Rise of the Wasteland Chapter 135 - Underground Facilities

Chapter 135        Underground Facilities

The sound of the high-pressure hydraulic jet cutter suddenly stopped.

“What happened?”

“The water storage is exhausted. We can’t return it to the ground hence, we won’t be able to refill it.”

“Fill it with our drinking water then.”

The sound of the high-pressure hydraulic jet cutter could be heard once again, but it stopped once more.

“What happened this time?”

“We’ve run out of the hydraulic sandblaster, its cutting ability is greatly reduced.”

“Can it be recycled and reused?”

“It’s quite difficult with our current circumstances .”

“How about Katrina’s explosives, can we use them?”

“We can try.”

The drilling machine was lifted up and after a buzzing noise was emitted from the machine, several deep holes appeared in the construction tunnel. They stuffed a small amount of C4 explosives and a detonating electrode which was over twenty meters of wire into the deep hole. After a muffled noise was produced by the explosion, everyone then once again carefully returned to the end of the tunnel.

“You can rest assured that the structure of the tunnel is very sturdy and there’s no way it will collapse. When the U.S. government built it in the last century, it was for the exact purpose of defending against explosive attacks.”

“How far away are we from the air-raid shelter?”

“About one to two meters.”

“Increase the number of explosives then.”

The blast went off again. After a few explosions, gravel fell and it blocked the tunnel.

“Kaff! Kaff! Damn it! Hand me the shovel. We’ll need to move the gravel away.”

The tunnel was narrow and the work surface could only accommodate one person at most. Even David Lawrence found it inconvenient to carry out the work, let alone Mox or Butcher. Only Zhou Qingfeng, the one with the most petite figure, managed to stretch his arms and legs. Therefore, he was the only one who was able to use all his strength to break through the gravel.

It took two to three hours for the whole operation to be completed. The air was poorly ventilated inside the narrow tunnel. Consequently, Zhou Qingfeng was soaking in his sweat. Mox had no choice but to use a blower and a soft pipe that was supposed to be used for fire extinguishing to fan Zhou Qingfeng.

“Hahaha…… It’s much cooler now.” To facilitate his work, the sweaty Zhou Qingfeng had taken off all his clothes, except for his underwear. The soft pipe blew air into his back and he felt cold air in his nuts.

The other workers were covered in dirt, dust, and wet mud. They were wearing hard hats and their faces were dark and muddy. Zhou Qingfeng’s words elicited a great guffaw from the workers.

“Victor, I can see your butt. The gays will certainly fall in love with your a**hole.”

“Butcher, can you please go and kill yourself?”

“I, too, think that Victor has quite a good figure, He’s just a little inferior to me.”

“David, I’m much more handsome than you.”

“Yeah, his d*ck is as big as a donkey’s. The ladies from our Ukrainian family are particularly fond of this kind of man.

“Mox, you’re so naughty.”

“Hahaha……”

The bunch of men could only mock themselves to ease the pressure of being in a hot, humid, and closed environment. After Zhou Qingfeng had cleared up seventy to eighty percent of the gravel in the working area, he stood up straight and lifted his feet to throw several strong kicks at the stone wall.

As he had the explosive power of twice the ordinary person’s, Zhou Qingfeng managed to create a big hole in the stone wall at the end. The cold and old air was released from the cave.

“Victor, fall back!” Mox yelled from behind.

Zhou Qingfeng turned around and ran like he was a rabbit. He did not know what was behind the stone wall. So, he felt that he should be more careful.

They used the blower once again. After around ten minutes of ventilation, a few workers stepped forwards and they opened up the hole to a point where an ordinary man could get past it freely.

With a torchlight, Zhou Qingfeng found out that they had actually broken through the wall of a massive storeroom. There were mountains worth of wooden boxes in the storeroom. But, judging by the state of those wooden boxes, it seemed like no one had actually gone there for at least half a century.

"Look, canned meat produced in 1963, the property of the United States Army," David Lawrence pointed the flashlight on a large wooden box with clearly printed texts and bar codes.

Zhou Qingfeng wore a gas mask and walked into the pitch-black storeroom. After confirming that everything was safe, he waved to his companions and yelled, “Come in, everyone! There’s only us over here.”

“There’s blankets over here. Look at the box that says 'For use only after being attacked by an enemy.'”

“There’s even biscuits. What the hell! These biscuits are even older than my granny. They’re produced in 1962. ‘Civil protection supplies for emergency use’.”

“There’s also distilled water and medication from 1957. My God, can we actually still use these stuff?

“It’s theoretically possible. For example, the food is completely edible. It should be noted that the U.S. military had eaten the pickled beef of the Civil War in 1865 during the Second World War. But, you shouldn’t expect them to be delicious.”

The wandered through the dusty warehouse like they had walked into a historical Grand View Garden. Zhou Qingfeng finally shouted after around ten minutes, “Hey, where’s the exit of this storeroom? We’re not here for some antique canned foods.”

“The exit is over here.” Mox had found an iron gate. He immediately ordered his men to bring over all the demolition equipment via Walker.

The iron gate was very heavy, but nevertheless, they were destroyed by the welding torches. A big hole appeared on the iron gate within a mere half-an-hour. Zhou Qingfeng and the others filled out the storeroom as they continued searching for the underground civil defense facilities.

The basement of the NYPD headquarters was almost completely emptied. There were a large number of storerooms as well. In addition to food, they also found trucks which were manufactured many decades ago, old-fashioned diesel generators, and even a well-equipped hospital. Of course, the equipment in the underground hospital was outdated and the drugs were all expired.

“This place is indeed not bad, I don’t even feel like leaving this place anymore.”

“Look, there’s even a barrack over here and the iron beds are still sturdy.”

"Yeah, the facilities here were very old, but they’re very complete. Take a look at this big water purifier. It can pump water directly from deep wells."

“But we still need to leave anyway. We can’t keep staying underground.”

“Yeah…… Too bad!”

They scurried around in the area before finally entering a much smaller underground parking lot.

“Oh…… It looks like we’ve finally arrived at the right place.” Zhou Qingfeng opened up a rusty iron gate and saw a row of neatly parked modern vehicles. He felt like he had returned from a few decades ago.

“This is the 2025 edition of the Dodge Charger - the very definition of an American muscle car. With a 370 horsepower, it’s extremely powerful and it takes only six seconds to accelerate up to one hundred kilometers. It also comes with an armor, a solid crash barrier and informatization equipment that was specifically designed to deal with New York’s increasingly deteriorating forms of security. The only trouble is... it’s entirely driven by electricity. How are we supposed to charge it later on?”

The men were all excited when they discussed automobiles. Several of them surrounded the standard police cars of NYPD as they expressed their opinions.

"It doesn't really matter. There’ll always be electricity. Anyway, there are more than twenty Dodge Chargers here and I think we can drive all of them.”

"I think we’ve got ourselves something more than just some ordinary police cars. Look at this... ‘MRAP’, the short form of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles. It’s a U.S. military decommissioned equipment that weighed over eighteen tons, had strong armor, superior power, and it even comes with a machine gun tower.

“The American police left them behind in the underground parking lot as they felt that they were way too big for them. However, that’s what I’ve always wanted. With it, we won’t be afraid of anyone anymore… including Zetas!”

Chapter end