TWD - Chapter 586: Assessing the Repairs (Patreon)

On the third day after UTK was retaken, the campus greeted its first real morning as a place being rebuilt.

Sunlight rose slowly over the eastern ridge, gilding the horizon before spilling across the rooftops of the academic buildings. Through broken windowpanes, it painted uneven shapes across the floors inside.

The weeds in front of the administration building were already gone. A handful of workers crouched near the edge of the plaza, laying out lines of lime powder where new roads would eventually run.

A truck stood in the middle of the square, packed with supplies from the industrial park: steel reinforcement bars, cement, timber and coils of wire fencing.

Elena came out of the administrative building carrying an enamel cup of freshly mixed instant coffee. She squinted toward the rising sun and headed for the library.

She had barely taken a few steps when someone ran up behind her. "Professor Elena! Professor!"

Elena stopped and turned.

It was Donnie, a Knoxville local in his early twenties and one of her newer assistants. Her four established students, Kevin, Ben, Aleksei and Ming, were already capable of running teams on their own, and each was busy elsewhere on campus.

Donnie arrived out of breath, a little flushed, with rolled plans in his hand. "Professor, I redrew the connections for the water treatment system last night. Could you look at the piping diagram and tell me if it works?"

Elena unfolded the plans and studied them. Every joint, valve and route through which a section of pipe would run had been marked with care.

Her fingertip followed the lines as she checked the layout. Then she nodded. "Good work. Much better than yesterday's drawing."

Donnie's cheeks reddened further. "Shall I get the materials together, then?"

She returned the plans. "Go ahead. And inspect the old pipes for rust. If the corrosion's too severe, don't try to reuse them. Replace them."

He took the drawings and hurried away at a run.

Elena couldn't help smiling after him. The young man was so eager he barely seemed able to keep his feet under him.

By the library doors, a crew was unloading solar panels from another truck.

The panels were large and heavy. Two people carried each one, carefully placing it beside the entrance. Tom was supervising them. Once a mechanic at Twilight Manor and one of Rock Fortress's earliest residents, he now held a management role in the Construction Department.

"Easy! Easy!" he shouted. "That panel still works! Break it and I'm docking your contribution points!"

The two young men carrying it exchanged a look and pulled faces, but they handled it noticeably more gently.

Elena approached. Tom caught sight of her, and his face lit up. "Elena!"

"Tom. How many can you put up today?"

He counted on his fingers. "Twenty this morning. Another twenty this afternoon if we have enough hands. But there's only so much roof on the library. A hundred panels, give or take, and it'll be full."

Elena glanced at the panels stacked nearby. "Get started. After we've finished the library, we can inspect the teaching buildings."

Tom nodded and went back to directing his workers.

Reg had spent the morning examining the campus with an architectural plan of UTK that one of the cleanup teams had found.

The administration building, library, lecture halls, dormitories, dining hall and gymnasium all needed individual checks. He entered each one to assess the structure, estimate the supplies required and work out how long the repairs might take.

At the gymnasium, he stopped to study the enormous building.

Its redbrick exterior still looked solid, but part of the roof had collapsed, exposing blackened steel supports within.

Reg sighed and carefully marked the damage on his plan. "We'll have to put some serious work into this one," he muttered.

He was about to leave when a peculiar creaking noise came from inside, as though someone were struggling to turn a stiff mechanism.

Reg hesitated, then eased the door open and stepped through.

The interior was dim. A few rays slipping through the damaged roof left pale patches of light on the floor. Broken bricks, shattered chairs and badly rusted sports equipment lay everywhere. A basketball hoop had toppled onto its side, its backboard half destroyed.

Creak. Creak.

There it was again. Reg moved slowly toward the sound, threading his way across the court and around a pile of collapsed seating.

In the corner, he spotted a man in work clothes squatting beside a generator, wrench in hand, intent on tightening something.

Relief washed over him. "Ancheta?"

The man looked up and grinned. "Hey, Reg!"

Ancheta set down the wrench, stood and brushed dust from his hands. His overalls were filthy and streaks of grease marked his face. He looked as if he'd been working there for hours.

"Aren't you in charge of industrial operations?" Reg asked. "Why are you out here repairing a generator?"

"I'm surveying the site," Ancheta explained cheerfully. "We're turning this place into the new command center. Our planes and helicopters will need somewhere to stay, won't they?

"I've looked all over campus. Of all the buildings, this gym seems best suited for it. I spotted a generator while I was here and thought I might as well try fixing it."

He pointed up. "Look at the ceiling height. There's plenty of clear space inside, and the doors are wide enough.

"With a few modifications, we could house Black Hawk and Bell helicopters in here without a problem. Fighter jets are another matter. We'd need to think about those."

Reg's eyes brightened. "You really think so?"

"I measured everything," Ancheta said confidently. "Seven or eight helicopters would fit with room to spare. We could turn the space around the sides into storage and keep the center clear for training."

Reg chuckled in surprise. "You've already planned that far ahead?"

Ancheta shrugged. "I'm an engineer. What else would I be thinking about?"

Reg stepped farther into the building and took another long look at its wide interior. The more he considered it, the more sensible the idea seemed.

Ancheta joined him beneath the hole in the roof. "We need to patch that up soon. Something heavy must have punched through, maybe aircraft wreckage, maybe something else. The building itself is still sound, though. Those walls are strong."

His eyes gleamed. "Once we've repaired it, we'll have ourselves an air base."

"An air base?" Reg repeated, caught off guard.

Ancheta laughed. "Helicopters count as air power, don't they?"

After a moment, Reg laughed with him. "Sure they do!"

A faint rustling interrupted them from the far corner.

Reg's smile vanished. He turned sharply toward a row of small rooms on the gym's eastern side. They looked like storage closets once used for janitorial supplies.

"What's that noise?" he whispered.

Ancheta had heard it too. Both men held their breath, straining to listen.

Rustle. Rustle.

The sound came again, clearer this time.

"A walker?" Reg asked, unable to keep the tremor out of his voice.

Ancheta shook his head. "Doesn't sound like one. Let's have a look."

Reg paused. "Maybe we should... call someone?"

"Call for help?" Ancheta glanced at him. "Whatever's making that noise will be long gone before anyone gets here."