Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

As I continued to have a nice talk with the women of the Payan household, it didn’t take long before it was almost time for dinner and the four— no, five of us made our way to the compound with Zeus zigzagging on the way back.

However, I really thought I’d gain something from our earlier session but it seemed like I needed to know my supposed weakness—though getting my relationship points with each of them wasn’t that bad either.

In any case, it was only after our nightly meeting when Amanda, Charlotte, and Edith approached me and said that they wanted to speak to me privately regarding the "fertilizer" I distributed among them.

And yes, it was the bone meal made from deadheads—and before anyone says anything—I made them swear to just use it on a handful of plants and absolutely forbid anyone from knowing about it, getting access to it, and most importantly, consuming it.

But yeah, it was a little different from Edith’s case because she used it on the flowers she was growing—though she made sure that the bees she was taking care of wouldn’t have access to it either.

It’s just that I haven’t told them what it was made of yet but they do know it came from a mixture of bones I dried up and turned to fine powder.

"Alright, let’s go to my room."

Unfortunately, those three heading to my room almost caused another misunderstanding because a few of us were already there waiting, so after I quickly asked them to vacate the premises and go to the gym for a few hours instead, we bore through a few moments of awkwardness before I asked about their findings.

Amanda started by bringing out her harvest of mushrooms with and without the bonemeal, "Look… This is unbelievable…"

Looking at the two side by side, the one on the left was still in the beginning stages of growth while the other one—which had the juice—skipped at least a day or two in its growth progress. Not only that, the fungi that grew looked to be more vibrant and full of life compared to our usual harvests.

I turned to Charlotte, "And did you bring—"

Charlotte shook her head, "I just took a photo, here. But I have to tell you something—"

"What is it?"

"I… I’m sorry— I told Chris since he’d just eat about anything I’m growing in my room but after I did, I made him swear he won’t say anything and he did apologize for trying to get the truth out of me…"

I lightly sighed before I looked at the pictures she had taken from her phone, "This… It’s not as much growth compared to the mushrooms but these lettuce are—"

"You aren’t gonna say anything about me telling Chris?"

"Look, Chris is a trustworthy dude and he’s essentially your partner. I do mind a little since this is a huge secret no one knows yet but next time, do preface that it has something to do with me before you say anything— or tell him that first and I’ll be the one to decide to tell him or not. Understand?"

"A-Alright… I-I’m sorry, again, if it means anything…"

After recognizing her mistakes, I tried to zoom in on the little pot where this little seedling was growing—but with the timeframe they were planted, I wasn’t able to see definite results except for Amanda’s. Still, there was something different that Edith did and it was to put the bonemeal on her flowers that were already in full bloom, not in its growing stages. řἈŊȰ฿Ɛṩ

Edith didn’t bring a sample per se but I could already tell the difference between the roses she grew.

"You… You didn’t enhance the photo or anything, right?"

"No. It’s on the default settings where I took each photo. You can also see them in person if you just go to one part of the greenhouse I had built specifically for flowers."

I looked at the flowers once again, "This… This is crazy…"

Then Amanda popped the question, "So, what chemicals did you put in that? There’s no chance that they’re natural fertilizers. Did you get it from the US Marines?"

Charlotte cut in, "But it could be a new or old recipe! Something passed down from generations and—"

I shook my head, "Then I would’ve used it from the get-go, no?"

"Ah— T-That is true…"

Edith then joined in, "If I may… Is the reason you forbade us from sharing it— even consuming it is because it’s made from people?"

"What—/WHAT?!" Amanda and Charlotte were shocked to fuck.

I just gave Edith the look before I opened my mouth, "Deadheads, to be exact. Haven’t tried specials yet though…"

Edith let out a deep sigh, "You remember we have certain ’herbs’ that we needed to keep hidden, right?"

"Right?"

"Well… Let’s just say that that place is also the… place where we— Auntie puts umm… People she needs to ’hide’ in an indeterminate amount of time. It just so coincides that with our current situation, she needs a place to dump the bodies and make sure we’d get our money’s worth with taking care of them so… It just came as a surprise for that discovery—"

At that moment, it took everything from me to contain my killing intent but after looking down for a good while—while ignoring their calls, I used a normal expression before looking at Charlotte and Amanda:

"Umm… I need to talk with Edith privately so… Thanks for the great work though, please continue observing them, and do approach me again or Rin if I look too busy."

"Alright…/O-Okay?"

As the two left with puzzled expressions, Edith couldn’t help but look uncomfortable because even if we had been intimate a number of times, the reason I got her alone in my room was for a different reason.

"Edith."

"Y-Yes?"

"Did you… I’m only gonna ask once… Did you feed us the crops you grew while using the bonemeal made from the dead or not?"

At that point, the pressure I released—no matter how minuscule—shook Edith to her core, and I had to draw it back and think to myself if the vegetables and fruit we got from them were a step above everything else.

Despite that, it was also true that it had been a while since we’d eaten from them, and if our infection spiked up and conjured death or transformation, it would’ve happened on the following days or in the worst-case scenario, it just happens at a very slow rate.

While it was true that Mr. Sanders had already confirmed that they had eaten crops grown the same way as we did, we weren’t 100% sure that they were safe for consumption despite nothing happening at the moment.

For all we know, it could be akin to a delayed fuse that would just blow up in our faces one day, and one of the reasons I didn’t want anyone to know about it right now was because I wanted to have the yields studied and tested several times first—in a lab, mind you—before we celebrate something good coming out of this hell hole.

But if this discovery was really nothing but helpful, the idea that the creator of this said virus was an extremely hardcore environmentalist who wanted to wipe the earth of animals and just have it consumed by nature. Or this was just one of those happy accidents from discovering other uses of things developed from wars.

Though we should really get back to Edith:

"I-I— I— I-I know for a f-fact that we still distributed the u-umm b-byproduct from the Poppies but I-I’m also sure that A-Auntie wouldn’t be that c-careless to order our people to use d-dead bodies as f-fertilizer."

"So, you’re not 100% sure?"

"I-I mean— I know that the bodies they d-dumped over there w-weren’t even turned to b-bone meal—though some of them were charred—but y-you’d have to call Aunt Sal o-or Sebastian just to be 100%... I-I’m sorry, b-but whatever we gave you we also ate a-and I don’t know if that f-fixes everything but—"

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I let out a difficult sigh before I waved her off, "I’m— I’m sorry for scaring you but you understand the reason why I get like this, right?"

"I-I do…"

"I mean, the future’s not bleak and there’s a community thriving with the crops supplemented by this fertilizer across the ocean but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have any side effects or a delayed reaction… If worst comes to worst, we’re already walking corpses and we’re just delaying the inevitable, Edith."

"I-I’m absolutely sorry for n-not telling you s-sooner, I— I really should’ve—"

I placed my hand on my forehead and looked down for a few moments before I grabbed my phone again, "Alright, I’m gonna call them now. Can you stay but not say anything until I tell you to?"

"O-Of course! I’ll do anything!" Edith nodded a few times as she wiped her tears.

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