Thinking back to how these people had just fed them for free with no questions asked, the man reasoned they couldn't have bad intentions.
So he flinched, clutching his empty food container tightly against his chest as his wide, fearful eyes darted between Tom's polished tactical gear and Mike's imposing, broad-shouldered frame. Standing beside two perfectly clean, well-fed strangers in the middle of a sun-scorched wasteland felt entirely surreal to him—and terrifying.
"S-Shelter?" the man stammered, his voice raspy from dust and dehydration. He swallowed hard, taking an instinctive step back before realizing there was nowhere to run. "There... there ain't no official shelter here. Not since the central grid collapsed."
Tom maintained a polite, accessible posture, tilting his head with practiced calm. "And how do you all survive the nights? Where does everyone gather when the infectee waves sweep through?"
The dusty man gestured vaguely toward a jagged expanse of rusted metal structures and collapsed concrete foundations half-buried in the desert sand a few hundred meters away.
"We hide in the Sinks," he muttered, lowering his voice as if speaking too loudly might draw unwanted attention. "Underneath the old water reclamation plant. It's tight, it smells like sewage, and the strongest group takes the upper dry levels. The rest of us squeeze into the flooded pipes below."
Mike's sharp eyes scanned the distance, instantly calculating defensive sightlines, choke points, and structural integrity. "Who manages the upper levels?" Mike asked, his deep voice rumbling like low thunder.
"Gu Chao," the man whispered, shivering despite the blistering heat. "He's got a gang of twenty men with rusted pipes and modified nail guns. He controls the dry rooms and takes a tax on whatever food or scrap anyone brings back. If you're looking for a leader... he's the only one who enforces anything around here, but he ain't nice."
Tom smiled softly, the cold, calculating light in his eyes completely contradicting his pleasant expression. "Thank you. You've been remarkably helpful."
Reaching into his side pouch, Tom pulled out a sealed, clean bottle of purified water and handed it to the stunned man. Before the scavenger could even process his luck, Tom turned to Mike.
"Well," Tom said, smoothing the cuff of his tactical sleeve as they began walking toward the looming shadow of the reclamation plant. "It seems we've found our first temporary Cell Captain candidates—and our first structural renovation project."
Mike only nodded in response as he followed behind him, studying the terrain and wondering if their boss, Zhao Yuan, would think the same—considering how she sometimes made weird decisions.
Unaware of his thoughts, Tom led the way as they stopped more refugees, asking about their social dynamics and the local hierarchy. Every person they approached reacted with the same rigid, jumpy dread, eyeing Tom's pristine tactical suit as if expecting a trap. In a wasteland where every scrap of bread usually cost blood, clean clothes and gentle questions felt far more dangerous than an open blade.
When the second meal alarm finally chimed across the sands, Tom and Mike turned back.
Walking among the starving refugees who were rushing toward the restaurant made the two of them stick out like pristine anomalies. Standing atop a rusted catwalk near the entrance of the Sinks, Gu Chao watched them intently. His dark, hawk-like eyes narrowed as he tracked the well-dressed men stepping smoothly back inside the restaurant structure to get to work.
Gu Chao's knuckles turned white around the iron pipe in his grip. Paranoia flared in his chest. In his experience, nobody gave away warm meals out of charity, and nobody strolled around a wasteland asking detailed questions about local shelters without an ulterior motive. Were they scouts for a rival warlord? Or representatives of some high-tech faction coming to wipe out his territory?
He turned to his right hand man, his tone laced with cold suspicion. "Find out what they were doing out there."
"Got it, Boss," Su Chen nodded quickly. He hurried down the catwalk, secured his meal ration, scarfed it down in seconds, and immediately set to work.
Within an hour, every refugee who had spoken to Tom and Mike was rounded up and shoved into the cavernous, damp upper hall of the old reclamation plant.
The atmosphere inside the Sinks was suffocating. A thick silence hung over the gathered crowd, broken only by the nervous shuffling of feet and the faint dripping of contaminated water from overhead pipes. The refugees huddled closely together, their faces pale with terror as they stared up at the raised platform. They knew Gu Chao's temper all too well; men had been beaten half to death for withholding less.
Gu Chao stood at the edge of the platform, his cold, piercing gaze sweeping over the trembling crowd, waiting for an explanation.
"Well?" Gu Chao asked, his voice echoing menacingly against the wet concrete walls. "Are you going to tell me what those clean bastards wanted, or do I have to start taking your rations away until someone speaks?"
A wave of panicked murmurs broke out among the refugees, several of them falling to their knees as they desperately raised their hands to explain, terrified of losing what little shelter and food they had left.
Meanwhile, back inside the quiet restaurant, Tom had no idea of the storm brewing down in the Sinks. He stood before Zhao Yuan's desk, calmly delivering a detailed report on his findings and listing the specific survivors he felt possessed the potential to serve as their first batch of Cell Captains.
Hearing his report, Zhao Yuan could immediately tell that Tom was leaning toward leaving Gu Chao in power. To Tom, it was a clean, logical shortcut: use the existing authority figure to control the populace and save time.
However, Zhao Yuan knew better. His proposal made it glaringly obvious that despite their high intelligence and tactical efficiency, her created assistants lacked a deep, intuitive understanding of raw human nature. They saw human dynamics as a set of logical variables to be organized, failing to realize that power built on fear and scarcity breeds deep resentment, paranoia, and inevitable betrayal.
Looking at the three of them sitting around her desk, Zhao Yuan realized they had likely lived sheltered existences prior to serving her, or simply hadn't interacted with ordinary, desperate human beings enough to understand how messy they could be. Their clinical optimism was almost endearing, and she decided it was time to give them a practical lesson in human psychology.
"This Gu Chao... what do you think about him?" she asked, looking directly at Tom before leaning back comfortably in her seat.
"He seems to be the most powerful person here," Tom replied without hesitation, his tone confident. "If we can work with him and leverage his existing network, our job here will be much easier."
Beside him, Cindy and Mike offered firm, agreeing nods, completely aligned with Tom's assessment.
Seeing their unified, earnest expressions, Zhao Yuan couldn't help but burst into a soft laugh.
To her, they really were like cute, innocent little lambs who hadn't truly seen the dark, unpredictable reality of the world yet.