Chapter 14 - Delia

“Shouldn’t you be with the Zulu right now?” Matthew asks as he helps her up onto the hovering vehicle floating towards the hanger.

“I should be, but he isn’t going anywhere.”

“Still stuck in the room reading?”

“How long has it been now?” Samuel asks

“He’s sleeping” She says taking a seat facing them.

“13th day today if I remember correctly” Matthew answers.

“14th” Delia corrects “He read for 13 days straight, then ate and now he is sleeping, I don’t think he’ll wake up for a few days.” She sighs looking away from them “The president isn’t going to be happy.”

“The president is never happy” Samuel jokes lightly

“He never is” she scoffs in response, still looking away, remembering what he was like as a father.

“Wait” Lucy says halting the conversation and making them turn to her “He really just spent 13 days reading? Every waking hour?”

“Yes” Delia says letting her memory of her father go “but I never saw him sleep”

“He didn’t sleep for 13 days?!”

“I never saws him sleep” she says again.

“He must have!” Lucy states

“He must have” Delia replies for there was nothing else to say. In reasonable sense, he must have slept.

“The average organ stops functioning properly after a week without rest. The body needs rest time to heal damage cells” She re-enforces her judgement “The longest on record a person has lasted without sleep is 11 days.”

“He must have, but that doesn’t change the fact that he spent 13 days reading”

Nodding Lucy doesn’t reply directly, but instead mutters to herself “He must have slept” to re-assure herself that she is right; that all her knowledge on the different human bodies are correct.

“I can’t believe I’m on babysit duty” Delia complains

“Why are you on babysit duty anyway?” Matthew asks.

“The general believes that as I am the one that brought him here, I should be the one to keep an eye on him.” She sighs “That I should stay close to him, that I should make him use to my presence and that I should kill him if he were to act against us.”

“Can you actually do it?”

“I don’t know…the last time we fought...” She remembers about the first time they met “I was drained from the day’s mission” looking ahead she sees that the vehicle was slowing down at a group of six. “Under the right conditions, maybe.”

“Sergeant!” the leading person calls out.

“Get aboard.” Matthew says back casually.

Making the six who were standing in line pick up their gear and jump on before the vehicle with no driver starts off again to the hanger.

“I wouldn’t have missed” Samuel says as they shuffle around on the seats.

“Sorry?” Delia responds

“I wouldn’t have missed.” He says again “When the Zulu said that the snipers would miss. I wouldn’t have missed. I never miss”

“Are you talking about the time when the president pulled you away from us?” Matthew asks.

“Yeah, we were stationed 300 metres away to keep an eye on the meeting between the President and Zulu in case anything were to go wrong.” Grabbing a bar of chocolate from a pack “I would not have missed” he states again.

“Hey” Lucy grabs the bar of chocolate back “Don’t take my stuff”

“How’d the meeting between them go anyway?” Matthew questions as Lucy moves her gear away from Samuel.

“Do we really have to talk about it?” Delia asks in agitation “Why are you guys so interested in him anyway?”

“Do you really have to ask?” Raising an eyebrow “A person from a unit that is said to have played a major role in the Old/New Human War, Fall of the Republic, Genocide and Partial Destruction of Noiizia shows up out of nowhere.”

“The fact that no one is able to be assigned to that unit and that all elements about said unit is blacked out or stated in some obscured way adds an element of mystery” Lucy says now sitting on her gear.

“Though he himself is not involved in any of those events, the fact that he is assigned to that unit is already rather amazing.” Matthew continues

“We have also only seen him that one time” Samuel says indicating the time at the arena “He is always in that room and you are the only one that sees him every day.”

“How could we not be interested?” Matthew finishes.

Leaning against her seat more “I don’t like him”

“We can see that.” Samael says

“It’s the way he carries himself.”

“Disciplined” Matthew states “That’s how I would put it. He gives of an atmosphere as if he was specially trained. Which is probably true”

“No, it’s not that.” She sighs “Did I tell you about how we first met?”

The three of them shake their heads.

