Rebirth in the Apocalypse: Third Time's a Charm



"And what is his specialty?" I asked, looking between him and Cao Mu Chen. I didn't really care what was going on between the two men. Whether his overprotectiveness was professional or personal, it was none of my business unless it affected the day-to-day running of my base.

Besides, I was hoping to enter into a serious, committed relationship with four men. I am pretty sure that I was the Queen of unconventional relationships and had no room to talk or judge anyone else.

"Mechanics," said Cao Mu Chen, almost daring me to say something offensive.

I cracked my neck from side to side and decided to completely ignore Cao Mu Chen. Turning my attention back to Jin Si Cong, I asked him my question directly; "What type of mechanics?"

I tried to contain my enthusiasm, but between him and Jiang Ming Tao, a huge portion of my logistical concerns could be taken over by these two men. "He can fix pretty much anything and everything mechanical," said Cao Mu Chen as if the answer was incredibly obvious. And I mean, if we are going through the most basic of basics, yeah, that would be a good answer. But that was not what I wanted.

"What she means is, what mechanical operations does he specialize in?" started Liu Wei as he repositioned his glasses. Cao Mu Chen looked back and forth between me and that man, but my gaze never wavered from Jin Si Cong. At this point, I was treating Cao Mu Chen more like a translator than anything else, and as such, I really didn't need to acknowledge him in this conversation.  I was talking to Jin Si Cong and whether he could respond or not, he was the one that got my attention.

"Fixing things," said Cao Mu Chen in exasperation. "He is the mechanic in our group."

I rolled my eyes, not so subtly if Jin Si Cong's expression was anything to go by. Even Liu Wei paused for a second to take in that response. 

"I can fix anything and everything," came a soft but firm voice in front of me. I smirked as Jin Si Cong continued. "I was in charge of any automobile repair, either on base or in the field, but I can also fix everything from an aircraft carrier to a toaster."

I burst out laughing at his response. "Perfect!" I said, practically rubbing my hands in glee. "I am going to pair you up with Jiang Ming Tao. Come see me tomorrow morning around 10 am and I will have a list of things for you to do. I also want to go more in-depth with your skill sets."

I saw Jiang Ming Tao's eyes go wide before he nodded his head, but Jin Si Cong was still staring me down as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. "You can bring your translator if that will make you more comfortable," I said to him, raising an eyebrow in question.

"I will be good," came the stuttered response.

"Great! I'll see you two tomorrow morning. There will be another meeting around 1 pm as a group to go over a few important matters. Right now, find a place to stay. I think the rest of the men have managed to clear out the remaining apartments so there should be enough if you wanted your own space."

"And if we don't?" challenged Cao Mu Chen.  I don't know who put a bee in his bonnet, but the calm, collected man that I first met was nowhere to be seen.

"Listen," I said, ready to be done with it all. As far as I was concerned, only Jiang Ming Tao and Jin Si Cong were irreplaceable members of the team. The rest would have their own missions to go on and we would see just how capable they were. In the meantime; "I am not your mother and frankly, I don't care if you want your own place or to share your room with 15 others. How you want to live your life is completely up to you. I will say it one more time so that it sinks in: I really don't care one way or another. Just make sure you don't force me to care. Is that understood?"

I must have sounded a wee bit scary because every last one of the eight men in front of me came to attention and saluted me. "Yes, Ma'am," they all shouted in unison.

"Dismissed," I said, waving my hand to indicate the door. I was back to being tired and hungry. Not a pretty combination by any stretch of the imagination.

After the eight new members of our team left, I stood up and made my way over to the kitchen. "What did you make me?" I asked, looking over my shoulder at Chen Zi Han.

"Breakfast for dinner," he said with a shrug. Going back to the stove he started to cook up some scrambled eggs to go with the bacon, pancakes, sausages, hashbrowns, and fruit salad already on the table. It was all cold by now, but I was so hungry I really didn't care.I think you should take a look at

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You would think that if I was the one to set the time for the meeting, then I would be awake in plenty of time to get all my shit done before everyone arrived. And yet, here I was, at 9:50 in the morning, still in bed and not willing to get out.

Don't get me wrong, another night with all of my men was doing wonders for me and I slept like a baby. But I think that was part of my problem. I had such a good sleep that I didn't want to get out of bed. I sighed in frustration as I heard a knock on the door, and as much as I wanted to pull the covers over the top of my head, I knew that wasn't going to work.

Wriggling out between Liu Wei and Liu Yu Zeng, I stumbled out of the door and right into the arms of my waiting coffee. Grabbing at the elixir of life as if it contained the secrets of the universe, I chugged it down. The men had become wise to the fact that I normally chugged my first coffee and they made it a point to make sure that it was cooled down enough that it wouldn't give me second-degree burns going down.

As much as I love their attention to detail, there were some afternoons when I was so tired that I needed that jolt of pain to wake me up. Oh well… in the grand scheme of things, having four men taking care of you too well was not even on the radar of the worst things to ever happen.

Want to know what was? Planning a meeting at 10 o'clock in the morning. Hell, since all the clocks but ours were destroyed by the EMP, I didn't even know how they figured out what time it was. And yet, here they were, 10 minutes early. 

"Morning," I groaned as I walked up to where Wang Chao and Chen Zi Han were standing in front of the opened door. Getting my mandatory kisses from them, I went to my chair and cuddled up under my blanket.  With the first cup of coffee vanishing in under a minute, I looked around for the second cup.

"Here you go, Princess," said Chen Zi Han as he handed me a giant cup that was roughly the size of my head. I grunted my thanks and then looked at the reason why I was out of bed right now. 

Jiang Ming Tao and Jin Si Cong were standing at the entrance to the living room as if it was the entrance of a boardroom. Their feet were shoulder-width apart and their hands were behind their back.  It was way too early for this crap.

Scratch that, it wasn't that it was too early, I just didn't want to deal with the formalities of it at any time of the day. I was not military, never was military and to be treated as such was an uncomfortable feeling. Like I was being disrespectful or something.

"At ease," I said and then pointed to one of the couches across from where Wang Chao had taken his seat. There might not be assigned seating, but we all seemed to gravitate to our own spot organically. The two men took a seat gingerly, so close to the front that it appeared that they would fall off at any second.

I rubbed the spot between my eyebrows as if to ease the headache I felt coming. God only knew if it would work or not.  "Relax boys," I said, taking a sip of my giant drink. "This is going to be a long meeting." They pushed back on the couch until they no longer looked like they were about to fall off and I sighed in relief.

"Alright, here is the deal," I said as I placed my coffee cup on the table in front of me. I was putting a lot of faith in these two men, and I was a bit stressed that it would come back to bite me in the ass. After all, they might decide that I was no longer needed and, as a result, get rid of me.

Wang Chao, knowing where my mind was going, stayed silent, allowing me to work things out on my own. Not like I blamed the guy, he did manage to screw up rather spectacularly yesterday and this was not the time for round two.

"Would you two be willing to keep secrets from your entire team and everyone else on this base besides the people in this room?" I asked. It was pointless to have them sign NDAs or any other type of legal document because even if I did, how exactly was I going to enforce it?

The two men looked at each other and then turned their attention back to me.

"Yes," they said, completely in sync.