Pappa Zulu – Chapter 44

“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? Why if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”

-John Harrington

The door slid shut behind him. Many faces sat in the middle of the room, the same look painted on their features. They all looked up the moment Ross walked in, their expressions changing suddenly to admit a ray of hope. Their voices raise as one, a million questions coming to them at once.

“Doctor, what’s happening?”

“Are you okay?”

“Did they say what they wanted?”

“What’s going to happen to us?”

He raised his hands and pleaded with them for quiet. It took a moment of urging and he needed to raise his voice, but soon they were listening, even sitting again on the room’s couches. He had done his best to arrange for a chance of scenery for them. In the last few hours, they had gone from a holding cell to the floor’s main rec room. The least they could do was take advantage of it.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” he said calmly. “We’ve had a very rough day, but it’s going to get better from here.”

“What are you talking about?” Watts asked. He looked Ross up and down, no doubt noticing the clean gown he wore. As one of the perks of Graph and his discussion, he had been permitted the chance to change his clothes and don a more fitting outfit. He was glad they noticed, as they also needed to change their vestments from the looks of them.

“I mean, you can expect better treatment at the hands of your captors. They don’t want to hurt us; in fact, they want our help. It’s only because of a simple misunderstanding that you were all placed in holding cells to begin with. But you can thank me and a certain somebody else for clearing that up.”

They began to look at each other, looks of confusion barely concealed on their faces.

“Doctor… who are these men?” asked Sykes. Ross crossed his arms and took a deep breath. Yes, this seemed as appropriate a spot as any to begin from.

“Ladies, gentlemen… I regret to inform you of this, but it seems that the Mage, or Major General Thur, as some of us know him, is a fraud. He’s been running this base and this part of the country with an iron fist for some time, and as it turns out, he never had leave to do so. Whatever air of authority he’s been putting on for the last few years has been entirely false. These men merely came here to reign him in.”

That didn’t seem to clear up their confusion. If anything, it made it worse.

“You see, the General was sent here some time ago to take charge of the situation. That much is true. However, just about everything he’s told us since then has been a lie. He said the government had essentially fallen, that was a lie. He said this outpost that we had created was one of the last vestiges of civilization left in the country. That too was a lie. As it turns out, the capitol is still intact, the government is up and running, but since he didn’t like taking his orders from the center, he decided to carve out his own little empire out here. And now his time is up.”

“That’s impossible,” Watts replied. “We all know Thur, he’s not the kind of man to lie like this. He’s not some sociopath, he’s a soldier. His kind takes orders, they don’t try to carve out their own empires. We – ” he began looking at the others for some signs of agreement. He got only muddled looks in response and began to stutter wildly.

“I know, its difficult to accept,” Ross said. “But I think if you consider it fairly, you’ll find it makes perfect sense. All this time he was in struggle with the people back east, the ones who’ve been running the government since the First Wave hit. He came out this way to oversee this base and to protect people in the region, but he got it in his head that he could take over the whole country if he wanted to and he chose to do just that.”

“Yeah, but-” Amaru began. Ross cut him off.

“Why else would he have us working so tirelessly on a vaccine? Why did he send people into LA to find this “patient zero” when there were plenty of other bases and commanders closer to the city? It’s because he wanted to beat others to the punch. He knew that whoever had the vaccine would be in a position of strength and would likely be the person who started rebuilding the country once all the infected were removed.” He shook his head and spread his arms wide. “He wanted it all for himself. It’s the only explanation.”

He let that sit with them for a moment. As it stood, they still seemed to want to cling to their denials, continue to pretend the man was their friend and looking out for them. But he could see in their eyes that they were considering it, just as he had when Graph had put it to him.

“Sir, there is one other possibility” Amaru said finally.

Ross looked at him plainly. “Oh?”

“Have you considered the possibility that these men are the ones making a play here? What if Thur was in a hurry to make sure the vaccine didn’t fall into the wrong hands?”

Ross shook his head. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?” Sykes said. “What do we even know about these people? They come here, they attack us, kill our friends and colleagues, and we’re going to just embrace what they tell us? Where’s the sense in that?”

Ross raised his hands and continued to shake his head. Amaru’s logic seemed to be spreading, and they were quickly falling back into their denials.

“No, you’re not listen-”

“Sir, the only thing you’ve got to go on here is the word of some man… what’s his name?”

“Graph,” Ross said angrily. “He-”

“Is telling you what you want to hear!” Sykes shouted. “Seriously, Doctor, how stupid are you?”

