Per 
Global pandemics by their nature are hard to deal with. Pandemic shares three letters with the word panic, that's what Marie’s Professor had told her about fifteen years before when she was studying epidemiology and emergency response. Marie had come of age in the shadow of 9/11. When she experienced anxiety on a mission with the Maz Hatters, memories of watching the Twin Towers fall from ninth grade latin came unbidden to her mind. This sort of thing and her fear of it and her knowledge of history, were what had led her to emergency response planning as a career.
Her fingers shook at rest on the keys. Behind her at his own station, her boyfriend David shifted his weight in his chair. “C’mon c’mon.” This was the moment she’d waited for her entire career, she could see the data laid out before her, mind cranking through the numbers. But all she could feel was fear.
David slid a dark skinned hand up her arm and squeezed gently without turning around. “You’re not going to make negotiations go faster just by willing the GoIs to capitulate. The 05 don’t get to their positions by not being able to make bargains. We got two out of the four we thought could help to assist. But Anderson Robotics and the Serpent’s Hand have no reason whatsoever to trust us. We’re the Foundation, we HUNT them. So convincing them to work with us is going to take awhile.”
David was with Asimov’s Lawbringers. But he frequently volunteered tech work for other MTF units. He was the one who had executed her designs for the interactive response charts they were using.
“I know… please please let Cimmarian be cleared for duty soon. PLEASE.” He knew how to calm people down, and Marie needed that now. She wasn’t sure David was going to be enough to keep her calm and she had about a hundred places in the Foundation right now where panicking could get people killed.
If love could save the world it would have already. Her childhood friend Lydia down at the UIU was not allowed into site nineteen, not even as a visitor, and Marie and David weren't allowed to see her at their temporary apartment off site. Site nineteen was under quarantine, and Marie was also not going to be able to go back to her little slice of the rockies at the Sanitarium Archive for at least seven weeks. It was probably going to be months.
“Broken bones take time, your words. Plus you said it yourself that the sedative they prescribed him for the pain takes forever to wear off. You gave the resource list you needed to Adam Bright, he confirmed receipt so the 05 has it by now. Just use the screens as a distraction.”
To their right, a TV turned to 24 hour news feed scrolled the headlines. “Once in a Century Pandemic” the ticker on the screen said.
Marie began to check her monitors again. The casualties for D-class were coming in, and since supervising the Ds wasn’t her job, their supervisor had made the decision that if a D-class showed signs of hypoxia and/or organ damage they were to be terminated by lethal injection. Marie kneaded her cheeks with her fingers, hard enough to hurt. Only three had reached the point so far that they were considered beyond saving. But as she watched the counter ticked up to four. She really wanted to get that guy fired. He was probably going to cut the resources offered to sick D’s, or the leeway for them to be allowed to live, way way down. She needed people who had survived the disease for study, and bodies undamaged by poisoning for the same reason.
Marie’s sweat felt ice cold as it ran down the back of her neck. The SIR model counter for each site was running smoothly. Medical officers at each Foundation Site would be able to enter the casualty count more or less in real time and she could click a SIR counter to get a breakdown of casualties by clearance tier. The air conditioners and central heating were off, the latter switched to a local radiator if needed.
Marie scrolled to the quarantine surveillance feed. She didn’t have to turn sound on, when he’d gone into Quarantine Clef had urged her not to. “Did I telegraph my anxiety that much?” Clef’s face was showing up as a bloodhound head on the monitor. Bright had an oxygen mask on, sunk as deep into the bed as he could go with the blankets up to his chin. Doctor Kondracki was passed out, tossing and turning in his sleep. Marie turned on the audio feeds one by one. The nurses had put some kind of smart monitor on their wrists so Marie could get their oxygen count, blood pressure, temperature and order a red and white cell count. All three were registering a fever. Bright’s was holding at a hundred and five and the other two were steadily rising.
“Your shaking hands are the tell, and you know Clef’s good at reading people. He has to. He lied for a living for years. To tell a good lie, you have to have a good feel for people’s moods.”
