Her vision was engulfed by a blinding white flash, which quickly faded, leaving her sitting at the breakfast table in her pajamas as though the evening’s events had been a mere illusion. She glanced at the clock; it read ten o'clock. Those several hours had been among the most intense in her life, yet in that short span, she had earned more than she ever did from the clandestine dealings at her senior clinic. But one question lingered, what had become of the items she'd collected from the building?

With a sense of urgency, she accessed her menu and navigated to her inventory.

[Personal Storage] [Search:_____] [43/120 Kg] [Open Sell Menu]

• 3x MP5+
• 2x AR-15+
• Mossberg 500
• 2x M4+
• 3x AK-74M
• 2x MP7+
• Stryker ULACH Helmet

She swiftly pulled up the sell menu and offloaded all the superflous items, keeping only a single MP7. This compact weapon would serve as her sidearm—easy to conceal yet packing substantial firepower when necessary.

She tallied the earnings: $6,000 for the MP5s, $2,400 from the AR-15s, $500 for the Mossberg 500, $3,000 apiece for the M4s and the AK-74Ms, $2,000 for her chosen MP7, and $800 for the Stryker ULACH Helmet, totaling a hefty $17,700. Lisa couldn't help but muse on the unexpected profitability of this impromptu gun-running venture. With this latest windfall, her savings in the Portable Armory swelled to an impressive $49,700. Accounting for her new total, she was now sitting on a capital of $58,700. It was a commendable sum, though still shy of her target.

Rising from the breakfast table, she collected the used dishes and placed them in the sink. As she washed the neglected plates and glasses, she kept an eye on her phone, positioned next to the sink, anticipating a message from Kyla or perhaps someone else. Despite the challenges, this week had turned out to be serendipitous. Not only had she acquired a new car, but she had also amassed enough funds to pay her tuition and avoid academic suspension.

To think about it, Lisa still remembered the day when everything changed, back when she was barely 18 years old. The day the civil war broke out. Her parents were hosting a party to celebrate her entrance to medicine after six months there. Relatives, government officials, and friends gathered at their apartment, elated at Lisa's promising future in medicine. Then, at the stroke of midnight, a missile fired by the United Social Republic of Cinderis struck her apartment building, missing its intended target—a military base located nearby—and devastating her home instead.

The memories flooded back as Lisa stared at her phone, hands wet from washing dishes. That night had separated her life into a before and an after. The explosion sent her sprawling to the floor, shards of glass and debris scattering around her. Flames erupted immediately, turning the apartment into a chaotic hell. Smoke choked her lungs as she struggled to get up, her ears ringing, her vision blurred.

Instinct took over.

She had to get out.

Lisa searched for her parents amid the chaos. Her mother lay motionless under rubble. Her father was nowhere to be found. Though her nascent medical training urged her to stay and help, the building was collapsing around her. With a heavy heart, she made the agonizing decision to save herself. She later learned her parents hadn't survived.

Navigating through falling debris and leaping over smoldering obstacles, Lisa finally broke free, bursting through the front doors into the night air just as the building collapsed behind her.

Lisa later discovered that not one, but three stray cruise missiles had struck her building, all missing their intended target—the military base next door. It was to this base that Lisa fled, lending her nascent medical skills to assist the military nurses and doctors treating the flood of initial casualties. Her experiences there solidified her absolute disdain for the communist. When she received a draft notice shortly after, her informal role with the military became official. Within days, she was sent to a training facility, and so on.

There, she found out that she had both the talents to save people and kill people. After spending eight months in infantry, she entered the air assault regiment as a marksman and a medic, thanks to the almost perfect score for her marksmanship and a letter of recommendation from the people at the previous military base. She served the AA for sixteen months. Then, after that, a year in the Internal Security Bureau as a paramilitary officer. Then, returning to her medical school mainly due to the promised scholarship from the government.

Lisa often thought back to the day she was recruited by the ISB (Internal Security Bureau). When she asked why she was chosen, she received a straightforward reply: "We need people who would rather die than turned red." For some reason, she fit the bill. Those days were adventurous, filled with travels across the country and access to top-notch equipment such as the GPNVG-18, H&K 416, drones, and so on.

As for her friend Kyla, after they got separated, she worked with the ESA (External Security Agency), which is essentially the international equivalent of the ISB. Both of their jobs were top-secret, so neither had any idea what the other actually did for a living. However, Lisa still suspected someone leak her information to the mafia, and the mafia used that information to cut her tuition. Or, the mafia and her parents had some dealing that she didn’t have any idea about. Well, nobody knew at this point. She never asked what her parents exactly did for living, but before the war, she lived like a princess, and money was never a problem.

The sudden ring of her phone jolted Lisa out of her dishwashing trance. Glancing at the screen, she saw it was Kyla.

"Hello?" Lisa answered, setting the phone on speaker as she continued to scrub a stubborn food stain off a plate.

"Hey, just checking in. Whatcha doing?" Kyla's voice came through, tinged with an upbeat note.

"Just washing dishes," Lisa responded, drying her hands on a towel before picking up the phone.

"Ah, dishes!" Kyla quipped. "Did you forget about something, by the way?"

"Did I...?" Just then, a series of car honks echoed from outside. Curious, Lisa peered out the window to find a Honda Accord parked below. Kyla was in the driver’s seat, doing what appeared to be an interpretive dance of impatience.

