[ENG] What? My "Information Club" is Actually an All-Knowing Secret Society?
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What? My "Information Club" is Actually an All-Knowing Secret Society?
Genre : Apocalypse, Fantasy, Superpower, Action
Tag : Misunderstanding, Secret Organization, World-Freezing, Super power
Chapter 30 : Investment
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[Time remaining until The Great Freeze: 5 Days]
[Location: Arlen's Apartment, 4th Floor - West Jakarta]
[Time: Day 7 - 00:45 PM]
Arlen carefully scooped up the final, cooling spoonful of the heavy beef and potato stew. Maya accepted the offering obediently, chewing the rich, savory meat slowly in the oppressive darkness. The room was illuminated only by the faint, muted blue glow of the portable camping stove. The heavy silence within the apartment was absolute, punctuated only by the low, haunting howl of the freezing wind continually battering the reinforced concrete walls outside.
After visually confirming the small metal pot was entirely empty, Arlen reached out and extinguished the burner. He set the cookware aside and stood up. His silhouette cast a heavy, intimidating shadow over Maya, who instinctively pulled the thick wool blanket tighter around her shivering shoulders.
"That is it for tonight," Arlen stated, his voice flat and entirely pragmatic, lacking any comforting inflection.
"You need to sleep now. If you stay awake, you will just burn off those calories through anxiety instead of letting your body turn them into sustainable heat."
He then reached down toward his tactical belt. The sharp, metallic hiss of his heavy tactical knife being drawn from its polymer sheath echoed loudly in the quiet room.
Maya's dark eyes instantly widened in fear. Her body went rigid as her survival instincts flared up. The dull gleam of the heavy blade caught the faint ambient light from Arlen's wristwatch, and her traumatized mind immediately jumped to o conclusion that the awkward, silent dinner was simply a final meal, and this terrifying, calculating man had decided she was too much of a burden to keep around.
However, Arlen did not aim the heavy steel blade at her throat. He crouched down smoothly behind her, slipping the thick, blunt edge of the tactical knife carefully beneath the tight plastic zip ties securing her wrists together. With a single, forceful, and highly calculated upward jerk, the thick industrial plastic snapped loudly.
Before Maya could even process the sudden rush of relief or attempt to scramble away, Arlen's heavy, gloved hands firmly gripped both of her wrists. He pulled her arms forward, bringing them directly in front of her chest, and immediately secured a fresh, thick zip tie around them. The new restraint was just as secure and inescapable as the last, but the physical positioning was more humane.
"Attempting to sleep with your arms forcibly restrained behind your back for some consecutive hours will restrict your blood circulation and cause severe nerve damage to your shoulders," Arlen explained his actions without a single ounce of empathy, framing the gesture entirely as routine maintenance for a newly acquired tool.
"I require you to perform heavy physical labor tomorrow morning to prove your value. Do not attempt anything foolish with your hands in the front."
Arlen turned away from her, walking toward the corner of the room. He grabbed a massive, incredibly thick, pitch-black military sleeping bag, one of the premium, high-grade survival items he had previously acquired through Viper's supply drop, and dropped it onto a foam mattress positioned safely away from the drafty window.
"Get inside that bag. The synthetic insulation material is specifically engineered to endure prolonged exposure to low temperatures," Arlen commanded, pointing toward the makeshift bed.
Maya complied without a single word of protest. She crawled slowly across the ceramic floor, sliding her exhausted, freezing body into the heavy confines of the military sleeping bag. The premium synthetic down immediately enveloped her, flawlessly trapping her remaining body heat and creating a profound, heavy warmth.
It was the most comfortable and secure place she had experienced since the sky had turned pitch black exactly one week ago.
From behind the thick collar of the sleeping bag, which covered the lower half of her face, Maya watched Arlen silently packing away the remaining food supplies.
