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What? My "Information Club" is Actually an All-Knowing Secret Society?
Genre : Apocalypse, Fantasy, Superpower, Action
Tag : Misunderstanding, Secret Organization, Wolrd-Freezing, Super power
Chapter 8 : Stocking supplies
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[Time remaining until the Great Freeze: 19 Days]
[Location: Arlen's Apartment]
[Time: 09:00 AM]
Arlen stood in front of his desk.
On it sat his pride and joy: A high-end Gaming PC with an RTX 4090 graphics card, a curved 4K monitor, and a mechanical keyboard that cost more than his rent. It was his portal to the world. It was how he wrote his stories. All of his saving acros the year he work, it's all come into this piece of art. 4 years he spend to build this, but not even a year after he got it. He's forced to let part of his soul go.
Because, in 19 days left, it would be nothing more than a very expensive paperweight.
"Sorry, buddy," Arlen whispered, pulling the power cord. "The grid is going down. You eat too much power."
He didn't stop there.
He walked to the living room. He unplugged the 50-inch Smart TV.
He walked to the kitchen. He emptied the refrigerator, tossing out old vegetables and sauces. And unplugged the fridge itself.
"I don't need cold storage," Arlen muttered, wiping sweat from his forehead. "The whole world is about to become a refrigerator."
He spent the next two hours hauling his electronics to a nearby electronic pawn shop in Glodok.
The streets were already getting frantic. People were looking for cash to buy rice.
The shop owner, a sweaty man named Ko Hendra, looked at Arlen's gear.
"RTX 4090? This is good. But why sell everything? Fridge too? You moving out of town?"
"Something like that," Arlen replied shortly. "I need cash. Hard cash. Now."
Ko Hendra gave him a lowball offer. Under normal circumstances, Arlen would have negotiated. Today, he didn't care. He took the thick stack of the bills, enough to buy a motorcycle. And shoved it into his backpack.
"Pleasure doing business," Arlen said, looking at his friend (the PC) one last time.
Enjoy it while the electricity lasts, Ko.
***
[Time: 11:30 AM]
[Location: Electronic Center]
With fresh cash in hand, Arlen moved to Phase 2: Energy.
He didn't intend to buy generators, they were too loud and needed fuel he couldn't store. Putting that aside, he is also sure that the power generators are already sold out because their units usually don't receive more than tens of thousands of requests. Including the fuel, he will waste more than 5 days just to get it all. And because of that, He choose the silent, portable power.
He bought out a small accessory store's entire stock of:
* 5x High-Capacity Power Stations (20,000mAh - 50,000mAh) with solar charging inputs.
* 30x AA and AAA Batteries.
* 4x Multi-port USB Fast Chargers.
* 2x Foldable Solar Panels.
"You opening a phone counter or something, Mas?" the shopkeeper asked, confused.
"Just hate blackouts," Arlen replied.
***
[Time: 02:00 PM]
[Location: The Supply Run - "The War"]
Now came the hard part. Calories.
Arlen knew he couldn't go to the big hypermarkets. The news showed riots there. He had to be smart. He had to be a scavenger.
He rode an online motorcycle taxi (Ojol), hopping from one small minimarket to another. Indomaret, Alfamart, obscure family-owned Warungs.
He already make a system:
* Enter the store.
* Ignore the empty rice section where people were fighting.
* Head straight to the Canned Food aisle.
* Buy only 5-6 cans per store to avoid suspicion.
* Move to the next store.
It was a marathon.
Store #1: 4 cans of Corned Beef.
Store #12: 6 cans of Sardines in Chili Sauce.
Store #35: 3 cans of Tuna and a jar of peanut butter.
Store #68: 5 cans of Gudeg (Jackfruit stew).
By store #80, his backpack was cutting into his shoulders. His legs were burning. The heat outside was a blistering 38°C due to the pressure.
At Store #92, a small shop in a back alley, he found a treasure. A dusty crate of luncheon meat (spam) hidden behind some instant noodles.
