Chương 34: Scrambling for Water

"I was right in the middle of cooking when I heard a heavy clunk, and the power just died!" Claire said anxiously, gesturing wildly at Vince.

"A blackout..." Vince reached out and flicked the bedroom ceiling light switch. Sure enough, no response. He grabbed a stool, stepped out into the hallway, and checked the electric meter. The breakers hadn't tripped, but the digital display was completely blank.

"Don't panic just yet. Is the food ready? Go finish cooking first..." Returning to the apartment, Vince first calmed the flustered Claire. He then pulled out his phone and checked the date.

"The 30th?" Vince counted on his fingers. Starting from the day he passed out, five days had gone by. Today was the sixth day. The inevitable had finally arrived. Though it was the sixth day for him, it had only been four days since the global chaos completely erupted. Communication lines between quarantine zones were already dead, yet the power grid in this dilapidated old neighborhood had miraculously held out for four whole days. I have to admit, the national grid's infrastructure was terrifyingly robust...

On his very first day awake, Vince had worried about a blackout. Anticipating it, he had quickly boiled and eaten a large portion of the eggs and meat that required refrigeration. But over the past two days of sweeping the building, they had scavenged more and more food, and they hadn't had the time to process it all. The various cuts of meat they had hauled down from 402 and 401 alone had the freezer compartment stuffed to the absolute brim.

"Vince, let's eat first..." Claire had finished boiling the noodles. Because the power went out, she had hastily stir-fried a massive handful of shredded meat and tossed it into the pot. With the fridge dead, the meat that had already thawed couldn't be stored again; it would spoil rapidly. Seeing that Vince was already seated at the dining table, she brought the entire steaming pot of noodles over.

"We actually had it pretty good here. I was reading the group chats before the internet died, and some areas lost power on the 26th..." Claire muttered softly, unsure if she was comforting Vince or herself.

"Even though I knew the power would eventually go out, now that it actually has... it really feels like human civilization is slipping further and further away..." Having finished her philosophical lament, Claire noticed Vince staring at her with a highly peculiar expression. She brandished the serving ladle at him threateningly, then scooped a heaping bowl of meat-heavy noodles and slammed it down in front of him.

"I'm not an idiot, you know!"

"Heh..." Vince didn't banter back. He just quietly started eating his breakfast. If this had been an unpaid utility bill, the digital meter would still display text. But the meter outside his door was completely dead, meaning the regional power grid had suffered a catastrophic failure. Claire was absolutely right. Her words weren't just a sentimental illusion; they were a hard fact. Electricity was the lifeblood of human civilization.

Just like the Zerg Creep in a video game, wherever the power grid expanded, industrialization and modern life followed. Now that the power was truly gone, let alone Claire, even Vince couldn't help but feel a twinge of melancholy. It was completely different from a tripped breaker in a normal household. It brought an overwhelming sense of isolation, as if a lifelong friend who had grown up alongside me had suddenly vanished into thin air...

The two sat in silence for a few minutes, immersed in their own faint sorrow, before Vince finally broke the quiet.

"Claire, do not open the freezer compartment again until I get back..." he instructed Claire, who was silently eating her noodles across the table. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. He remembered his freezer was packed solid with the food she had hauled down from 402. A densely packed freezer, if kept firmly shut, could retain its temperature for twenty to thirty hours before the contents completely thawed.

But every time the door was opened, that preservation time would be slashed in half.

"The same goes for the fridges in the other apartments. If we keep the freezers closed, they should hold out for a day or two without an issue..." Remembering their stashes in the other units, he added another warning.

"Mhm, okay." Internally, Claire was wondering if they should just try to binge-eat as much of the perishable food as possible. But she trusted Vince's judgment far more than her own. She always did her absolute best to follow his instructions. In her mind, if Vince gave an order, it meant he already had a master plan, and her only job was to coordinate with it. Vince did have a plan. Originally, he had intended to step outside today to test the effectiveness of the [Stealth Crystal] against the zombie horde.

But looking at the situation now, taking a leisurely stroll for field testing was a luxury he could no longer afford. He didn't just have to deal with the horde downstairs; he had to figure out a solution to the electricity crisis. Otherwise, at least half of the supplies he had risked his life to collect would rot—and it would be the high-protein half!

"Ah!" Vince suddenly shouted, startling Claire so badly she almost snorted her noodles out her nose. She coughed violently, staring at him with wide, watering eyes, wondering what crazy idea had just popped into his head.

"Stop eating, we need to hoard water right now!" Vince had just remembered something critically important. Water! He practically inhaled the rest of the noodles in his bowl, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, snatched the keys from the cabinet, and sprinted upstairs. He bolted into 601 and dug out every single container he could find—from massive pots down to disposable paper cups—and began filling them one by one at the tap. He yelled for Claire to run to 602 and do the exact same thing.

Municipal tap water relies on pressurized zoning, and those booster pumps require massive amounts of electricity! A total blackout meant the water supply could cut off at any second! Who knew how long the water treatment plant's backup generators would last?! In the frantic scramble, Claire managed to uncover two massive plastic buckets and a gigantic stainless steel braising pot on the 602 balcony. Their capacity was enormous.

The two of them worked furiously for over an hour until every conceivable container they could find was filled to the brim with tap water. Only then did they return home and sit back down at the dining table to finish their noodles. The noodles left in the pot had completely swollen into a mushy paste, but Vince didn't care. There was still plenty of shredded meat mixed in, so it tasted just as good.

"Haa... I'm exhausted. Vince, did we really need to rush for water like that?" Claire asked, panting heavily.

"Of course we did. Don't forget, we aren't the only two people living in this complex..." Reminded by Vince, Claire immediately thought of the survivors from yesterday. Still confused, she asked, "What does this have to do with... other people?"

"If the power was still on, naturally it wouldn't have anything to do with anyone else. But the power is out now..." Vince paused for dramatic effect and handed his empty bowl to Claire. Claire naturally took the bowl, scooped it full of noodles, and meticulously picked out a generous portion of meat for him. Only then did he continue:"A blackout means the water company's booster pumps won't be running much longer.

That means the water pressure inside the municipal pipes is extremely limited, which naturally makes the total volume of remaining water limited as well."

"Obviously, we had to hoard as much as humanly possible while there was still water flowing in our pipes..."

"Furthermore, if the water plant is already dead, the water trickling out of the tap right now is relying entirely on gravity from the water towers and residual pressure. That means every single survivor in this grid is actively splitting whatever water is left in the pipes..."

"Ah?... Then... if we hoard a lot, doesn't that mean others won't have any?" Hearing his logic, Claire asked reflexively, driven by her instinctive, pre-apocalypse empathy. But the moment the words left her mouth, she remembered the three men from yesterday who had abandoned their leader to die without looking back, and she fell completely silent. To Vince, her initial reaction was entirely normal.

In her mind, survival had been a relatively closed-loop system—even though she was bound to Vince, her perspective was limited to the interior of their "family" unit. But the moment reality shifted from a closed system to an open system linked to the outside world, survival suddenly became a brutal competition with strangers. It was inevitable that she would struggle to adapt her way of thinking. This disease is incredibly easy to cure, Vince thought. Starving for two meals will fix it right up.

But before Vince even had to say a word, Claire adjusted her own mindset. She lifted her bowl and downed the rest of the noodle soup, refusing to waste a single drop.

"I'm going to go fill more water. I'll find some plastic bags to use..." With that, she turned and marched out the door.