18 Floors Above the Apocalypse

Chapter 501

Stella Larson didn't waste a second as she eagerly stashed the variety of firearms from the warehouse into her trusty Arcadia. In a flash, an entire thousand square meters of supplies vanished.

Taking a deep breath, Stella headed to the adjacent warehouse. Using the same method, she swung the doors wide open. Canned pork, fish, fruit, nuts-you name it, there were tons of it, all produced years after the disaster with enough preservatives to give them a shelf life of a decade. Stella wouldn't touch the stuff herself, but that didn't stop her from taking it all.

Coffee, sugar, various spirits, dried fruits, dehydrated vegetables, freeze-dried milk powder-all measured in tons, at least thirty by a quick glance. And then there were the luxury items: 20 boxes of coffee mugs priced at $1280 each, 10 boxes of $3000 coffee pots, $300 surge protectors, $10,000 toilets-over 300 of them-plus various spare parts. Honestly, these folks were so attached to their luxuries they wouldn't even let a flood get in their way. Stella was particularly smitten; she absolutely had to try out a $10,000 toilet.

If she wasn't mistaken, these supplies were meant for the upper echelons of the Five Eyes Alliance; the stuff for the rank and file was probably stashed somewhere on the lower levels and nowhere near as fancy. To her surprise, there were also pallets of pharmaceuticals. All manufactured post-disaster, they were essential and in high demand: anti-inflammatories, fever reducers, painkillers, antibiotics, as well as gauze, surgical tools, iodine, and alcohol. These were life- saving supplies, far more useful than any of the other goods she'd found. Stella quickly checked for expiration dates and found none had passed. She silently thanked her generous benefactor; this trip had been well worth it. What a haul! Not even the wooden pallets were left behind.

unmarked, yet requiring biometric access-face recognition, no less. Stella's intuition told her that the more inconspicuous something was, the more valuable it likely held within. So, they commenced with chip sensing and fingerprint identification. Dragging a corpse over, Jasper pressed the deceased's face to the scanner. After three beeps, the smart door opened slowly. A chill hit them immediately, the air biting cold. Unfazed

degrees Celsius. Rows of coffin-like pods lined the floor, each one seemingly designed for a specific creature. Inside each pod was a body, but not human. Stella's eyes scanned the rows, her confusion mounting... Fish, chicken,

They might be... hibernation pods." "Hibernation pods?" Stella echoed with surprise. Hibernation technology was something out of sci-fi movies, yet here it was in reality... perhaps. There were clients frozen before the disaster due to incurable diseases, whether this was true science or a scam, no one could say. But

creatures were around, the devastated ecosystem would recover swiftly. She had to admit, the technology from China was impressive, outstripping the rest of the world in certain areas. Regretfully, Stella's Arcadia

even stopped breathing. Stella thought it was worth a shot. What did she have to lose? At worst, Arcadia would just reject them. So, she attempted to store a pod full of chickens into Arcadia. The pod vanished from the warehouse, and an eerie silence followed. Stella watched her watch-three minutes passed without rejection.

alerted them to approaching danger. The Russians had reached the second sub-level. Dead or alive, Stella decided to bring them all into Arcadia first and figure it out later. The villa could preserve them, but she didn't dare store the sleep pods in The Garden-what if something unexpected happened? As for

his back, Sought an alternative exit Persistence paid off, and they found another way out-a narrow, hidden staircase. They climbed carefully in the darkness. After about twenty minutes, they came upon a sealed door. With great effort, they pushed it open, finding themselves at the fire hydrant door of an outer military vessel. This was the outermost ship, far from the base entrance, and

and