Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

As we hopped on our treadmills for the third time—not including the first time we had to take everyone's distance traveled into account—June played some good music with a nice beat and tempo matching almost everyone's pace. It went on and on for a good 15 minutes but everyone didn't look like they were enjoying one bit.

"The fuck y'all looking at me like that?"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?! IT'LL CHANGE ANY SECOND!"

"YEAH!"

"WE SUFFERED LONG ENOUGH—"

"The one time I do nothing…"

"NOOOO! I'M NOT BELIEVING ANY OF THAT CRAP!"

"WE'VE BEEN TRICKED TOO MANY TIMES!"

"GUYS! STOP YELLING! STOP—"

"Fine… It'll change in the 20-minute mark…"

"I KNEW IT!"

"I KNEW AS WELL!"

"I'M NOT RELAXING ONE BIT!"

Then 20 minutes passed without anything changing.

"..."

"..."

"..."

I chuckled as I looked at each of them, "Something wrong?"

"...fuck you. Respectfully."

"Haa… Haa… Ha… I hate you, sir."

"I can do this a few more times regularly but this mental torture—"

I never smiled so wide, "Right?!"

"OH, WHY DON'T YOU SHUT IT?!"

"DON'T FUCKING SMILE LIKE THAT!"

"HE'S THE DEVIL! THE TIME THE MUSIC WAS GOOD, I WASN'T ABLE TO ENJOY IT! HAA! HAH!"

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

From then on, I finished maybe a minute or two past my current record while everyone had a larger space between their own, but aside from the challenges posed while we were on the treadmill, there were also challenges that appeared while everyone was recovering.

It started right after our sixth run: the perfect time we'd had our lunch—where everyone went all out because they were expecting some grub—but as they all turned around to where the food was supposed to be, Kaley, Rin, June, and everyone else who stayed to watch was just looking at them apologetically.

"What…?"

"N-No food?"

"But there was a lot when— No…"

"Ah, fuck… This is insane!"

"We can only have water?!"

I waved them all off, "If you wanna have lunch, you can have lunch… It's just that you'd have to walk out the door and forfeit. Some good homemade food is waiting for all of you at the compound but do know while you can come back and run a partial amount of your total punishments to save some time, you can't come back to the competition.

And remember that whatever we finish here will be doubled and be your punishment."

"Fuck…"

"This is brutal…"

"Not having lunch… Shit!"

"I can go for a few more! Fuck it!"

"No one quits! We'll all get through this—"

I cut them off as I turned to Seb, "By the way, here's your 5-pound increment… JP and Tennyson get to choose who gets the 2-pound increments while you get to choose the 1-pound increment… The same goes for Tatiana's group."

Seb nodded a few times as he slid the 5-pound increment in his vest, "Alright, sir… Tennyson—"

Tennyson took it from his hands, "Yeah, yeah~ We already ran 60 kilometers like this.. How long—"

I cut in with a smile, "You can quit, if you like—"

He shook his head, "Nah, I'm still good…" then he turned to Uno with his 2-pound increment, "Hey, sorry for this—"

Uno just let out a huff, "Fuck… I'm out the forefront and I'm still getting this on top of the 1-pound increment."

I chuckled again, "You can quit—"

"Oh, shut up! It's just fucking lunch! We—"

"I'm sorry, sir. But this much is already great a strain on my body…" Hooper suddenly said as he approached me.

Tennyson and the rest of his team shook their heads as he said, "Fuck…"

I took his vest and put it aside, "You sure?"

Hooper bitterly chuckled, "Not asking me to quit, sir?"

"Well, with your height and weight, I'm surprised you made this long— It's a feat in itself… Want to scale down in the future? I can make you a program?"

He just stared at me for a moment before he answered, "That's… We'll see the next challenges, sir. I really have to eat and take a nap… I'll be back."

I gave him a bump on his chest, "You did good… Don't eat too much at once, alright? Zeus will walk you back."

"Who—"

"Woof!" Zeus cut in while wagging his tail.

"Oh."

"That's Zeus, if you haven't met him. He'll run back here if you collapse on the road, don't worry…"

"Ah… Right… Thank you, sir. C-Come on, Zeus?"

"Woof!" Zeus barked again as he went out the door.

At that point, I saw how everyone looked at Hooper's back as he was the first person to forfeit but some of them looked like they wouldn't last that long either.

Honestly, I was already surprised that they stuck that long—despite the challenges and the distractions—and it just told me that they were taking their training seriously since stamina should always be one of our main focuses on top of having great mental fortitude.

Unfortunately, Lee's or Tennyson's group—whichever—hadn't been with us for long but let's just say that aside from Brownie who talked of big game earlier, the three weren't lagging behind the groups their fighting against.

On the contrary, Williams was the one leading the pack on the female group—besides Tatiana, of course—and she was followed alternately by Megan, Cindy, Lee, and Eden who were just swapping around each time.

Of course, the Dewey sisters except for June were up there as well—which was also a surprise—but if we compared their time with each other, Williams was only lagging behind Tatiana, who was wearing all of the supposed punishments herself, for a minute give or take while the rest were lagging behind a full two or three minutes.

But out of everyone on the boys' team, there was one guy keeping to himself and hiding beneath the shadows—with only a 6-pound increment total on his 10-pound vest—and it was Marvin.

He was the supposed leader of the black sheeps from the time we came recruiting people and he was definitely playing the long game by keeping out of the spotlight and biding his time.

'Let's see if his strategy works out…'