Alger frowned at Caroline and blurted, "Caroline, help me!" When she saw him like that, Caroline could tell he had gotten himself into some trouble. But since he could still stand here calmly waiting for her, it probably wasn't anything dangerous or urgent, though. Still, that outfit... Caroline looked him over from head to toe and couldn't stop herself from laughing. "Alger, what happened to you? Did you survive some kind of disaster?" Alger made a tired, helpless expression. "It's even worse than that. And it's sort of connected to you, so Colonel Sutton told me to wait for you here and bring you up. You're supposed to handle it. "But really, I think only you can solve it." As he talked, Alger glanced at the small animals beside Caroline, and there was a little spark of hope in his eyes. Like he was thinking, Look at them. They're so well-behaved. Why can't things always be this easy? Caroline was confused when she heard it had something to do with her. She didn't have anything that could put Alger in danger. "Caroline, let's go upstairs and talk." They couldn't just stand around in the open, so Alger walked ahead and led her up. When they entered the base, Caroline once again admired how clever the government's design was. From below, you couldn't see any stairs at all. The base stood on several pillars, raised more than 60 feet above the ground. Everything looked sealed tight, like there wasn't even a way inside. Then Alger walked up to one of the pillars and made a staircase appear. It worked like a wooden lock-and-slot puzzle, with a smart hidden switch. Alger tugged it once, and the whole pillar moved, turning into a strong little staircase. He motioned for them to follow and brought everyone into the base. As they walked, Alger told her that during the earthquake, no one in the base had died. Some people got hurt, but nothing serious. The base's anti-quake features worked really well, and Francis and Nathaniel had handled the whole emergency like experts.Alger couldn't stop smiling proudly. "Caroline, our country is getting back on its feet! It's been almost a year since all the disasters started, and Caswana is one of the fastest places to react and rebuild on all of Earthenstar. "You might not know this, but many countries are still dealing with huge swarms of mutant flies and mosquitoes. After this global earthquake, those countries that couldn't even handle bugs before are falling apart. Commander Ball is asking the higher-ups to give Professor Valdez's anti-mutation fly and mosquito medicine to those countries for free. The government hasn't said yes or no yet." Then Alger asked, "Why didn't Professor Valdez come this time? Commander Ball wants to meet him again." Caroline told him that Nelson would visit later, and when he did, she would take him to see Nathaniel. Right now, Nelson was having the best time in the storage space. Forget meeting Nathaniel—if someone asked him to meet the king of the whole world, he'd probably just say, "No thanks." After he finished enjoying himself, Caroline planned to make him look like he had just come back from being outside, then take him to meet Nathaniel. What shocked Caroline the most was how kind Nathaniel was—willing to give the medicine to other countries for free. In the ten long years of her past life, she had never met anyone like that. She had only seen people who were selfish or always plotting something. Alger suggested that Caroline and the others drop off their things in their rooms first. He needed to change his clothes, then he would bring her to handle the problem from earlier. It wasn't a big issue, but it did have something to do with Caroline. Earlier, Francis had told her that they had caught a mutant panda and wanted her to take a look. To see if it was helpful in any way or if it could be studied. So they had brought the mutant panda to this base. It wasn't dead. It was a fierce, easily-angered giant, and it was inside the base right now. Panda had been protected by the country before the apocalypse, and now, with nature hanging by a thread, no one dared treat her poorly. Even more, this panda was a female—and she was pregnant!Everyone in the base treated her like royalty. The problem was that bamboo and bamboo shoots were almost impossible to find now. The panda went hungry every day, and her mood kept getting worse and harder to handle. Francis told Alger to take care of this chubby, fierce, pregnant panda—and try to make her eat food she didn't even like. So every day, Alger ended up "fighting" the mutant panda like it was a huge wrestling match. And today, his clothes had become a totally "battle-damaged" outfit.