Rebirth in the Apocalypse: Third Time's a Charm

"What happens if someone from Huang Nian Zu\'s team finds the device first?" asked Wang Chao, causing me to choke on the potato I was eating. "I honestly didn\'t even consider them going down with us," I said with a shrug after I stopped coughing. Taking a sip from my water, I looked at the man sitting across from me.

"We don\'t know that for sure," replied Wang Chao as he cut into his steak.

"De Nile is a river in Egypt and not a good place to be right now," I looked at him thoughtfully. I knew that he probably didn\'t know what I was talking about, but it still needed to be said, mostly for my own sanity.

"I didn\'t think denial was a river," said Chen Zi Han, confused.

I sighed, realizing that I shouldn\'t have said it if I didn\'t want to explain it. "In my original world, there is a country called Egypt on a continent called Africa. The most famous river, and the world\'s longest, is located in Egypt is called The Nile River. Now, in another language, French, the word \'from\' is \'de.\' So… De Nil technically means from the Nile. However, De Nile sounds like the word denial. So, the joke is that Denial is a river in Egypt."

I paused and looked up at the men staring at me. "Then again, I guess it isn\'t funny if I have to explain it," I grumbled. "Back to topic. I am pretty sure that the oh, so lovely commander would much prefer our deaths to any more deaths from his team. I am sure that he will have a crap ton of excuses to make sure of it. That being said, the horde from earlier is going into the water and, hopefully, acclimatizing as well as the other zombies. My goal is to use my horde to fight the aquatic zombies and hopefully give us enough time to be able to find the device and hide it."

I paused for a second, rethinking what I just said. "There was a lot of \'hopefully\'-ies in that sentence." I turned to look at Liu Wei and narrowed my eyes in concern. "Is this another \'fuck it\' plan?"

"No," he assured me as he bit into his salad. "It is a very well-thought-out plan."

"Then, fingers crossed, the commander doesn\'t fuck it up," I said, digging into my steak. Man, it had been a while since I last ate one of these.

"Speaking with the commander, we should probably get out on the road tomorrow so we can reach the rendezvous point before they do. I want to be able to go through everything to make sure that there is nothing wrong with the equipment," said Wang Chao as he pushed his empty plate away.

"Well, we have the ski-doos and the other stuff we took from the shack," I reminded them. "Plus, all of our own scuba gear. Besides, if they do fuck with our equipment, it is more detrimental for them than us," I said, as I thought things through a bit more.

They will never be able to get to wherever this device was buried without us, and they would still need at least one of us to be able to reach the surface to be able to hand it off.

Wait…

"How the hell did this remote even make it down to the bottom of the ocean in the first place?" I asked, confused. I mean, I was so caught up with everything that it never even occurred to me to question how the device got there in the first place.

The boys paused and looked at each other, similar looks of confusion on their faces too.

"Right," I said, my head nodding in agreement. "It doesn\'t make sense."

There was silence as the five of us considered possible scenarios for what was going to happen.

"Could a ship have gone down?" asked Chen Zi Han, pushing away his empty plate. Since we were all done, I sent the plates back into my space to be washed later.

"I don\'t remember reading about any ships going down lately, especially in the East Sea," said Liu Wei with a shake of his head.

"Could it have happened as a result of the EMP?" asked Liu Yu Zeng.

"No. According to the commander, he was assigned this mission before the EMP."

"Could they have known about the EMP?" I asked slowly. "I mean, it would have been one of the safest places in the world, right?"

"If that was the case, then why not just put it in an underground facility like where we found the bikes?" asked Wang Chao as he leaned back in his chair.

"What if there wasn\'t enough time?" I said, raking my brain. "Say they got only 10 minutes\' notice of incoming, so whoever had it tossed it overboard knowing that the water would be deep enough to protect it."

"That could be possible," mused Liu Wei as he adjusted his glasses. "The location is 45 minutes from shore. If the incoming was less than that, then maybe that was exactly the plan."

"Or they could have gotten more notice, but not within enough time to be able to make it to a facility," added Liu Yu Zeng.

I paused as a new thought popped into my head.

"What if we are thinking about this all wrong?" I asked. "We are assuming that someone threw the device overboard, but what if that wasn\'t the case?"

"What are you saying?" asked Wang Chao, a serious expression crossing his face.

"I am saying maybe a ship or a submarine did sink with the device on it. However, the government wasn\'t willing to admit to it, especially if there was a high loss of life."

"Not possible," immediately refuted Wang Chao, holding up his hand before standing up and leaving the cabana.