In the leaders' meeting, James recommended that they should focus on the medical and nutritional situation first and foremost. He would soon set out to meet with the Bio-Police to discuss the potential terms of supplying vitamins and antibiotics.

After reporting to the other leaders, James met with Karlson at the Cage.

"Ready?" "Yeah."

They took two bicycles and made for the Memorial Circle once more.

"Come to think of it, where's your melee weapon?" James asked as they pedalled past the Lagoon.

Karlson replied by patting his shotgun.

"That's not a melee—okay, no, I see. Never mind."

James noted the additional "impact-resistant" reinforcement bars on Karlson's shotgun. The thing got all that heavier, but it would probably remain functional despite being run over by a tank.

They stashed the bicycles away in a nearby block, the same as last time.

"You're late," Aurelia said. James looked up to see her head peaking out over the edge of the roof.

"Come down here. I can't slap you if you're all the way over there."

Aurelia jumped down two stories. Her landing was almost soundless.

"Getting into domestic violence so early in the morning, huh?" she teased.

They headed straight for the plaza in the middle of the Memorial Circle. The setup was much the same as yesterday, though the atmosphere was better-relaxed. That wasn't to say that the security wasn't any tighter. Those two commandos still zealously guarded the Contract Terminal. Losing that terminal meant losing their planetside supply of refreshments.

"Mr. Castellano."

"Lt. Coronel."

Coronel met the trio halfway and shook James' hand.

They took to discussing the terms of the supply agreement right away. Coronel was never one for beating around the bush, and James was never one for red tape. In a way, they were a match made in Contract Heaven.

"We need a stable supply of the following antibiotics and supplements."

They sat down on either side of a folding table. Getting straight to business, James handed Coronel a list, detailing not just each drug's name, but also their expected consumption rate. Coronel took one look at it, then looked up at James.

"Incorporate 1 square kilometer of territory."

James blinked like a machine gun. This was the price?

"…the hell are we supposed to do that?"

A whole square kilometer. This was equivalent to 100 hectares; 0.386 sq. miles; 247 acres.

In comparison to Diliman's current land area (4.93 sq. km), this was a fractional plot of land. However, Diliman was enclosed by a tall iron fence, which made it relatively easy to defend. All they had to do was plug up most of the gates and holes with lumber or sheet steel, and then just defend the rest of the entry points.

In such a way, they essentially carved out Diliman as "their" territory.

However, to expand even by another square meter was nigh impossible.

The Guard Group, their largest fighting force, was still just a measly 30 active members, with the rest being in reserve in case of a major attack, and were otherwise occupied with other work. The Scout Group, arguably their most elite force, was a dismal 10-ish members; there were even a few showing signs of resigning.

Even these forces together couldn't take a whole square kilometer of chaotic, indefensible urban territory, at least not outside Diliman's fences. They would need to build barricades of their own in order to keep the zombies out and truly claim territory as their own. They would also need to permanently station guards there to watch out for stragglers and any intruding human presences. Both of these things would cost too much in resources, but in the short and long run.

In the first place, there wasn't any real incentive to take territory.

The surrounding grid squares on the map were deemed safe enough that the Guard Group would leisurely make their own looting runs if time and staffing permitted, which was to say that it wasn't necessary to actually take territory in order to gain its resources.

In the end, the price that Coronel had named was far beyond Diliman's reach.

James excused himself to have a "strategy meeting" with Karlson. There wasn't much strategy involved, though.

"You think you can hold down a square kilometer?"

"With how many men."

"Five."

"No way."

James returned to Coronel, satisfied with the no-nonsense answer.

"We can't do it," James said as soon as he sat down.

"Shame."

"You sure you can't lower the price?"

"According to our intelligence, your society is only able to achieve this much."

"Heh, that's a high valuation, you know?"

"An on-going supply is not the same as a one-time purchase, wouldn't you say?"

James paused to think about his earlier phrasing. He had slipped Coronel a list that included the expected consumption rate. What if he limited the purchase to a one—no, two-month supply?

He conveyed this for Coronel.

"You may incorporate a mid-rise apartment complex as part of your territory—or barter using 100 liters of gasoline."

"Ah wow I'd rather take an apartment—but it's still a hard ask, even if it's doable."

"Are you concerned about the repercussions of incorporating useless territory?"

"Oh, gee, how did you know?"

Coronel didn't answer. He correctly detected the sarcasm, but he had yet to learn how to answer sarcasm with further sarcasm. On the other hand, taking the sarcasm seriously… was not among his options.

James mistook his silence as one of annoyance. He cleared his throat.

