Chapter One: 5 Months Later
Ever since the blackout incident where Joseph and Carlos had gotten severely injured at their job in a laboratory in Mount Pleasant, New York, and had to stay for nearly a month in the hospital, they both quit their jobs. At some point after the blackout incident, Michael resigned from his job as an engineer. Meanwhile, Dr. Adam Cambridge had kept his job as Head of Science. Joseph moved out of his rental house and moved to Indianapolis, Indiana where he became the assistant manager of a Walmart Supercenter. Carlos sold his house and moved back to his childhood town of Albuquerque, New Mexico and became a security guard at a hospital, and Michael moved back to his hometown of Portland, Maine where became an auto mechanic. The pay was low, but at least they weren't on the brink of life and death working at the laboratory.
Adam, meanwhile, had nowhere to go but up. He rose up the ranks, eventually becoming a high ranking and respected scientist within Laminax, rubbing elbows with high ranking executives, scientists and workers from countries across the world. He travelled the world, from Alaska to Indonesia, visiting laboratories, research stations and power stations in other countries and going to many meetings, trying to convince a countries government to have Laminax build laboratories in their country. "It'll be great for your economy, environment and economy, we only have the very best of workers here." So far it had been unsuccessful. He had come close to having the Hungarian Government build two laboratories and power stations outside the cities of Budapest and Debrecen but had been unsuccessful in doing so.
DATE: Late June
The sun slowly rose over the city of Indianapolis, and Joseph started to get ready for work. He ambled his way out of his bed, and made his way to the fridge, opening it and pulling out a plate with scrambled eggs, a piece of toast and a sausage which he had made last night. After he had finished eating, he made his way to the bathroom to take a shower. He got out and inspected himself in the mirror. He had looked exactly the same 5 months ago; expect for the moustache that he had grown over time. His stubble remained the same.
He then looked down at his chest, seeing that the claw marks that the panther had given him were still there. His doctor said that the scars were permanent, but he shouldn't worry since they didn't pose any serious medical risks or get in the way of his everyday life. He put on his uniform and walked outside his house, double checking that his door was indeed locked. As he headed down the cracked concrete path that led down to his car.
Joseph, after some effort, unlocked his Subaru Legacy and climbed inside it, driving towards the Walmart Supercenter. He changed radio stations until it came onto the news. A slight static came from the radio for a moment, before stopping. A man's voice came from the radio, saying "In other news, after a successful meeting in Vienna, Laminax's negotiated multi-million dollar deal, was given the green light by the Austrian Government for Laminax to build laboratories in Austria. Present at the meeting was Laminax CEO Pete Henderson, along with ten high ranking Laminax scientists, Jeremiah Mayweather, Kevin Banks, Ryan Cunningham, Casper Simunovic, Giovanni Weber-Gauthier, Park Tae-Hyun, Benjamin Rynsburger, Tangaroa Kobayashi-Peters and Adam Cambridge. Mark Schwartz, the Head of International Relations, was unable to attend the meeting as he was in Dubai for a business trip. Laminax has been allowed to build three laboratories near the cities of Vienna, Salzburg and Innsbruck. While being interviewed by reporters in Vienna, Dr. Adam Henry Cambridge had this to say: "Despite the multi-million dollar price tag that comes with this deal, this is another significant milestone for Laminax. Our power generation is 100% eco-friendly, and it doesn't hurt the environment in any way. This deal is also a great way to improve our relations with both our Austrian and European counterparts. We plan to meet again in Zürich, Switzerland for another conference to further explain the importance of this deal to-" Joseph turned off the radio and sighed. Not hurting the environment in any way, yeah right. You may have cut down emissions, but you're forgetting about the tests and experiments on a currently unknown species that infects and spreads. He thought to himself as he turned a corner.
