Chapter 104 - You owe me. - If I may? (1/2)

”Well, my husband is a little shy so I'll introduce him. His name is Matthew James Payan. 47 years old and he's British-Filipino unlike me who's a purebred Filipina and my name is Marisha Ann Payan. My husband is a Photographer though he likes to hunt game when we camp around and I'm a Psychology Professor. Well, used to be, considering the circ.u.mstances now. That's about it and I'd like to keep more of our stories later because I might run out in the future.” she gracefully said with a smile.

They sat down as a few close to them that haven't introduced themselves greeted them as well.

”Okay, let's start the meeting now.” I said.

We discussed about the food situation first. Everything is still brimming and it's still continuing to increase from the scavenging missions from before and from our farms and animals. Add to that the haul that Kaley's parents brought. Charlotte has planted a few seedlings outside the farm area that we built before. Some of them are green onions, lettuce, baby carrots, spinach and peas. We still get daily eggs and milk from the animals and we concluded that part of the discussion.

We next discussed about the building phase. Anthony made a small smelter like he told us and he actually hooked a propane tank on it and he started on melting a few scrap metals like aluminum to small cylindrical blocks. He showed me a few of them and he said that we could melt it again if we want to use it but we need some sort of mold if we want to make something out of it. The problem with this small foundry is like the description says, it's small. He's now writing up a blueprint to make something larger for us. The barn was discussed shortly as well as the SUV.

Before we moved to another topic, Ken approached me.

”Hey man, check this thing that I'm working out on while I watch the CCTVs.” he said to me.

”You're making our own server here, right? With this setup, we could also reach the other houses with this. We might need to start small though. Nevertheless, this is great.” I replied.

”The problem with this is we need the hardware for this setup. This is not in a rush, just place this thing in the back burner.” he explained.

”That's true. We could get the hardware for this at a mall in the Bulacan area but going there is a bad idea for now. Well, we just need a dedicated PC first but I would like to grab th-” I got cut off.

”Hey, in English nerds?” Oscar interrupted.

”Let's just say that we're bringing back a small version of the Internet. To be precise a few things that we've saved over the years. I had several drives in storage that not only contains manuals and instructional videos, it contains every little bit of what we have before: Music, Art, Movies, Books, Novels, Comics, Photos and etc. There are much more in the drives I got but if we start small, we could at least catch a break by seeing what we have before or learn new stuff by yourselves since I can't teach everyone all the time.” I said with an excited smile.

Everyone's grew excited when they understood what we two are trying to do.

”How much have you stored in your drives then? I only brought about 20 Terabytes worth.” Ken asked.

”Hah! Definitely much more than what you brought. We'll talk about this later. Good job man!” I gave him a fist bump.

”Anytime man.” he replied.

Lastly, we talked about increasing out territory for a bit. I assigned Oscar to lead that group. It's only up to my old house though there will be lots of houses to check first since the houses on that part are more squeezed together and there is another squatter area that needed to be taken care of. The priority is to build the fence first then clear the area after. I'm probably gonna get Jude to stretch his bones since he will be guarding the group that would make the fence. After a few questions that are easily answered, we ended the meeting.

After we ended the meeting Oscar approached me.

”Kid, you owe me.” he said.

”Hmm? What are you talking about?” I was confused.

”Hah! You'll see tomorrow, but remember, you owe me.” he said with a grin.

”C'mon old man! You know I need to know this sort of things before I sleep! You'll keep me awake all night!” I exclaimed.

”Hah! Nevermind that, but yeah, you owe me.” he said as he walked inside his house.

My scalp started to itch now as I started to scratch it furiously.

”This old man, what did he do now?” I asked myself.

I went ahead to my room and Kaley followed from behind.

”Hey, I thought you were gonna sleep with your parents today?” I asked.

”No, I already did this afternoon with mom. It's really nice having them here. Besides, if we all slept in the same bed it would be catastrophic since I move a lot.” She said.

”I never really noticed though; you've never hit me once in your sleep. The only time I remember you moving is when Olivia slept with us when we watched a horror film.” I said.