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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OPEN MODERATOR POSITION
outbreak
/ˈaʊtbreɪk/ zero /ˈzɪərəʊ/
a sudden occurrence of something unwelcome, such as war or disease. number, no quantity or number; nought; the figure 0.
Brooke stood beside the desk, a hand resting on the back of the rolling chair that the private was sitting in. He was on watch, manning the cameras that surrounded the approach, the perimeter, and the interior of the warehouses. The area was off-limits for any unauthorized personal. And she had to admire his guts to push right through it. As he tried to climb over the fence and fell she smirked, shaking her head and sighing, ”Oh he has no idea.” She bent and watched him try to scale the fence again, mumbling, ”Come on, buddy, you got it.”
Her encouragement earned her a glare from the two men in the security room and she stood back upright, giving a little shrug, ”Sorry I’ve always cheered for the underdog...and look at him.” Motioning to the screen, they watched the man gather himself and start to make his way from the fence across to the warehouse. One of them moved to get up, grabbing a flashlight and his gun but she put her hand out, ”Stand down, soldier.” There was a drip of sarcasm to her words and she stepped back, ”Stay here, I’ll intercept.”
Without another word she turned and left the small surveillance shack. It opened up to the outdoors and she found herself moving between building that held much of the same things found in the other buildings. It was all emergency supplies that they would distribute if things got dire. For now, though, the economy was failing but holding. For the most part, the famine and plague hadn’t caught up to them to the point that they needed it. And she knew that if people knew that it was there they’d lose all restraint. Something about hoarding away supplies for when things got worse was a comfort to the public, but they didn’t do so wisely. There was no rationing or sanctions about who needed what. That’s what the government was for. Or that’s what they touted to the people lower in rank.
He was in one such warehouse and Brooke followed easily, entering from the far side and making her approach as quietly as she could. But she was in uniform, the boots not made for stealth, and when she was within earshot she pulled out a pair of handcuffs, tapping them so that they clicked. It pulled out of him exactly the reaction she was going for and when she came around the corner to face down the cowering man Brooke’s features were hard and her posture threatening, ”D&D? Really? That’s the one you’re going with?” She held up the cuffs so that they swayed, hanging from two fingers, ”How about I give you a chance to check your slight of hand for real, huh?” She motioned for him to get against a stack of crates. ”Hands behind your back, sir.”
He didn’t have anything to offer her in the way of information. And that was to be expected, Brooke was a glorified grunt. After her combat disaster she’d been flown to Germany with a bullet wound in her hip and her shoulder and a psyche that was broken. Her new job was a demotion, as much as they insisted that her rank did not change and she would maintain some responsibility even in this new role. But it wasn’t the same. She wasn’t at Charlie’s side as his number 2, following and listening and echoing commands or giving her own when they’d split the unit. But she kept it a little light, despite his lack of information, ”You’re doing good work, Tommy.”
It was a strange time to be alive. Sometimes it felt a little bit like the rest of the world was getting a glimpse into what her life for the last 8 years had been like. It was regimented, dangerous, exhausting, and scary. There were little bursts of reprieve that came when someone broke into song riding in a humvee or when the sun would go down and it would get deathly silent at base so that when you went outside to look up at the stars you could almost hear the sound of those distant celestial fires burning. Humanity found ways to make joy out of dire circumstances. Unfortunately, in current times people were choosing stupid ways to find joy, like trying to gather and that early trend of having GHNv-20 parties to ‘just get it over with’.
Her job was to stop that kind of joy. And so when they stepped outside the people in line did a cursory glance around to make sure that they were properly distanced just in case the mean soldier got out her measuring tape. If Brooke saw it she didn’t make a comment or let it bother her. No one liked it when she did her job, she had learned that long ago. But she’d still find those little bursts, she’d keep going in search of the next little boost of serotonin. He wasn’t at first, but when he spoke up and teased her about her hand sanitizer and the quickdraw there was the feeling that Thomas could be her next burst. She laughed easily, Brooke was always easy to pull laughter out of, and she nodded, ”That’s a good idea, maybe I could go full mounted pump action.”
She popped her hip out to the side a little and mimed pumping sanitizer and then offering her hip to him. ” Hands-free sanitization distribution. It would be a promotion compared to what they’ve got me doing now.” Brooke smirked, straightened to walk again, and tried one more time for information about the vaccine, their progress...anything. And when he mentioned money she wrinkled up her nose at that, scoffing, ”It’s awful that things like medicine and war are an industry, isn’t it?” There was a tone to her voice that said it was something she had talked about before. Those were the other things that came up out in the desert. There was no topic off limits and she could remember the conversation swinging wildly from bathroom and sex jokes to political hot topics in a matter of seconds. But that’s how things went with family.
