Project 863: The fifth Subject

Chapter 21: A Massive Radioactive Anomaly

~Pearson's POV. June 30th, 2021~

I was sitting in Mega Desk, Matt wanted to check in with me since the... Incident. The sound of footsteps were heard coming down the stairs.

"Hey Matt?" Sam called out, "What's up?" Matt asked as Sam stepped into the doorway of Mega Desk.

"So... The RSD is making a beeping noise in the vault." Sam brought up, "What?" Matt questioned.

"Really? Let's just go check it out." I said so as we made our way up the stairs and unlocked the vault, the sound of the alarm of the RSD was going off.

"I don't know what's happening, but it's been making this beeping noise, and I don't know what that is." Sam said as she motioned to the screen, "What is it?" Woods asked as he walked up behind us.

"I don't know, it just started happening when I got in." Sam shrugged.

"What does that mean?" Matt questioned, "I don't know, I've never seen that on it before." Sam shook her head, "Where is it?" I asked.

"This is different. This isn't a serum. A radioactive spike was detected." Matt inspected the alert,

"Sam, go grab the camera please." Matt requested so Sam rushed downstairs to grab the camera, "This isn't the same thing, right?" Woods pondered.

"No." I shook my head, "How would it be different? This thing's saying there's something going off that's radioactive in that zone." Matt said, "But how do we know that's not a serum though?" Woods asked.

"When it's a serum, it looks totally different." Matt said as Sam walked up the stairs, "So Sam, can you brief me exactly on what happened?" Matt requested.

"So I came in and went to put my stuff down in my office when I heard it beeping, so I came in and this was flashing." Sam told us. "That's what's concerning me, this is clearly an alert and that it's not a pin, it's an area." Matt said.

"Are we also supposed to investigate this?" Woods pondered, "I don't know, I mean we were given this device to look for serum but how are we supposed to know what that is?" Sam questioned.

"We're probably not supposed to be going into a deadly radioactive zone, but this is something urgent." Woods said.

"I say let's just go and investigate, we don't have to get close like we can stay at a distance if we want, we can talk about it on the way. This is about half an hour away from us, but something's happening right now." Matt stated.

"Yeah, let's go to the car." I nodded so we made our way down to the Tesla then began to make our way towards the radioactive zone.

"Is there any sort of protective gear that we should have brought?" Sam spoke up, "We don't have any protective gear." Matt responded.

"Well I brought the one gas mask." Woods said, "I didn't look at the level of radiation before we left." Matt glanced back at Woods.

"My thing is, I'd be shocked if Deb wants us to do this for the next four years, but is also sending us into these radioactive hot zones and maybe she's like:" You know, they'll die in four years and that's how long I need them." I said which made them laugh.

"That's a good point, I don't know why Deb would be sending us to a life-threatening location." Sam stated.

"I'm just choosing faith right now because this feels completely different then the serum. How do we know that these spikes get more frequent if we don't investigate them? How do we know these spikes aren't going to get closer to our homes and my business?" Matt theorized.

***

After 25 minutes of driving, we finally started getting close to the radiative zone.

"We're getting to the edge of where it was covering, and so this is the moment where we need to decide if I go beyond this." Matt brought up, "Wait, doesn't this car have a biohazard mode?" I questioned.