Apocalypse Survival: Starting with a Shelter

After distributing the limited rescue supplies, the three temporary "spokespersons" led the survivors in setting up monitoring equipment and sensors around the dining hall, reinforcing areas with weaker structural integrity.

Surprisingly, there was little resistance or dissent among the survivors. Gratitude for being rescued and the imposing sight of armed construction robots ensured compliance.

"Whoever's in charge, as long as we survive, it doesn't matter," was the collective sentiment.

The dining hall survivors were not the only group left alive. Before the disaster, the Green Lemon Shelter housed over 4,000 people, much larger than Su Wu's own shelter.

With a larger space came more chances for structurally sound pockets to form during the collapse.

After an extensive search, Su Wu's robots found over 1,500 survivors scattered across the ruins—a sobering tally that highlighted the fragility of life.

"More than half perished," Su Wu muttered, his tone heavy with empathy.

These lives were spared only because of the timely rescue and the shelter's relatively intact structure. Remove any of those factors, and even a tenth of this number surviving would have been a miracle.

After cataloging the survivors, administering basic first aid to the severely injured, and organizing them under AI management, Su Wu moved on to the heart of the rescue effort: making the shelter habitable again.

Outside, the excavators and transport vehicles worked in unison.

Structures beyond repair were demolished, their debris and nearby soil repurposed to seal off and reinforce the remaining intact sections of the shelter.

Meanwhile, the engineering robot and its assistants focused on repairing the central air conditioning and ventilation systems—the two pillars of a livable environment.

With these systems operational, and electricity restored, the rescue mission could be deemed a success.

The long-term survival of the shelter would then rest on the survivors' ability to maintain it. Su Wu planned to provide remote AI guidance in exchange for their surplus labor output as payment.

Inside the shelter, the engineering robot found that while the central air conditioning and purifiers were mostly intact, the ventilation ducts were a mess. Some sections were so damaged that rebuilding them would be easier than repairing.

The immediate priority was to restore airflow to critical areas like the dining hall. The rest could wait for the survivors to handle themselves in the coming days.

Once cooling and ventilation were stabilized, the final task was restoring power.

When Su Wu remotely opened the twisted metal doors to the power supply room, the sight before him nearly made his jaw drop.

"Ten 600-kilowatt thermal power generators… Incredible."

Unlike most small shelters that relied on portable diesel generators, the Green Lemon Shelter used full-fledged industrial-grade thermal generators, capable of running on diesel or coal.

Together, these generators could produce nearly ten times the power of Su Wu's pre-earthquake shelter.

Of course, it was unlikely the shelter ever ran all ten simultaneously. Keeping even one operational continuously would already be considered luxurious, with the others serving as spares or parts sources.

Next to the power supply room, Su Wu discovered a massive fuel storage facility.

The initial assessment was staggering:

Over 200,000 liters of diesel fuel, though some had leaked during the quake.

More than 10,000 tons of coal, nearly untouched.

To put it into perspective, the coal alone would require more space than Su Wu's entire underground shelter combined. Even the remaining diesel occupied over 200 cubic meters of volume.

The sheer scale of these reserves was mind-boggling.

"No wonder resources were so scarce on the market," Su Wu muttered. "Even a few liters of fuel were heavily regulated."

This storage highlighted the stark disparity between personal shelters like his and larger, well-funded operations.

Had it not been for the official control measures in place before the disaster, Su Wu doubted he could have acquired even a fraction of the resources he currently possessed.

"Still, no point dwelling on it. Now, all of this fuel is mine."

With half the shelter's population gone, electricity usage could be drastically reduced. Aside from powering the central air and ventilation systems, most other energy demands could be minimized.

This meant that a significant portion of the fuel stockpile could now be allocated to Su Wu's own shelter.

The implications of this newfound resource were immense.

With such an abundance of diesel and coal, Su Wu's plans for expansion and upgrades would receive an unprecedented boost.

His already flourishing shelter would gain what could only be described as a rocket-like propulsion, accelerating its development to unimaginable heights.

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