Uncertainties

We stand in a semi-circle around the door, staring at our unconscious captive. While we stand there I look at the tags again, unable to read the name except for the squad name: Alpha 18. After we returned I checked the outdated files to confirm our findings. The only thing that came up was their last mission within no-man's-land. They lost communications ten minutes after entry and nothing came up after that, no search party and no recovery.

"It still doesn't make sense." Angelina seemed to have read my thoughts as she leans on the door window, staring intently inside.

"Eight of our best goes on a mission to uncover some of the secrets lying in that wasteland and no one bothers to search for them. Yet one of these bastards has the balls to wear their tags. Isn't that place toxic to both organic and them?" She looks at me upon that question, but I can only shrug. There was a lot we didn't know about the Cags, including the high toxicity no-man's-land provided to both sides. After the first bombardment they hammered us with, our nuclear plants went critical and devastated most of the landscape. It was so bad that our previous radiation resistant suits would crumble. It wasn't until a year ago when we finally developed a suit strong enough to resist the radioactivity, but that got put under doubt when Alpha 18 disappeared.

Our captive stirred, giving Angelina enough incentive to open the door and stand before her. When she opened her eyes, she was met with a tinkling of tags thrust into her face.

"Where did you get these, and if you lie I'll snap your jaw." Angelina growled. The blue woman didn't looked bemused.

"What would that matter? They are dead anyway." She spat out a tooth as Angelina clipped her hard with a heavy right hook.

"Bullshit! They couldn't have died there. They were wearing the best we got." Our captive had other news for us.

"You think the waste is inhabitable? You know nothing of the sleeping beasts that lay there. The giants that feast on mountains of your failures. The shadows that swallow your sins like water. You destroyed this planet long before we came, and yet here you still stand thinking you are still unkillable. We made that false, no?" She was left smirking as Liz and Val rushed in, pulling Angelina back. She struggled hard, red-faced and snorting hard like an enraged bull. They dragged her towards her quarters to calm her down. I stayed back, watching them disappear down the corridor before I enter the room. A trickle of blueish blood trickle down her chin as she licks her gum where her tooth was. I pick up the tags that Angelina dropped and was on my out when she caught my attention.

"You didn't ask me how they died." She said, stopping me short. I don't turn around, just stand there with the tags hanging from my knuckles.

"I prefer to find out firsthand. After all, your kind is used to lying to us."

"Well if it makes a difference, one of them was a traitor." I then turn to her. She wasn't smiling, just a straight grim look.

"I don't believe you." I said, but her words left me with questions. She answered one of them.

"They weren't the first to betray. There are others deep in your precious army." I take only a step closer, looking into the corridor to check before engaging this inane conversation.

"How was Alpha 18 betrayed, who was it, and how did you get a hold of these tags." She squirmed a bit under her restraints.

"So many questions, yet I'm in so much pain. You mind loosening these up a bit so I can talk better?" I look at her pleading face with little remorse.

"Answer the questions and I'll consider it. I'm not like Angelina, but I know a liar so get it right the first time." She sighed and began.

"We made radioactive resister suits thirty cycles before your kind did and explored the wasteland your kind contributed to. My pack discovered your group several weeks later. Seven dead, all shot to death. None of my team had the honor to kill them, not us. We could not claim their deaths. So we looked to see who it was. That's when I discovered those tags hanging a few meters from the group. We counted eight tags, so that means there was one missing. Your traitor, whoever it might be. And from what I hear, he has been missing ever since."

"Why were they transporting you like a prisoner? We found you tied and chained like a criminal." She shrugged, then smiled.

"What I found funny is that during this whole time, you haven't even bothered to call this in. Your headquarters would be all over this."

"I personally want to find out facts before..." Then something didn't seem right. I looked at the tags again, rubbing over the metal name. I felt a slight bump in the middle, where it shouldn't be raised. I look at the tags then her, watching the blue blood run down her cheek. The liquid trickled down her skin, giving away to a pinkish color.

"Oh shi-" I yell before I heard an explosion come from behind me. The impact sent me to the wall and into oblivion.