"We only need to keep the territory for the duration of the supply agreement, don't we? That should be fair, shouldn't it?"

An imperceptible smile cracked across Coronel's lips, much like a teacher waiting for his student to give him the correct answer.

"I can sign with that condition," Coronel replied.

James heaved a sigh of relief.

"Let's go with that, then. Well, unless there's another way I can haggle it down—"

Right before then, Karlson was happily hyper-analyzing the guards who stood at parade rest on either side of the ATM-like Contract Terminal, beep-bopping away in its little enclave in a truck.

The fact that there was a terminal operating out of a truck, guarded by heavily-armed personnel, was already a common thing before the Outbreak. They wouldn't usually be guarded by high-tech commandos, though.

Their gear piqued Karlson's interest. He made sure to take in all of the sights; he would make detailed sketches of them as soon as he got back, probably ruminating on what their actual tactical functions were and how he could badger either James or Lewis to come up with an equivalent for himself—and his fellow scouts, by extension.

Another commando emerged from the driver's side of the truck carrying the terminal. He wasn't there in the last meeting.

Karlson went from hyper-analyzing the terminal's guards to hyper-analyzing the new guy. The terminal's guards physically felt the pressure let up, but their stress levels shot back up as soon as they realized that there was someone who had caught Karlson's attention.

Looking to the new entry, they paused for a moment to try and recognize him. The commandos wore masks and a mountain of armor and equipment all the time—air-conditioning included—so it was down to relying on IFF codes and their heads-up displays to show a nametag over whomever they looked at. In this case, it was Jon.

Even then, these commandos didn't just rely on technology.

Everyone had a walking gait. Everyone had these little idiosyncratic gestures. It'd take a few seconds of squinting, but they could usually tell if the guy was really Jon, or just someone in Jon's armor.

Something smelled.

Karlson raised his shotgun at the same time as the three commandos did their rifles.

Karlson's shotgun blast tore through a zombie on the roof of the truck above the two guards. One guard's rifle shone a bright blue as it punched a basketball-sized hole clean through Jon's chest. Jon's rifle also shone a bright blue, blowing off the screen of the terminal. The second guard fired at another zombie that was going for the first guard.

There was no one to protect the second guard.

An arm went flying. With the assailing monster's turn done, Karlson and the first guard finally recognized it and shifted their aim. In the time they took, another limb went flying before they finally fired.

The head and chest of the Gamma disappeared.

The one that was on the truck's roof got back on its feet, and was raring to pounce on either Karlson or the first guard. It roared.

As it lept and stretched its body in mid-air, its upper and lower torsos separated with a heaven-rending bang as the second guard, collapsed and bleeding from two different stumps, fired off another blue streak into the sky. Karlson only just managed to throw himself to the side, and the Gamma's upper torso careened past him.

At the same time as this,

"JAMES!"

Aurelia rushed at full speed as a Gamma was just footsteps away from James.

Blade met flesh, and James struggled to keep himself upright. He stumbled backwards, but at no point did he neglect to keep the spear pointed into the Gamma's chest. He fell on his back, and the Gamma, its chest braced against a spear and its own momentum working against it, pole-vaulted over James.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the end of the Gamma's pole-vaulting arc was Coronel.

Maybe he's not too happy about it—but contrary to James' thoughts, Coronel was surprised and pleased that a normal human being managed to survive the onslaught of a Gamma, and a surprise attack at that. For a superhuman such as he, it was a simple matter of kicking the Gamma into the sky as it reached him.

None of these attacks could actually kill a Gamma.

Even the commandos' special weapons, hand cannons in their own right, ultimately were just to stall for time.

The Gamma he kicked into the air soon started coming back down. A vengeful blur, however, jumped up and opted to repeatedly whack it with an iron-reinforced stick the entire way down.

Even as they both landed, Aurelia continued pulverizing bones. It was somewhat of a wonder that her weapon hadn't broken yet. Perhaps the craftsmen of Diliman deserved some bonus recognition just for this alone.

Her fury afforded Coronel the time to recover the acid. He jumped over a bush and found the half-barrel-sized containers—just big enough to stuff in a humanoid-sized object—where they'd left them.

However, checking the contents, there was a crystalline foam floating on top.

—The acid's been neutralized.

No doubt, it was sabotage.

"Cain," Coronel said with an unwavering voice, "We need acid for four Gammas."

[We're also tied up here! There's more in the perimeter!] —came the reply through the radio.

Listening closely, gunfire had erupted from multiple directions. Coronel's face remained unemotional, but if he knew how to, he'd wince at this situation.

