The room was dead silent. The tension in the air was unbearable, especially between James and Madison. After Madison had said those words, his face cracked and his whole confident and arrogant act crumbled completely, revealing frustration, confusion and even... respect.
Honestly, Benji was just eating the tension up. He could not be more prouder of Madison at that moment. He had no idea that she was respected this much, and her opinions were just as valued amongst her peers . Honestly it made sense, considering her status and reputation in the military, especially during training days. Even Benji himself was wary of her.
Madison barely knew defeat during military training- barely being the key word. Even when she had just begun her military training, she was know for bringing dozens of grown men to their knees. Mostly her training partners that is. She was know to be incredibly intelligent and talented in strategising, as well as unmatched in hand to hand combat. It did not matter whether her opponent outmatched her in terms of strength, her sheer will and desire to win was unmatched.
Benji knew her better than anyone. Even though they never talked much, or never talked at all for that matter, they still knew each other the best during military training. Benji remembered that one dreadful day she she became her opponent in training, even though he wished he did not. It was really an unpleasant experience, even though deep down, Benji knew that she went easy on him because they go way back, even though that made him angrier.
If Benji remembered correctly, that meeting with Major Black was not the first time James and Madison met. They met during one of those training days where different areal units would be mixed and trained together. James was the representative of the other unit, as well as its strongest champion. Madison represented the unit Benji was part of. Madison and Benji might have currently worked at different Military Bases, but they were still part of the same unit. Even though Benji was not present to see the clash between James and Madison, he knew that it had been legendary.
And James obviously tasted bitter defeat.
Benji did not know what the other were thinking about, especially James, but he knew that no one even dreamt of retorting. There was no need for words, the silence spoke for itself. In the end, it was Major Black who spoke, seemingly avoiding this whole argument, or simply choosing not to take sides.
"Okay let's please move on to the next slide. There is another matter I wanted to discuss with all of you."
He waved his hand in the air and another slide appeared on the giant screen. In the picture, dozens-no, hundreds of bodies littered the streets and some could even be seen on top of the buildings. They were all dead. Some had grave wounds, some moderate and others had no wounds at all. That was the eerie part. They were not killed by the earthquake, they were not killed by the tsunami or by the horrors of the ocean, and they were not killed by other humans either. So what the hell killed them?
They did not have to wait long for the answer though, because it came shortly after a few moments. Major looked at the screen somberly and turned to the candidates around the table with a dark expression on his face.
"The tsunami had a devastating impact on its own. It destroyed countless more buildings, which was also not that severe of damage dealt, considering the earthquake had already destroyed more than 86% of the continent. The real problem is the calamity the ocean descended upon Australia with, and no i do not mean sea creatures like sharks or whales. I mean something less avoidable and more disastrous."
"There is a report we received about a new disease reaping the lives of the surviving civilians. This disease is unknown for now, but it is suspected that it originated from the sea. We still do not know whether it came from a certain sea creature, maybe a couple, or the waters themselves carried the virus, but we suspect both."
He sighed.
"We are almost certain though that the disease was spread when at least one civilians either came in contact with the water or the sea creatures, survived and escaped the tsunami or was rescued by someone else who then became infected and spread it further. Whatever the case may be, results are simply horrific. The disease is unstoppable. Almost 46% of the surviving civilians have already contracted the disease, and most of them are dead."
He rubbed his temples and took a deep breath, seemingly disturbed by something.
"The main problem about this disease is that it is undetectable and extremely unpredictable. It is impossible to know whether your allies have it or not, until it is too late. By that time, you would have definitely been infected by then. The other problem is that there are not early symptoms and its main symptoms are not shown until the cause of the disease has already anchored itself to every cell in your vital organs."
The mood in the room turned darker and darker as he spoke.
"The main symptoms include confusion, exhaustion, dizziness and extreme fatigue that leads victims to feel very sleepy, and then eventually fall into a very deep sleep. It got even worse when those who succumbed you disease, started to never waking up. Some were still breathing while others were even snored while they slept. Their relatives found solace in that, but none of them were ready when the victims began dying in their sleep. One moment a person is snoring and the next, they are gone."
"It does not even wait you to fall asleep or succumb to exhaustion, it forces it on your body. That is why you see perfectly woundless bodies littered on the streets of Australia. Those people just collapsed, fell asleep and died right there on the spot. Another frightening thing about this disease, is the speed in which it spreads. At first it was concentrated on the regions closer to the waters, but now it has invaded deeper into the other remaining half. No civilian is safe anymore. So you see soldiers, if we do not act now, Australia will not be the last continent to fall."
The rooms was dead silent for a while. Everyone was carefully thinking about the situation, and probably regretting their decisions of not staying behind. There was still something that did not make sense to Benji though. Yes everything they suspected about the origin of the disease is plausible, but still.. Benji could not shake the feeling that they were missing something obvious, but also important. It felt he was forgetting something he knew he had known before, just could not remember what...
'Weird...'
He decided to stop straining his mind by overthinking unimportant stuff.
'Unimportant stuff... what was i thinking about again?'
Anyways he had more important matters that required his uncompromising effort, dedication and attention.
'What the fuck is going on?! Since when am I a dedicated and focused soldier? I hate this fucking job!'
He decided to distract his current train of thoughts and think about the current situation. He still failed to understand one thing though, no matter how useless it was. It this disease came from the sea or its creatures, how come that a few of the civilians on the drowned half of Australia still survived and did not fall asleep like the rest? Did the disease pick specific people? Or did it not work on a certain type of people? But no matter how much Benji enjoyed lying to himself, he knew that the answer was in front of him and he avoided it.
Major just showed them a picture of a woman struggling against water with a baby. Dozens other civilians had seeked shelter in the few surviving buildings. But there was one thing Benji failed to account for, Major had never said those people survived and were currently waiting to be saved. He just showed them a picture and asked them what they thought. They probably, well... most definitely died after a few hours or even minutes after the picture was taken. There could even be a picture somewhere in the database, he just chose not to show them.