Sighing again “I had just finished the mission, the unit I was with failed to get out on time.” Pausing she lets that hang for a while “Anyway, I was at my fire resting, confident I was alone and then he just Drops down from above. He entered the perimeter I set up without triggering any of my alarms!”

“So we fought. We fought to a standstill, in which I asked what he wanted and he threw his knife at me.” Pausing again “he could’ve have killed me then. He could have just thrown it at me and I wouldn’t have been able to react. That was when I knew he never intended to kill me.” Agitation appears on her face.

“So he let you live.” Matthew says “You don’t like him because he went easy on you?”

Ignoring the question she continues the story “The next day I was laying down from a high vantage point. Recording a base getting destroyed and he pops up right behind me, again out of nowhere and I stab him out of reflex.”

“Out of reflex” Samuel repeats.

“Anyway, I thought he was going to die so I pushed him down and held the knife there to try and stop the flow as much as possible, but he just pulled it out”

“He pulled it out?” Lucy asks.

“Are you guys going to let me tell the story or are you going to keep interrupting me.” Delia speaks out in annoyance

“Sorry” the three of them apologies at the same time.

“He pulled the knife out and burnt his wound. I know that burning a stab wound that’s punctured the lung does not save you, but it did for him. That was when I confirmed that he was not normal. No normal person could heal that fast. No normal person could enter my perimeter”

“I was grateful though, grateful that I didn’t kill him when he let me live the night before. So I helped him and made camp together with him. Asked what he was doing, showed him the devastated base and offered to bring him to another base. He seemed lost.”

“That was when I asked him what unit he was from, curious because he was extremely skilled for someone I have not seen before, and he told me; Zulu”

“I brought out my knife at that point. A Zulu I thought, no one can be a Zulu. A spy? Was my immediate thought; that made sense at the time. So I thought to kill him.”

“However I didn’t move, something told to us all when we were recruits stopped me. We use to laugh about it.” Smiling at it in memory “If someone ever claimed to be a Zulu, make them prove it and if it were true bring him/her to the General.”

“He had already proven that he was extremely good at close combat, and he already passed through my perimeter undetected.” Pausing she repeats “He passed through my perimeter undetected”

“So I changed the base I was aiming for and came here instead.” now extremely agitated from thinking about it.

“Anyhow when I said I would bring him to base, he agreed to follow me, you would then expect them to stay near you yes?” she asks a rhetorical question. “Well he did, but he moved hidden in the forest. I waited for him the first times, waited for a while for him to appear before me, ready to leave together, instead he threw sticks and stones at me! It was like he wanted me to guide him, but I didn’t deserve his presence!”

“Entering the Base confirmed that he was the impossible. At that point I was willing to let things go, maybe he was just following procedure; he shouldn’t be seen too often right? After all to be in Zulu is really amazing.”

“But then on the ride to Head Quarters he kept looking at me, kept looking at me with that innocent face, like he knew something I didn’t, like he was better than me and that the questions he asked were simply test to see if I was going to lie or not.” Gritting her teeth “I really wanted to hurt him!”

“Are you guys really talking about the Zulu?” one of the six people that got on board asks politely

“Shut up” Delia shouts at him, making him shriek. “Sorry” she says immediately calming down “I didn’t mean to shout at you.” Taking a breath “Yes, we are talking about the Zulu, just don’t interrupt me again. Okay?”

“Yes Sargent. Sorry Sergeant” the man immediately answers.

Turning back to her friends “Anyway. I asked for his name, as he knew that I would be helping him, He paused and waited for a few seconds before answering me. Telling me to call him by the Unit Name. He expects me to just respect him because he is in that unit. He believes that His name is above everyone’s!”

“He is just so Very, Very…Arrogant!” now angry

“Remember that time we went to the general?” she asks after a moment of silent, calm now.

“The time he broke the wall?” Samuel asks, thinking it safe to speak out. “How did he do that by the way?”