Bright’s temperature may have leveled off, but his blood pressure was too low. Marie had a masters degree in emergency response and a minor in the history of epidemics with a number of science courses useful to both disciplines. She didn’t need a Ph.D to see the trouble the seniors were in. Another bead of sweat poured down Marie’s face. Clef had developed a cough, and it sounded awful. She could hear Bright’s wheezing. “Please hold on guys… fight…” Marie said to them quietly over the audio feed.
“HA! Takes more than a bug to take me down. Don’t make that long fa…” Clef broke off coughing, then let a gusty breath in and out. “… long face… ooooh…” Clef rolled around in bed a bit trying to find a comfortable position. He shifted onto his stomach, drawing one knee up so his chest wasn’t touching the bed. “Feels better this way…”
“Then do it, you’re not alone and anything that helps you be more comfortable can help us help your comrades.” Marie couldn’t keep a tremor out of her voice. This was a little microcosm of the death going on elsewhere in the world right now. Right now thousands of people were in the same boat. If the Foundation went down and there were a breach… that was it, the wrong skip breaches and they could lose an entire site.
The senior staff were considered heroes, and Marie was a little afraid of Clef and Kondracki besides. And it didn’t matter to her that Doctor Bright dying didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. They were looking at at least three months of lights and sirens emergency measures and two years of slow burn epidemic containment measures at minimum. They needed every senior staff member on their feet and fighting fit. They weren’t just experienced or enthusiastic, they were powerful fighters all and if a containment breach happened now…
“Omega seven dispatch, we’ve made it into quarantine. See you in two weeks or so, if we need you or have anything to report we’ll call.”
“Tau five dispatch, we’ve completed decon and are leaving for our relief posts in five minutes. We have opened tau five recruitment for up to three squads to keep up with the demand. You really think we can help Hatter control?”
Marie scrambled for her radio handset. “Yes Tau five, you don’t have any organs for this thing to nuke. It causes vascular damage, cutting off oxygen to the vital organs. The D class supervision staff is pushing for termination of any affected D because they’re terrified of getting COVID and we have three senior staffers down.”
“You can’t have your ethics committee guy calm their nerves?”
“He’s being cleared for duty, recovering from a broken leg, ribs and hip. Dumbass took a risk on his last mission to try and keep up with Bright and he’s lucky the dice he rolled didn’t come up snake eyes.” Marie said in a stern tone.
The door to their workroom opened, and Marie had never been so happy to see someone from Human resources as she had been then. “Speak of the devil, Hatter response control over and out.” David patted her arm before letting it go and the both of them stood and saluted almost in unison.
“You don’t have to salute. Just give me the rundown on what I missed.” Doctor Cimmarian had come with coffee, that most blessed of elixirs from the tropics and a large handful of sugar packets. “Kitchen said you liked Sumatra.”
Marie nodded and took her coffee. She turned off the audio feed for the seniors. The nurses were watching it too. They could help if trouble came. She inhaled the fragrant scent of a distant island she wished she could be on right now, away from this. And then she chided herself. This was the moment she had believed would come since her twenties. This was the point where all her training could make a difference.
“Right, approximately eight pm local time last night a D-class collapsed in his cell and one of his neighbors sounded the alarm. He was dead by midnight from hypoxia and the chief medical officer made the decision to sound the contagion alarms. This morning when Doctor Bright didn’t show up to work and was suspiciously quiet, Clef went to his quarters for a welfare check.” Standard procedure. Everybody knew Bright was prone to suicide attempts and finding and breaking in a new D-class was always a pain in the neck. Bright and Clef were thick as thieves, and so the duty usually fell to Clef to go check. “He found Bright passed out in his quarters, alive with a serious cough.”
“And got his ass shoved in quarantine I hope?” Cimmarian’s tone became stern.
