OUTBREAK: ZERO is a semi post-apocalyptic pandemic roleplay set in the fictional city of Lethford, USA. Current season: Winter, 20/21.
March 2020. The world is in pandemonium as one month ago, GHNv-20 was confirmed, five months after the beginning of norovirus season. The number of the infected are in the higher hundred thousands, and the death toll is at an estimated 250,000, with about seventy percent of the rest of the population experiencing mild to moderate illnesses connected to the S. pyogenes bacteria.
The fear of the unknown has caused mass hysteria and panic.
In an attempt to provide a semblance of safety and control, military personnel patrol the streets, even here in Lethford City, and the police force is trying to keep up with the rising street violence, assault, and theft.
Welcome to OUTBREAK: zero. Will you survive?
HAYANA
SITE OWNER + HEAD ADMINISTRATOR
Hi! I'm Haya. I'm pretty much your girl for everything! If you have any questions regarding our plot, membergroups, etc. don't hesitate to ask me. I'm also in charge of coding, graphics, anything skin related, and advertising/affiliates.
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ADDI
ADMINISTRATOR
Hey! I'm Addi. Hit me up if you need help with anything. I'm always for plotting so don't be shy. I like coffee, booze, and working out. I'm back from a long hiatus the dead so if you need anything, best ask the others until I get back into the groove of things!
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FINNLEY
GLOBAL MODERATOR
Hi hello! My name is Finnley, or Finn, call whichever and I'll be there for you (yes like the FRIENDS theme song). I am in charge of the claims and helping with miscellaneous things. Let me know if you have any questions!
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outbreak
/ˈaʊtbreɪk/ zero /ˈzɪərəʊ/
a sudden occurrence of something unwelcome, such as war or disease. number, no quantity or number; nought; the figure 0.
He couldn’t help but advert his eyes when she informed him he was doing good work. He had never liked the attention being on him. He had grown up in his brothers shadow and had grown used to it. No attention was better than his fathers eyes on him. Even now, the attention made him uncomfortable. He was employee 167577 and that was how he liked it. He was one of many, he didn’t have to be special or stand out. He could stand on his own and be content. His work was all he needed to feel accomplished, he knew he did good work and that was all he needed.
She was joking about her future hip hand sanitizer and he couldn’t help shake his head. The chuckle was muffled by the mask. Even the joke was laced with real words. It was clear that she felt that this was all a demotion. He couldn’t help but agree on some level. He had assumed someone of far lower rank would be stuck escorting him. Or even a rookie police officer. But not a Staff Sargent. They both knew what her presence here meant.
She shifted the conversation with ease. There was something to her tone. As if she was giving him permission to talk about it openly. He couldn’t help but give her a side glance. ”Everything is for profit if you really think about it. If medicine wasn’t who would fund it? The government? People can hardly afford to pay their taxes as it is.” He knew it was a broken system, but all he could do was operate within it. He was just trying to do the most good as possible while ignoring the red tape of the system. ”Its the red tape that bothers me more. The rules and regulations that halt progress. Do you know how long it can take to get government approval on medical trials? Or how they can cut your funding at any moment?” He seemed to realize how much he had said and pushed the conversation onto her.
Martial law wasn’t something the citizens of the United States took lightly. Having the military here had only seen a rise in tensions. Than there were the people who thought this was all some kind of government lie. That the virus wasn’t really real and that the government super powers were trying to pull one over in everyone. He didn’t envy the position it put her in. She was doing a job that no one wanted her to do, he had no doubt that most of the military members didn’t want to be doing it either. He watched her survey the line of people as someone coughed. Everyone seemed on edge, nothing was innocent anymore.
His eyes drifted back to her as they continued their path to the car. ”Sucks to be shit on for doing your job huh?” He wouldn’t never truly understand what she was going through. People hated the police and military and they couldn’t do anything about it. No matter what they did the public would protest it. ”I have a feeling it’s only going to get worse. I heard you guys are doing home raids too.” He wasn’t even sure he believed in what they were doing fully. He was one of the essential workers the papers he carried were a get out of jail free card if he was caught after curfew. ”Kinda feels extreme some of the stuff that’s happening. But I also get that we kinda have to be, the R factor of this virus is crazy.”
He paused as she stepped in front of him, opening the car door for him. He couldn’t help but stiffen a little, he forced himself to relax. He stepped past her and into the car, ”guess chivalry isn’t dead.” She closed the door for him before stepping around the car and getting in. He settled in, looking at the line of people waiting to get in. How many of those people were symptomatic? How many of them were super spreaders. Some of them weren’t standing six feet apart, some had their noses sticking out of their masks.
