Rise of the Wasteland Chapter 178 - Damn Spam

Chapter 178        Damn Spam

Terminal Seven of John Fitzgerald. Kennedy International Airport, Queens, New York.

The terminal was built more than thirty years ago, but it was renovated in the recent years and it was still luxurious. The open space in the terminal building and its complete ancillary facilities made it the official residence and command post for one of Skull and Bones’ Big Fives - Fernando Rethnor.

Fernando Rethnor was listening to Richard’s operation report inside the VIP lounge of the terminal building. Unlike the several other leaders in Skull and Bones, the Brazilian was born into a wealthy family. He has always put emphasis on his elegance and he joined the military just to prove that he was the special one.

“So, you mean that there’s a guy named Victor Hugo who interrupted your operation and that’s why you failed, am I right?” Fernando Rethnor sat on a genuine leather sofa as he swirled his glass of wine, smirking. He then slightly shook his head and said, “I don’t want to hear any explanation. Allen Derrick is all I want.”

“I need him to deactivate Polarlys’ security defense system, start the central intelligence on board, and tell me how to get the two nuclear reactors on board to work properly. Even though the two nuclear reactors are indeed working properly now, I’m still feeling uncomfortable about not having Allen Derrick under my control. ”

Fernando Rethnor was extremely satisfied with the Polarlys, but still, his satisfaction was limited as he was unable to gain full control of the ship.

The highly intelligent control center of the ship had been shut down and only its captain and the chief mate had the authority to reactivate it. As the captain had now disappeared, Allen Derrick, the chief mate, has now become the key for its reactivation. The value of Polarlys will be greatly reduced if Fernando Rethnor disappeared as well.

“Richard, I have great faith in you and I know that you’re working very hard for me, so worry not, I’m never gonna treat you bad. I don’t have anything with me at this moment except for the variety of life supplies. You may go now and have a good meal before continuing your work.”

Fernando Rethnor waved his hand as a signal for Richard to leave, “I hope to hear some good news from you when I see you next time.”

The entire operation report was basically a solo performance by Fernando Rethnor as Richard could not even speak a word during the entire report session. Depressed, he ran to the restaurant in the terminal alone and asked the chef to prepare something good for him.

"Oh... what's this?" Richard looked at the pink meat on his plate and felt ... he did not even know how he felt. Obviously, he was already starving, but he still refused to eat the food in front of him.

The chef replied coldly, “Spam.”

“Do you mean Spam, the luncheon meat?”

“That’s right.”

“Damn it, I hate luncheon meat,” Richard lifted his fork and put a small piece of the meat into his mouth, but he felt that the meat was too greasy for him. Even the most impoverished wanderer would not be willing to eat such food before the Cataclysm. However, although he was now a senior detective of the Central Intelligence Agency, he could only eat the luncheon meat as it was the only food available.

“Mr. Richard, are you not going to finish the rest?” one of his subordinates from the operations departments approached Richard and he was staring at his leftovers.

“You may eat it,” Richard felt that he was already full.

His subordinate finished eating the Spam in half a minute and it seemed that he wanted to ask for more. Richard could not help but ask him, “Do you really think that it tastes good?”

"I haven’t eaten any meat for over a week, so yes, indeed, they taste very good." He wiped the oil from his lips and smiled happily, "I’ve heard the others saying that someone recently brought many canned Spam from overseas to the black market. Mr. Rethnor bought all these cans and sent them to the soldiers as military supplies.”

“Many? Wouldn’t someone steal from the supplier if there’s a lot of it?”

“Actually, no…. I believe that it’s mainly because the supplier had divided the large quantity of canned Spam into several shipments. Furthermore, the people who sold the canned food were very careful. They even hired some kids from the black market to transport and trade those canned food for him to keep himself anonymous. As these canned food solved a large part of the issue regarding military supplies, Mr. Rethnor ordered to keep this transaction as an ongoing one.”

