Apocalypse Survival: Starting with a Shelter

While Su Wu worried about the supplies stored above ground, he was less concerned about the large transport truck still out on its delivery route.

Loaded with over 20 tons of cargo, the steel behemoth was more stable and secure than most residential buildings. Nevertheless, out of caution, Su Wu halted its operations and directed it to a sheltered alleyway in the city to wait out the storm.

The raging winds showed no signs of subsiding. Instead, they intensified further.

Not far from where the transport truck was parked, a four-story building succumbed to the relentless gales. It collapsed with a deafening crash, blocking the street with its debris. Lighter fragments and rubble were swept into the air, pelting nearby buildings like a barrage of missiles.

In the Rural Farmhouse's Underground Control Center, Su Wu, monitoring the situation while exchanging information with other shelter owners in an online chat group, suddenly noticed the network becoming intermittent. The latency increased until the connection was entirely severed. Attempts to reconnect proved futile.

"The signal tower must have been knocked down by the wind," Su Wu muttered after some quick diagnostics.

Signal towers, unlike fortified shelters, were ill-suited to withstand such a storm. In this apocalyptic scenario, it was only natural for them to fail.

"This is going to be a problem," Su Wu sighed silently.

In peacetime, a damaged signal tower could be rebuilt. But in the current post-apocalyptic environment, where stepping outside was a monumental risk, repairing something as "non-essential" as a communication tower seemed implausible.

This disconnection might persist indefinitely—perhaps until humanity's extinction.

That evening, Su Wu sat alone in the silent control center, staring at the swirling chaos captured by his external cameras. For the first time, he felt an overwhelming sense of isolation.

With no one to talk to and no means of reaching out, his world shrank to the desolate wasteland a few hundred meters beyond his shelter, visible only through his monitors.

Late at night, under the pitch-black sky devoid of light, the winds began to subside slightly.

According to an official broadcast, Jianghe City was entering a brief lull in the storm. However, within the next two to three hours, a second wave of even stronger winds was expected. The forecast predicted a maximum force of 17 on the Beaufort scale—the highest level of wind severity, a true natural disaster.

At this level of devastation, Su Wu doubted whether his two-story farmhouse above ground could survive.

"I need to act quickly and salvage the supplies," Su Wu resolved.

The official warning jolted him awake. He paused all other operations in the shelter, mobilized the engineering team working on the fourth underground level, and deployed all available construction robots and the newly built special transport vehicle to the surface.

Their mission: to retrieve and secure the supplies scattered across the surface before the next wave of destruction hit.

He also issued an urgent recall for the transport truck waiting in the city. While there was some risk in traveling during the storm, it was negligible compared to the impending disaster.

1. Lightweight and vulnerable materials: Old appliances, pipes, cables, and rubber tires.

2. Space-consuming consumables: Toilet paper, soap, and plastic products stored in the farmhouse.

3. Heavy supplies: Cement and steel, to be salvaged as much as possible within the available time.

Old appliances and tires, despite their seemingly low value, were prioritized due to their susceptibility to being blown away and their importance as sources of rare metals necessary for manufacturing precision machinery. Without them, even building another construction robot would be far more resource-intensive.

Consumables like toilet paper and soap, though bulky and space-inefficient, were essential and had to be moved to the shelter, even if it meant cramming them into hallways.

As for cement and steel, their sheer volume made it unlikely that everything could be retrieved before the next storm wave. Su Wu could only hope to save as much as possible.

The heavy steel door of the shelter slid open.

Five construction robots emerged, illuminated by the glow of overhead lights.

The fierce winds, carrying fine sand and grit, pelted their steel frames, causing a sharp, grating noise. The gusts made their steps unsteady, almost stumbling.

Even during this "lull," the average wind speed was still at level 8, enough to pose a serious threat to humans. Additionally, the air temperature remained a scorching 70°C, turning the surface into an uninhabitable inferno.

While such conditions were fatal for humans, the robots operated without issue, as long as their internal electronics didn't overheat.

The construction robots switched on their searchlights, scanning the area before converging on the pile of old appliances.

Behind them, the engineering team's two miniature transport vehicles, two miniature excavators, and the newly constructed special transport truck followed closely.

Three minutes later, the first transport vehicle, loaded with old appliances, began its return journey.

It navigated through the narrow paths between piles of cement, steel, and debris, descending the inclined passage into the shelter. Using the shelter's spacious elevator platform, it reached the partially excavated fourth underground level.

With the third level fully occupied by the now-operational livestock farm, the fourth level served as a temporary storage area for these materials.

The race against time had begun. With the storm's fury looming on the horizon, Su Wu's shelter mobilized everything it had to secure the lifel

ine of supplies that would ensure its survival in the uncertain days ahead.