He seemed to remember that he wasn’t in the hospital anymore. ”Give me some of that.” He gestured to the hand sanitizer, but before he took any he stopped. Pulling a brown paper lunch bag out of his back pocket, with a hard jerk he opened it. Than he carefully removed the N95 he had been wearing, plopping it into the bag. He closed the bag and reached his hands out for the hand sanitizer. His face free of the mask she would be able to see the hard indents in his face from hours of wearing the mask. Faint bruising was present on the bridge of his nose, he flexed his jaw. Satisfied his hands were clean he reached into his other pocket and pulled out a normal medical mask donning it. It was a hundred times better than the right fitting N95. He plopped the paper bag on the floor next to his brief case. ”Im pretty sure I now understand how women feel when they take their bra off at the end of the day.”
She spoke and he glanced at her as she confessed she missed movie theatres and why. He was reminded how much their lives had changed, how they would continue to change. What would survive this pandemic? Not everything that was for sure. It was a sobering thought, one he was avoiding. He didn’t want to think about it, he just wanted to find a cure and have some semblance of normalcy return. She went on and he watched her as she drove. He shook his head as she mentioned tinder.
She wanted to know what he missed. He shrugged. ”Well I haven’t been jumping on tinder if that’s what you’re asking.” He knew that she was asking more than that. ”I hated going to the theatre, you always had some wise ass who would laugh or clap. It ruined the movie.” He went on, ”I miss going to the pub. It’s not exactly the same sitting and drinking alone at the bar.” He didn’t realize how sad it sounded until he spoke the words out loud. ”Book stores too. Can’t exactly go and sit and read a book and have coffee. Nothings the same with these masks on.”
”Speaking of coffee, we should get one on the way.” If he got push back he’d push on. ”Common, it’ll take what? Five minutes and it’ll save me a trip when you drop me off.”
The punch was light but proved her point. He wasn’t defenceless, but he always wasn’t a trained combatant like her. ”Half a leg maybe.” He refused to take the compliment fully. He could be better; he was skipping workouts in order to spend more time at the lab. He knew he was little his own health slip for the sake of others, but he couldn’t help it. Helping to find the cure had become his priority. There was a hum of unspoken pressure in the air at work. They all knew they needed a vaccine, there was this mounting pressure with each day that passed with no progress. But maybe that was just him setting his own expectations too high.
He crinkled his nose under the tight-fitting mask. It felt like the whole world was looking at them. Holding their breath and waiting for them to come out with a cure. Some protested it, said it went against their rights and that they refused to get it. While others were pressing the companies to do it faster. He knew his boss was feeling the pressure to deliver and that was passed down to them. There was this guttural fear inside of him that they would somehow fail. That they would leave the world unprotected and people would die. What if they couldn’t come up with something? What happened if it mutated? His mind was going a mile a minute when she stopped him.
Her teasing broke him out of his spiral. He rolled his eyes at her. ”No, and no. I didn’t have to memorize it. Its just an honest answer. Prism is doing everything it can to create a vaccine.” Maybe the words were partially memorized from all of the emails that were sent out. There were countless reminders about what they could and couldn’t say. The company had rights to the knowledge, and the research. He knew how a slip up could ruin someone’s career he had watched it happen to a co worker. He wasn’t about to ruin his life over a conversation.
But her next words told him all he needed to know. She had been unfit for anything else. He had no doubt they had tried to reintegrate her, and she had failed, or maybe her injuries had been too severe. He had never stopped to ask her. The last time he had seen her was three years ago when he had buried his brother. He hadn’t been in a state that day for polite conversation. In fact, he was pretty sure he had avoided her. In retrospect he had been insensitive. Maybe she had needed someone that day. He didn’t know how to respond and for a moment he didn’t.
He went to open the door and she stepped ahead of him, doing it for him. Then she was sanitizing her hands, a fluid well practiced motion. She joked about the hand sanitizer and it eased the tension. ”You seem to be settling in okay all things considered. You need a little holder for your belt for quick drawing.” Yeah he had just made a hand sanitizer gun joke. It felt as lame out loud as it had in his head. She inquired about the files and he glanced down at them. ”I think you know the answer to that. They have us keeping pretty tight lipped over it all. Its not just about the vaccine, the company that makes it first will make bank. It would be huge for Prism.” He would be naïve to think that this had nothing to do with money. It made the world go round after all.
”But, what I can say that its better than the last company I worked at. This one has a lot more research funding, its bigger too. It has resources and staff I couldn’t have dreamed of.” It was amazing how going from a small pharmacological company to Prism had changed his life. His attention shifted to the people lined up outside of the hospital. He didn’t miss the looks there were thrown at Brooke. People had mixed feelings about the military stepping in to help. Especially now with the home raids happening. ”Maybe you’re the one who needs an escort. How’s the vibe on the street?”