“Yes sir, which is why I’m glad they assigned you to us, if two of the three musketeers try to get out, I want whatever happens to have the weight of a supervisor behind it. Kondracki’s delirious, he gets pissy it’s going to be hard to convince him to go back to bed.” Marie had been with the Foundation for a decade. But only recently had she been more than “some random soldier”. And regardless of where you stood on matters to do with the senior staff, lunatic, demon or hero, they’d gotten their reputation for a reason. Though Marie highly doubted Clef could take her out in his condition, it didn’t mean he might not try…
“Before you get your dander up. Clef wouldn’t leave Bright if he were in trouble. He’s a soldier too, with even stronger protective instincts than you missy.” Cimmarian ruffled her hair with an almost fraternal smile. “Deep breaths, you can do this. You’re not some starry eyed college graduate, you’re an MTF Veteran dangit.” Marie took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, and let it out. “That's it, again.” Marie did as she was told. David flashed her a reassuring smile. “So… is there a reason you’re letting Bright suffer?” Cimmarian looked at her over his glasses, arching a brow at her in reproach.
“Oh! Um yes I was getting to that. There’s a very very old technology we’ll need to utilize at some point and we’re going to need survivors to do it. Which brings me to something else I need you to help me with. The D-supervisor, he’s not listening to me! He wants to just up and kill any D-class that shows symptoms. For my idea to work he can’t do that. We need at least a few of the D-class to survive. And as for Bright, there’s a technology that can help him… but Anderson’s got it. The 05 are negotiating for it and it could help reduce casualties in general, once David told the Right Hand what it did and why it would be a good idea to go after it, we got a message from one of them right after. It's not a miracle cure but it will buy time. They’re also trying to get a thing from the Serpent’s Hand.”
“What thing?” Cimmarian rolled his eyes skyward and went to crack his knuckles, ready to go looking for a fight if need be. Then he stopped himself mid gesture. That one little thing was more reassuring to her than any calming tone of voice could ever be. She didn’t need someone able to throw a punch, she needed someone who could calm her nerves and counteract her temper. You don’t get to be ethics committee or HR without that quality.
‘Let's beat the snot out of it and throw it in a cell’ was a very common response among younger members of the more combat focused MTFs. Marie knew better at this point in her career. When you fought Sarkic terrors like the Hatters frequently had to, the last thing you wanted to do was throw the first strike and so being gung ho was the last thing Marie wanted from a supervisor.
“Use of the Ways. We need to transport supplies, particularly medications, samples, donated blood, and PPE and we can’t go overland. The underground transport network should be a last resort because that's how we move SCPs. If we let too many people in there, or transport medical at the same time, our personnel could accidentally start a mini outbreak even if they don’t break a sample vial. During world war 1, Canada and the United States primarily sent personnel to the front lines by rail and ship. When the Spanish Flu showed up, if one soldier on those transports had it, they’d get a car full of corpses and dying men when they arrived at their destination. Troop ships became plague ships. A small group of supply runners using the Way may be able to prevent that, and pills, injections and ink cartridges for making hard copies are light. A prisoner transfer may be able to show the Serpent’s hand what our priorities are in this mess. We don’t need a big fight in the middle of this right now. We need a chain, a web. We need a web of survival criss crossing the United States and we need the GoIs to calm down and stand beside us rather than behind or in front.”
“So pretend I’m someone a bit more skeptical, because your plan is going to take some charisma.” Cimmarian warned her. “Why is this important to have them on board or out of the way?”
“Because too many crossed wires can derail a train.” Marie sipped the coffee, added a bit of sugar, and a bit more, and tried again. Perfect. “This is a case where you’re building a wall. Specifically a levee. One hole and the virus can slip through. If we do this right, we can put ourselves in a position to help others AND ourselves. We’re vulnerable as fuck right now. One breach of the wrong skip in the wrong place…”
Suddenly the report on the SIR bar for site 19 ticked up with a soft “ting” noise, and not in the D-class tally either. “Half dozen researchers being admitted to the isolation wing, mid rank.” David reported for Marie.
“Elaborate… come on details…” Cimmarian urged Marie to focus.
