Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

Kaley looked down and sighed before opening her mouth, "Amy… She\'s… She\'s been through a lot but if we take care of her… like really take care of her… she\'s gonna be mostly okay."

Iskoh nodded a few times, "Any specifics?"

"Specifics?"

"I mean, did they check her for everything? What did--"

"Well, she was tested for underlying physical injuries, pregnancy, HIV, Hepatitis B, and STIs... you know, like chlamydia, gonorrhea, trichomoniasis, and etc. Some of them would take a few days to know if she have them but she was prescribed antibiotics for some of them just to be sure. For her external injuries, she was given creams to hopefully make them heal faster and leave less visible scars… But--"

"Wait, pregnancy? Is she--"

"No, she\'s not pregnant… luckily… But what she needs as well are social support and counseling. She still needs a psych consult but I think my mom could do a better job. Also, it\'s better to have one professional in that case… It\'s very important for her recovery… However, she really wants to see her mom… Is she-- Is her mom still alive?"

Iskoh looked at me before he shook his head, "He called me earlier to ask the same thing but… she\'s gone. I thought he already told you but--"

Kaley suddenly turned to me with an ugly expression, "You didn\'t tell me?! I just told her we\'re gonna find her mom! You-- You should\'ve told me! That\'s the only thing keeping her together! She just wanted to see her!"

I tried to calm her down, "Kaley, I can\'t at that time and on the way here. You were the one taking care of her back there and the one with her while having her exams, I can\'t just pull you aside and tell you. If she heard us or you let out a nuance that you know what happened to her mom--"

"B-But… It\'s only been a few years since-- W-Wait, what happened to her mom?!"

I sat her down as I looked at her solemnly, "She… uh… She couldn\'t take bad news after bad news for a year… She… you know..."

I didn\'t continue what I was about to say but as I was looking at Kaley straight in the eye, it didn\'t take long for her to come to a realization. Slowly, tears started to stream down her face and Cynthia soon joined her. All I could do was be a shoulder to cry on but like Iskoh, the pain in our faces couldn\'t be more pronounced.

I used to feel indifferent about the suffering of other people but Amy was already one of us and a different case, no one deserved what she went through and we couldn\'t give her the one thing she needed the most.

"D-Dammit! Why is it that the-- Fuck! Can\'t she have a break?!"

"What are we gonna tell her then?"

"We should t-tell her… I think..."

"What?! No!"

"But--"

"Not now, not after what just happened. Knowing that\'ll break her."

"Then… when?"

After some time, it was decided to keep news of Amy\'s mother a secret from her until we decide it was time for her to know the truth. It could backfire the moment we told her the truth but telling it to her now was so much more unideal. It was just not the time to give her another set of bad news because we felt that it would be too much for her.

In my case, I would always go for the truthful and painful route because I could take it but in Amy\'s case, that tiny bit of hope to see her mother once again was the only thing keeping her alive. If she somehow knew that her mom killed herself after not finding her for a year, she might just tell us to kill her on the spot.

She already told us she wanted to live and the only way to keep it that way was to find other things she could live for.

Iskoh sighed heavily after peeking through the room where Amy was in, "Okay, this is my suggestion... I already asked her doctor to keep what she saw here a secret and we\'ll try our best to limit the people that could see her. She must be conscious about stranger\'s eyes looking at her with pity or something else so I think it\'s best if she gets a room for herself that\'s closest to your group and away from everyone else."

Kaley nodded, "Yeah, the doctor said that too when she was checking her but… Isn\'t this place not as crowded? Can\'t we just use this room and not move her someplace?"

I added, "Our vehicles are just at the back and we\'re just gonna stay here for a day too. That\'s a viable option..."

Iskoh thought for a while, "I could just close this wing off for the night to give you all some privacy but we got other problems."

I turned to Iskoh with a confused look, "Problems? What problems?"

"Did you forget about the people those kids dumped on me earlier? Well, one of them is demanding a witch hunt for those kids. I can\'t believe they\'re talking like that after what just happened to them..."

"That\'s not a problem… Is it becoming one?"

"It isn\'t supposed to be but the smallest groups are always the loudest. They\'re also getting support from the other group those kids hit last. Remember the families of those gang members? Some of them are starting to demand the same thing. We could just go with the iron fist route but I doubt it\'ll end as expected. We need to do it some other way."

I shook my head before I sighed, "I have one sure-fire way but are you okay with that group getting shunned to the point that they might get killed in their sleep?"

Iskoh turned to me in bewilderment, "What? What are you talking about? What\'s this sure-fire way?"