She was walking beside him. It was a noticeable difference than what the other escorts in the past had done. Most of them had walked behind him, not saying anything and no doubt praying the whole ordeal ended quickly. He saw the crinkle around her eyes as she smiled under her mask. It was the subtle differences in people features that gave away emotions now. He had gotten good at spotting them. She joked, admitting that he could no doubt kick her ass. He knew he should take it as a compliment but he shrugged. ”What is it that my brother called me? A squint? I’ve been out of Cadets for years. Besides if you wrestle like you did when you were a kid I have no chance.” Nothing like having to tap out because a girl had you in a head lock. His brother had never let him live that down. He worked out but wasn’t the same as what he had gone through in Cadets.
He cracked a smile as she pretended to be offended. She teased him right back. She admitted that this was just her job now. He wondered if the change suited her. This wasn’t exactly a combat war zone. This was different, more towards police style work. He wondered if she was mad, if this wasn’t what she wanted to do. If she had any complaints she didn’t voice them. Thomas couldn’t help the sideways glance at her as she proclaimed that he was saving the world. His eye brow was cocked up at that and his pace had slowed. There was sincerity to her words that made it worse, maybe he could have let it go if she had been teasing him. ”No pressure.” He half joked with a little laugh. There was hope in her next words, as she asked him if they would solve it. She had to be asking that? Because he was just one person, there was no way he would be the one to solely solve it.
”You know that we aren’t heroes right? We aren’t saving babies and running around in capes? We aren’t going to save anything. If anything we will prolong lives. That’s all we’ve ever done as scientists.” He wasn’t sure why he was being a jerk about it. He tried to ease up a little bit. Looking forward finally as they walked. ”The company I work for is doing everything possible to create a successful vaccine. What that will look like, I don’t know. I’m just one cog in a very big machine.” Thomas lifted the brief case a little, ”you aren’t the only one doing grunt work today.” Was the break from the lab nice? Yeah, but this wasn’t exactly his idea of fun. ”And no, I didn’t piss anyone off either, just drew the short straw at the morning meeting.”
Being in personal protective equipment was a pain in the ass. There was no other way to describe it. It was hot, uncomfortable, and the lenses of his safety glasses fogged up at random intervals. He felt like a disaster in it. He often came out sweaty, he was pretty sure he had lost weight since the start of the outcries. Before the virus he had been lax with his PPE at best. But now he had no choice, the protocols were strict and the punishments more so if you were caught going against policy. So now when he donned his PPE he tried to go for as long as possible without having to doff. Most exposures happened because of improper doffing. Besides, if there was anything worse than wearing the PPE it was putting it back on after a break.
Tonight Thomas had stayed late, like so many other nights. He had been working in the lab, running samples and doing grunt work he knew needed to get done. When his bladder couldn’t take it anymore he doffed. Shedding the layers of PPE and decontaminating himself. He couldn’t help the sound of joy as the layers came off. It was a process and at the end of it he felt lighter. He had to wonder if this was the equivalent to girls taking off their bras after a long day.
The bathroom was his first stop, emptying his bladder. He instantly felt better. He hadn’t realized just how much his body was struggling to keep it in. He kept pushing the limits, trying to stretch out the time as far as possible. He stopped and regarded himself in the mirror, the lines of his mask still visible on his face. He so slashed cold water on it, knowing full well the only thing that would make them fade was time. He was just happy he didn’t bruise.
Next was coffee.
The sweet bean juice that would help him either ride out the rest of the night or allow him to make it home. He thrived at this time of day. Where everything was dimly lit in the hallways and the office lights were out. People were home with their families or loved ones. It meant he didn’t have to pretend to care about Pams cat or Samuels Netflix show ending after only one season. He didn’t have to pretend, he could let his guard down and just be. It was one of the main reasons he stayed so late, the other was he wanted to be useful. This was how he went about it.
The light was on in the break room, he found this odd. Thomas stopped dead in the doorway to the small break room. Seeing another human being in the building so late was surprising. It took him a full moment to register who the man before him was, than another to see the man was trying and failing to make coffee. The man was staring at the coffee maker like it was technology from another world. He wouldn’t lie, it was kinda amusing. ”My brain doesn’t like to work past midnight either.” He offered, stepping into the space and gesturing to the coffee pot. Feeling unease seep in as he spoke to the owner of the company he worked for. This was the mother of all bosses and he was about to offer to make him coffee. ”You want me to have a go at it?” He awkwardly asked, not wanting to get in the mans way but also wanting coffee himself. ”Sir” he added after a moment as if forgetting who he was talking too and trying to make up for it.
There was a stunned feeling that settled over him when he saw her. She was like a blast from the past. After their mother had died he had parted ways. Left cadets and went to university. Brooke had followed his brother across the pound. Sure he had gotten updates, photos, and emails. But they had lived very different lives. Sometimes he would leave the emails unopened, sometimes he wouldn’t know what to say to his jar head of a brother. It was hard to compare the excitement of battle to beakers and math. They had been twins, but they couldn’t have been more different. Seeing her made his heart ache for his brother. She had been there with him when he had died, while he had been behind a microscope.
