Zombie Apocalypse: Creation

Although Joseph yelled back out loud, he began to lower the helicopter back down to near the height of the factory building.

"Boss, try shooting with the gun. There's one right next to you." Joseph yelled as he started driving the helicopter forward.

Looking over to the side, Xiaoyun was a little surprised to see a brand new gun, one that looked very similar to some sort of sniper rifle.

But the massive box magazine indicated it was more of a light machine gun than anything with its bipods.

"Hey Joseph, what kind of gun is this? Also, why is this helicopter so shaky?"

Hearing the constant metal clanks started to make him more and more nervous, on top of the helicopter needing to be tilted downward to move ahead.

"It's just a small flaw... Boss, can you try to shoot the target down there?"

The clanking sound disappeared as the helicopter came to a relative stability in the air, allowing Xiaoyun to grab the brand new gun.

After just looking at it for a bit, he found the firing pins. With a push, he was now able to free-fire the gun.

"This is a bit hard..."

Xiaoyun murmured as the outside wind kept preventing him from opening his eyes fully, on top of the gun's awkward design on the buttstock.

"It's fine if you miss boss, I won't laugh——"

As the gunshots interrupted Joseph's voice, the target dummy was being ripped into pieces as bullets rained from above.

The fire rate of the gun was much faster than what Xiaoyun had imagined as he held down the recoil through sheer strength.

After just what felt like a minute of firing, the clunk sound reminded him that the gun was now out of ammo.

"God damn, this gun is impressive."

Xiaoyun complimented as the barrel looked barely overheated compared to the typical MG-42 used in the army.

"Of course it has to be impressive. It took us days and nights working overtime to build it from looking at a single picture."

As the helicopter began slowly descending, it suddenly jerked forward before some weird warning noise began going off.

"Bylat!"

Before Xiaoyun could ask what was wrong, he could see the helicopter's rotor blade had stopped spinning completely.

"Sit tight, boss——"

The loud crash instantly yanked the two of them upward before the seatbelt instantly held them back down.

Both of their ears felt a loud shockwave as it kept on ringing. Unable to hear any noises as the whole world started spinning around them.

"Boss! Joseph! Are you two okay?"

As the two Russians quickly rushed forward to unclip Xiaoyun and Joseph from their seats, the two of them slowly recovered from the dizziness.

"I'm fine... Is Joseph okay?" Xiaoyun asked as he pressed his finger down onto his temple.

"Joseph, are you fine?"

Seeing him slowly nodding his head, both of them let out a sigh of relief as they helped them back up from the floor.

---

"Ahem, shame that helicopter ride didn't go as planned. But it's all fine. Don't let this failure deter you guys from progress."

All three Russians nodded, but their faces still looked a little embarrassed by the disaster. A disaster that could have ended extremely badly.

"Just keep improving it, and I'm sure one day I'll be ordering tens. No, hundreds of helicopters from you guys."

The potential order instantly changed the grim mood as they looked much more cheerful at his words.

"Boss, are you really going to buy the helicopter?" Ivan nervously asked.

"Of course I am. It's a critical component that makes a modern army. Just imagine close-ground support with missiles and gunfire raining down from above."

The three of them began to look a little excited before a loud clanking sound from the distant snapped them back into reality.

"It still has a long way to go, though. So don't get too excited now... Ahem, do you guys have any other things you want to show off to me?"

"Joseph, did you show Boris's gun to Boss already?" Ivan quickly asked.

"Yeah. How else do you think that training dummy got blasted?" Joseph instantly responded.

"Boss, let me show it to you again. This is the pinnacle of all machine guns. It's so good that it's even still used to this day."

As Boris went back into the storage room, Xiaoyun's mind suddenly got a little curious about something looking in the distance.

"I almost forgot to ask, how's your guys' vehicle experiment? Are the armor cars and the tanks fully functional?"

"Yeah, the light tank and the armored car are fine... Joseph's T-34 is still struggling with the battlefield test, though." Ivan responded.

"How so?"

As Ivan looked over to Joseph, his face looked a little embarrassed once again before he spoke up again.

"The engine just keeps overheating. Unless I ripped out those semi-truck's engine or those tractor's engine as a replacement, it just doesn't work."

"That's fine, to be honest. You guys are gunsmiths, not a car engineer. Just send the request to Houqin. She can give you whatever engines you need."

Joseph nodded, but his face still looked a little disappointed by the failure he couldn't overcome.

"Here it is. The PKM! The most widely used modern machine gun. Straight out of the Cold War, yet still more useful than any other weapons."

As Boris came out with the same machine gun that Xiaoyun used earlier, he quickly realized why the gun felt so familiar.

It was almost the exact same as the gun that Pinli and Chengyi used in their games back in the dorms, except it was a sniper rifle rather than a machine gun.

"Is there a sniper rifle version of this? I think I had seen this somewhere." Xiaoyun curiously asked.

"You must be thinking of the SVD. That's a completely different gun. But it does have the same buttstock at the end here."

"I see... Ahem, can you show me how this gun is properly used?"

"Of course..."

---

A few minutes later.

"Boss, what do you think of this gun?" Boris curiously asked as the two of them shot the gun several times in different usages.

"It's definitely a lot better than MG-42. The barrel doesn't overheat, and it's much lighter to carry around."

Hearing the praises, all three of their faces looked excited. Even more so than the earlier potential helicopter orders.

"The maintenance you showcased earlier looks much easier than the MG-42 as well. Definitely saves a lot of energy not needing to carry spare parts."

The continued praises continue to push their hopes even higher, until the next message that almost extinguishes them.

"I would say there is one critical flaw... It doesn't shoot as fast. But that could also be a benefit to conserve more ammo."

Their heart jumped for a second as they thought it was all over, until the last second sentence reassured them once again.

"Overall, this gun is superior in every way to Anna's gun. I'll tell Houqin to place orders to phase out the MG-42."

"Thank you, sir!"

All three of them jumped up in excitement as if they couldn't believe their ears. A multi-million dollar contract for months to come was right before them.

"There is one last thing, though. How much does this cost?" Xiaoyun raised his one last concern.

"Don't worry, sir, this thing is dirt cheap to make. We'll give Houqin the cheapest price possible." Boris instantly responded.

"We can guarantee it's 2x lower price than the MG-42. This thing is the easiest thing to mass produce." Ivan quickly added.

"That's good, that's good... Ahem, I almost forgot the reason that I came here today."

As Xiaoyun cleared his throat, all three of them were a little intrigued by what he was about to say.

"I have a very big deal. One that could make you guys millions. No, billions. You guys could be the most wealthy company with this."

"What is it, sir?" Joseph curiously asked.

"You guys heard about the opening up of the stock market in the newspaper yet?"

Both Joseph and Ivan shook their head, but Boris instantly realized what Xiaoyun was trying to imply.

"Boss, are you suggesting that we should go public?" Boris questioned.

"You guys don't want more money to expand even bigger? Hire more people to have an even bigger assembly line?"

Seeing all three of them looking a little hesitant, Xiaoyun quickly knew he needed something more to lure them in.

"Ahem, let me tell you guys a little secret... Don't tell this to anyone, especially my wivies."

As he pulled the three of them closer, they quickly realized it was going to be some very important secrets.

"We s-swear on Jesus we won't tell anyone about it." Boris instantly replied, with the other two saying the same thing.

"Good... Anna and Kate have already told me she's planning to IPO with 40% of her company stock."

Seeing all three of their eyes widen for a second, Xiaoyun knew they just needed a tiny little push to get over the line.