Her heart, which had just been beating with the fear of her own death, was now settling into a confused, erratic rhythm. Her mind, heavily fractured by the brutal betrayal and cruelty of her former survival group, began to construct a highly skewed narrative.
"This man is completely bizarre," Maya thought, a deep, intense rush of heat rising to her pale, dirt-smudged cheeks despite the freezing ambient air of the room.
"He speaks to me like I am just an entry or like I am just a variable... but he made sure I was completely full, he made sure my arms wouldn't hurt while I slept, and he just gave me the warm bed. He is incredibly caring, just in a really terrifying way."
Arlen was entirely, blissfully unaware of the emotional misunderstanding currently taking root in his captive's traumatized brain. He simply conducted a final, silent visual sweep of the perimeter to ensure the window patch was holding before he stepped back into his insulated micro-tent.
He pulled the heavy plastic zipper completely shut, physically isolating himself from the rest of the dark apartment and the unpredictable human variable sleeping just a few meters away.
The exact second Arlen was alone in the cramped, dark space, illuminated only by the faint, dying glow of his laptop screen, his rigid, intimidating posture collapsed entirely.
He dropped heavily onto his pile of blankets, rubbing his face with both hands, letting out a long, profound exhale that carried the crushing exhaustion of his mental facade.
"Man... seriously," Arlen muttered to himself, his tone completely shifting from the cold, prophetic 'Architect' into that of a deeply tired, overwhelmed young man.
"Speaking that stiffly and constantly calculating every single word like a rational robot is exhausting. It literally makes my jaw cramp. Acting like a completely detached sociopath is draining my mental energy faster than the cold."
He massaged his aching temples, the psychological weight of the apocalypse pressing down heavily on his shoulders. Being trapped inside a world that mirrored his own brutal fiction forced him to wear a heavy, suffocating mask.
"But what other choice do I have? I have to do it to survive," Arlen justified his harsh actions in the dark, his voice a low, tired whisper.
"If I show even a fraction of sympathy, or if I act like a normal, confused guy, that woman or anyone else out there, will immediately perceive it as weakness and exploit me. In this frozen hell, basic human kindness is a fatal vulnerability."
He glanced through a tiny, millimeter-wide gap in the tent's plastic sealing, observing Maya's steady, rhythmic breathing inside the heavy sleeping bag.
"Still... if her claims about architectural engineering and logistical management are actually true, it would be a massive relief," Arlen re-evaluated the situation with a faint, cautious glimmer of hope.
"I physically cannot afford to constantly monitor the ambient room temperature and manage the cooking procedures every single day while simultaneously worrying about that heavily armed Regressor squad roaming the streets outside. Alright, let's see her actual performance tomorrow. If she lied and proves to be nothing but a caloric burden, I will have no choice but to throw her out into the snow."
Arlen pulled his heavy coat tightly around himself, allowing physical exhaustion to finally pull his consciousness down into a deep, dreamless sleep, desperately hoping his risky investment would not lead to his ruin.
***
[Time: Day 7 - 11:00 AM]
The digital clock in the corner of Arlen's laptop screen read eleven o'clock in the morning, but the world outside remained entirely oblivious to the concept of daytime. The sky beyond the taped-up window was a monolithic, absolute void of pitch-black darkness. Not a single photon of sunlight possessed the strength to pierce the incredibly dense, suffocating layer of volcanic ash churning in the stratosphere.
The relentless, freezing wind continued its endless assault against the concrete, carrying a lethal -15°C temperature that promised an agonizing death to anyone caught outside.
Inside Room 404, however, a quiet, highly efficient revolution was taking place.
Arlen had removed the plastic zip ties from Maya's wrists an hour ago. After consuming a calculated ration of high-calorie survival biscuits and warm water, the young woman immediately set out to prove that her desperate claims of structural utility were not empty lies fabricated to delay getting thrown out.
