Without further ado, Lukas knocked on the door of their friendly neighbors in this post-apocalyptic world. Upon hearing their need for medicine, Jasper agreed after some consideration.
As usual, Angela stayed behind with the kid to guard their base.
Even though Cody proposed the idea of the world's end, Angela still had her concerns. She wasn't ready to believe it fully, and after some hesitation, she said, "On this trip, focus on finding survival supplies and medicine. Anything else...you can decide whether you need it or not."
She didn't spell it out, but those who understood, got it.
Stella quickly caught on. "If we find medicine and survival supplies, we will split it evenly. Any personal needs aren't included, but let's not use too much of the group's resources."
Everyone agreed; it was better to be clear from the start.
With one speedboat and three rubber boats, they could bring back lots of supplies. Their only worry was that someone else might get to them first.
There were 20 kilometers to Cody's company, and the four of them braved the rain on their speedboat.
As they had guessed, the water flow became more complex the further they got from the city, and the wind started to blow. Even the best sailor would struggle to navigate through such conditions.
Jasper, however, was skilled enough to traverse the complex waterways. In the gloomy weather, they spotted a few skyscrapers standing above the water. Cody pointed out the direction, and they moved towards the skyscrapers. Through the glass on the fifth floor, they could see an office submerged in the flood.
"The office looks pretty tidy; it probably hasn't been looted yet."
They took a hammer and smashed the glass, letting the floodwater rush in. Once the water level stabilized, they entered the skyscraper and secured their speedboat.
They were lucky, the large skyscraper hadn't been looted yet. With a clear goal, they headed straight to the 12th floor, where Cody's pharmaceutical company was located.
Using bolt cutters, they broke the lock and Cody was the first one to reach his desk. Upon seeing several large boxes piled up behind it, he sighed in relief. "I was supposed to deliver these to the pharmacy that day. But then the storm came, and they delayed the delivery, so I brought the goods back to the company."
The goods were a variety of things, including antibiotics, rheumatism medication, cold medicine, and much more.
The pharmaceutical company wasn't big, with only about a dozen people in the sales department. The exhibition room had all sorts of medicines. Although the volume wasn't much, there were many different types, and they managed to fill several large boxes.
Stella suggested, "We have limited space, so let's remove the outer packaging and just take the medicine. That should save us about three-quarters of the space."
"Sure, I know what each medicine is for anyway. I can sort them out when we get back."
While they were removing the packaging, Stella searched the workstations. She found coffee, biscuits, various snacks, tea for the men, herbal tea for the women, and some instant noodle.
The quantity wasn't much, but they didn't leave anything behind.
The pantry had more stuff, all the drinks, tea, and bottled water were taken. Stella even took the packages left at the reception desk; as long as they were useful, they would take it.
Whatever they didn't need, she secretly stuffed into Arcadia.
The medicines filled up two large backpacks, making it a fruitful trip.
After hiding the other supplies, they moved to the 15th floor with the medicine. There were three pharmaceutical companies in the building, and they prioritized collecting from all of them.
The second one also had a lot of medicine. Cody looked at the large fridge in the exhibition room with regret. "This company mainly deals with vaccines. These are all valuable, but we can't take them."
Through the glass, Stella saw several types of vaccines for smallpox, tetanus, rabies, meningitis, HPV, influenza, and more. The fridge was designed to keep running for a month after a power outage, but once taken out, the vaccines wouldn't be able to be preserved at room temperature.
Stella glanced at them without saying anything and continued to gather supplies.
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: 18 Floors Above the Apocalypse