"I'll take the whole box," Arlen told the surprised old lady.
By the time the sun began to set, Arlen had visited over 100 stores. He had circled half of West Jakarta.
He returned to his apartment building looking like a pack mule, dragging heavy bags filled with so much heavy cans of food. After he places it into the stacks of other can food, he Estimated already have more than 200 canned foods.
[Time: 08:00 PM]
[Location: Arlen's Apartment - 4th Floor]
The final boss: Water.
Arlen had calculated it.
2 liters per day x 40 days = 80 liters minimum for drinking.
Plus hygiene. Plus cooking.
He had ordered the water from a local depot earlier that morning, paying triple for "Priority Delivery."
The delivery truck had dropped off 40 cartons of 1.5L bottled water and 10 Gallons (19L each) in the lobby.
The elevator was broken. Of course.
Arlen stared at the mountain of water boxes. Then he looked at the stairs.
"Training arc starts now," he groaned.
Trip 1. Trip 2. Trip 5. Trip 12. Trip 30
His legs felt like jelly. His lungs burned. The neighbors stared at him like he was a doomsday lunatic.
"Mas Arlen, what is that much water for?" a neighbor asked, smoking in the hallway.
"Want to open a shop, sir" Arlen lied, gasping for air. He let out a smal awkward smile
By the time he hauled the last gallon into his apartment, Arlen collapsed on the floor. He couldn't move. He was drenched in sweat, smelling of the city and exhaustion.
He looked around his apartment.
It was empty of furniture. The TV was gone. The PC was gone. The fridge was gone.
In their place stood towers of cardboard boxes.
* Wall of Water: Stacked high against the hallway.
* Tower of Energy: Batteries and power banks arranged on his desk.
* Fortress of Cans: more than 200 cans of food organized by expiration date in the corner.
He opened his laptop, while charging his phone.
He checked the Information Club.
> [User: FrostBite]: Market update: Canned food prices up 300% since this morning. Good luck to anyone who waited until today. <
Arlen smiled weakly. He popped the tab of a warm soda he had saved.
He was poor. He had no entertainment. He had no furniture.
But for the first time in his life, he felt rich.
"40 days of water. 200 cans of food. 50,000mAh of power," Arlen whispered to the empty room.
"I think, I'm ready."
**
[Time remaining until the Great Freeze: 17 Days]
[Location: Arlen's Apartment]
[Time: 10:00 PM]
Arlen sat in his empty, box-filled apartment, his laptop running on charging. He wasn't speaking. He was watching.
On his screen, a secure window was split into five feeds. The High Council was in session.
It was a surreal sight. Five strangers, bound by a prophecy, reporting from five different corners of the crumbling world.
Top Left: [VIPER]
The background was dark grey concrete, a bunker. The lighting was harsh and industrial. Viper sat with military posture, wearing a tactical vest over a black t-shirt. On the desk in front of him, he was methodically cleaning a disassembled assault rifle. He looked like a man who had been waiting for a war his entire life.
Top Right: [FROSTBITE]
FrostBite sitting in a custom-built, RGB-lit gaming throne that looked like a cockpit.
Behind him, the wall filled with glass display cases. Inside them stood dozens of anime figurines, rare, limited edition 1/4 scale statues.
He held a glass of 30-year-old whiskey in one hand, while the other hand played with a strand of hair from a life-sized (1:1 scale) statue of an anime girl standing next to his desk. That single plastic statue probably cost more than Arlen's entire life savings.
Bottom Left: [APOTHECARY]
The feed was bathed in sterile blue light. Apothecary was wearing a white lab coat, her hair tied back in a messy bun. Behind her, multiple monitors displayed seismic graphs and chemical formulas. She looked exhausted, with dark circles under her eyes, but her gaze was sharp and manic.
Bottom Right: [TANK]
The video was dimly lit, coming from a simple living room. Tank (Marco) didn't look like someone that prepared. He looked like a man who was drowning.
