Chapter 22 - Pandemic...

Vilani: Sergeant… Hey… Wake up…

I felt that someone was gently shaking my shoulder. As soon as I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was that the others were walking around on the flight deck, on their way to the base quarters. I looked up and noticed Vilani was the one shaking my shoulders…

Vilani: Wake up, sir… We’re back in Azerbaijan…
Blain: Oh…? I eh… I must dozed off…
Vilani: Sleeping like baby sir…

So I got up and walked towards the base…

Vilani: Oh and… Sir…?
Blain: Yes lieutenant?
Vilani: I eh… Do you where my cousin is…?
Blain: … Who?
Vilani: Sergeant Regan… I eh… I haven’t heard of him yet…
Blain: Lemme check.

I placed my helmet back on and cycled through the HUD to see if there was anything known about casualties. Regan wasn’t one of ‘em. Then I came across a mission briefing that one of the gunship’s received. According to that data, Regan was on it…

Vilani: Anything known yet…?
Blain: Regan’s gunship had an added objective, lieutenant, on the way to Azerbaijan. You told us that there was a prison camp and a supply depot, and their job was to explore the place.

Vilani: … Enemy activity…?
Blain: …
Vilani: … Well…?
Blain: Nothing yet, lieutenant…
Vilani: *sighs in relief*
Blain: Don’t worry lieutenant, he’ll be back before you know it.
Vilani: Thank you, sir…

At that point, Jarod barged through the door…

Jarod: Vilani!! You gotta- Oh… Hello… sir.
Blain: Jarod…

I noticed how Vilani smiled at Jarod, and Jarod quickly took off his cap as he looked at her. He smiled back at her rather nervously.

Vilani: What’s up, Jarod?
Jarod: Regan’s got information about the prison camp…
Vilani: He does…? Are there a lot of people…?
Jarod: Yeah… And eh… Well, you gotta hear it yourself!
Vilani/Blain: What?!
Jarod : Come on!!

Jarod dragged Vilani along the hallway as I ran after them. He took us to a large room, filled with all sorts of computers with high tech digital crap and huge monitors on the wall… I noticed Scyth and every other squad leader in the room…

Scyth: Can you get a visual, Regan…?
Radio: Eeeh, I’m still working on it… This place is sick… We thought it was a prison camp but…

Blain: What’s going on…?
Scyth: Regan reported a lot of maimed humans and furries inside the compounds…

Blain: Their injured…?
Scyth: No, apparently, their sick…
Radio: I see one with open wounds and swears… Man-o-man, if you could see this shoot… You wouldn’t believe me if I just told you…

Scyth: It seems their infected with something… But what caused it, we don’t know…

Blain: I see…
Radio: Live video feed streaming, stand by.
Vilani: And that’s when- *gasps*
Blain: What?

Vilani stared at the big monitor like everyone else… What we saw was horrifying… You saw the place like Regan did, because his camera was integrated with his helmet, like every other one. It’s part of the Net-Bat system… But the things he showed us were horrifying… You saw humans with open sores and wounds and some were even deformed to the point you couldn’t even tell it was a human. And there’s a few furries as well…

Blain: Holy… shoot…
Radio: Looks like these guys are dead.
Blain: It’s a virus…?
Scyth: *nods* I just found out when I got here.
Blain: Damn… Regan has taken precautions, right?
Scyth: Yeah, he did.

Radio: The smell is unbearable here… This place is nothing like a prison camp at all… It looks like these humans are in quarantine, but I guess they just abandoned them… Listen, I have to continue. I thought I just give you a heads up of what’s happening. We’ll take care of any survivors and try to get some more clues. We got 5 medics examining a few survivors right now.

Scyth: Be careful.
Radio: Will do. Bravo-3 out.

Vilani: That’s why we had to extract Jones… He’s got information about the virus…

Blain: I think we need a word with him… Where is he now?
Vilani: Interrogation.
Scyth: Alright, let’s go.

So the four of us went to interrogation where he was waiting… We took our seats and recorded our conversation…

Jones: I don’t want to be treated like a war criminal.
Scyth: You’re not being treated like one.
Blain: I assume you deserted?
Jones: No.
Blain: Then where you’re from?
Jones: The ICA…
Scyth: It says here, you’re a lieutenant.
Jones: That’s right.
Vilani: Can I get you anything?
Jones: Glass of water, please…
Vilani: I’ll get it for you.
Scyth: So what’s the deal then…?
Jones: The ICA has nothing to do with everything happening outside…
Jarod: Then what happened?
Jones: Uh… You know what the ICA is right?
Scyth: Undercover operations and secret police?

Jones: That’s right… I’ve stumbled across corruption within GUN by accident. The ICA is neutral in this… After examining and cross interrogation with war criminals, it all led to a guy named Miller. But… There’s nothing the ICA can do… We’re powerless… GUN is all powerful now… The pressure grew larger on the ICA to release what we considered to be war criminals...

