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Jeanie took a deep breath before splashing water into her face from her bathroom sink.  “You got this…  Today’s going to go well,” she assured herself, gesturing an ‘okay’ sign toward her reflection in the mirror.

Without wasting further time, she applied her makeup and left for work.  The process of reaching her office required a twenty-minute drive past the city outskirts and to where a government-owned office building stood surrounded by trees and hills, with some smaller mountains rising not too far behind.

Upon entering the building, everything appeared as it would in your typical FBI office place.  There were strict measures to get inside, and then she found her way to the usual elevator where she’d be taken to the first basement floor.  She then walked down a couple hallways and nodded to a few employees likely working on some highly classified cases before making her way to the ‘executive lounge,’ where an extremely limited number of employees were allowed to enter.

‘It’s a good thing I started leaving so early for work,’ Jeanie mused after passing the security clearance and being allowed into the lounge by a guard standing duty.  At the end of the rather typical lounge, there was another secured door with fingerprint and retinal scanners, and a camera facing her.

After scanning in, the individual monitoring the camera verified she was alone and allowed her in, where she walked down another hallway and to another door with the same setup as the previous one. After once again scanning in, she entered a small room with an elevator and pressed the button to open the doors.

Finally, she was taken to basement floor 2, where she checked in with a security guard and was allowed into her new place of employment.

“Good morning,” Mr. Black smiled with a nod of his head, walking down the hallway with a glazed donut in hand.  “How are you doing, Miss Johansson?”  He asked warmly.

“I’m still getting used to having my eye scanned so many times every day…  It’s not going to make me blind, is it?”  She asked with a weak laugh, walking to Mr. Black’s side as the two made their way down the halll together.

“That’s why you have two eyes.  When the retina scanner kills one of them, you can keep using your bad eye to scan in while retaining one working eye for the job,” Mr. Black teased in response.

“Oh!  That’s a very good point.  Does my insurance cover the cost of an eyepatch?”

“Of course.  Studded with diamonds if you so desire.”

The two shared a chuckle before entering the break room where Mr. Black gestured for Jeanie to sit at a table with a donut box.  “How do you like your coffee?”  He asked, walking to a counter with four separate coffee machines.

Jeanie’s initial reaction was to insist she get her own coffee so as to not burden her boss.  However, when reading the atmosphere of her new job, she realized that was unnecessary.  Everyone here liked one another and her best option was to accept the generosity and then return it when she could.  “I’m a bit of a wimp when it comes to bitter things…  If you could grab me three creamers, that would be great.  I really appreciate it, so thank you.”

“Of course; not a problem,” Mr. Black replied as he got them both some coffee and sat across from her.  “How did it go yesterday if you don’t mind me asking?”  He said to her warmly as he offered her the cup.

Jeanie accepted the cup and added the creamers while considering his question.  “Carrie is amazing…  She is one of the strongest people I’ve ever met,” she admitted as she used a stir stick to mix the cream in.

“Agreed,” Mr. Black replied before taking a sip of his coffee.  “Shelly tells me you handled the encounter wonderfully, so keep up the good work,” he assured her.

“I-- I’m happy to hear that!  I will keep doing my best,” she promised, starting to feel more energized.

The two made small talk for a few minutes, talking about nothing in particular and sharing pleasantries.  After a little while, Jeanie looked at her phone and saw it was five minutes until 8:00AM when her shift started.  “Oh!  I suppose I should get moving.”

Mr. Black nodded before his look turned dour.  “Since you’re starting field training today, I’m going to perform the briefing.  Feel free to bring your coffee and a donut with you.”  With that, he stood and gestured for Jeanie to follow.

She nodded and quickly got up, following the man with drink in tow.  “I will put 110% into today’s field training…  I won’t let anyone down,” she promised as they made their way down another hall with gray tiling and occasional paintings and motivational posters hung on the walls.

“I know you will,” Mr. Black smiled.

As they walked, Jeanie looked around, taking in every minute detail of her surroundings-- the place she would hopefully work for a very long time.  What would field training entail?  What would she be doing for the rest of the day?  Despite her show of confidence, a few beads of stress sweat dotted her forehead and she tried her best to keep her nerves under control.

