Steel Virus (2017)

2

Several halls and doors further into the facility, Catherine put down her headset. She pulled a few stray strands of her thick, black hair from the headset's band and adjusted her dress as she stood up.

"Going out to deal with the miss-ship?" one of the nearby administration staff asked.

"Yes. Unfortunately." she answered.

The young man continued to ask her, "Want me to take your report to the lab for you?"

"Alright, go ahead." she sighed. "They won't be happy, I'm sure. Good luck."

Emry was still in his late twenties and lacked the wisdom of interpersonal communication. This required him to spend time trying to formulate a nice way to tell the lab that they needed to make safer results.

He walked down the hall before scanning his card and letting the metal door swing open in front of him. Through another hall and another room he walked. Some areas were currently shut down to conserve power; plastic sheets covered various shapes in the labs.

Finally, he reached the control room of the many laboratories currently devoted to "Project Conversion."

After a few formalities, he changed the subject to the task at hand.

"Anyway, I came here to uh..." he frowned. "Notify you all of possible repercussions of your failure in both speed and safety."

Emry handed the lead manager, Dr. Bailey, the report. Bailey was a young grandfather, with only a few wrinkles near his eyes to prove his age.

He complained, "Carl didn't carefully carry the shipment! We're lucky the facility has a hard lockout! Imagine what would happen if the doors didn't lock and the air didn't stop?"

"A nightmare," a nearby assistant manager chimed in.

"Exactly," the Bailey pointed at her with a gratuitous smirk.

"Look, I'm just passing this on for Catherine...I know it's not very cool." Emry scratched the back of his head, tilting his view to the side.

"Catherine isn't even the one who wrote this! This is from our sponsor, 'White Wolf.'" Bailey flipped the report so Emry could read the fine print.

"Oh. You're right. I didn't notice, I just skimmed through it and repeated what Catherine told me."

"Uh-huh..." he sat down and leaned back in a form fitted, soft black metal chair.

"We can't rush this out the door. It's not ready to ship...as we found out last week in a grisly manner." Bailey sighed.

"Well, can you guys design a safer container? By the end of the month, if possible?" Emry tried to ask with a more sympathetic tone, "I know it's probably tough, but-"

"It's going to be nearly impossible, but we'll try." the assistant spoke up again.

"Thank you, Lee." Bailey said before turning back to Emry. "Please tell her that we will do our best. The new version was just too light and mobile. The container should have been strong enough but it was designed with the earlier version in mind. They can have our heads if they want, but the pressure has been rather stifling.

He relaxed shoulders again and took a breath. "Our sponsor has been increasingly angry over the past year, but we know it's not Catherine's fault. Nor yours. We're frustrated, but not directly at either of you."

Emry smiled. "Thanks."