Ross’ face flushed and his eyes went wide. “What did you say?”

“She’s saying you’ve been played,” Amaru said plainly. “He told you what you wanted to hear and now you’re prepared to jump ship because of it. It’s what you’ve wanted, right?”

“Everybody knows you hate the Mage,” Watts said before Ross could object. “You and he have been butting heads since day one. You’re just believing this guy because he’s given you a reason.”

“A reason that goes beyond mere ego, you mean,” Sykes said to Watts. Watts laughed.

Ross’ face was now burning with rage. All at once, they had risen up against him. He tried in vain to find the words that could encapsulate his rage right now, but none came. He continued to shake his head, his face becoming hotter with every passing second.

He looked at each of them in turn, at Sykes, the woman he had brought aboard because of her comely appearance and long legs but who continuously spurned his advances. What the hell was she avoiding it for? Everyone knew her qualifications included her appearance and she couldn’t expect to be taken seriously otherwise.

He looked at Amaru, the plain face and even planer spoken man who was talented where cellular biology was concerned, but who he knew suffered from some form of ASD. No one would have given him a chance, not with the discomfort he was known to engender in people.

And finally he looked at Watts, the biggest disappointment of them all. Who the hell was he to bring up ego? That petty sonofabitch just couldn’t stand not being the alpha male of the group! His talents were limited and his misgivings nothing but the result of his own insecurity. He was a patent example of someone who did not suffer from an inferiority complex, but was simply inferior.

He had made them, and now they were turning on him. His voice caught in his throat, but he managed to force it out in increments.

“You stupid… ungrateful… useless people!” he bellowed finally. “I brought you into this group, I made you a part of something greater than you could ever imagine, and this is how you repay me? With accusations and second-guessing?!”

There was quiet for a moment. No one said anything. Instead, they all just glared at him knowingly. He wasn’t sure why, but that only made him angrier.

“I come to you bringing truth and you’d spurn it and turn against me? Well fine, I guess that’s what a weak mind does when it’s faced with something it can’t handle! But you know what, it really doesn’t matter! I was going to take you with me, but as far as I’m concerned, you can all rot here with the Mage!”

“Wha- take us with you?” Sykes asked. Ross turned his baleful eyes at her. Of all that he had said, it was strange that she was focusing on that. He would have imagined the prospect of being left behind would have been more noteworthy.

“Yes! I’m going back to the capitol with these men here. You didn’t think they’d be staying did you? Once they’ve taken care of the Mage, they are heading back east and I’ve been asked to come with them.”

“Taken care of the Mage?” Watts echoed. Ross grunted loudly. Why did they continue to focus on the irrelevant parts of what he was saying?

“Yes, and as I said-”

It was no use. They had raised their voices again and were all demanding to know the same thing. He tried to shut them up, to yell over them, but their voices were far too insistent.

“What are they going to do to the Mage?”

“Are they going to kill him?”

“Why are you helping them?”

“Do you hate him that much?”

“They’re going to kill him, just like they did Li!”

That stopped everyone in their tracks. Ross looked wide-eyed at the source, which just happened to Sykes, standing in the middle of them.

“What did you say?” he asked.

“They killed Li,” she repeated. “They shot him after they took you away.”

“No, that’s impossible. Graph insisted that he was being -”

“They shot him in the face!” Watts yelled. “He moved or something so they shot him. Right there on the ground, like he was some rabid fucking animal!”

Another moment of quiet, terrible and long. Ross felt a sickly feeling coming over him. All eyes were on him and he could feel the bale being directed at him now. His face, which had been burning hot until now, suddenly felt very cold.

“No… they said…”

“These are the people you want to help, doc,” Sykes repeated. “They killed one of your people, now they want to kill the Mage, and they’ll say whatever they have to to make you cooperate with them.”

“And its obvious why, they need you,” added Amaru. Watts scoffed.

“Yeah, but we all know they didn’t have to lie, right? Everybody knows the doc here would have helped them for free.”

Ross looked at him angrily. He wanted to let loose on him again, but once more, no words would come. What was more, the fires that were raging inside him were dead too. His entire body had gone cold, chilled by the united front he was now facing and the prospect that the only one of his helpers he had ever liked in the slightest was indeed dead at the hands of his new found friends.

For the next few seconds, he looked back and forth between them, not knowing what to say. He eventually stopped trying and turned away. He made for the door as fast as his feet would carry him and departed the rec room, leaving the three helpers he had left behind.