“The less people move the less it will spread. What goes through your mind when fighting sir? How far in the future are your concerns?”
“The next few minutes.”
“If we have GoIs fighting each other they’re at risk of getting it, which could circle around to our MTFs if they’re sent on a mission. We need to keep the tally down, not just for us. See this bar?” She pointed to the readout for Site 19, opening the chart. “The letters stand for susceptible, infected and recovered, dead get a seperate sheet on the far right with the total number showing up unless you expand it for details. I’ve sent this equation and chart to the Right Hand and once the 05 approve it for information secrecy it's going out to every GoI operating in North America that can help. Our cognitohazard guys need to do double hours, anti memetics too. One of those gets loose in a community during this period it will be devastating. Nobody will take care of themselves or take steps to prevent infection so… the less crazy, the slower this spreads and the more people survive. Right now across the country there are thousands of people going through the same agony as Doctor Bright right now. He can escape and jump to another D-class. Civilians can’t. Success here could depend on whether or not the Serpent’s hand can figure out just how fucked we all are, and how fast they figure it out.” She pointed to the television where the President was giving another useless speech. “They’re not going to save us. We have to save ourselves, and we’re the Foundation god damnit!” Marie made that last exclamation with cheery defiance. “We can’t discriminate based on past problems with them. We have to stand for everybody in this case, or nobody is going to stand.”
“So… if you mess with one of us you mess with all of us, that's the plan?” Cimmarian eyed Marie, sizing her up as if trying to figure out if she was up to the challenge.
“That's about the size of it sir.”
“So the last time I saw you, you had a stump. Now that we’ve gotten up to speed, which did you choose? Shiny metal or patchwork?” Cimmarian smirked, clearly already knowing the answer.
“Patchwork of course!” Marie cheered, pulling up her pants leg and lifting it up so he could see the different shades of rich blue she’d chosen for her new leg. “Works like a charm and it feels real when David gives my feet a rub down.”
“And you thought she should get metal.” He beamed over at David, who blushed a bit in embarrassment and shrugged. “Right, get me a phone I’m going to have some hard words with the D supervisor. D doesn’t mean he can just up and kill them like sick livestock. We put time and effort into D-class recruitment and some of the scps require consistency, even down to the Ds.”
Marie pointed to an empty line that hadn’t been activated yet and a notebook and pen laid out beside it. Brief searching nearby offices yielded a chair they could borrow, and Marie summarily sprayed it down with a mixture of lysol and rubbing alcohol. She lined it with clean towels to keep it from seeping into clothing and before long the three of them were busy fielding calls.
Anyone that seemed to be in a panic or angry was automatically referred to Cimmarian. And then suddenly he flipped one back to her. It was an irritated officer from down in Honduras demanding to be allowed home. Worse, he was a clearance rank higher than Marie. As he berated her, she could see Cimmarian’s eyes narrow as he listened carefully. Marie did her best to calm the angry man down. He had children in California, right at the epicenter of the initial cases. Marie was hyper aware that she was probably being tested right now to see how she handled hostility, and the man kept yelling demanding to be sent home.
Finally Marie snapped. “Sir I can’t do that! You are breaking quarantine and Foundation security is authorized to use force to back the order up. Now I am SORRY that your family is in the path of this. But if you go into harm's way you ARE going to get sick. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And if you already have the disease and are INCUBATING it, you could take it home to your colleagues, your family, everyone in the airport that you talk to, and everyone on the plane. Then there’s the cabby you ask to take you home, any fast food joints you head to because you’re feeling a bit peckish, the dry cleaners to pick up your expensive suit and lab coat… and then they all get it and take it home to their families and THEIR children, and suddenly they’re ALSO in harm’s way. You cannot panic and run home in this kind of situation Agent. A lot of people’s lives depend on you staying PUT and waiting! And so help me, if you try to break quarantine and come back to the states I’ll have four of my pals waiting for you at the airport in full hazmat gear with the cover story that you’re a socialist revolutionary terrorist and they’re coming to take you away, haha. DO we understand each other?!”
