**Location:** Miller's Farm, Texas.**Date:** November 2022.
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The sun rose over a battlefield.
Seven twisted bodies lay scattered across Jake's farmyard. The reinforced fence held, but it was battered. Claw marks gouged the steel plating, and one section of barbed wire had been torn completely loose.
Jake stood on the porch, nursing a mug of black coffee. He hadn't slept.
**[Status: Fatigue (Mild).]****[Stamina: 75/100.]**
He watched the last of the military convoy disappear over the horizon hours ago. They hadn't come back. They hadn't sent a medevac. They hadn't even honked.
"Guess we're not tax-paying citizens anymore," Jake muttered. "Just liabilities."
He set the mug down and picked up his shovel.
Cleanup time.
Burning seven bodies took all morning. The smell of gasoline and charred flesh hung heavy in the humid air, sticking to the back of his throat. He had to use the tractor's front loader to scoop them into a pit he dug past the treeline.
As he dumped the last Runner—a teenager wearing a varsity jacket—Jake felt a pang of sickness. He knew this kid. Billy. He bagged groceries at the HEB.
Now, Billy was just biomass.
**[System Suggestion: Organic matter can be processed.]****[Blueprint Available: Bio-Fuel Refinery.]**
Jake paused. "You want me to turn Billy into diesel?"
**[Correction: Any organic biomass. Corn. Switchgrass. Infected tissue provides a 15% octane boost due to viral accelerants.]**
Jake spat on the ground. "We stick to corn for now. I ain't running my truck on my neighbors unless I have to."
But the idea stuck. He had silos full of corn. He had a generator that guzzled gas. And the gas stations in town were likely death traps.
Energy independence. That was the first step to survival.
He went to the barn.
Building a refinery sounded high-tech, but to a Texas boy, it was just a fancy word for a moonshine still.
He scavenged parts from Miller's old brewing setup. Copper piping, a 50-gallon steel drum, a pressure cooker.
**[Crafting: Bio-Fuel Still (Level 1).]****[Progress: 20%...]**
The System guided his hands like a master mechanic. It showed him exactly where to drill, how to seal the flanges, what temperature to set the fermentation mash.
He worked for hours, lost in the rhythm of creation. Welding, hammering, wrenching.
By noon, a monstrosity of copper and steel sat in the corner of the barn, hissing steam. The smell of fermenting corn mash filled the air.
**[Crafting Complete.]****[Output: 1 Gallon / Hour.]**
"It ain't pretty," Jake wiped grease from his forehead. "But she'll run."
He poured the first batch of clear liquid into the generator. He pulled the cord.
*Vroom!*
The Honda roared to life, purring smoother than it ever had on pump gas.
**[System XP: +200.]****[Level Up Progress: 45%.]**
Power: Check.Food: Check.Water: Check.
Ammo: ...Critical.
Jake checked the Remington. Two shells left. The AR-15 had maybe 80 rounds. If a swarm hit tonight—a real swarm, like the hundreds he saw on the news—he'd be dry in five minutes.
He needed lead.
"Big Al's Gun Shop," Jake said to the empty barn. "It's twenty miles down Route 6."
It was a risk. A huge one. But staying here with an empty gun was suicide.
He loaded up the F-150. He welded a makeshift cowcatcher to the front bumper—a piece of I-beam he found in the scrap pile.
**[Vehicle Upgrade: Ramming Bar (Basic).]****[Durability: High.]**
He roared out of the gate, tires kicking up dust.
Route 6 was a graveyard. Abandoned cars littered the asphalt. Some were smashed, others just empty, doors hanging open.
Jake weaved through the wreckage, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.
He saw them in the ditches. Runners. Feeding on deer carcasses. They looked up as he passed, hissing, but the truck was too fast.
Big Al's was a fortress. Concrete walls, barred windows.
But the front door was smashed in.
"Damn."
Jake parked around back, keeping the engine running. He grabbed the AR-15 and moved in.
Inside, the store was trashed. The glass counters were shattered. The racks were empty. Looters had picked it clean.
Except for the smell.
That chemical rot smell.
Jake moved toward the back office. Big Al kept the good stuff in a floor safe. Most folks didn't know that. Jake did.
He pushed the office door open.
Big Al was there. Or, half of him. He was sitting in his chair, a shotgun in his mouth. He'd pulled the trigger days ago.
But the safe under the rug was locked.
**[Lockpicking Skill: Level 0.]****[Force Option Available.]**
Jake didn't have time for finesse. He grabbed a crowbar from the desk and jammed it into the hinge. His enhanced muscles bulged.
*CREAK... SNAP.*
The heavy steel door bent like tin.
Inside:* **500 rounds of 5.56mm (Green Tip).*** **10 boxes of 00 Buckshot.*** **A suppresser (Silencer) for the AR-15.*** **A Sig Sauer P226 pistol.**
"God bless America," Jake grinned.
He loaded the loot into a duffel bag.
As he turned to leave, the radio on Al's desk crackled. It was running on emergency batteries.
*"...General Shepard speaking. To all units. Containment Protocol Omega is in effect. I repeat, Omega. Burn it all. No survivors. The infection is airborne in Sector 4. Texas is lost. Fall back to the Colorado Line."*
Jake froze.
*Texas is lost.**No survivors.*
They weren't coming back. They were going to nuke it, or napalm it, or just let it rot.
A roar from the front of the store broke his trance.
Runners. They had smelled him.
Jake racked the slide on his newly acquired pistol.
"Texas ain't lost," he growled, walking toward the door. "We just seceded."
(End of Chapter)