"You remember we volunteered to give medical check-ups to computer science students today, right?" Kyla reminded her through the phone, a smirk audible even without visual confirmation.

"Oh, shoot! Did I actually agree to that?" Lisa exclaimed, her mind juggling her to-do list.

"Unless you have a twin who's deeply committed to student health, yeah, you did," Kyla retorted. "So, unless you want Mossieur Burns to assess your medical expertise based on your pajama fashion sense, I suggest you get dressed."

"Do I even care what Burns thinks?" Lisa mused, her mind momentarily drifting to someone from her past—a mysterious figure who still haunted her thoughts. "He's just a regular patient."

"A 'regular patient,' or a 'regular patient' with air quotes?" Kyla teased, making the air-quote gesture so exaggeratedly that Lisa could almost see it through the phone.

"Okay, okay, I get it. I'm coming down," Lisa said, chuckling and ending the call. She headed for the shower, mentally preparing herself for a day that had just taken an unexpected but amusing turn, thanks to Kyla's ever-lively spirit.

She took a quick breeze to make sure she felt a little bit more refreshed, but truth be told, she felt horrendously tired. She’d ask Kyla to stop at Dunkin’ Donuts or Starbucks to get a latte or something. After the shower, she dried herself up and opened her wardrobe. She dressed in her blue shirt alongside with a loose formal pant. She grabbed her backpack and got out of her room. Lisa climbed down the stairs since the cargo elevator would take too long just to go to her floor.

“You don’t look any better than last night, I suppose?” Kyla commented as she got out of the driver’s seat. She wasn’t wrong in that aspect, putting someone in a live or death situation tended to make anyone tired, including Lisa. And it has been years ever since she got plunged into that kind of adrenaline rush.

"I literally just woke up; what do you expect me to look like?" Lisa feigned innocence.

"A radiant bride, perhaps?" Kyla quipped, sliding into the passenger seat with a grin.

Lisa sighed, "Alright, spill. What's the scoop? I thought today was supposed to be all about routine medical check-ups."

Kyla leaned in, adopting a serious tone that was incongruous with her grin. "Ah, you'd think so, wouldn't you? But this morning, a group of folks participated in a campus reality TV show that's all about the spiciest food. They've gotten more than they bargained for—much more. Reports of food poisoning have come flooding in. We're suddenly the gastroenterologists and proctologists they never knew they needed."

"Ah, Professor Hwang's private pharmacy to the rescue, then?" Lisa asked as she maneuvered the car onto the road.

"In the trunk. It's like a gastroenterological wonderland back there. We've got Loperamide, Metronidazole, Omeprazole, and all the '-azoles' you can think of," Kyla chuckled. "Plus Antacids, Acetaminophen for the 'ow-ow,' Simethicone for the 'pff-pff,' and Dramamine for the 'hurl-hurl.' If it goes wrong in the belly, we've got a pill for it!"

Lisa laughed as she dodged a pothole. "So what was the offending feast? Did someone deep-fry a shoe and eat it?"

Kyla grinned. "Not quite that exotic. Think of the spiciest foods you can imagine – fiery noodles, blazing hot fries, sizzling barbecue, and all sorts of tongue-tingling delights. However, it seems like the noodles, fries, and barbeque might've come with an extra serving of salmonella or pylori."

"Ah, the secret sauce was H. Pylori, then?" Lisa chimed in, joining the banter.

"Exactly!" Kyla burst out laughing. "The episode's working title is now 'Fast Food Roulette: Where Every Bite's a Gamble!'"

Lisa then slapped her mouth shut, “Alright, but let’s be serious, what’s the exact problem?”

Kyla's face turned a bit more serious. "Alright, joking aside, it's not great. We’re there to assist the emergency services. Symptoms range from mild to severe, including diarrhea, vomiting, fever, and abdominal pain. However, there is also a report of people passing out, probably from dehydration. We suspect bacterial food poisoning, but it needs to be confirmed. Right now, we’re just there to monitor in case the ambulance needs to return for something we no longer could handle. You know, if suddenly something just went wrong.”

“Alright, I get it.”

Lisa entered the gate of Angor Institute of Technology, the campus itself was square kilometers huge, with multiple different roads spanning more than a kilometer long that connected one campus major to another. Ocassionally, a race was held here, thanks to the massive amount of male students and rich people in here. Occassionally, she saw a Ferrari, Lamborghini, or something like that in here. It was still a mystery how some people still could be this rich in a country that just once plagued with civil war. Then again, the Federation poured trillions into this country and the war was a long time ago.

“Ambulances.” Kyla pointed her finger at an ambulance drove past them.

“So, we just happened to be here at the wrong time?” Lisa wanted confirmation as another ambulance was behind that ambulance.

“Like how we got bombed in Milbank? I say yes,” Kyla added.

Lisa eyed the row of ambulances, her expression somber. "Alright, let's do what we can to help."

Kyla nodded. "Agreed."

After making sure their medical arsenal was ready for deployment, Lisa steered the car away from the cluster of emergency vehicles. Her eyes caught a sign ahead: "Computer Science Campus." In front of the university, multiple ambulances were parked, making Lisa wondered what the hell just happened.