He hadn’t known she was back in town. He couldn’t help but ask, had she purposely not sought him out? He watched as she struggled not to touch her face, or her hair. Her discomfort showing. He didn’t know what he expected. She had been in town for three weeks and he had no idea. He tried not to feel hurt by this. The world wasn’t exactly right, things were crazy. The last three weeks he had been at the lab late. His life revolved around his work. Work, caffeine, work out, sleep, and repeat. This wasn’t exactly the best time to have a social life. Maybe he should have answered her last email, maybe than she would have texted him when she came to town.
She gestured, telling him about the car. The reality of what she was here to do came crashing down. ”Oh yeah, of course.” She was here to escort him. It felt weird to know that she was supposed to be protecting him and the documents. The brief case felt heavy as he started towards where the car was, he felt inadequate. Like something fragile that needed to be protected and he hated it. ”I told them that I didn’t need an escort. But they wouldn’t exactly take no for an answer. They had the final say and now here we are.” He informed her, feeling like he had to say something about the situation. ”Who did you have to piss off to get baby sitting duty anyways?” He couldn’t help but ask as they walked. Staff eyeing her uniform with both concern and interest. ”Or is this somehow a sick privilege?” He jutted a brow up, not sure what this all meant for her.
This is Thomas Moore, a Biochemist at Prism Biotech Corp. He recently transferred to the department which is in charge of the Sinoxyn trails. A secret set of trials being put on by Prism BioTech. The clearance level is steep and the cost of wanting to quit is steeper. Right now he believes in what he is doing at Prism, he wants to help find a vaccine and understands that things need to be done to accomplish that.
Thomas has a grey moral code, he is willing to step outside of the rules to get things done. He will do what he thinks is right even if those around him feel he is wrong.
He had a twin brother Charles Moore who died in combat over seas. Brooke Hastings was on his brothers unit and is a childhood friend. She now works with the military police trying to keep everyone in line during the pandemic.
Plots
Slowly will be working towards him not being so sure of how Prism is going about its research and the clinical trials. Right now he's content. Maybe someone can start to put the thoughts in his head that Prism isn't as good as it pretends to be.
Discord is the best place to reach me but Ill try my best to check here.
It was a thought that passed through his mind as he worked. It was fleeting, leaving a slight pang in his chest. He used to think cancer was the scariest thing that could happen to a person. After seeing what his mother had gone through, he had understood how horrible the disease was. How it could ruin a person and their family. But then he had met GHNv-20 and he knew that it could get worse. There were ghosts in these halls, and not just his own. The worst part was they were growing with the increasing number of cases. It only fueled his drive to find a cure, the sooner they found a cure the sooner this would all be over.
Thomas kept his head bent trying to keep to himself. His identification badge hung around his neck from a black lanyard. It bumped against his chest as he moved. He went about gathering the various charts and documents he had been sent for. He had to wait on a couple of doctors to finish off on the charting, for the hospital to remove whatever they saw fit from the charts before he was allowed access to them. He had been there since seven am and all he wanted was a coffee.
The smell of disinfectant stung his nostrils even though the mask he wore. He had been provided a new one when he had walked through the doors. His hands cleaned, temperature checked, and screening completed. This was his new normal. Every precaution was being taken. He had adamantly refused the escort from the hospital back to the Prism Biotech building. But he had been shot down, the information he was gathering was important. If it was stolen or went missing it could set back the vaccine. That wasn’t a risk anyone was willing to take, but it didn’t mean he had to like it.
Glancing down at his watch he silently swore. He shoved the remaining files into the brief case for transport. He was forty-five minutes over his scheduled pick up time. He had lost track of time in the records room. His escort was supposed to be here at 1300, and now they had been waiting for forty-five minutes. Making his way to the door he exited, the lock activating behind him. The room was secure, hospital security had been watching him through cameras the whole time.
He quickly walked to the long bank of windows overlooking the downtown core. This was also where the new spread out staff room was for the floor. Social distancing was in place with chairs and tables six feet apart. Bright neon signs assaulted him, reminding him to wash his hands and wear a mask. He could see the person that was waiting for him, it was hard not to spot her. The uniform gave her away.
He was coming up on her from behind, he announced his presence with an apology that doubled as a greeting. ”Sorry I’m late. I lost track of time and started to analyzing the data instead of just packaging it-“ Thomas’s words trailed off as she turned. Even with her own mask on he knew who she was, Brooke. He felt all of the things he was going to say leave him as he stared at her for a long moment. ”I didn’t know you were back?” She had been on the same mission Charles had been, the biggest difference was that she had lived.
