Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

The moment the word “Alumni” left my mouth, there was complete silence for a straight minute. Everyone else couldn’t believe their ears and if I mentioned that I also graduated with honors—fuck it, Valedictorian with several awards, they would’ve bled from all of their orifices.

However, what I wouldn’t mention to them was that Jared used to be a 3rd-year student at PMA or the Philippine Military Academy and he would’ve graduated this year if some things didn’t prevent him from doing so.

Telling them that I went to that school was already too much information about myself, telling them that they might also have an “in” into the largest DDR Camp in the area could spell a lot of trouble for me and my group. It would’ve been a different case if we’re working together but that term was still completely fuzzy at this point.

Mr. Alvarez stood up from his seat and pointed at me, “Wait a fucking second… You… You went there?”

“Yeah.”

“You,” Mr. Alvarez as he waved his index finger around me—trying to encircle me wholly, “You’re a college graduate? You studied and shit?”

“Is something wrong with that? Isn’t that pretty common?”

Mr. Alvarez completely ignored my questions, “And you also have a 9-incher?”

“…sure.”

“Fucking shit, just take everything, will you? If you have my good looks, you’d be fucking perfect! Well, grow a mustache like mine and you’d probably be passable.”

“Uh… Uh-huh…”

Mauro interjected, “Hold up, you said those people got sticks up their butt? How?”

I lightly sighed, “Not everyone but most of them are, especially the ones that lived inside their walls their whole lives. But to give a brief explanation, imagine a large group of people that are mildly Republican but downright despise guns. Religion is the biggest thing for them and they’d fight you tooth and nail just to shove their beliefs down your throat.”

​ “Hmm, so you’re a religious one?”

“Not anymore,” I said as I chuckled, “Look around, does it look like—”

Castro suddenly cut me off, “And this shall be the plague where the Lord will strike all the people that waged war against Jerusalem—”

I chuckled as I cut him off as well, “Their flesh will rot while they are still standing on their feet, their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths. I know that verse, Castro. I have a few more in my head if you want but I don’t want to start something like this right now.”

Castro let out a smile, “I’m just saying. I don’t care about your beliefs but after what happened to me, seeing the Devil just made me believe that God exists even more.”

I bluntly replied with a smirk, “And how’s that going for ya?”

Castro sent me a deathly glare, “Don’t. Start.”

“I didn’t, you did. If the being you’re talking about is all-knowing and all-powerful, this shit wouldn’t have started in the first place. And if this was just a fucking test? He would’ve known the end result without putting us through so much shit. If anything, if he’s real, it just told me that he’s a fucking psycho that’s just too bored and decided to have some fun—with us to provide his entertainment.”

“A-And what if this is actually another thing like the flood?”

“So, are you telling me that he made a mistake? Is that why he’s trying to erase everyone in existence? Can’t he just snap his fingers again and make—”

“Enough!” Sal slammed the table as she looked at us, “I’m not hearing another word of this.”

“…”

“…”

“We’re here to talk shop, not disparage each other’s beliefs. Not one of you had irrefutable proof to back up your claims and all it’s doing right now is creating a divide. I know both of you are new and as hard for me to say this, our organization was just a shell of what it once was, we need to be more united than ever if we want to get through this.”

I sighed as I shrugged my shoulders, turning to Castro, “Sorry. It’s just that in my experience, suffering shit didn’t make me believe more in your god, it’s the complete opposite. I’m not gonna say more because it’s definitely gonna piss you off but I’ll just say that working in mysterious ways doesn’t excuse the fact that it did more harm than good.”

At this moment, Castro listened to every word I said and he let out a heavy sigh as he lightly shook his head.𝒪𝑣𝑳xt.𝐂𝒐𝗆

“I understand what you’re trying to say and it’s the… logical… route… but I’m gonna follow what my gut is telling me. Believing led me to this point and it proved that He hasn’t failed me. I—”

“I’m really sorry for this but you can fucking hear yourself, right?”

“Pardon me?”

“Tell me if I got this right, you, Castro Castillo was born into your family just to have your love of your life toyed with while each and every truth was bent against you right until your patriarch proved that he’s too fucking old to understand technology because that was what made him slip up. After that, you were finally free from your curse and set on the path to vengeance and the lesson you learned from that was that you realized that your god existed even more because of it.”

“And? What’s wrong—”

“My guy. Every bit of wrong is present from that. Imagine being created for the purpose of making you recognize your creator even more. I know you still have a lot on your plate but try to apply what I said to every person you could think of. Imagine how fucked up it is if your book is just a couple of pages long because that’s the way it should be.”

“…”

“Is that too complicated? Imagine me, being born into this world to have a belief such as mine. If he’s real and he made me this way, won’t I just go straight to hell and burn for all of eternity once this is all over? Imagine that. But yeah, what do I know? I don’t have irrefutable proof of my claims as Sal said but I do think about it a whole lot instead of just believing in it because they said so.”

“…”

After that, it became completely quiet again and the silence was broken when Mauro let out a yawn. But before that, Castro couldn’t find the words to reply to me and even Sal started to think to herself. The only person that looked me straight in the eye was Benjie and it wasn’t because he was still mad at me but it was because it felt like my words were getting through to him somehow.

“You guys done? Can we move this shit along now?”

I replied as I glanced over Castro, “We’re done, right?”

“For now, yeah,” Castro added as he looked down.

“Alright, back on topic. Where were we again? Right, the university. Whitewood University. It’s still quite a ways from the Philippine Military Academy but those two places are working together. You said they despise guns but let’s just say that for this time, they decided to make an exception. Praying can only do so much, no? Ahaha… bad joke… Anyway~ the good news is that both camps are open to people: they trade food, information, services, etc., but it’s more… PG compared to ours. I don’t believe they know of this place yet but if we do it right, we could open up a channel between them and ours. We’ve been at odds since forever but unless they try to pick a fight with us, I don’t see any harm in working together.”

Mary interjected, “I agree with what you said but I still don’t get why they’re collecting heads.”

‘True. I’ve been sending them different samples but I never heard of them collecting heads aside from this one other group that we took care of. I doubt they’re even the same thing…’

Mauro replied, “Does it matter? They’re giving us free shit for it and it clears the streets. Win-Win in my book.”

Mr. Cuervo chimed in, “We just need to be careful while collecting information. They must know more than we do but we shouldn’t bite more than what we can chew. Kid, I hate to do this to you but since you’re dropping by the De Leon Family’s turf, why don’t you drop by your old Alma Mater and say hi? They might give you more information if you know some of the people inside and we’d pay you for the information.”

I waved him off, “No need for that. I’ll tell you what I find out but they shouldn’t know I’m part of this group. If they ever do, they’ll shut us out because of obvious reasons.”

Mauro scratched the back of his head, “Yeah… that’s why I send some of my decent-looking prospects over so everything goes smoothly when we trade shit. But on the other side, all they want is just results. Anyone could talk to them as long as it’s not either of the old heads that are a little too high profile.”

Mr. Alvarez nodded, “Fair enough. But what could you give us now?”

I turned to him, “What do you mean?”

“Deets, kid. Deets. I wanna hear more.”

“Hmm~ I said most of what’s important but if we’re talking about food, they got it. Well, I dunno about it now because it’s been a while but the folks from the other side wouldn’t give them protection if they don’t have anything to offer.”

“Interesting…”