“Yes.” The agent said in a very tiny voice. Marie hung up the phone without wishing him a nice day.
“There ya go hun, don’t take those lemons!” David teased, giving her a brief kiss on the cheek. His phone rang and he picked it up. “Deacon! Homieeee! Please tell me the deal went through!” A pause and he flashed the other two a thumbs up. “Anderson’s on board? Good. If we have you guys odds are MCD will follow regardless of what strange bedfellows are waiting for them. We don’t need them just yet but we might eventually.” Another pause. “Yeah we need tyvek suits too. If you mention to the Right Hand spokesman that you can make that and offer a competitive price they’ll probably take it. Yeah dude that's great now we just need the Hand. Send three by the regular supply route and save three for if the Hand agrees to the 05 terms. Yeah I know right, rare. But we need to, we need everybody standing together on this with a consistent response across GoIs. Even hours can make the difference here… yeah… its really bad Deacon just stay inside okay? Yeah thanks… no if you find anyone from the smaller GoIs tell them to stay inside too and put some buzz in MCD’s ear.” He shut off the phone.
“So…” Marie waited, dreading the answer.
“They got three vials of respirocytes enroute to nineteen via our regular supply chain, they’re holding three more for us in case we get to commandeer a Way. They have thirty six more doses headed to four sites and they’re continuing to make more and teaching some of our guys how to make them. The 05’s signed a contract for them paying for the medicines so we’re not likely to get resistance from any other anomalous company who’s help we need.” David sighed in relief. “Now it's just how fast they can get them to us. The vials are high dose and the nanites are excreted later. One vial should last for about 48 hours in the system.”
Casualties began to scroll in again, six more Foundation Sites began to confirm casualties and declare quarantine. “Double in under 24 hours.”
“I’m going to recommend MTFs split up and move to safehouses for preemptive quarantine.” Cimmarian yawned hugely and gulped at his coffee. “God damn this is going to be a nightmare.”
“Sorry dude, I’m a hatter, not a miracle worker.”
“This is Right Hand control, the 05 are happy to inform you the deal with the Serpent’s Hand came through. I repeat, the deal went through. Volunteers are being scrambled and deputized into 16 Tonnes and Bibliographers, we have twelve now and there are people in both those MTFs that want in on the scheme. If the emergency persists the 05 will revisit the issue and consider forming a temporary task force to distribute medications, donor blood and samples.”
Marie got a smug grin of success on her face and picked up her handset. “Roger that Right Hand Control, lay it on me.”
“Handing you over.” The dispatcher patched another channel into Marie’s room.
“This is Serpent Runner 01 ready for dispatch. We need to test the system to make sure this works. Where do you want us?”
“Stand by for rendezvous coordinates.” Marie gesture to David that he and Cimmarian put their fingers in their ears while she gave the messenger coordinates for a Maz Hatter safehouse near site 19. He tapped them both on the shoulder when he was done.
A few moments later. “Sigma 66 control, courrier is enroute to site 19 via provided coordinates. Also we got volunteers calling in from our squads that want to help in other ways.”
“Roger that Sigma, there’s going to be a huge shortage of disinfectant, gloves and facemasks. We also need blood donors, all types, and anyone with a nursing degree.”
“We’ll keep our ears to the ground, good luck Hatter.”
“Gonna need it.” Marie muttered as she leaned back in her chair. The coffee was almost done. In moments the Way had opened and the runner came in with a case. Short and stocky and small chested she leaned on the door frame out of breath. A cloth facemask had been hastily scrambled with two bandanas and safety pins, pulled tight against her chin. She wore long sleeves and pants, simple black and white, with a Sigma 66 armband on her right shoulder.
Cimmarian rose. “I’m gonna head for decon, get a hazmat suit on. I want to visit my friends. They need some good news.” He turned to the nurses. “Get the runner a bottle of water and send her back to base.” He smiled, the girl looked no more than 19. “Thank you.”