“Yes, that time.” Delia says “I don’t know about how he did it. Anyway when the General came out, I was expecting him to do something to the Zulu, but No. the Zulu ripped off his arm! The general didn’t even get mad!” Pausing again to calm down “Any of you guys know what those special privileges are?”

Shaking their heads “It seems only commissioned officers and above do” Matthew answers

“He believes he is above everyone” she states again “That we should be awed at his presence. You know what I’m talking about Samuel, you heard the conversation between the President and Zulu.”

Nodding “It did sound like he had no respect for our President.” He agrees.

“The Zulu was out right taunting The President! He lied to his face claiming to be older than him, older than any of us.” Calming down again “How old do you guys think he is? 18? 19?”

“20 at most” Lucy says “No more than 20.”

“Yes, so 20 at most. The President called out his lie and The Zulu just shrugged it off, like it didn’t matter and should be of no concern! He also threatened him!” grinding her teeth “Just because he is in Zulu does not give him the right to be so dis-respectful. He is only 20 and yet he acts so arrogantly. He expects us to do his will!”

“Okay. He is a jerk, a prick.” Matthew says “You don’t have to keep talking about him now. The time we spent with him was not enough to judge his character, He hardly spoke to us.”

“Maybe it’s because the first time you spoke to him you challenged him to a deceiving fight.” Lucy tells Matthew

“True” he smiles in return “but if I didn’t we wouldn’t have seen what he did.”

“He is from Zulu” Samuel says “Didn’t we use to assume that anybody in such a unit would be arrogant?”

“We also assumed that they would be older, that they would be combat experienced.” Delia responds instantly “This guy is none of those. He is young and you can tell just by looking at him, he has never seen blood on the battle field. What’s worse is that he said he is a freelance mercenary. He pretends to have no purpose here!” Pausing “He also implied that if we didn’t offer him a good resources he would go off and help another nation. Why can’t we just kill him?!”

“We get it Delia” Matthew says “you don’t like him. From how you are describing him, we wouldn’t like him either.”

Sighing “Sorry” she apologises “I didn’t mean to vent my anger out at you guys, it’s just been frustrating the past couple of weeks. I’ve had to wait on him for all his needs. I can’t even say No. The general ordered me to assist him and his behaviour is unusual, I can’t tell if he would jump at me if I did something not to his liking.”

“It’s fine” Lucy says “Everyone needs a place to vent their anger from time to time. It’s good for you.”

“Don’t you get the feeling that something big is going to happen soon though?” Samuel asks the group “Like whispers and rumours of a Zulu only appear during a time of great conflict. Look at history. The Old War, The Republic, The Genocide, Noiizia.”

“That’s another reason why I also don’t like him.” Delia says “His presence itself makes people curious and nervous at the same time. Why is he here? Where did he come from? What is he really doing? It would be better if he was dead.”

Looking at the six that jump on board the vehicle, she finds them listening closely to their conversation. “You six feel like something’s about to happen?” she asks them.

The six of them just look at her and nod their heads nervously.

Turning back to Matthew “What are you guys doing anyway?”

“We’re taking those six and others to the eastern base.” He smiles “Some simple outdoor training”

Looking at the packs that each of them had “How long is the exercise?”

“Should be about a week, shouldn't be dangerous. Standard training op for all who just got promoted from recruit.”

“How many this time?”

“A good 80” Lucy grins

“Aren’t you guys on R&R?”

“Yep!” Samuel chuckles “But why would we miss this chance?”

“Wish I could go with you guys.” The vehicle stops at the hanger.

“Don’t worry we’ll be back before you know it.” Matthew says getting off with the others, leaving Delia alone in the Vehicle.

“Good luck with the Zulu!” Samuel waves as it drives off back towards town.

Watching them jump onto an aircraft “And he asks me why I despise him” she mumbles to herself.

-----------------------------------------------

A/N

Been working on this chapter for a few days. Was arguing whether i should or shouldn't put this up. Changes how you view things? (Couldn't tell if it was acceptable. If it was reasonable.)

In the end i concluded it was.

Hope you all enjoyed it, Thanks for reading ^.^