Before much longer, they entered a small conference room where Mr. Black politely greeted the two individuals sitting within.

“Good morning to both of you,” Shelly grinned.  She wore a well-fitted pair of black women’s slacks with a belt over an equally well-fitted gray button-up shirt with a tie.

“Good Morning, Mr. Black.  And to you, Jeanie.  I don’t think we’ve formally met,” the other man in the room said softly.

“G-- Good morning,” Jeanie smiled back to Shelly before looking at the new individual.  He was a tall, well-muscled man with a clean-shaven head and a full, yet well trimmed ruddy red-brown beard and moustache.  He dressed similarly to Shelly, but with gray slacks and a suit jacket.  Most striking was the black eyepatch covering his right eye.  She recalled her joking about eye patches earlier and blushed with a twinge of embarrassment.  “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Oh, I should probably introduce myself.  Hahaha!  Truly, where are my manners?”  He said jovially, a wide smile spread across his face.  “I’m Anton Klaus, second in charge of our criminal investigation team.”

Jeanie took a seat next to Anton, feeling relieved to see his cheerful demeanor.  “I look forward to working with you,” she said softly.  Something crept into the back of her mind, causing her to feel a hint of unease.  ‘Criminal investigation?’ Was his team involved with field training?

“Let’s get started,” Mr. Black said with a clap of his hands.  He walked to the front of the conference table and grabbed a remote to start the projector.  Afterward, he pulled a laptop from his bag and set it up, a city map appearing on the screen.  It only took her a moment to realize it was a map of Briarland, the large Texan metropolis they all lived in.

“As previously discussed, the highest concentrations of Livestock Syndrome cases have been detected in areas highlighted in red.”  He turned toward Jeanie.  “Areas in green have had little to no outbreaks, yellow is somewhere inbetween.  For now, the exact numbers aren’t important,” he assured her.

Jeanie nodded and carefully scanned the map.  The green areas took over the large majority of the map, with some yellow spattered about.  Beyond that, there were three small areas highlighted in red.

“Jeanie.  Do you notice any correlation between the areas colored in red?”  Anton suddenly asked, resting his arms on the table with his fingers laced.

Jeanie glanced at Anton and then turned toward the screen, taking a slow breath as she began to think.  ‘Correlation?’ She mused, pressing her fingers to her chin as her brow scrunched.  After twenty seconds, she thought she might know.  “They all  appear to be within low income, suburban areas…  Most of the red is within the residential district of these suburban areas.”

Mr. Black nodded.  “You’re absolutely right; good catch,” he said with a slight smile before his expression turned severe.  “Miss Johansson.  With your current knowledge, how does Livestock Syndrome spread?  Where does it usually crop up?”

Jeanie swallowed and folded her hands in her lap before continuing.  “Livestock Syndrome is believed to be the result of genetic manipulation experiments in the East that accidentally resulted in an airborne contagion.  It affects people seemingly at random with no rhyme or reason, impacting people at similar rates across the globe and regardless of where they live, their gender, ethnicity, vocation, etcetera.”

Mr. Black once again nodded before changing the slide to show two city maps.  “Chicago and Los Angeles.  What do you notice based on the data our teams in these two cities gathered?”  He asked her.

It only took a few seconds for her to see it again.  The areas in green and yellow were varied, but the areas denoted in red were in suburban, residential areas.  “I-- I don’t know much about the economic situation in these cities.  Are the areas in red also low income?”  She asked quietly, feeling a nagging pang of dread swelling within.

“Unfotunately, yes,” Anton replied for Mr. Black, letting out a low sigh.

Jeanie froze, her mouth agape as she tried to string together a sentence. ‘Criminal investigation-- wait…  No-- no…  That can’t be right,’ she told herself as she shook her head and clenched her knees tightly.  “I-- I might be misunderstanding, but are you saying that someone-- or some group is somehow infecting people with Livestock Syndrome?”

Shelly gave Jeanie a sympathetic look and leaned over to put a hand on her shoulder.  “This is where those NDAs you signed really come into play.  It’s true that, in general, Livestock Syndrome strikes at random in its natural form,” she assured her.  “Your sister was one of those cases.”  She took a deep breath before continuing.  “We do have reason to believe that some group has found a way to weaponize Livestock Syndrome and deliberately infect people.  Many of the victims in these zones of high infection rate were later confirmed to have purchased or used drugs around where they live.”

