Chapter 314: Chapter 314: Black Vulture Base?

Derek was in his abandoned warehouse, sorting through the supplies his crew had looted from nearby villages, when one of his subordinates burst in, breathing hard and eyes bright with excitement.

Derek raised an eyebrow and let out a short, amused laugh.

"What is it, Aaron? Seen someone pretty and got your pants in a twist?"

Aaron waved his hand, annoyed at the joke. "Not that. The target’s back."

At the word target, Derek’s face sharpened. "You mean... Ivy?"

When Aaron nodded, Derek pushed himself to his feet, a slow smirk spreading across his face.

Even before he struck a deal with General Frank, he had been planning an assault on the SiIvy base.

The place was a goldmine in this scorching new world: food stores, temperature-controlled housing, resources people would kill for.

In an apocalypse that had turned everything scarce and savage, a base like that made mouths water.

He had been watching it for months, scraping together whatever scraps of intel he could.

The leads were thin; Ivy communicated with the official base leader, but beyond that there were few obvious ties.

For a moment, he had even wondered if Ivy herself was pulling the strings behind the base’s name.

Still, getting Ivy under control would be a huge leverage. If they held her, they could trade for tech, resources, even the secret of the heat-proofing that kept the base livable.

Derek looked around at his men. They were an intimidating bunch... bulkier than average, most of them easily over six feet.

Only one was shorter: Luke, small in frame but sharp-eyed and boyish-looking, the sort of face that made people underestimate him until he spoke.

Derek focused on him. "Can we move now?" he asked.

Luke shook his head. "Not yet. We don’t know who Ivy’s brought back with her."

Derek frowned. "How would you know that?"

"When I pulled intelligence on Ivy, I found she left the country to retrieve someone who was stuck abroad," Luke explained. "Since she returned, it’s likely she brought that person with her."

Luke’s calm explanation earned a quick, impressed nod from Aaron.

Derek allowed himself a brief smile; Luke’s enhanced intellect, awakened during the early days of the collapse, made him the true strategist of the outfit.

Pre-apocalypse, Luke had been the planner, the mind; nothing had changed but the stakes.

"What’s the first move?" Derek asked, leaning forward.

"We gather intel on whoever’s protecting Ivy," Luke said. "We need to understand her ability, too. What if she has a hidden trump card, someone like that bitch Talia?"

At the name Talia, Derek’s expression soured. He remembered the bitter deal he’d made involving Talia’s fiancé; he had not expected Talia to have allies with powers like teleportation or telekinesis.

The thought of multiple trump cards tightened something cold and ugly in his chest.

He swallowed his anger and nodded at Luke.

"Agreed. We infiltrate. Quiet. We act like spies, get in, find the weak points, and pull them apart from the inside."

The men murmured agreement, beginning to sift through potential candidates, but Derek stopped them with a raised hand. He turned back to Luke.

"What kind of people should we recruit for this? We need someone who can get in without raising suspicion."

Luke’s smile was slow, precise. "People with tragic backgrounds. People Ivy would want to save."

Derek’s eyes gleamed at the plan. "Use her conscience against her," he said, approvingly. "If she has that hero complex, she’ll take the bait every time."

"Exactly," Luke confirmed. "We present them as desperate, helpless, someone she can’t ignore. Once they’re in, they’ll open doors for us."

Derek laughed softly, pleased. "You’ve always been the brains of this group, Luke."

Then his face hardened. "But what about the serum? If Frank finds out, it can be deadly. What happens to us? We told him it works."

There was a hint of uncertainty on his face. Even if he deals with Ivy... the chances of Frank being happy would be close to zero because of what they had hidden from Derek.

Luke’s expression shifted to something almost clinical. "Did you tell Frank the serums could kill?"

Derek nodded reluctantly.

Luke tilted his head, considering.

"Then we covered ourselves. We warned him of flaws; we told him the main one. If he doesn’t read the fine print, that’s on him. We made him the risk-taker."

Derek’s pupils narrowed with the calculation of profit.

"So how much have we made so far? How much leverage do we actually hold?"

"If my numbers are right," Luke said, "we can out-supply a lot of military units. Food alone gives us bargaining power."

Derek’s grin returned, sharp and hungry. "So... take the military? Capture their resources and force a surrender?"

Luke cut him off with a look that brooked no nonsense.

"Don’t be an idiot. Attacking the military head-on is suicide. They have powerhouses, a large number of superhumans, real trained units. We don’t have that kind of strength. We have to be smarter."

Derek’s smirk faded, replaced by that slow, pragmatic glow that made him dangerous.

Luke’s restraint was the tether that kept Derek’s appetite from turning reckless; the two of them together were an ugly, efficient thing.

Taking a breath, Derek shifted the conversation toward the base Frank had suggested they build. He looked at Luke, skepticism creasing his brow.

"Are we still going ahead with opening a base?" he asked, voice low.

Luke nodded once, calm as ever. Derek snorted. "Frank proposed that, didn’t he? I don’t trust that snake."

He paced a slow circle, boot heels whispering against the concrete floor.

"How can we trust a man who might turn on the very military that backed him? The Black Vultures already slapped a name on a site and called it a base, but it doesn’t shelter a single soul. It’s less a sanctuary and more an organization with a label."

Luke folded his hands, expression neutral.

"That’s precisely why we should do it," he said. "If we start a base, we legalize what we’ve been doing in the dark."