They could definitely dispose of all of the attacking Gammas, but that didn't mean they couldn't lose. They were unacceptably close to Diliman to let any of these Gammas loose, and yet a large amount of their acid had been sabotaged. At the same time, as long as their guests were here, they were in danger, but there was no way they could escape without drawing the attention of the Gammas, either. They had to stand and fight.

The good news was that they could still eventually process all of the Gammas with the remaining acid, but they needed to restrain the rest in the meantime—which was to say, they needed to deal unrelenting damage against four Gammas for half an hour.

Glancing over to Aurelia, however, and it was evident that there was already one such source of unrelenting damage taking very good care of one of the Gammas already. Counting himself, Coronel thought that a 2v4 were already decent odds.

"CORONEL!"

His attention diverted to James, who was shouting someting and pointing towards the terminal. His cyber-brain processed the dead, wounded, and combat-capable commandos in one moment, and Karlson and the three Gammas surrounding them in the next.

He made for the one closest to full recovery.

Karlson had unknowingly thrown himself closer to another Gamma, the one that one of the guards had shot in the initial round of attacks. Its head had been blown clean off, but by the time Karlson landed next to it, it had already regenerated a mouth.

He quickly rolled away, just barely dodging the Gamma's swipe. It tried to swipe again, but Karlson rolled away once more.

He was stuck there, forever doing barrel rolls, at least until Coronel zoomed by and kicked the Gamma's upper torso clean off.

Meanwhile, the one that Karlson had initially dodged was now clawing its way towards him. It was just an upper torso, but it was an angry one, moving at such a ferocious speed that could catch even a cat at full speed. Karlson wouldn't let such a damned thing close to him though and aimed and fired his remaining shotgun shells into its face, taking off chunks a bit at a time.

After the third shell, he squeezed the trigger, and there was a click.

Coronel couldn't be there to help him, as the Gamma close to the terminal guards had regenerated too much.

Not that Karlsen felt he needed Coronel to take care of this one. He got up, a bit wobbly on his feet, but it only took a few seconds to find his stance.

With a flipped reinforced shotgun, he beat the Gamma into submission. The Gamma itself was too damaged to fight back. It wasn't as if Karlson liked the feeling---if he stopped for even a moment, it would likely regenerate a hand or some other limb to grab hold of him.

All the nearby guard saw, however, was a one-sided thrashing, sending chills down his spine.

His buddy, missing a few unimportant limbs, had already gone unconscious from shock. His suit's first-aid functions had already stopped the bleeding, but he had to be treated elsewhere, and soon.

It turned into a juggling act for Coronel, suppressing three Gammas, occasionally aided by Karlson and one of the commandos. Aurelia, meanwhile, made a show of what a proper stress relief session ought to be like, much to James' horror.

Amadeus and another shock trooper came later, relieving much of Coronel's heavy work; although he could keep at it for several days straight, he still had a mostly-human mind. He didn't want to dream about zooming between three points on a triangle and delivering kicks to hapless Gammas like a true machine. He didn't want to become such a machine.

Cain arrived later with the acid in-tow. Neither he nor any of his men wanted to approach Aurelia, who was still taking out her stress on an unfortunate Gamma. James ended up inching his way to her with a "Let's finally kill it, okay?" in such a fatherly tone that the nature of their relationship became even more muddled in third parties' eyes.

Anyway, the remaining Gammas were unceremoniously bottled-up and liquidated.

The injured terminal guard had been carried off as soon as reinforcements had arrived. Post-cleanup, the other guard stood in front of a destroyed Contract Terminal, mulling over his failure—We failed, Raz. We failed. Cain appeared beside him.

"I saw the footage," Cain started, "The IFF definitely showed it was our corporal. What made you make the call?"

"He wasn't Jon, sir," the guard replied, "Guy should've been too shy to make eye contact longer than half a second. Would've said hello, at least, too."

Cain gave him a pat on the shoulder before walking away, meeting with Coronel, who was standing by the acid barrels. There were streaks of dust and dirt all over the man.

"One Lanan and fourteen Gammas," Cain recounted as he approached, coming to stop beside Coronel, "Three casualties on our side. Two with minor wounds, but the SO2 looks like he'll need prosthetics."

"The Contract Terminal?"

"Knocked out, but it's repairable. The 17th should have the spare parts, but they're in the next area—hey, are you smiling?"

In a way, it was convenient that the terminal was destroyed—Coronel thought.

"Is it strange?" he asked.

"…Better than usual, but what for?"

"Because the 16th cannot leave its designated area, under the extenuating circumstances, we were forced to rely on local forces to procure material support from the neighboring 17th. The local forces' show of expertise in long-range missions, I believe, is due for fair account in the Contract System— What do you think? It would be a decent report to send, wouldn't it?"