“I always believed in being excellent to each other!” The girl gave a cheerful victory sign.
“I’m going too.” Marie tossed her now empty coffee cup in the garbage. “Hold down the fort David.”
“Of course hon.” He gave her a wink. “Go get ‘em!”
“So this treatment, what’s it do?” Cimmarian asked skeptically.
“It's a medical nanite called a respirocyte. According to David, Anderson Robotics spent years trying to get it right. This thing was intended for drowning victims or people with compromised respiratory systems, like what COVID is doing to Bright right now. We can use this, once we have more, on our other personnel, because Bright is not the only one who is going to have a severe reaction and for all we know Clef could be headed that way inside of 24 to 48 hours.”
Donning the hazmat suit was second nature, and Marie checked the seals on Cimmarian’s for him just to make sure. “Looks good I think we’re green.”
The nurses lead them to Bright’s isolation chamber. “So risks?” He asked as the nurse opened the door.
“None that we know of, it's basically an extra set of temporary artificial blood cells. In through the syringe, out in the toilet. They deliver oxygen directly to vital organs. If this stuff works, Anderson Robotics may be able to go semi legit, we may have to contract with them on a more regular basis.”
“Definitely worth checking into.” Cimmarian knocked on the wall in place of knocking on wood.
“Please tell me you’ve come to put me out of my misery.” Bright groaned feverishly.
“No such luck old pal. I’d hug you but that might be a risky proposition.” Cimmarian chuckled. “But this might help. There’s one each for Clef and Kondracki too if they get as bad as you and more on the way.”
“Pills?” Clef asked hopefully. “Like the good kind that make you loopy and feel jack shit?”
“One pill makes you largeeerrr…” Kondracki giggled feverishly. “… and one pill makes you smaaaalll…” Cimmarian started laughing.
The nurse shushed him. “He’s become delirious sir you should stay calm… and quiet… please?”
“Of course.” Cimmarian lowered his voice.
As they watched the color started coming back to Bright’s face. Marie got a little closer. She had to reassure herself that it was working. He was still wheezing like crazy but he was able to speak now despite the heavy, noticeable wheeze and hoarseness in his voice.
Cimmarian worked his way down the ward next, noting researchers, D-class, agents, MTF soldiers, all placed a good six feet apart with makeshift isolation chambers being erected around them one by one. The cough was going to stick in his nightmares.
Marie caught up to him at a jog. “I think Bright’s going to be alright. Clef’s trying to sing Jefferson Airplane now but the coughing is getting worse.”
“How bad is this going to get?” he asked quietly. Marie could hear the fear in Cimmarian’s voice.
“Bad, but we can make it a fast slaughterhouse or a slow creeping siege with more survivors. That's why we need a web of life to win this. Pandemics are the ultimate instance of the butterfly flapping its wings and starting a tornado, and one sneeze today can kill someone 28 days later.” Marie sighed. “You see a ward full of suffering, I see threads holding all of us together and the site itself to the world. It's not circle of life kind of shit, it's a net. One person gets stuck we all get stuck, with COVID the hungry spider waiting to finish us off.” She looked over at Cimmarian, a small smile on her face that he couldn’t see behind the breather. “In 1918 they didn’t have advanced technology. They couldn’t see viruses even though scientists could figure out they were there. The City of Philadelphia made a mistake, and didn’t cancel a parade meant to raise money for the war effort in Europe.”
“What happened?” A bunch of agents with that awful dry cough headed for Clef’s hospital room, grumbling about wanting a beer if they were going to deal with this shit.
“The city turned into a bloodbath, they ran out of coffins, they ran out of pine lumber to make coffins, and then they ran out of lumber. Bodies got stacked in the streets like cordwood.” Marie’s voice got a bit of a far away quality to it, but she couldn’t hide the passion in her voice. “The phone switchboards shut down, hospitals were overwhelmed, but then… the volunteers came. It didn’t matter that they were at risk, the Clergy’s flock were suffering and they considered it a duty to help the overworked and exhausted nurses and undertakers. Women showed up at the telephone switchboards to bring the phones back online. People volunteered carts, wagons and cars for carrying bodies.”