Arlen leaned heavily against the cold concrete wall in the corner of the room, his arms crossed loosely over his chest. His posture looked relaxed, but his pale eyes tracked her every single movement with sharp, predatory focus. He watched the way her hands moved, ensuring she wasn't subtly looking for a weapon or attempting to sabotage the perimeter. His right hand rested just inches away from the tactical hatchet hooked to his belt.
Maya worked with a focused, deliberate efficiency, completely ignoring his heavy gaze. She systematically dismantled an unused spring mattress in the guest bedroom, using Arlen's knife to extract thick, heavy sheets of polyurethane foam from the core. She then raided the remaining kitchen cabinets, securing several leftover rolls of aluminum foil and a box of heavy-duty, industrial-sized plastic trash bags.
Utilizing Arlen's supply of black Gorilla Tape, Maya began engineering a complex, multi-layered composite insulation panel. She carefully applied the aluminum foil directly against the freezing concrete walls surrounding the shattered window frame, designing it to reflect the room's radiant thermal energy back inward. She then layered the thick polyurethane foam over the foil, sealing the entire structure beneath the industrial plastic bags to eradicate any cold drafts seeping through the hairline fractures in the concrete.
In just under two hours of silent, methodical labor, the ambient temperature inside the living room stabilized remarkably. The sharp, bone-deep, biting chill that usually lingered in the air slowly faded, replaced by a manageable coolness that the human body could easily endure without shivering.
"Ren..." Maya broke the heavy silence, her dirt-smudged hands continuously pressing the edges of the thick black tape firmly against the wall. She glanced briefly over her shoulder at the man observing her. "May I ask you a few questions? Why are we forcing ourselves to endure the cold up here on the fourth floor?"
Arlen stared at her calmly, waiting for her to elaborate.
"Based on basic structural integrity and thermodynamics," Maya continued, attempting to justify her sudden inquiry with pure logic.
"The ground floor or the subterranean basements are easier to defend against the freezing wind. Because of the collapsed floors above us, the rubble and the snow have completely buried the first two floors, creating a natural, thick earthen bunker. The thermal insulation down there would be vastly superior to this suspended apartment. Plus, it would hide us completely."
Arlen remained silent for a moment.
He looked at the sealed window, his mind immediately drifting toward the uncharted variable roaming the ruined streets outside, the dark gray squad and their terrifying, experienced Regressor leader.
"This place is just a temporary stop," Arlen answered, his voice flat, pragmatic, and entirely devoid of emotion. "The ground floor might hold heat better, but it also makes you the first target for whatever is walking down that street. There are dangerous people out there. The kind of people who drag chaos and monsters right to their doorstep. If a group like that decides to bring their mess into this building, the people hiding on the ground floor are just going to be their meat shields. Staying up here gives me distance, a good view, and the time I need to run."
While his face remained a mask of cold, calculating indifference, internally, Arlen was grumbling with intense, exasperated frustration.
"Seriously, people who act like main characters always bring massive disasters wherever they go," Arlen complained in his mind, his true personality shining through the cracks of his 'Architect' persona.
"There's always some weird, chaotic event following them. It's totally unsafe to live on the ground floor. Sure, it's a natural bunker right now, but the only way out is back up to the fourth floor because all the exits are buried under tons of rubble. If a real emergency happens down there because of that Regressor, I'd end up dead and buried before I even had the chance to run away."
Upon hearing the word 'run', Maya's hands froze completely against the taped wall. She slowly turned her entire body around, looking directly at Arlen with an expression that was a complex mixture of lingering fear and desperate hope.
"If the situation deteriorates... and you have to evacuate this building..." Maya hesitated, swallowing a thick knot of anxiety in her dry throat before forcing the words out.
"Will you... will you take me with you?"
Arlen met her desperate gaze with an entirely unreadable, flat expression.
"I told you last night, Maya. It depends on what you bring to the table," Arlen answered with brutal, uncompromising honesty.