"That doesn't sound safe."

"Conversely, it is a risk that we have to take."

Cain scratched his head, running his finger over the corresponding spot where Coronel had been shot. He still remembered that day of needless confrontation with the scouts. Going over the tactical recordings, he spotted the gesture that James made to show the unseen sniper where to shoot. By all accounts, that bullet slipped right between James' fingers. And that's between every other ridiculous stunt they pulled, like the one where that teenaged girl practically shot his men's weapons out of their hands without so much as batting an eye, and the fact that they had a Gamma in their voluntary service.

As a military man coming from a technologically-advanced society, seeing superhuman feats being performed by unaugmented people was a real shock for him.

—This community's scouts are somehow terrifying.

With that in mind, assigning such a critical mission to the same terrifying scouts was, fortunately or unfortunately, the most sensible decision for everyone involved.

"…I'll assign SO3 Loretz and TS2 Io as our liaison," Cain said, walking away to make those accommodations.

As for James and co., the three had been shooed away as soon as the area was declared secured. They didn't get any chance at all to get an explanation about what happened—though, Coronel tossed James a fancy-looking radio. "Don't change the channel or frequency" was what he said.

After a hard day like that, the three went to one of the Scout Group's haunts: Klasiks Coffee & Tea.

It was perhaps the most well-defended coffee & tea in the whole city, surrounded by wireless IP cameras connected a smartphone-based surveillance system, the whole thing being casually powered by a bunch of solar panels. The first floor had been converted into a fighting position, all the fancy morale-boosting equipment being moved upstairs.

The shop proper, a humble 2-story shop on a 8 x 15m lot, was always shutters-down, and so the "customers" stayed in the second floor where they could open the windows to let in the sun and a nice breeze. The window grills prevented unwanted visitors from coming in, so even if, somehow, in this area almost completely devoid of movement, a stray zombie that could climb or jump made it past the spotless surveillance net, the worst it could do was to surprise and thereafter piss off the patrons on the second floor for ruining a quiet morning.

James returned to the table with three cups of coffee.

"My apologies. It's just instant coffee today," James said with a light bow.

"It's been instant coffee for a couple of months now, what's the matter with you?" Aurelia said, giving him a light chop to the head.

James sat down across her. Karlson was off to the side behind James's seat, staring out the window as if he had taken to ruminating about the secrets of life. In a way, this wasn't too far from the truth.

"He wasn't alive," he said.

James and Aurelia had already traded information about what had happened. The normally taciturn Karlson saying such a thing as He wasn't alive got their heads turning.

He must've been talking about one of the commandos with the—"gunshot" wound.

"Talk about it," James said. Karlson turned his head to him, nodded, then turned back to the window.

"He was like an NPC," Karlson continued, "Went straight for the terminal. Bang—shot it right before he got taken out himself. All of them had something like—hand cannons for guns. The muzzle flashes were blue light, and the bullets left blue streaks, like a sci-fi."

He buried his head in his arms, trying to remember more.

"Their equipment—lots of things that looked like dead weight. Probably communications equipment, like, almost like, each one had a router strapped to them."

"Could be IFF," James remarked.

"IFF?" Aurelia asked.

"Electronic Friend-or-Foe Identification, basically. They all had visors, so it'd probably show up in front of them like augmented reality nametags or something. That's probably also how they know where their guys are all the time, come to think of it… There's no way they could coordinate that fast, otherwise."

"…Should I be amazed?" Aurelia asked.

"…Never mind. Ah, before that, the coffee's going cold."

All three of them took a break for a moment, sipping at the instant coffee. It was only creamer for now and no sugar; sugar was an expensive commodity, considered as among the few available preservatives available to Diliman.

Though it was a break, James' mind churned at the new information. At the least, the summary went like:

—Sci-fi shit and possible brainwashing, huh.

It was clear that greater forces were at play, and ones that could contend with a powerful organization as the Bio-Police, at that. Did he want to fight those forces? Would he even have a choice? There was also the ever-present reality that the sand in the hourglass was still falling, and they would still have to deal with hordes of millions some years down the line.

On one hand, he wasn't alone. The whole of Diliman was going to be affected, and they had no choice but to face this reality. On the other hand, this reality sucked, and it was going to take a while to convince everyone to face it together, whether they liked it or not.

That was a problem for the future.

In the short term, the Contract Terminal was broken.

—Bye-bye antibiotic supply.

They returned to Diliman a little resigned. Later that afternoon, the radio beeped, and James answered. Coronel had a proposal.