18 Floors Above the Apocalypse

Chapter 523

Chapter 523

Rosie wasn't one for idle talk; she always had a plan in her head.

"We could go fishing, dry the fish in the sun to kill off any lingering viruses, and then bury the salted fish in a pit. Before long, we'll have maggots."

That's how they did it at Ocean Point Naval Station, and Rosie had learned the ropes long ago.

Once the maggots hatched, they could use them to feed the poultry, which would then breed and multiply.

A decade of hard work was finally paying off. Rosie wasn't about to just sit back and rely on Arcadia.

Stella was all in.

They started with chickens, ducks, geese, and quail-ten of each, all nestled into the incubators.

After some discussion, Stella and Jasper decided to take to the sea and fish.

With no overfishing to worry about, the ocean was teeming with life.

They rose at the crack of dawn, rowing their dinghy out to deeper waters before bringing out the fishing nets.

Neither had much fishing experience; even casting the nets was a challenge.

They watched instructional videos over and over, and after several tries, they finally got the hang of it.

They cast the net and slowly circled with their boat.

When it was time to haul it in, they were stunned to find hundreds of pounds of fish in their catch.

Several species were represented, some normal, others deformed.

Stella voiced her concern, "Rosie, are these deformed fish okay to use?"

"They're fine," Rosie assured her confidently. "At Ocean Point Naval Station, the fish that looked fine went to the cannery, while the deformed ones were used for maggot fermentation."

She took the opportunity to educate her siblings, "Experts in maggot farming say most viruses weaken over generations of replication. Plus, many infected hosts develop antibodies."

Stella scratched her nose thoughtfully, sensing some logic in Rosie's words.

Whether right or wrong, they would see the results in practice. She couldn't let doubts undermine Rosie's confidence.

nets several more times, ending up with over

back, they donned protective rain suits to avoid any

Arcadia, spreading the fish on the beach to

held her nose and flipped the fish with a stick, whispering to Jasper, "Do these seem less deformed than the ones we found when we first

be the different parts of the sea, or maybe, as Rosie

whispered back, "Would you dare

didn't want to quash his sister's enthusiasm. "We can

bit more, then feed them to the

could wait to eat the poultry if

knowing look, "Sly,

"What

was smooth as silk, "I'll

grin,

dried over two thousand pounds of

boulder was already a good hundred meters above sea

a few days of drizzling rain, the barren, brown earth sprouted some

the time to water them as she passed

withered, others

it with a tarp, and dumped in dozens of pounds of salted fish, mixed with chopped potato shoots, stirring and adding just

the pungent scent

few days,

them to

a legacy of former disasters, yielded impressively resilient

chicks and

had built the coops back when the new villa district was still

day and chilly winds at night,

constructing a bamboo shelter, but Stella, ever

surplus from the Union Base, so abundant they would last for generations

Jasper fenced the area around the tent, allowing them to

the siblings tended the fields, Stella busied herself mostly with

and as the cooler autumn arrived, the dandelions, though scraggly, blossomed, their fluffy

green to the landscape. Having served as maggot feed, the thoroughly

resulting in sparse and weak wheat stalks,

the wheat to fill their bellies; just seeing

didn't worry about Rosie. It was Snowflake that

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