It was clear the woman had lost her mind. Whatever humanity she once had was gone. Inside the diary, Caroline found a record of the vile things this group had done. William and the others had mentioned some of it before—ambushing lone survivors, spreading diseases—that alone was despicable enough. But they did not just spread viruses; they bred them. To make sure the virus would not die out after too many victims perished, they had locked up several infected people. When those were close to dying, they would throw in two more healthy ones. The new captives would get infected, becoming fresh hosts for the virus to survive, so the group could use it again whenever they wanted to kill. "I've seen a lot of insane things since the apocalypse," Caroline said coldly, her expression dark. "But what this organization did still managed to surprise me." She tossed the diary into her spatial storage and sent it straight to the JunkEater. Trash belonged with trash. The diary did not mention where they kept the infected, so Caroline and her team searched the nearby area carefully but came up empty-handed. In the end, they found nothing else worth keeping. The corpses, however, they thrown into a nest of mutant cockroaches—those creatures would strip them to the bone in just a few days. "Tyler, Caroline, can we go back now?" Denton fanned himself with both hands, his voice whiny. "I'm beat, and it's so hot." Caroline pulled out a thermometer—over 104 degrees. Before the apocalypse, that kind of heat was already rough, but at least people had air conditioning and fans back then. Now? It was miserable. Just as Denton complained, Tyler suddenly produced three ice pops out of thin air. They were cheap ones—basically sugar water on a stick—but in this heat, they looked like treasures. "Tyler, you're the best!" Denton lunged forward, grabbing one instantly.Caroline took another, then pulled a few frozen ice packs from her space to help them cool down. Munching on their ice pops and pressing the cold packs to their skin, the three of them headed downstairs, mounted their rides, and started back toward the shelter. They had no idea that, back at the shelter, complaints were rising nonstop. The temperature had been climbing for days. The military worked fast—tearing down stoves, installing mesh windows for ventilation, setting up generators and giant fans in the halls. However, with so many people crammed inside, one fan barely made a difference. The fan swung slowly from side to side, taking nearly a minute for a full rotation. Some people would drift off to sleep the moment the breeze hit them, only to wake up drenched in sweat once it moved away. After this happened again and again, everyone started getting irritable and short-tempered. Water and ice ability users had become the hottest commodity in the shelter. In this scorching, water-scarce period, water ability users could create drinkable water to replace what people lost through constant sweating—it was literally life-saving. Of course, the military had prepared in advance and stored plenty of water, but some people also wanted to use it to cool down, and that supply just was not enough. Ice ability users were even more sought after as they could make ice. But there were only two ice ability users in the whole shelter, and both were weak. Together, they could only make a few buckets of ice a day—barely enough for the elderly, children, and the sick. Even in the dead of night, when it should have been the coolest, the shelter was still stifling. People fought over spots near the fan, shoutings echoed through the halls. Francis, who had been asleep, woke up drenched in sweat and thoroughly annoyed. Although they were heading to the base in a few days—and word was that the facilities there were pretty well built—this heat was still worse than the cold. He knew it would only get hotter in the coming days. "Damn this cursed disaster," he muttered, rubbing his temples. "When's it ever gonna end?"He was about to curse the sky when a soldier knocked on the door. "Colonel Sutton, Commander Ball is here to see you." Francis froze, immediately alert. Nathaniel had not been well since his last injury. Why would he show up at this hour? Unease crawled up his spine as he rushed to get dressed. Meanwhile, Caroline's group arrived back at the shelter entrance. To her surprise, Denton had somehow bonded with his little pony along the way. He stroked his neck affectionately, then handed him an apple he had begged off Tyler. Turning to Caroline, he grinned. "Caroline, can I keep him? He's my ride from now on! I already named him—Shorty!"