"I covered all the bases, remember? I have receipts. WE have receipts. We show them the case files of the missing kids plus video proof of what went down earlier to everybody, and that\'ll be worse than a death warrant. Innocent or not, your people won\'t see them the same way."

Iskoh hesitated, "This… they didn\'t even know what their families were killed for..."

I shrugged my shoulders, "All they know was that a bunch of kids turned vigilantes and killed their loved ones for no particular reason. Once they know the truth, they might not even be able to live through the shame. It was one thing to get dragged on with your family\'s shit and it was another thing to incite a witch hunt without knowing the full story."

"Some of them have kids though..."

"Then they\'ll do all they can so their kids could live without scrutiny. Oh! What we could do is gather them in one place and show them what we have without all the audience involved. If they want to live in peace, they retract whatever bullshit they\'re telling your people but we\'ll keep these receipts as ammunition. Once this shit gets out, they\'re done."

"I don\'t think that it\'s--"

"We could technically call them victims too but they\'re just making it worst if they\'re going about it while not knowing the whole truth. This thing is a different case from Amy since more people will get involved and there will be unnecessary losses. If this thing gets out of hand, it\'ll be more trouble than we could imagine."

Iskoh was once again deep in his thoughts while Kaley and Cynthia were in agreement with what I was saying. It was because they were there when it all went down and the upset families of the dead perpetrators were seeking justice for the wrong reasons.

In a perfect world, this could be easily resolved by showing them what their families did but there was more to it than that.

After some time, Iskoh decided to call an emergency meeting involving me, a few of his trusted officers, and the people demanding a witch hunt.

It started with mind-numbing and mindless screaming from the loudest group but the immediate silence after we threw all of our receipts at them was fucking phenomenal. The officers trying to calm them down at first were now trying to calm themselves down because even if these people had no direct involvement with the atrocities we witnessed, they couldn\'t just let them go as easily.

One of the officers wearing an ugly frown turned to me, "How sure are you that they\'re not involved?"

I replied, "They wouldn\'t be here if they are. One of those kids\' dad was a detective and he was building a case against them. He had a list of suspects and their connections with each other and it landed on his son\'s lap. They ruled out who is involved and who is not, and the ones who aren\'t involved are sitting right here."

"And where is this detective you speak of?"

"He\'s either in hiding or silenced indefinitely. I don\'t know about you but the only time that this happens is if he\'s really close to uncovering everything or he just did. It\'s just that he came a step too short."

Another officer leaned over to stare at me, "So you\'re saying... there\'s a chance that he missed a person or two?"

I shook my head, "Sure, there\'s a chance that could happen. Look, I\'m not gonna believe a random group that just popped out of nowhere telling me this group did this and that, but the evidence backing their claim was fucking solid."

The leader of the loud group instantly retorted with a grim look, "W-WAIT! W-W-W-WE HAVE NO INVOLVEMENT IN THIS! WE DIDN\'T KNOW! WE\'RE S-SORRY, WE DIDN\'T KNOW! WE-- I\'M JUST-- WE DIDN\'T KNOW!"

The first officer just stared her down, "OF COURSE, YOU DIDN\'T! SO, SHUT UP! YOU\'LL ONLY TALK WHEN WE\'RE TALKING TO YOU! GOT IT! YOU FUCKED UP! ONE MORE--"

Iskoh cut him off, "That\'s enough, stop yelling. We\'re here to get enlightened by the truth and stop these unrealistic demands coming from their group. Now we know and they know, it\'s--"

"But sir, if we don\'t do our own round of questioning--"

Iskoh clicked his tongue, "This was supposed to be easy. What do you think our people would think when they retract their statements while sporting cuts and bruises right when you just \'questioned\' them? They\'ll think we\'re trying to silence them and we\'re covering something up! This is the first time that something like this happened but we also got to entertain the fact that they might also be innocent."

The officer sighed before nodding pensively, "Then what do you suggest, sir?"

I interjected, "I hate to say this but making them retract their statements after rallying a group would sound fishy too. I think it would be better to just rip the bandaid off and be done with it."

Iskoh turned to me, "What are you saying?"

"What I\'m saying is we forget the second option. We tell your people what really happened and--"

Iskoh cut me off, "We\'re letting the mob decide? I don\'t think that\'s the--"

"Listen to me. The remaining families of the gangbangers that flocked here were first taken into custody and the ones who showed cooperation were slowly settling in with less and less supervision. You could do the same thing with this group and your people will respect you for telling them the truth. It would take some time to completely clear things up but we shouldn\'t do things hastily.. I, for one, is still deciding the fates of a bunch of people the president just dumped on me."