"Prove you're useful. If keeping you around is worth the food and the risk, you come with me. If you're just dead weight, I'm leaving you behind."
While the words were undeniably harsh, to Maya, the brutal honesty sounded grounding and reliable.
There were no manipulative lies, no false promises of safety, and no psychological games like the ones her previous leader had constantly played. This terrifying man was absolutely consistent with his harsh rules.
"I understand," Maya nodded, her dark eyes hardening with a fresh surge of determination.
She firmly patted the final strip of Gorilla Tape against the concrete wall. "The perimeter insulation is complete. Now, let's fix the biggest flaw in your security system: the cooking smoke."
Maya walked confidently toward Arlen's small portable stove and the stack of printed manuscript pages he had previously used to fuel the fire inside the metal bin.
"Burning raw paper inside a sealed, unventilated room is basically a slow method of suicide, Ren," Maya explained, her logistical instincts completely taking over the conversation.
"It produces carbon monoxide and thick ash that will poison your lungs. Plus, that thick grey smoke is going to leak through the ventilation shafts eventually, acting as a massive visual flare for any mutated beast or hostile survivor outside."
"And what's your solution?" Arlen asked, genuinely intrigued to see how this architecture student planned to solve a severe logistical nightmare without using the limited, non-renewable butane gas canisters.
Maya immediately began gathering a collection of discarded items from around the living room. She retrieved two empty aluminum soda cans from Arlen's trash bin, her small folding pocket knife, a handful of bone-dry clay from a dead, frozen potted plant in the corner of the balcony, and a large bottle of liquid hand sanitizer from Arlen's medical supplies.
"We are going to make a pressurized alcohol burner, usually called a Penny Can Stove," Maya detailed her process, using the sharp blade of the pocket knife to precisely sever the bottom halves of both aluminum cans. She then carefully pressed the two bottom halves together, creating a small, sealed, disc-shaped metallic vessel. With absolute precision, she used the tip of the blade to puncture a circular pattern of tiny holes around the upper rim of the disc.
"Burning hand sanitizer, which is mostly ethanol, is the best way to get heat in a tight space," Maya explained as she carefully poured the clear, gelatinous liquid directly into a larger hole in the center of the can.
"Ethanol burns incredibly clean. No grey smoke, no ash, and almost no smell. The only byproducts are a little water vapor and carbon dioxide."
Maya then took the dry, crumbly clay, crushing it into fine dust before mixing it with a small amount of melted ice water to create a thick mud. She carefully molded the heavy mud into a small, cylindrical kiln that perfectly encircled the aluminum stove, leaving only the top exposed.
"This mud structure is a thermal baffle," Maya concluded her presentation with a confident smile.
"Clay is terrible at conducting heat. That means the intense heat from the fire won't radiate sideways, where a mutant's thermal sensors might pick it up. Instead, this little kiln forces all the heat to travel straight upward, directly hitting the bottom of your cooking pot."
Maya struck a spark using Arlen's fire starter. The liquid ethanol inside the aluminum can immediately caught fire. Within seconds, the pressurized alcohol vapor began spraying out of the tiny holes along the rim, igniting into a perfectly stable, beautifully uniform ring of bright blue flame.
Arlen stared at the silent, steady blue fire. There was no suffocating, dense grey smoke filling the room. There was no stinging smell of burning ink and paper. The heat output was focused, highly efficient, and completely contained within the mud kiln.
"Damn it," Arlen thought, genuinely impressed as his mind rapidly recalculated her worth.
"This girl is actually a genius when it comes to practical survival. That makeshift stove just solved the carbon monoxide problem and stopped us from glowing like a thermal beacon to the mutants outside."
Arlen looked up from the blue flame, his pale eyes resting on Maya, who was smiling proudly at her successful creation. The Architect realized with undeniable clarity that his decision to show mercy to his captive the previous night was rapidly proving to be an incredibly profitable investment.
›› To Be Continue ‹‹
—KS