Anton leaned back in his seat and briefly adjusted his eyepatch before speaking.  “This has been happening for a month now, with us only catching on in the last ten days or so.  We managed to track down some of the dealers, but they appear to legitimately know nothing and none of the stock we’ve confiscated has shown any abnormalities during lab testing. This includes marjuana, heroin, LSD, and other narcotics.  There’s a lot we don’t know, and the drug sources we’ve tracked down haven’t shown us anything beyond the realm of typical drug trafficking shenanigans.”

Jeanie was beside herself as she attempted to digest each and every word.  Her eyes darted back and forth as she bit her lip and tried to stay calm. ‘Holy shit…  Am I in over my head?  Oh my god-- this is real…’  It was hard to process the horrific reality presented before her.  How was something like this possible?

Mr. Black cleared his throat before continuing.  “Right now, our working theory is that a group is deliberately targeting drug users in these areas for a variety of reasons.  One would be due to the general lack of visibility in areas like these; a general lack of CCTV, slow police response times, and people often too afraid to skulk about at night when crime rates are higher.  The second would be to use drug selling as a red herring.  We assume these cases to be drug-related and are devoting a great number of resources in pursuit of this theory.”

Jeanie shook her head and finally worked up the courage to speak.  “Has our government developed similar technology?  Err…  I mean, have our scientists and what not worked out how one could weaponize Livestock Syndrome?”

“No,” Shelly calmly replied.  “We barely understand how it functions; we definitely have no way of recreating it or using it as a bio-weapon.”

Jeanie reeled at that.  Whoever was responsible for this wasn’t some petty criminal gang; they would need to be a group wtih an immense amount of money and resources at their disposal.  “But-- then, how…”  Her eyes widened as gears shifted in her head.  “Another country?  A multi-billion dollar corporation?”

“We don’t know,” Shelly added.  “That’s what we’re still trying to find out, and one of the reasons we are eager to have you aboard to help.”

“Today, you will be investigating reports of two individuals exhibiting Livestock Syndrome-like symptoms in one of these affected areas,” Mr. Black added. 

Jeanie sat frozen as she stared at her boss and then back to the image projected onto the screen.  To say she was nervous would be an understatement.  In a matter of minutes, her world had been turned upside down.

Jeanie sat in the back row of an inconspicuous slate gray van, with Anton sitting next to her and Shelly taking the driver’s seat up front.  Each had a concealed weapon for self defense.  She took a slow breath and closed her eyes tightly, her mind ringing with the plethora of information dumped on her not too long ago.

“It’s a forty-five minute drive, so hang tight,” Shelly said from the front as they drove off.

Anton gave Jeanie a concerned look.  “Young Miss Jeanie…  You are handling this very well.  I know there is much to digest, but you aren’t alone here.  We’re a team and you’re in very good hands,” he assured her.

Jeanie opened her eyes and gave him a weak smile.  “Thank you-- yeah…  It’s a lot to take in, but I will stay vigilant and won’t let the stress beat me down,” she promised.

“That’s the spirit,” Anton grinned before letting out a hearty laugh.

The group drove into town while discussing the upcoming trial.  Jeanie learned the proper procedure for investigating and following up on these cases; Anton would take the lead with Shelly behind him guiding Jeanie and ensuring she stays in a position where she can observe and learn.  She would need to stay alert to receive instructions and provide assistance if needed.  In the case that the situation turned dangerous, she would take a defensive position with Shelly while Anton remained their first line of protection.

Eventually, they entered a somewhat dilapidated part of town and pulled up to a run down apartment complex.  Anton gave Jeanie a reassuring smile.  “Shauna Roberts, our first suspected Livestock Syndrom case, lives within apartment 53.  We’ll start here and gather info if she isn’t home.  Are you ready?”  He asked as he opened the door and stepped out while keeping his eye on her.

Jeanie hesitated but ultimately gritted her teeth and nodded.  “Yes, I am.”  He climbed out behind Anton and stared at the shoddy building.  The moment of truth was upon her and she had to remind herself she was in good hands.

CHAPTER END

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