Luncheon meat was considered an ordinary consumer food, hence some people like it while others do not. The discussion was originally intended to be after-meal chatter and they should forget their discussion once they left the place. However, when Richard was about to leave, a crippled, lame man came up to him and sat down.

“Chef, serve me some food as well,” the lame man greeted the chef before throwing a few glances at Richard. He then smiled and his hand reached out, “Hi…… Richard, my name is Guzman and we’ll be partners from now on.”

Richard was instantly dumbfounded, “Did you just say something about being partners?”

“Mr. Rethnor said that you’ve encountered some problems. In particular, a guy named, ‘Victor Hugo’ has caused you quite a bit of trouble. Hence, he sent me here to assist you.” Guzman chuckled, “As for me, I’m more than happy to help you.”

Richard was shocked once again, “So, you’re the Guzman who tried to assassinate Mr. Rethnor and surrendered after realizing that the operation was impossible to be carried out?”

"Ah, yes."

Guzman was a shameless man. He did not even care about the sarcasm in Richard's words, "Believe me, I know Victor Hugo very well. I’ll definitely help you capture that hateful man. I’ll break his head, chop his limbs off, cut his stomach apart, and send him to hell.”

Guzman seemed very excited. He gestured animatedly with his hands and feet at the thought of killing Zhou Qingfeng. However, when the chef served him the Spam, he was unsatisfied and yelled, “Why is it Spam again? I’ve already been here for three days but I still haven’t eaten anything apart from these canned Spam for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Can’t you guys just serve me something else?”

“We can only cook whatever that was sold on the black market. Stop demanding too much from us,” the chef did not even care about Guzman’s complaint.

“I guess I’m f*cked then,” Guzman, too, had no other choice. He stared at the pink meat and felt pain and helplessness in his heart. However, even so, he could only bear with the unappetizing food and started to eat it.

Spam was something that tasted quite nice at first and its flavor and texture were still acceptable. However, if one had to eat this greasy food every single day for the rest of his life, he would be definitely be driven crazy.

Even Richard felt sad for Guzman when he saw the latter frown and stuff the canned Spam into his mouth. He asked from the side, “What’s Victor Hugo’s position in the Brotherhood of Steel? I would like to collect more intel about him.”

“What else can he be? He’s just another mercenary like me and was sent to assassinate Mr. Rethnor. However, I don’t know how he ended up saving Allen Derrick. All I know was that he’s cunning as f*ck and will take advantage of us at literally, any time, so we must handle him with extra care.”

Guzman replied while eating. He then continued complaining about the disgusting taste of the Spam, “Who the hell actually provided these canned Spam to you guys? I hate him so much. For now, he’s destroyed even the last bit of my last bit of favorable impression of food. I feel like I’m literally eating some dogsh*t right now… I hate him!”

“I heard that it was Victor Hugo who sent these over,” Richard’s subordinate from the operation department mumbled.

“What?” Both Guzman and Richard screamed in shock. They felt that something terrible was about to happen soon.

Richard’s subordinate from the operation department then lowered his voice as he was caught off-guard by their scream, “Everyone actually knows about this secret. But, they just pretend that they don’t know anything about it. We got the information from the black market’s people that Victor Hugo is the sole supplier of these canned food.”

“Could it be that the guy has poisoned all these canned food?” Richard’s face turned pale as he instantly thought about that possible conspiracy theory.

Everyone then looked at the chef who cooked the Spam, but the chef sneered unexpectedly, “These canned Spams are probably as old as my grandfather. I just can’t think of anyone willing to put in the effort to poison them.”

“Did you just say that these are over a hundred years old?” Richard and Guzman were even more surprised now.

The chef then threw out an empty can of the canned Spam. After carefully identifying its production date label, Richard and Guzman almost burst into tears. They found out that they had just eaten the U.S. military canned food from the Second World War. These were once one of the major enemies of the U.S. military.

At first, Guzman was only dumbfounded. He then stared at the empty can in a daze before finally going crazy. He cursed loudly, “Victor Hugo, you bastard! How dare you let me eat these damned Spam… I’ll kill you!”

Chapter end