He was wearing his logistics company uniform, unbuttoned at the collar. His face was sweaty, his eyes were red and puffy. He sat hunched over, gripping a mug of coffee so hard his knuckles were white. He looked terrified, but trying desperately to hide it.
Center: [SERAPH]
Her feed was soft, lit by warm lamp light. She sat in a room with velvet curtains, looking graceful. Her hands were clasped on the table. She looked like a saint waiting for the rapture.
[Session Active]
Viper: "Report status on 'Project Lifeline'. The distribution phase."
FrostBite: [Takes a sip of whiskey] "Quest completed. The elite guild members—IronClad and the others—finished the delivery run. All 56 loot boxes are secured. The Echoes are armed."
Viper: "Any issues?"
FrostBite: "Just the usual RNG. Traffic was a nightmare, and the NPCs on the street are starting to glitch out badly. They are looting stores, fighting over rice. It's chaos out there. But our supply line is solid. We basically speedran the logistics."
Viper: "Good. Now ... Tank."
Viper turned his gaze to the nervous man on the bottom right.
Viper: "Seraph has an extraction team standing by near the Industrial Estate. We can move your wife to the Sanctuary safe house tonight. Cikarang will be a war zone when the supplies run out."
Tank flinched. He looked at the tablet next to him, then at the camera.
Tank: "My wife... Sari. She's seven months pregnant. Please, take her. Save the baby."
FrostBite: "And you? Don't tell me you're going to AFK in the middle of the apocalypse. Get in the car, Tank."
Tank shook his head slowly. His hands were trembling, but his eyes were fixed on the tablet screen.
Tank: "No. I stay."
Viper: "Tank, this is not a request. You are a High Value Asset. You cannot defend Cikarang alone."
Tank: "I'm not trying to be a hero, Viper. I'm scared to death."
He tapped the screen of the tablet.
Tank: "But I've been analyzing Page 2. Thanks to the decoding software Seraph sent me, I finally found the hidden layer in the Architect's words."
Apothecary: "The hidden layer?"
Tank: [Reading from the tablet] "The Sentinel stands at the Gateway of Iron. He does not flee when the sky falls, for he guards the Seed that sleeps beneath the smoke."
Tank looked up, his eyes watery but filled with a terrifying conviction.
Tank: "Gateway of Iron... that's Cikarang. The factories. The industry. The Architect put me here for a reason. There is something here. Something I have to wait for. Or protect."
Tank: "If I leave now... I fail the story. I fail Him."
Seraph: [Smiling gently] "The Sentinel accepts his vigil. Beautiful. The Architect knew your heart was strong enough to bear the fear."
Viper: [Sighs] "Logic dictates I should drag you out. But we do not question the Prophecy."
Viper: "We will extract your wife at 02:00. You have your orders, Sentinel. Guard the Gateway."
Tank: [Nods, gripping his coffee mug] "I will. Just... get Sari out safely. Please."
Viper: "Done. Next item. The Land Acquisition. FrostBite?"
FrostBite grinned, spinning his expensive gaming chair slightly.
FrostBite: "The 'Cikole Highlands'. The Architect's holy coordinates."
FrostBite: "I bought the whole map. 20 hectares of hills and pine forest. The previous owner was a corrupt dev(government). I paid him triple so he would vacate the server immediately."
FrostBite: "My construction bots—sorry, contractors—are already building the perimeter walls. It's going to be the ultimate base. High ground, natural water, defensible choke points. When the server wipe happens, we'll be the ones still standing."
Seraph: "The Promised Land on the hill."
Viper: "Excellent. When the city falls, we retreat to the Highlands. That will be our stronghold for the Era of Ice."
Arlen, watching from his darkened room, felt a mix of awe and guilt.
Tank was risking his life because of a "hidden message" that Arlen didn't remember writing.
"Tank thinks there's a 'Seed' in Cikarang..." Arlen whispered. "I hope to God I wrote something about that, because I have no idea what he's waiting for."
Viper: "Logistics are clear. Now, Biology. Apothecary, status report."
