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Notes and Credits
* Story Rating : T
* Character Spotlight: - John and Elizabeth
* Beta Reader: None
Chapter Two
Having been forced to spend a night in a watered-filled pit John had been rescued by his team, and was now safe from Kolya’s clutches before worse came to the worse; at least so we thought, little did we know that was part of Kolya’s plan.
Kolya had given John a contagious virus, we found out about it too late. It wasn’t detected until members of the expedition started acting strangely, even then Dr. Beckett only just found the cause of it before succumbing to it’s effects.
The virus was systematically attacking all those who had the ATA gene; making them became aggressive and malevolent towards others. There was nothing we could do to stop it progressing to the stage of chaos.
That brings me back to my confrontation with Colonel Sheppard, the start of our troubles.
Flashback.
John walked into Elizabeth’s office, only to find her working as usual and decided to intervene using his bug’s bunny impersonation. “What’s up Doc?”
Elizabeth looked up with a raised eyebrow due to the improper use of her title and he gave her a sheepish smile knowing he’d just been smacked on the wrist for it. “I have been getting inundated reports regarding inappropriate behaviour between various members of staff.”
“In what way inappropriate?” asked John as he propped himself on the edge of her desk in his usual stance.
“Punctuality for one, at least three members of staff haven’t been arriving to work on time in the past week and amongst that; small childish fights have broken out, in most cases reason unknown, and the complete lack of responsibility by others.”
John felt the need to play with her picture frame sitting on her desk, on the last count; he knew that one implied him too; he just didn’t feel much remorse over it. Right now, all he wanted to do was too chill-out.
Elizabeth stood up from her chair and walked towards her office window to look outside. “I know how stressful things can get around here, but it shouldn’t warrant the need for all that.”
Silence fell for a few moments before John responded to what had been said. “Relax. Things will blow over in time.”
Elizabeth turned round to face him as he hopped of the desk. “John. This is serious. Part of this should be your area of command, but I can’t see anything being done to resolve maters.”
She started pacing the room. “I had Rodney in here this morning arguing with me over an experiment I wouldn’t let him run due to safety risk, yet he went ahead anyway and nearly blew the science lab up. How am I supposed to run this city if people are ignoring the proper chain-of-command.”
“Ignoring you. You mean.” Blurted out John.
Elizabeth spun round to face him. “Excuse me?”
“Sounds like moral is degrading because of your ability too lead is failing.”
Hurt by those words Elizabeth sunk back down in her seat, she couldn’t believe she was hearing this from her second in command, the most trusted man she knew on this expedition. “Don’t you place the blame on me Colonel.”
“It’s true though,” he jumped of the desk and leaned across it, to look her in eyes and his face turned to hatred towards her. “You will never see things the way we do, since you’re not military, its making people uneasy. It was only going to be a mater of time before the bottle is open and people start to crack.”
--
It was at this stage I didn’t even want to listen to him anymore and I yelled at him to get out. I was almost at the stage of removing him from command. But if what he was true, people might mistrust me even more, had I done that.
As the day went on, his words started to nag me at to the state where I actually wanted to throw-up. It got so bad I ended a mission briefing early and went to see Dr. Kate Heightmeyer about it, even though deep down inside I knew what he said wasn’t true, not after all this time I had known him.
It was Kate who suggested a medical fitness examination for everyone on the base, I agreed to it and it was because of that we detected the virus.
Unfortunately we found out about it too late, people began to forget who they were and mutiny took hold, forcing me to warrant protection by security after threats had been made against me.
End Flashback