Snippet #2400640

Sam looked like he’d just been slapped. He was staring at a blinking disconnect message that told him Claire Hartford had disconnected from Leader.

“Great she’s a psycho.”

Sam returned to her file and read further. Some words seemed to jump out him but Disgraced Drug Addict seemed to cover it.

“Howe you’re gonna love this. The Hartford chick is a friggin tab head. Her file says she used to be hot shit in the labs but lost it.
You’re gonna have to watch her man, I mean like a hawk, these tab fiends would sell their mother for another hit. Looks like she’s also got it in for Wahidin, cuff her if you... Shit they’re back on.”

Claire Hartford’s voice reappeared but sounded more relaxed this time.

"Alright Tanner. You have your wish. Chris and I made it to Wahidin's building. He's up at the top still? We'll help your buddy get Wahidin back to the Alamo. But I won't promise I'll try to keep him alive."

Sam decided to use some positive reinforcement in an effort to keep Claire from going off on another rant. At least until Howe arrived, after that it was his problem.

“That’s super Claire, really, really super. It would be even more super though if you could, you know, not harm Mr Wahidin, he is the boss after all.”

Sam suddenly became fearful he was going to lose Hartford again.

“But I mean what is a boss really? God I don’t know... Like, why can’t everyone all just live together on a nice big farm or something all work together and just, like, live you know. That would be so... super... I’m rambling aren’t I?”
Hartford ignored his attempts at placation and stuck to the task at hand. The yo-yoing focus was a tell tale sign of a tab head.

"Can this Howe guy come to us from wherever he currently is? Can he get through this building's basement somehow from his location... We've sort of got a contamination problem outside the building and in the street... Regardless... I think we'll wait until he gets here. Wahidin can wait."

“Yep that’s super Claire you just hang in there and before you know it Howe will be with you. You won’t even have to talk to Mr Wahidin. That’ll be Supe... uh great.”

It wasn’t Claire who spoke next but Galloway.

“Mr. Tanner, can you get any information about this uh Chimera project? It’s exhibiting…behaviors that I have never studied. It’s both fascinating and horrifying.”

“No kidding Doc.”

Sam tried a couple of searches but came up empty.

“Naw it’s a black hole. Whatever it was it’s way outside my pay scale...”

A thought suddenly occurred to Sam as he glanced at the security screens. In particular he was looking at level minus ten where the contamination had originated and he was looking at the dead bodies of the first infected.

It took a second for the realisation to hit him.

“Oh Christ... Ok Galloway stay with me here. The contamination started on floor minus ten. So the first zombies were on floor minus ten. Then GM purged floor, sucked all the air out of it, and released the contaminated air on all the other floors thus spreading the infection. Problem is those zombies are still dead on Floor Minus Ten. They all asphyxiated, that means they needed to breathe when they died, what am I saying you’re the doctor. Point is these people aren’t zombies, as in not undead, they’re just sick. I’ve been telling people to kill sick people. Oh Jesus...”

Sam spent a long moment looking at the infected shuffling around the various security screens.

“We gotta help them, maybe we can fix it. Alright you guys are going to need to go down. We’re still reduced to emergency lighting of minus ten to plus five. The Chimera Project lab is on minus six. So it’s pretty dark in there but if you could make it there it’s our best bet for answers, maybe a cure. Galloway at the moment you, Howe and Hartford are the best suited to the job. You need to restore power and get in there.”

Sam opened up a few new programmes that gave him control of the power.

“Alternatively I could reroute power so you can access the computers but that means no emergency lighting. There shouldn’t be anything on minus six though... just dead bodies, might be a bit spooky but not... you know bitey. It’s up to you three.”