Scyth: But that doesn’t explain why there’s a war being waged outside…
Jones: It’s because the furries commenced a bio-chemical warfare on the humans…

Blain: What…?
Jones: That’s what they believe.
Scyth: Who are “they”…?
Jones: Miller and every other high ranked commander in the GUN legions… So that’s why they deployed troops and the war broke loose…

Blain: Bio-chemical warfare…?
Scyth: … But we had no reasons to start one…
Jones: That crossed my mind as well, so I investigated it. So far, the virus killed millions of humans up north… That’s why they started a war…

Blain: Yeah but, why was it never known to anyone…?
Jones: I have no idea…
Scyth: What about vaccines…? Are they in development…?
Jones: *nods*
Blain: … Damn…
Jones: But something doesn’t add up…
Blain: What is?
Jones: The first casualties of the virus were reported BEFORE the war broke loose. It spreads out very rapidly, which is something we’ve never seen before. Within the first week, 1,9 million people died already… And that’s just the first week…

Scyth: … Whoa…

Then Vilani came back and placed a glass of water on the table for Jones.

Jones: Thank you.
Vilani: *nods*
Scyth: … So… Any information about the virus…?
Jones: Yes…

He opened up his jacket and got out a very small digital card thing.

Jones: Does anyone have a PDA…?
Vilani: I do. *gives PDA to Jones*
Jones: Alright… *inserts card in PDA*

He placed the PDA down on the table and a holographic screen opened up. All sorts of data are displayed…

Jones: I’m neither a scientist nor a doctor but… You can see the symptoms of an infected person here. You see the open sores they have. In the lightest case scenario, they simply just slip into a coma and die.

Scyth: Hmm-mm…
Jones: The strange thing however… Is that these symptoms resemble a lot to a virus dr. Ivo Robotnik developed a long time ago for his bio-chemical weapons. Their almost identical.

Scyth and I looked at each other… It’s true… Robotnik did develop a virus… He never had the chance to deploy his bio-chemical weapons…

Vilani: Yeah but… Just because the symptoms are the same doesn’t mean it’s the exact same virus…

Jones: It is… Scientists took a sample of it and researched it to develop a vaccine against it… But to no avail… But after going through old data Robotnik left for us, it turned out it is indeed the exact same virus Robotnik developed years ago…

Scyth: What about those scientists…? Are they still busy to develop a vaccine…?
Jones: No. Their all dead. GUN wants to cover up the virus so that no one would ever know.

Blain: But why?
Jones: I have no idea… That’s what I’m hoping to find out here. The question still remains, who released that virus…?

Blain: Who had access to it…?
Jones: That’s the thing. No one knows, because that particular detail was erased from the database. Someone has been sabotaging it…

Scyth: Something still bothers me though…
Jones: What is…?
Scyth: You said the virus claimed its first casualties before GUN declared war…
Jones: Yes.
Scyth: Then how come no one knew anything about the virus…?
Jones: I have no idea…

I tried to remember as much as possible… Things just don’t add up to the whole situation happening outside…

Jones: … Do you remember that outbreak in Westopolis 2 years ago…?
Scyth: … No…
Blain: Vaguely… I seem to recall… There was something on the news about that…

Jones: *nods* Hundreds of humans and 52 furries died… It was an accident when they got hold of a deadly new disease… The government called it… “A natural infection carried by the animals”… I can assure you, there was nothing natural about it…

Scyth: Same virus…?
Jones: No… Research showed out it was a different virus, also developed by Robotnik himself… So there are two viruses… But we know that this one was the very first one that caused casualties… But fortunately, it got contained before it could spread out any further… The virus was known as “Romulus”…

Blain: What about the other one…? The one who caused the death of millions…?
Jones: It’s known as Remus…
Blain: *nods*
Jones: So bottom line is… Someone sabotaged everything and made use of the political situation the government had… Whoever it was, he was pretty clever…

Scyth: … Yeah…

Jarod was really quiet all this time… He looked at us…

Jarod: Let’s get everything straight here…
Blain: Alright… Titan gets shot down on the way…
Jarod: 241 million casualties during the nuclear holocaust…
Vilani: A virus that killed millions of humans…
Jarod: Something isn’t right.
Scyth: What?
Jarod: I don’t know. It doesn’t connect. Our Titan got shot down after the virus breakout and before the nuclear strike. It happened before Miller overthrew his own government… And if it did, wouldn’t they use the virus to wipe us out instead? Someone started a bio-chemical warfare on our side, no doubt about it…

Blain: Except the question is, who released it…?

It stayed silent for a while…

Jarod: … Unless the humans released the virus themselves…
Jones: Whadda ya mean?
Jarod: Think about it… Miller committed a coup with some of his best friends… The first one failed. Why did it failed?

Scyth: … No idea…
Jarod: To make a coup succeed, what do you need…?

Blain: Chaos…
Jarod: Exactly… When everyone is in chaos, they’ll listen to the person with the biggest mouth… So… So the humans released the virus so that there would be chaos… And it would explain why they never wanted to let anyone know about it...

Vilani: Seems plausible…

Jarod: And then they blamed the virus on us so that they would have a reason to wage a war…

Scyth: Well… Don’t jump the gun here guys. All we have is theories… Besides, it’s not relevant to speculate about it while we can do something about it…

Vilani: … Like what…?
Scyth: … Glad you asked… *grins*

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