Zombie Apocalypse: Creation

"What? You don't like the gift?" Anna asked.

"No, this gift is great. Thank you——"

Just as Xiaoyun was about to put the gun away into his pocket, someone knocked on the office door.

"Come in."

The door opened, revealing three Russians, all holding a piece of paper of their own.

"Oh, hey, what brought you guys here?" Xiaoyun asked curiously, with Kate and Anna caught off guard by their arrival.

"We heard you were here, so we wanted to bring you to see our new product," one of the Russians said in Chinese.

"I see... Well, see you guys later tonight."

"See you."

As Xiaoyun followed the three Russians out of the room, the two girls looked back at each other for a second before Kate jumped over to Anna's seat.

"You never said you were going to give him a gift," Kate complained, feeling a little jealous at how Xiaoyun treated Anna's gift.

"Well, I was planning to give him the gift before you guys left. I just forgot about it until now."

"Really? Then where's my gift?"

Anna suddenly turned back around, dug into her drawer, and put a stack of documents on the table.

"Here's your gift. Remember you said you would help me translate this for 20% of my company?"

"You could have just said you didn't have a gift for me..." Kate murmured as she sat back down, getting ready to translate the document for Anna.

---

Meanwhile, Xiaoyun followed the three Russians all the way to their factories before going somewhere else.

"Good evening." One of the Russians waved as they walked past the assembly line.

"Good evening, boss!"

After walking past the assembly zone, the three Russians finally stopped.

Right before Xiaoyun's eye was a giant curtain covering some sort of vehicle right below it.

"This is your new product?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.

"One of the new products. Boris, reveal the T-24 to him."

As one of the Russians walked closer to the product, he pulled the giant curtain aside and threw it to the ground.

"This is a tank?"

Xiaoyun looked a little confused, as it looked drastically different from the tanks he had seen in movies or history books.

The main cannon was a lot shorter, with the tracks and the frame much smaller than he expected.

"Yes. It's a 'light' tank based on the T-26," one of them replied.

"Light tank? What's the difference between that and a normal tank?"

"A light tank drives fast and is cheap. A normal tank is the opposite," Boris explained as he opened the tank hatch on top.

"But this thing doesn't look very sturdy." Xiaoyun pointed out as he tapped the armor of the light tank.

"It's enough to spearhead through normal zombies. It's not meant to fight against things like tank mutants." The second Russian explained.

"Move out of the way!"

As Boris yelled out from inside the tank, the tank's engine began to flex its muscles, roaring as it drove forward.

"Boris! Don't drive it too far away! Blyat!"

Xiaoyun quickly followed the two as Boris drove the light tank straight out of the factory's back exit and into the field.

As the light tank drove in a circle and passed all the cone obstacles on the field with perfect precision, Xiaoyun was a little amazed.

Although Boris was driving it perfectly, the tank's maneuverability was undoubtedly fast, as it almost reached as fast as a normal car.

"What kind of engine did you guys put in this?" Xiaoyun asked curiously as the tank finally stopped.

"We just removed a truck engine and modified it a little..." the third Russian explained as Boris began turning the main gun towards the target field.

"How long can it drive for?"

"Enough to drive the tank out of Guangdong and back." The second Russian responded with confidence.

"That's good——"

Before Xiaoyun finished talking, the tank's main cannon fired, creating a loud bang sound as it shot toward the concrete wall in the distance.

"Damn, this thing has power," Xiaoyun commented as the ground he stood on shook a little.

"We made sure the cannon can at least penetrate tank mutants, even though the armor itself cannot deal with tank mutants."

After several rounds of fire by the main cannon, the tank switched to the secondary unit, firing the built-in DP-27 that he remember once seeing in a competition show between Anna and the three Russians.

"So what do you think, Mr.Xiaoyun? You want to order this?" Boris asked as he finally jumped out of the tank.

"I definitely will consider it... But this tank isn't the only thing you guys made, right?"

"Of course, we have a lot more to show."

The three Russians began bringing Xiaoyun into another factory before standing before another product hiding below a curtain.

"This is a car, right?" Xiaoyun asked as the four wheels on the side made it a little obvious.

"Yes, it's a car. But not just any car. It's our first fully-built armored car from scratch rather than makeshift parts."

As the curtain was lowered, Xiaoyun was once again weirded out by the design.

Unlike any other car he had seen, it had almost no windows besides a small gap, just big enough for a pair of eyes to see what was ahead.

"Ivan, explain your product."

The second Russian stepped up, his face full of pride as he opened the car door.

"This is the BA-60, based on the BA-64 my dad once built during the Great Patriotic War."

Ivan paused for a second as if something flashed in his head, but he quickly resumed explaining.

"The armor is enough to block most rifle fire with just a thin layer, and the speed is almost the same as a regular car.

Although it's not intended to run over zombies, it could, in theory, run several over before coming to a stop."

As Ivan closed the car door and began driving it to the field, the three followed it behind to the testing range.

"What's the advantage compared to T-24?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.

"It doesn't take as much steel. And it can use a normal car engine rather than a truck one," Boris explained.

"How many truck engines are there?"

"We have about five hundred in the inventory right now, but we can hire more people to bring trucks back to be disassembled," the third Russian answered.

"I see... You guys said you built this from scratch, right?" Xiaoyun asked to make sure.

"Yes, from the frame to the engine... But if we were to build the engine, it's going to take a lot longer."

"How fast can you assemble one with a pre-existing car engine?"

"Five hundred a week if all the factories focus on it and if we can get enough raw resources."

As soon as the third Russian answered, Xiaoyun cut the number into thirds as that scenario was practically impossible.

He needed them to build other stuff, especially the rifles and ammo used by the army.

"Ivan, can you fire the gun?" Xiaoyun asked.

"Yes, sir!"

Just as Xiaoyun expected, it was the same secondary gun as the light tank, using the DP-27.

As soon as the fire ended, Ivan began driving the car through the same obstacle, albeit with a lot more mistakes.

But Xiaoyun didn't mind it as he could tell it was just the driver's error, not an issue with the car.

"Mr.Xiaoyun, what do you think about this car?" Ivan asked as he finally stepped out of the car.

"It's good. I'm just not sure if it should be paired with the light tank or as infantry support, though." Xiaoyun asked.

All three of them looked back with no answer, as they had only thought of making the vehicle first.

"I think both are fine... But this car was originally designed to be a scouting car." Ivan replied.

"Oh, I see. That makes a lot more sense. Then it can probably be used for general purpose."

As Ivan drove the car back into the factory, the three of them headed back inside, waiting for Xiaoyun's final answer.

But much to their disappointment, Xiaoyun didn't give them an exact figure.

"I'll place a bigger order later next month. But you guys can produce five hundred BA-60 and one hundred T-24 for now."

"Thank you, sir!"

As both Ivan and Boris bowed down in gratitude, Xiaoyun turned his attention to the third Russian.

"You don't have anything to show?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.

"I... I do. But it's a prototype right now."

"Prototype? Just like the Zeppelin last time?"

The third Russian's face blushed a little as the plan was scrapped a long time ago, ever since the initial prototype failed horribly.

"Ahem, speaking of prototype, what happened to your guy's planes?" Xiaoyun suddenly asked.

"We gave up on it... It was way too hard for us to try to figure it out, so we threw it to the pilot to figure it out himself."