"Zz... One minute to descend."
"Zz... The commander has given the green light, get ready."
...
Jason's Shelter.
At this moment, everyone in Jason's shelter was extremely frightened. They didn't know what was happening or what they should do next, so they all remained motionless, watching as a massive helicopter drew closer.
Snow, who was the most terrified of them all, grabbed a pistol and tucked it behind his pants. But deep down, he knew that resisting would only lead to an early death, so he decided not to do anything stupid.
As the helicopter approached, the strong wind forced everyone to close their eyes, and those who could still see what was happening noticed an intimidating machine gun pointing directly at them.
Every passing second, numerous figures wearing full combat suits descended one after another. They all seemed to have a purpose—when they approached a survivor, they ordered them at gunpoint to kneel in a single line.
"Drop your weapons and kneel! Anyone who resists will be killed!"
One of the soldiers soon noticed someone hiding a gun, so without hesitation, he shot the man in the shoulder and warned, "Try something like that again and you'll be executed!"
When Snow saw the soldier shoot one of his subordinates without a second thought, he immediately dropped his weapon to the ground. He could get out of this dangerous situation—there were many things that could deceive people these days, and he believed he could gain plenty of benefits if he played his cards right.
"Don't move. Anyone who makes a sudden move will be shot."
"Nothing will happen to you if you do what we say. We're part of the military, and we've come to reclaim this city from the undead."
Jason knelt beside Logan, watching those strange-looking soldiers, and thought that maybe their situation wasn't that bad. If these people were truly evil, they wouldn't have done all this.
He immediately began to think about anything of value that might exist in this place, and when he remembered that all of this had started after Logan came back, he turned to him and asked, "Kid, did that man leave anything with you before he left?"
Logan looked at Jason with a confused expression and nodded. "How did you know? It's true, I have a radio."
"Oh, God…"
Jason felt the strength leave his body. How could he not realize the true intentions behind giving him a radio? It was obvious—those people must have known about the vaccine in this shelter, which made them a target once the operation began.
And right after everyone was placed under surveillance, two soldiers walked toward the base's wall and opened it. When everyone saw who was approaching, they froze at the sight of a man covered in blood.
In his hands, he held a pair of long swords, while his face was filled with indifference. When Logan saw who it was, he couldn't help but shout, "Jason!"
"What's going on?"
When Jason arrived in front of all the subdued survivors, he saw a man bleeding and signaled one of his men to stop the hemorrhage.
"Who are these people?"
When Jason didn't respond, Logan asked a completely different question, hoping for an answer. As he looked around, all the soldiers who had been deployed there before the helicopter left were inspecting every corner.
"Everything will be fine, but you all need to stay calm."
Upon hearing Jason's words, Snow stepped forward toward the man who seemed to be the leader and said, "Sir, it seems you have far more reputation than we expected. We'll cooperate with whatever you tell us. We mean no harm."
When Jason looked at Snow, he thought what the man said was true. He wasn't really an enemy or a bad person—in fact, he wasn't a tyrant who killed or imprisoned these people.
If there was truly an enemy in this place worth considering, it would be someone among those currently bringing chaos to this community.
"First of all, I want to apologize for treating you all so harshly…"
Jason looked at all the survivors of this place, who had tears in their eyes, and said, "My name is Jason, commander and leader of the S.C.T. organization, which now maintains safe zones. We've reclaimed all of Georgia and the city of Atlanta. It hasn't been easy, but we're now taking back Birmingham."
"The reason I'm here is because of a vaccine. I want to know everything about it—and Snow, you and I are going to have a long talk."
...
The next 48 hours were filled with hard labor and intense cleanup. In Jason's shelter, everyone volunteered to help, and after a long inspection, there were more than two thousand people together with those who had come from Atlanta.
The matter of the vaccine wasn't very surprising—Sam had basically solved the issue long before Jason interrogated Snow. What had happened was that the brother of the researcher who possessed the vaccines never used them himself.
Snow described a story of how he met the young man who saved his life, but they soon discovered that the boy was infected, and after traveling together, he told them about the vaccine.
Knowing there was no cure to save his life, the researcher's brother gave them the vaccines, which they later kept in Jason's base.
Whether it was true or not didn't really matter to Jason. After all, there were far more pressing things to worry about.
...
"Those people with the Firefly insignia were killed by the infected Ian Dietrich eliminated!"
"It's a shame... I would've liked to talk to them and learn more about their situation."
At the top of a building, Jason watched as machines and trucks transported abandoned cars, corpses of walkers, and many other things.
"Taking Birmingham was harder than expected, but the problems that came after are even more exhausting."
"Let's head back to base!"
"Roger that, boss!"
...
With the sound of the helicopter, Jason and his main group left Birmingham and headed toward the central base.
Upon landing, everyone unloaded the equipment and brought back some samples and infected corpses to the base—this new virus was concerning. Candace and her entire team would have a lot of work to do before figuring out what kind of anomaly this variant was.
Jason had many things to handle. He had discovered that as their bases expanded, there were countless matters demanding his attention.
But right now... he just wanted to rest.