Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

Kaley exclaimed as she was kinda playfully glaring at me—because I used to joke about her being an actual psychic, and making another attempt to spread her "skills" was getting a little too out of hand. But despite that, Quinn and Edith took it as a joke but it was only a matter of time before they thought differently.

To be completely honest, I also regard it as a running joke between us but the way Kaley could filter out people—though not at 100% accuracy—was still outstanding.

It didn't take long before the four of us made our way to the line in question and I was surprised to see a few dozen people waiting to pledge to our house.

"Oi! He's here! He's here! Line up! Line up!"

"Line up properly!"

"That's the new head?"

"Hah?? Where were you yesterday?"

"I was already out since 7 PM, woke up in my vomit and shit…"

"Ah…"

"Can we really get in?"

"One way to find out, no?"

"He rejected everyone last time…"

"Persistence has some merits, we just gotta show him we're serious."

"Sister in christ, we're both fucking whores, how can we—"

"Shut up! I just wanna see him up close…"

"Can you even compete with his wife? She's so pretty…"

"Edith is over there too, she's totally my type."

"How about Quinn? She's mommy, right?"

"I… I can't keep up… So he's… probably… that good as Rox and Mel say…"

"Oh?"

I could only shake my head at the chatter I was hearing while we were making our way and to my surprise, Tatiana, Cynthia, and the twins were the ones keeping them in order. They had a table with a few refreshments on it but Riri was holding the list of the aspiring candidates.

Her face lit up when we met eyes and she approached me with a jaunt in her step as she handed me the clipboard.

"Here! Fifty-two people in total!"

'This is just a list of names… They should've gotten a bit more info out of them…'

I turned to Tatiana first, "Where's Artem and the rest? Did they leave already?"

Tatiana nodded after swallowing a mouthful of food, "Yeah, he brought Katya, Mikhail, Bogdan, Nikolas, and Alexei with the crew Mr. Cuervo gave them. If you're looking for the others, they're probably around here somewhere but I did tell them to inform me if they're gonna head out."

"I see, thanks…" I trailed as I looked at the clipboard and Riri who was looking to receive a compliment. "Riri… It's nice of you to get their names but you should've gotten more given the time they were here…"

Riri had the shock of her life, "Ah— You're— I thought—"

"It's fine—"

"Wait! I know everybody here! We could just tell you!" Riri exclaimed as she glanced at Ruru.

Ruru nodded, "Yes, we do actually."

I nodded with a faint smile, "Alright, one of you bring one of them up while the other writes their info on a piece of paper. It's impressive to know you know each of them personally but I'll need a CV of sorts for proper record-keeping."

"We're sorry, we'll do good next time…"

Ruru turned to the people in the line, "Alright! Come over here! You! You're~ Angela, right?" then she turned to me, "She's Angela, 26 years of age, from the Cuervo Family, a member of the Pink House—"

"Hey! Don't tell him that!"

I cut them off, "I'm gonna need every bit of info, sorry. Don't worry, I won't judge you in any way but that doesn't mean I'll just accept anybody that tries to get into my camp."

Ruru nodded with a faint smile, "He's great, right? Anyway, Angela also works as a line cook when she's on her day off and she keeps her room really clean! However~ she's kind of a picky eater and she OPENS UP a little too much when she's drunk."

Tatiana interjected, "You mean physically or…"

Angela shouted while her face was beet-red, "THE OTHER ONE! I JUST DON'T HAVE A FILTER WHEN I'M DRUNK, OKAY?!"

"Ah… I wouldn't mind if you're both, personally," Tatiana chuckled while she didn't break eye contact with Angela.

At that moment, the sexual tension between the two was concerning so I had to swipe one of her burritos to distract her.

"Hey! That's mine!"

"Uh-huh, I thought you'd have her for a meal so you wouldn't mind this one. Anyway," I said as I turned to Angela, "I'm not the one to interview all of you even if I'm the head of my family but everyone, meet my wife, Kaley. She's the one to decide if we'll keep you or not."

"..."

Everyone was silent as Kaley gave them a short nod—after releasing a little bit of pressure, but I gave her a short introduction for them to know that she was not here to mess around.

"Don't let the pretty face and perfect body fool all of you, alright? I trained her personally and the only thing I haven't taught her was to hold back."

"..."

"Pfft… just kidding~ She knows how to, she just prefers not to do it. Can we start again?"

Kaley sighed exasperatedly as she beckoned Angela to speak, "Don't mind him, he's just trying to scare all of you but anyway~ I don't mind you giving an introduction of your own. You know yourself best, right? I think it's better for you to do it yourself rather than another person. And to add to that, Ruru did a good job just listing their names because this is actually how I want to do things."

"..!"

After Kaley said that, it seemed like she captured almost all of everyone's hearts instead of intimidating everyone to the point of canceling their tryout spot. However, her methods seemed to be too effective because it didn't take long before Angela started opening up, and she was already in tears while she haven't had a sip of alcohol.

"It's just that I don't know *sniffs* if I'm really doing the right thing *sniffs* by going here but *sniffs* y-you're really cool, you know that?! *sniffs* I made a lot of friends in this line of work but I really j-just want to pursue being a cook! It *sniffs* It used to be my dream but money was really tight before and I had to *sniffs* sell pictures of my feet to strangers at this *sniffs* shady *sniffs* website. I just… *sniffs* It was just so lucrative and I couldn't believe how much *sniffs* money I made and it just devolved to me *sniffs* doing other stuff…"

"I… I see…"

"B-But you know what?! *sniffs* Even if some part of me disappears every time I *sniffs* do it? It still empowers me in a way… Am I crazy?!"

'Yep…'

Kaley kicked my shin as if she heard what I was speaking in my head, "Y-You're not! You're just following what your heart wants! Sometimes… You might do something that you don't like for the sake of something that keeps you… happy but if you discover that the something you hate or used to hate empowers you, isn't that a good thing?"

"D-Do you really think *sniffs* so?"

'Why did this turn into a— nevermind… it's entertaining at least… But yeah, they should be speaking about this topic somewhere more private…'

With that said, Angela eventually decided to pursue a new(?) passion of hers while remaining in the Cuervo Family but the next person after wanted to come to our fold for a different reason.

"So, your name is Belle?"

"Yeah~"

"And can you tell me your reason for trying to join our—"

"Dick."

"H-Huh?"

"I need more dick."

"Care to e-elaborate?"

"I've sucked every fucking dick in this place and it's starting to get—"

"I'm sorry, but our lodgings for our ladies of the night are limited. I love the enthusiasm but we'll give you a call if we ever have an open spot…"

"R-Really? Man~ fine… that's too bad. But hit me up, yeah? And also, I know what I am, you don't have to sugarcoat it."

"Oh. Sure… alright."

Two aspirers were gone in a blink of an eye but the next one that was called up have some serious, serious issues.

I dunno how he was fucking awake right now because he seemed to have partied way too hard yesterday or even the week before, but what surprised everyone was that he came in and pulled his pants down with an absent look on his face.

"Umm—"

We thought the nightmare had already reached its peak but something that smelled like ammonia but looked like it had a tinge of blood came out from his flaccid penis. He started pissing in front of everyone with the same expression but for some reason, everyone waited for him to finish before he got beat up and dragged away.

I turned to Ruru and Riri, "Who… Who the fuck was that?"

Ruru almost didn't reply from the shock, "That's… I d-dunno…"

Riri added, "He's not on the list… What should we do?"

I said with a straight face, "Forget the list. He goes to the block."