[b]Marc Osias[/b]

Marc's gear jingled as he climbed up the side of the building. The rustles of his clothing, his boots scraping against the wall as he scaled, and the occasional grunt dissipated into the silence of the Detroit ruins. The sun was high, yet no birds flew. No insects chirped. Every biozone and surrounding areas were like this. Silent. Empty. Dead.

Even after all this time he couldn't shake the weak feeling that overtook his body every time he went into a zone. He hefted himself up and met a sight that had become familiar to him. Helga was rummaging through her bags, the odd strand of blonde hair protesting her otherwise neat hair. Within a moment it was tucked back into place. John was looking into what distance he could make out through the scope on his Mauser, chewing absently on a piece of jerky. A small fire popped at the end of the room. The rest of his gear was nearby. 

"We have a problem." He said, opening the briefcase at their table. "We all know that the zones came from stolen biologocal weapons. Turns out, it started right here. These documents," he said while motioning to the papers and computer discs inside the briefcase, "Contain the entire development history of what they dropped. It's a virus. Twelve hour incubation period. Death within twenty-four hours at the longest. Everything we already know. But....

Until now we all thought that the virus died after forty-eight hours inside the zone and fifteen minutes outside of it. Standard bioweapon development. Turns out, as long as they're in the zones they can survive. They change. 

This isn't a weapons grade virus by the strictest definition. It's medical. Was supposed to be the next step in a cancer cure. First they wanted to make it have a short lifespan. Kill the cancer and die off. No room for mutation. Somewhere along the line they worked in a dormant stage. Kill the cancer, die, then go to sleep for a while. Eventually the sleepers die off. Next step was to make it non-lethal. Start animal testing, ramp up the virus' targeting abilities. Make it viable against cancer cells only. Then HeLa tests, etc, etc, cure. Guess which stage of development they were at when the rebels stole it?"

Marc let it sink in. 

"They got to making it dormant. Problem is that they had problems in testing keeping it dormant. After a while the strain would change. It'd annihilate everything it came across, then go dormant. Then the thing would just die randomly. Genetic degradation, environmental damage, or something else. They worked in a hotfix at the labs up north. Self-regulating genetics and the ability to take resources from the environment. It wasn't supposed to be more than an interesting development - a milestone unrelated to the project but still noteworthy on its own. So it was supposed to be shipped down to the lower states, a Camp Lejeune in Virginia with either a cure or something damn close. A kill bug, anti-virus, inoculation, I can't tell. That data isn't on the papers. Could be on one of the discs or drives. Lejeune is supposed to have the facilities to deal with this. 

Problem is that the rebels happened. The shipment was postponed. Research continued and the new virus had an interesting characteristic that developed. After a couple years of being dormant it woke up.... with the ability to survive outside of the carefully cultured environment it'd been designed to work in. Current evolution projections put it at a year and a half to two years before it could wake up "in theatre." It's been "in theater" for six months now." 

He looked from John to Helga, then back to the briefcase. 

"There was another one of these. When I was down there I came across somebody else. It got tense, but nothing happened. I grabbed this one instead of the other one. Guy's name is Jameson Deschain. I knew him from before. Sort of. Told him to meet me in Warren today. I was hoping we could set up first, make sure he's not a threat, and figure out who he actually is. If he [i]is[/i] Jameson then we might be able to take him along. Guy is - was - smart and capable. If not, we do the usual shoot and loot. Thing is, now he has the other briefcase. The one with the samples. The shipment with the actual cure. 

What do you guys want to do?"

Marc gritted his teeth. He'd just learned about the end of the end of the world and the time frame they had to stop it - if they could even stop it. And now he'd shared it with the only two people he trusted. Today is one hell of a day.