Chapter 013: Conversation

Since transmigrating to 2030, just before the Great Catastrophe, less than twelve hours had passed, but Cyrus Greene was already exhausted both mentally and physically. After throwing himself onto the bed, he quickly fell into a deep sleep.

After sleeping for just a few hours, Cyrus Greene vaguely felt someone going through his belongings. The unsettling feeling made him jump up from the bed, only to see Katerina sitting at the bedside, searching through the bag he had been carrying.

The bag contained over $57,000 that Cyrus Greene had gotten from the Potaski brothers, along with a Colt M1911A1 pistol. Katerina racked the slide a few times, whistled, and said, "Nice gun, well-made. Where'd you get it?"

Cyrus Greene had been startled awake and was still sweating. Facing Katerina's question, he replied somewhat irritably, "Stole it."

"Woah... I thought you were a wimp. You dare to steal someone's gun?" Katerina tossed the gun down and walked towards the door, saying before she left, "Get up, it's already 10 AM. You missed breakfast, wait for lunch at twelve.

Also, your hand is badly swollen, you'd better put some medicine on it. For a rookie like you who nearly dislocated your arm firing a gun, you should thank God you're still alive."

Hah, I'm alive because of myself! Not because of that damn God.

Cyrus Greene propped himself up to get out of bed, and truly felt his right hand was sore and painful. His shoulder, elbow, and wrist all had a burning, numbing sensation, definitely badly swollen.

A bottle of anti-inflammatory spray sat on the table beside the bed, presumably left by Katerina. Cyrus Greene grabbed it and sprayed it on the three joints of his right arm. The cooling sensation immediately made him feel much better.

The Colt M1911A1 uses .45 caliber high-power pistol rounds. Being hit in the limbs by this type of bullet would result in serious injury. If hit in the torso, one might as well prepare for a funeral ceremony. With such high power comes correspondingly strong recoil!

For Cyrus Greene, who had never fired a gun before, it was already impressive that he figured out how to make it fire at all. Missing the target while hurting himself was completely expected.

After using the anti-inflammatory spray, Cyrus Greene's hand regained some normal mobility. Only then did he have time to examine his current living quarters? The room Katerina had assigned him was quite basic - a wooden bunk bed, a table, and two chairs. The room was small, only about 4-5 square meters, with no decorations.

Stepping out of the room, Cyrus Greene discovered he was in a four or five-story building. It looked like a large warehouse, but Katerina had converted it into a comfortable, well-lit living space. The living room had a spacious vaulted ceiling, fully furnished with sofas, TV, coffee tables, and even a small bar counter tucked in the corner.

Besides the living room, at least three or four floors above belonged to Katerina's private space, and below there was likely a large garage containing one or two modified military vehicles. Judging from the thickness of the walls, this place must have been specially chosen by Katerina - it was practically a fully equipped fortress.

"This place is pretty nice," Cyrus Greene remarked. While the movie never showed scenes of Katerina's home, from the perspective of surviving the Great Catastrophe, this place was more suitable as a disaster response base than David Lawrence's house.

Katerina was lying on the sofa at the time, holding a firearms magazine. To Cyrus Greene's praise, she barely glanced up, just giving a cold snort that seemed to mean 'at least you know quality.'

However, given Katerina's financial situation, this place probably wasn't rented or bought - she likely took it after eliminating some gang. This fierce woman was capable of doing something like that.

Now standing in the living room, Cyrus Greene couldn't help but cast appreciative glances at Katerina's figure. The fierce woman wore only a sports bra on top, which covered only her two magnificent protrusions, leaving everything else exposed to the air.

She wore sports shorts below, with her two long biomechanical legs propped up on the coffee table in front of the sofa. Anyone unaware would marvel at how straight and taut this fierce woman's legs were - leg enthusiasts would love them.

But Cyrus Greene quickly averted his gaze, knowing full well that Katerina hated people staring at her legs. It made her extremely uncomfortable because her real legs had been blown off by landmines, and she had nearly committed suicide after losing them.

"Hey! Do you have a computer I could use?" Cyrus Greene stepped forward to ask.

"No," Katerina didn't even lift her eyelids, just continued flipping through her magazine. This woman never had to worry about daily life. Besides her habitual physical training, she had nothing else to do.

Well... occasionally when she felt frustrated, irritated, bored, or short on money, she would go out late at night to the dangerous streets of Brooklyn to fight crime. This was her only hobby.

"Oh," Cyrus Greene knew this woman wasn't easy to talk to. He scratched his head and asked again, "Could I use your phone to buy some supplies online? I'll pay you cash."

Katerina gave Cyrus Greene a contemptuous glance, saying somewhat impatiently, "What supplies do you want to buy?"

Cyrus Greene recalled what he had wanted last night and said, "Mainly rice, flour, cooking oil, salt, seasonings, drinking water, various canned foods, fuel, generators, solar charging panels, high-capacity batteries, liquor, cigarettes, water purifiers, and purification tablets, first aid supplies and medicines... oh right, and toilet paper, lots of toilet paper."

As she listened, Katerina's brows furrowed. The items Cyrus Greene wanted to cover nearly every aspect of daily life - basically, buying all these things would allow someone to live independently for a long time. She asked, "Are you in big trouble, so you want to make yourself a shelter?"

"Uh... that's right!" Cyrus Greene thought: it's fine if this fierce woman thinks that way.

"You don't need to prepare these things. My basement has enough supplies for two people to live for a month. Everything you've thought of and haven't thought of, I have it all," Katerina stretched out her hand and said, "Give me your money, and I can let you use the stored supplies."

Cyrus Greene grimaced. He knew Katerina was a mercenary. Compared to regular military, mercenaries naturally lacked logistical support, so this fierce woman had developed a habit of stockpiling supplies. However, Katerina's stored supplies were only enough for a small number of people to use for a short time - facing the endless desperate life after the Great Catastrophe, the quantity was severely insufficient.

"I need much larger quantities, like over five tons of rice and flour, and tens of thousands of cans of food," Cyrus Greene thought carefully - if he wanted to complete his supply stockpiling work, over $50,000 was far from enough. "Sigh, still not enough money!"