Apothecary: [She pushes her glasses up her nose, her eyes gleaming with manic focus] "The 'Vitality Soup'. I have finalized the formula for Batch 4."
She held up a vacuum-sealed pouch containing a thick, dark green sludge. It looked unappetizing, like blended moss.
Apothecary: "It's not gourmet, FrostBite, so don't complain. It is a high-density lipid compound mixed with capsaicin and caffeine. One pouch raises your core body temperature by 2 to 10 degrees Celsius, depends on the dose for six hours. It essentially forces your metabolism to run hot."
Apothecary: "If the heater dies, this sludge is the only thing keeping you from hypothermia."
FrostBite: "Looks like toxic slime. Does it come in other flavors? Strawberry? Matcha?"
Apothecary: "It tastes like survival. Shut up and drink it when the time comes."
She tossed the pouch aside and leaned closer to the camera. The lighting in her lab made her look like a ghost.
Apothecary: "But that is the easy part. The hard part is what Tank reported yesterday from the industrial zone."
She tapped her keyboard, bringing up a dissection image on the shared screen. It was a rat. Or what was left of one.
Apothecary: "Tank mentioned the stray dogs and rats were 'staring at the sky'. I caught a specimen near my lab doing the same thing. I performed an autopsy."
Tank: [Grimacing] "And?"
Apothecary: "Their brain chemistry is fried. Dopamine and Adrenaline levels are 400% above normal limits. Their amygdala—the fear center—is shrinking, while the aggression centers are expanding."
Viper: "In plain English, Apothecary."
Apothecary: "They are not just confused, Viper. They are being rewritten."
Apothecary: "Whatever signal is coming from space... the animals hear it first. It is driving them into a state of Hyper-Aggression. They are ignoring survival instincts. They don't eat, they don't sleep. They just wait."
FrostBite: "So the mobs are getting a stat buff? Infinite Stamina and Berserk Mode?"
Apothecary: "Precisely. And it's not just rats. Dogs, cats, birds. Anything with a primitive brain is susceptible to this 'Call'."
Apothecary: "Warning: Do not approach strays. They will not bark, they will simply attack until they are dead. They have no self-preservation left."
Seraph: [Closing her eyes] " The Beasts of the Earth shall turn against the Masters. Verse 6."
Apothecary: "Verse 6, yes. The 'Gaze' Tank saw... they are looking at the sky because they are waiting for a command. When the darkness falls, I predict a mass behavioral shift. They will hunt."
Viper: "Copy that. I will update the protocol. 'Hostile Fauna' is now a primary threat level. Echoes are to seal all vents and ground-level windows. No pets allowed outside."
Tank: "Great. As if the riots weren't enough. Now we have zombie dogs."
Apothecary: "Not zombies, Tank. Mutants. I found traces of rapid cellular division in the muscle tissue. They are getting stronger. Faster. Prepare your weapons."
Viper: "Acknowledged. Good work, Apothecary."
Viper: "Gentlemen, Ladies. The Architect has given us the map. We have built the Ark. Now we wait for the rain."
Viper: "Session Adjourned."
The connection cut. The screens went black.
[Location: Arlen's Apartment]
Arlen stared at the blank screen of his laptop. The silence in his room felt heavier than before.
He looked at the small ventilation gap above his bathroom door.
He thought about the stray cats that usually fought in the alleyway downstairs. Tonight, they were silent.
"Cellular division..." Arlen whispered, repeating Apothecary's words.
"Hyper-aggression."
He remembered writing about "Monsters" in his draft. He thought it was cool fantasy. He wanted the character to fight wolves made of ice.
But Apothecary just explained it with terrifying medical logic, ugh did it all will really happened?
Arlen walked over to his Type-B (Fortress) case. He took out the Gorilla Tape.
He dragged a chair to the bathroom door and started taping over the ventilation gap. Layer after layer.
Black tape sealing every crack.
"I'm not fighting mutant rats," Arlen muttered, his hands shaking as he tore the tape with his teeth.
›› To Be Continue ‹‹
—KS