Cimmarian snorted. “Not like now. God I’m glad your average joe doesn’t know what we do, but if they only did…”
“It wouldn’t change everyone’s minds sir.” Marie began to walk towards the exit to the ward, motioning for Cimmarian to follow her. “And most people don’t have the option of respirocytes to help them through a cytokine storm.” She looked into the door of Bright’s hospital room as they passed. He seemed better, and someone had gotten out their music player. She smiled in sad amusement as Clef tried to sing “White Rabbit” by Jefferson airplane and was repeatedly interrupted by coughing. “We’re in for a hard time, but we’ve seen worse. The civvies haven’t. There are only a handful of people that remember 1918, and a few more the days when viruses could stop whole towns in their tracks and smallpox was a hurdle every kid had to survive as a rite of passage.”
“What do we do then? If our efforts to quarantine fail…” Cimmarian hesitated as they entered the decontamination arc, the image of the consequences was probably forming in his mind by now.
“We keep as many people out of the way as we can, and start reinforcing our redundancies. The Foundation is prepared for anything, and if we have extra we slip it into the general population so that more people keep living in the light. This isn’t an anomaly from the depths of beyond. It's a mundane virus. For the second time in the last few years, it’s all hands on deck at the Foundation. We can do this. It’s a matter of hardening our resolve and being so goddamned stubborn… oh dear…”
“What?” Cimmarian asked as they began to desuit.
“I just realized what sort of fits the Bear with a Heart of Patchwork is going to have once the casualties start piling up. Poor thing’s probably going to stroke out.”
Cimmarian chuckled bitterly and shook his head. “We’d better get to work then shouldn’t we.”
Marie beamed, the decontamination hallway split off to a male and female locker room. “Yes, we should. See you in about ten minutes. Follow the instructions on the decon shower, it stinks to high heaven but you should see how shiny it makes hair afterwards for some weird reason.”
He laughed, parting ways for now. Marie was done in eight minutes, and opened the door to the data room with David. A half dozen tech guys, two of them former Anderson technicians from MTF Sixteen Tonnes were on the video conference line pouring over blueprints of some kind. “Heeeey, some of the volunteers found enough leeway in Foundation resources to build a couple of civilian hospitals. We can use them as a front afterwards if we have to too… come have a look!”
“Not bad, when the crisis is over we can use them as a front to look for anomalies from.” Marie smiled and nodded in greeting to the men on video conference.
“Yeah I know Marcus was hiding something he kept from his old days.” One of the Sixteen Tonnes soldiers chuckled. Cimmarian entered the room quietly and took up his post. “He was from Marshall Carter and Dark so he’d saved up quite a bit of cash. Didn’t realize he’d hidden THIS much money.”
“The Foundation probably knew about it…” Marie snorted slyly. “They find everything eventually. Easier to freeze it if he tries to run than to make him resent it and give him one more reason to double cross us and make a break for it.”
The men laughed. David beamed. “I told you guys, tough as nails and she makes me feel like I’m walking on air.” Marie put a hand on his shoulder briefly and squeezed it.
“We’ve got blueprints for four wards for Foundation casualties, and they can be easily reproduced at any site. Prefab is cheaper and we can customize them to the needs of the site they’re in. It saved us enough money we could…” Marie sat down and tuned them out so she could open up the data and gasped when she saw just how many people and resources had been dispatched. The transport lines arched over the map of North America, tiny icons showing who was doing the transporting. The literal web of life spreading across the map from SCP and GOC supply terminals.
Cimmarian leaned over to look at her interface. “Now that's a beautiful sight. You should be proud.”
“I am sir… believe me I am…” Marie raised her chin resolutely, took a deep breath, and turned on her com channel. “But we can’t save everybody. Especially with the government gone to shit. Who’s going to help the civilians?”
