Tales from the P.A.D.

Don't Talk to Me

We as a species have perfected the art selective disdain. It is truly impressive how a man is capable of seeing another as lesser for doing something that said man does himself, albeit slightly differently. The bible records Jesus as having said not to point out the speck in another's eye while there is a log in your own. We have instead all decided for ourselves that some logs are excusable while others are not. People will gather outside to smoke cigarettes and complain about the rise in popularity of weed. Teens dressed entirely in outfits made through a mix of child labor, slave labor, and child slave labor will avoid restaurant chains due to their disagreeable political stances. It is this selective disdain that lost the P.A.D. so many lives on that island.

The mission was simple on paper. Some N.A.T.O. organization had been conducting experiments on a private island. It was one of those classic supersoldier programs, and as you might expect, things had gone wrong. The program was scrapped and the P.A.D. was asked to clean up in return for full control of the island and any usable anomalies we found. N.A.T.O. didn't like it, but you can't really negotiate with the P.A.D., especially when most members of your treaty don't know about us to begin with. I was part of one of the twelve squads sent to the island to investigate, acquire anomalous materials and entities, and to eliminate threats if need be.

There was a group of four men in military fatigues waiting for us as our boat pulled up to dock. They looked at us with a mixture of disinterest and irritation, and they seemed to be half asleep. They did not, however, appear hostile, so we disembarked and I approached them.

"Hello there," I said. "We were sent by..."

I was interrupted by all four of them speaking in unison. "Don't talk to me until I've had my morning coffee."

It was certainly not the greeting I was expecting, and based on the confused looks my comrades were sharing with each other, they felt the same as I did. The soldiers seemed oblivious to our reactions and walked away. We kept a safe distance and followed them for about fifteen minutes before arriving at a large building complex: most likely the laboratory we were here for.

Still ignoring us, we followed them down several stretches of hallways. A few of the squads fanned out and explored the rest of the lab while mine stuck with the troops. We eventually reached what seemed to be a break room. There were foldable chairs and tables, a fridge, two microwaves, and a coffee vending machine. The soldiers all lined up at the machine and each ordered a regular black coffee. Within seconds of ingesting the dark brown liquid, a change came over them.

"Woo!" cheered one of them as he downed the last drop. His pupils were dilated and veins bulged out of his forearms. He then proceeded to start doing standing backflips. It was clear to us what the product of the experiments had been, and I already had an idea of what had gone wrong.

"You gotta try some of this stuff. It's amazing," said another soldier in the midst of jumping jacks. "This really is the best drink."

As my teammates and I were taking this all in, our attention was directed to the sounds of screaming and gunfire coming from outside. We all drew our weapons and aimed them at the doorway, ready for whatever came through from the other side. As it turns out, we were ready for almost anything.

"All right you wankers, put down your fookin' bean juice. It's tea time." The man, dressed in the same military fatigues, held a large knife in one hand and a small cup of tea in the other. There were several other men and women behind him, all holding knives and tea.

He rushed at my squadmate Johnson, who opened fire on him in self-defense. The soldier waved his knife around and deflected all of the bullets before slitting Johnson's throat. He did all of this without spilling a single drop of tea. He paused to politely sip from his cup, his pinky held out as he slurped up the liquid.

"Coffee for life, bro!" yelled one of the coffee drinkers as the two sides began a brawl in the break room. I quickly flipped over a table and bunkered down in the corner. One of my other comrades got caught by a coffee drinker. He was shoved with such force that the soldier's hand went clean through him. With a jerk of his arm, he flung the now lifeless body across the room and onto a wall.

The coffee drinkers fought with wild, animalistic brutality using the massively enhanced strength the anomalous coffee provided them. Contrasting them were the tea drinkers. They ducked, dove, and danced around the room with unnatural grace, all the while holding their teacups perfectly straight and never spilling. My teammates tried to fight, but it was a slaughter. The coffee drinkers shrugged off the gunshots while the tea drinkers deflected each bullet. I very quickly became the sole survivor of my squad.

I didn't know what to do, but I knew I had to escape and get the word out to the P.A.D. to send in more specialized units and troops. Just as I was reaching my wit's end, one of the coffee-enhanced soldiers caught one of the tea-enhanced ones, knocking his teacup across the floor right to me. The cup was chipped and most of the tea had spilled out, but there was still a sip left. I had developed a healthy fear of anomalies in my years at the P.A.D., but desperate times called for desperate measures. I closed my eyes and downed the tea.

I felt it course throughout my body as a sense of weightlessness came over me. The room became brighter and the objects throughout it came into sharp focus. Most of all, I felt a sense of self-importance, as if my body was telling me that I was superior for having made the choice I had.

"Bloody 'ell, that's some jolly good tea," I said. I immediately covered my mouth. Apparently, the tea had the additional effect of making me British.

I jumped to my feet and hopped over the table. My goal was initially to make it through the brawl and out of the breakroom, but I was overcome with sudden rage at the sight of the coffee drinkers. I couldn't leave without first punishing those imbeciles for their inferior drink choice and idiotic opinions of tea. I was able to instinctively avoid each swipe and haymaker, landing strikes in where I could. I would have been lost to my tea-based bloodlust had my will not been stronger, or perhaps the full mental effects required more consistent drinking. Either way, I was able to refocus with a great deal of effort and leave the breakroom.

It was utter chaos as I ran through the facility. Small groups of soldiers were fighting throughout the lab, and many P.A.D. agents had already become collateral damage. I eventually made it out on the opposite side from where I had entered along with two other agents. In the distance, I could see a second facility which I surmised to be the origin of the anomalous tea and its addicts. We quickly made it back to one of our boats and left that island behind. It was not until the island was a distant blur on the horizon that I calmed down, and only then did I notice that I had been carrying a fresh cup of tea with me.

I don't know when and where I picked it up. I also do not know what became of that island or of the agents we had to leave behind. I do know that I received a medal for retrieving the teacup. I'm sure some of our researchers were able to make a safe version of the tea for some of our specialized squads to use in emergencies. I hope they found a way to make it less addictive as well. I can only imagine what would happen if one of our facilities was overrun like that island. Then again, I could probably look up all of this in our database. I'll do that later on my own time. My head is a little fuzzy at the time of writing this. I still haven't had my morning coffee.