursue them, but unlike before, they weren't nearly as persistent.

"The zombies never tried to leave the streets before. They never sought shades to hide from the heat of the sun. At night, they were fine staying outdoor, even with the cold wind. That they have decided to take shelter from the bad weather, mean that they have gained, or regained, a sense of self-preservation."

The other in their respective vehicles glanced worriedly at the buildings they passed, and managed to catch glimpses as well. They gulped at the sight of the packed zombies within.

"Scary..." Sun Kun whispered, but everyone heard him.

At that time, the Starseed and the monitoring system detected a mutant beast sneaking toward their position. It was a mutant giant salamander. Before the outbreak, it was already one of the largest amphibian in the world, able to reach a size of 180cm for a weight of 50kg. As a mutant beast, it had reached 6m in lenght, with a weight of nearly 9 tons.

Needless to say, the group was awed by the creature shown on the monitors. A few instructions through the tablet, and the turret of the Doomtrooper fired at the head of the beast with its explosive rounds. A few seconds later and it was dead. 30 minutes later and they had harvested 6 tons of mutant beast meat. Liushi also gathered samples of all its organs, as they may discover some use for them. And of course, he got a new core.

They reached the area where the Black Market should be at the beginning of the aftenoon. They didn't know the exact location, so Liushi released all 3 drones at the same time to search for it. They found it after half an hour, and it took them a little less to reach it.

This time, it was the Doomtrooper that opened the way, towing the double trailer, followed by the reinforced camper SUV. The Doomsday Ride would stay outside, ready to provide some assistance. If needed be, it would drive through the whole settlement, using its plow to blast through anything on its path. Xiaotian may not have the heart to do so, but in a bind, Liushi could just use the Starseed to remotly control it. He had also prepared a few other surprises.

There were a lot of people gathered around the Black Market, taking shelter in improvised tents made with tarps and plastic covering. At the gate, there was a big sign above saying 'Lan County Trade Area'. Next to the gate were the bones of a mutant beast, most likely a dog. On each side of the gate were 2 ordinary burly people with menacing faces and equipped with machetes.

Places like the Black Market needed a powerfull person in charge, or the strong people would easily steal the goods of the weaker ones. It would be even worse since doomsday. There was need of a rule to restrict violence, and someone strong and respected enough to enforce it. But it wouldn't mean that the place was safe. As long as they didn't make a commotion, anything could happen at any time.

The road was too narrow for them to continue with the vehicles, they had to continue on foot. They searched for a good place to park the vehicles and stopped there. Xiaotian was staying in the truck, and Lu in the armored car. Liushi would go in with the 4 paranormals. Each of them had at least an armored vest and reinforced clothes. On top of that they had stylish raincoats.

Liushi's equipment was different from before. He had made a few modifications to be able to deal with physically enhanced paranormals. He was carrying some kind of backpack that had the others curious. He was also wearing a full helmet, with a wide and clear visor. His weapon of choice were a semi-automatic 12 gauge shotgun, a blade halfway between a dao and a wakizachi.

Zhang Hai was armed with a belt fed 3 barrels minigun. In places like the Dark Market, a show of force was necessary to avoid being attacked. And a minigun was certainly intimidating. He also had a full helmet. Sun Kun had a 9mm submachine gun. It was light enough to handle with one hand while using his ability with the other. Qingping was given butterfly swords and a 9mm pistol, while Zhuying had her sword and a .44 mag pistol. Aside from Zhang Hai, all of them had 2 spare magazines, and 2 grenades.

Despite the heavy rain, there was still some activity. With survival being so important, bad weather wasn't an excuse to stay iddle. They people at the stalls were ordinary survivors, with dirty and sometimes ragged clothing, pale and clearly malnourished. They mostly sold cigarettes and lighters, razors, daggers, some sanitary products, medecines without leaflets, condom, drugs, and even jewels.

Liushi was surprised to see that condoms seemed to be in good demand for paranormals, but after thinking about it, he realised that ordinary survivors didn't care because they could die the next day, while paranormals had the strenght to survive, and thus wary of catching deceases. They were also the ones buying 'luxury' items such as smokes and drugs, exchanging them for some ordinary food. That was how ordinary people fed themselves.

The worst survivors were on the wet and dirty floor, begging for scraps. Being a beggar may have been fine before the outbreak, but now they were just slowly dying. If you were not capable of putting any effort in scavenging and fighting zombies, and had no technical or medical skills, you were a hinderance. Liushi looked at them with a mix of pity and disaproval, and shook his head.

The deeper they got into the Black Market, the more advanced the wares sold were. Pistols, bullets, body armor. They were all sold at a higher price than Satellite Town, and he hadn't seen any rifles yet.But they were ignored. Nobody in these stalls had anything Liushi wanted.

Liushi's group certainly did attract a lot of attention with their quality equipment, and the 2 attractive girls.

"It seems that they are here for important business" one of the observers in the shadow whispered. "Zhang Hua, you should bring them in. Probably only the things inside will please them."

Soon enough, a man in a suit holding an umbrella walked up to the group. His attention was firmly on Zhuying, speaking in a pleasant voice and with a warm smile.

"I would like to introduce myself. My name is Zhang Hua, miss, may I ask what do you want to buy?"

"Brother..." she said, not wanting to deal with him.

"What we want isn't the kind of low quality goods to display in the streets. We want the special stuff. Take us there."

Zhang Hua looked at Liushi in surprise, because he didn't think he would be the leader, not being a paranormal. However he recovered quickly. It wouldn't be the first time he saw a team with a smart ordinary person as the leader. And seeing their equipment, especially the man with the minigun turning toward him, he could guess that the usual speech he used on newcomers wouldn't work on them.

"In that case, I should lead you to the inner market. It's the place where the strongest teams trade their goods. I should warn you, the least you should have to do business there is 1 ton of mutant meat."

"That's not a problem."

"I should also warn you, that the team in charge of the Black Market is the top team of the region, the 7 Gods. The team is made of 7 paranormals, 4 of them being very powerful. You shouldn't offend them."

"Noted."