Disrepair

Chapter 1

Out in the desert, a large research facility bustles with activity. Researchers pass down the halls as they rush from lab room to lab room. One researcher, a girl who's worked there for a few years, enters a test room to help her boss. She cheerfully comes up to him and places a thick folder on the work counter, next to his other papers.

"Is it authorized?" he plainly asks, not taking his eyes off his work.

"Yes, they signed it and we're ready to move on to production" the girl says.

"Perfect, now we'll finally get a chance to create a new tool for war. This will certainly prove useful on the field," her boss lifts the cover and sees the bright, large red "Approved" stamp on the top page. He closes it and hands it back to her. "Take this down to the testing facility, I'll join you shortly."

"Yes sir, right away" the girl replies.

She quickly leaves the room and rushes down the hall. While that researcher is on a more senior level, he's not the only person she works for. The girl runs down the hall and into the back alley, among the cargo holds is a few carts. She gets into one and drives it down the long road to the secondary facility. Once there, she parks the cart out of the way and enters. Stepping into the mostly empty elevator, she straightens her coat and shirt.

The person beside her notices her nervousness. "Is this your first day?" she asks.

"No, not at all," the girl answers.

"Are you on your way to meet with the head of production?" she asks.

"Yes, I have something important to give him," the girl tells her.

"That's a relief, I thought you were nervous because you were going to get fired" the other girl says as the elevator comes to a stop. "Alright, whatever it is you're working on, good luck."

"Thanks, and you too, with your work" the girl responds before the doors shut.

She's eventually brought up a few more floors to her boss's office. She takes a steady breath and enters. Though uninvited, and most likely interrupting a meeting, she enters for a good reason. She speaks up in a quiet, soft voice, getting his attention. He turns to her and waves her forwards, and she hands him the folder.

"Well, what is it?" he asks.

"We're clear to move onto production of this new compound. Doctor Satola is already aware of it, he'll be meeting us here soon to help" the girl answers.

"Very good news, thank you Miss Enderson. You may return to his side and assist in his work" the man says, waving her away.

She gives him a light bow before leaving. Once returned to Dr Satola's side on another floor of the building, a team of researchers in hazmat suits enters the room. She asks him about the nature of the gas, how it works and affects the human body. He responds that once they create the gas, animal tests will be done first. She watches and observes as he enters one vile of liquid into a sealed chamber at a time, while she takes notes on everything.

He presses a button on a small panel, and the liquid from one vile drains into another small container. One the side of that chamber is a small box, with wires leading outside towards the same panel of buttons. Pressing another, sparks appear inside the box. As the electricity is added, the liquid slowly transforms into a gaseous state.

The girl observes it happen, and when she's done taking her notes on it she sets the clipboard down. Looking at the gas, all she can feel is happiness at what she's helped to create. She hadn't made the liquid herself, however working on this project, which is one of her first, brings her joy. Especially when seeing the success that has come from it.

"So, what do we do now?" she asks curiously.

In response her boss only lines up more viles, once three or four are entered, they're turned to gas. For further testing purposes to see if they can get it to be more effective, 12 others are set aside in a sealed case. For what he has currently, he uses a vacuum feature and fans to move the gas into a large testing chamber. A small door on the side is lifted up, and in comes a few animals, mostly rabbits and other easily accessible subjects.

The dark gray, almost purple tinted gas falls down slowly from a vent in the ceiling. Descending upon the animals it instantly causes respiratory problems, specifically lung failure and some mild paralysis. After only a few short moments, perhaps a minute or so, the animals drop dead. The girl looks at them, a slight twitch in their muscles from the gas.

"Excuse me, but why not test them individually?" she asks.

"That would not suit the purpose of this compound now, would it? It's meant to be used in war, on larger groups of people. It's not a method for single executions" he responds.

Somewhat satisfied with the answer, she remains silent to finish her work. Another researcher enters the room, asking that he leaves for an urgent meeting. He tells the girl to stay there, and to follow the procedures, then he leaves. Now alone in the lab, the girl repeats what she saw him do, reading off a guide paper on the specific amounts of electricity to use on what level of liquid.

As she's working, she notices the aspects of the gas, the fact that it seems weak and not at its full potential. She considers adjusting it, wanting to please her boss. She'd love to make him happy, or simply pleased with her if she can be successful. So she looks over the numbers of elements that are in the compound, and she increases some of them to make it more deadly, and faster to impact one's health.

She calls in for some more test subjects, and the small side door is lifted again. Content with the adjusted numbers, she creates another batch of gas. Moving it to the large chamber, she watches with a smile as the gas descends to the floor. With the last test she witnessed, death had come in about a minute and a half, and there was mild paralysis. But with her new test, she watches as full body paralysis takes effect in only a few seconds. And she's further amazed when the spasms kick in a second after, and shortly followed by their death. She writes down the results. Subject time alive, 15 seconds. Time until the first symptom, 3 seconds. Happy with her success, she leaves the lab to show it to her boss.

With the room left empty, and the equipment still on, the gas isn't cleared out of the chamber. A door is opened, just to the side of the entry door for the test subjects, and a suited team comes in to take care of the corpses.

"Come on Andrew, stop complaining. It's only a dead body, it's not like it'll attack you" one of them says, dismissing his partner's objection.

"Easy for you to say, you don't have to deal with this for much longer with that promotion of yours" Andrew replies as he readies a large bag.

"Knock it off you two, we have a job to do" a third tells them.

Before Andrew or the others in the team can say something, they stop. The third member starts to notice some itching on his skin. Instinctively looking at his legs, he notices a few small holes in his hazmat suit.

"That's not good" he says aloud, getting the attention of the others.

Before they can do much to react, their team member starts to seize up. They get down to his side and start to try and help him, but to no avail. Within moments he's dead. Seeing he doesn't have a pulse, and the gas is now starting to eat away at his body, the others quickly turn to leave the room. But with holes in their own suits, they don't make it far. The door is thrown open, but they collapse before they can get past the doorway.

Inside that other room, which is normally sealed off from the gas at all times, is a set of ventilation ducts in both the ceiling, and the floor. With the door now open, the gas flows slowly yet steadily into the other room. The floor of the chamber is eaten away at, eroded, and the gas starts to pour through. It seeps into the ventilation system in the other room, to which the fans spread it across the building.