Brooke gave a nod and somewhere in that line someone coughed. She glanced over at them but no one was making eye contact. A cough those days was like distant gunfire for her. It put her on edge, reminded her that the world was not right. And when he spoke up again she glanced over at him, ”Oh, you know, just fulfilling my role in maintaining a safe and controlled military state. Working for the man and keeping the free people down.” But after a moment she sobered, ”I knew coming home would be hard, but it’s made harder when most people don’t want you here. So, things are tense. Sometimes it feels like we’re one bad day from riots and the next we’re singing High School Musical and insisting that we’re all in this together.”
They reached the car and, as it was her job, Brooke opened the door for him and waited for him to climb inside. Only after he was in did she move around and into the driver’s side. She didn’t make much small talk as she backed out of the spot, eyeing the line again and watching for pedestrians as she started away from the hospital. After a moment she spoke up again, ”I miss movie theaters.” Brooke glanced over at him, ”Sitting in the dark with a bunch of strangers. I used to go alone when I was in Germany, before all of this started. There is something so empowering about going to dinner and a movie alone. Now who knows if that industry will even survive.” She had her eyes back on the road as she went on, ”And tinder. No one with any human decency swipes anymore, you’d be crazy to!” She shifted her gaze over to him, ”What about you?”
Grief was weird. It was taught to be linear but it didn't work that way. She bounced between the stages sometimes minute to minute. And the shock that had assaulted her at the sight of him was fading. The more time she spent with Thomas the more the differences in the twins would show themselves. He carried himself different when he walked, and his hair was different. His voice was so close she could close her eyes and see his brother speaking, but physically there were tells. Least of all was his slighter build for the people closest to the two of them. The shock had faded and was moving into acceptance again and then he broke some unspoken taboo and used that word.
My brother.
She glanced over at him, trying to see if he was ok talking about him or if this was for her benefit. It had been years and she had grieved and was trying to sort out of survivors guilt and all of the overthinking that came with running that scenario over and over again in her head to try and suss out what they could have done differently. But it was fresh again as she faced it down with Thomas there. She had been at the funeral, granted leave to recover from the event, but that had been different. They were all so blind with the trauma that the whole thing felt like something she had watched on television or read about, not done herself.
He was protesting but she scoffed and rolled her eyes, not taking it or accepting it. Brooke reached out and punched him in the arm, "it wouldn't be me you're wrestling, just other squints. And you definitely have a leg up on them." she had felt in that punch that his muscle was still lean, could see from beneath his sleeve that there definition. Those were not the slabby arms of an ex-cadet. Whatever he got up to, he still used them. But he definitely still did plenty of squinting, she could see the wrinkles dug deep between his eyebrows from the glaring he probably did at samples and data.
The questions about his work earned her snark and she smirked, "I am thrilled to now pass that buck onto you, young one." she said it dramatically, teasing like it hadn't been three years since they'd last seen each other. Being in the Army, morale was kept high by reminding people that the work they were doing was there to keep the world safe, to make it better, and to protect the vulnerable. Now that was all in the scientist's hands. She couldn't infiltrate and shoot the newest threat to humanity, as much as that might make everything a lot easier. But he wasn't teasing or thinking about it like that at all.
Brooke rolled her eyes at him and shook her head, speaking seriously, "You can't fool me, I've seen the motivational posts online." her hand reached out and gripped his shoulder, "Not all heroes wear capes, Thomas." She was only half-teasing. It was cheesy and it made her roll her eyes every time an aunt would share it, but they were at war and he really was one of the ones that could successfully combat it. But when he went on and gave her a line that sounded like something out of a PR statement she scoffed, stopping her walk forward and reaching out to grasp his bicep so that he was forced to stop too. "You did not just PR me! Oh my God! Did they make you all memorize that statement? Are you being brainwashed? Blink twice if you need help."
He proved quickly that he wasn't, though, referring to his own grunt work and she gave a little bit of a shrug at all of that before she spoke up softer, "At least you weren't relegated to it because you're unfit to do anything else." there it was. That was the truth she'd kept out before. But they had reached the door and she reached forward, pushing it open so that he wouldn't have to touch the surface. And when he was through she pulled sanitizer from her pocket and put some on her hands, rolling them together as the alcohol evaporated and hopefully killed whatever had gone from the door to her flesh at the touch. "Pretty wild that this stuff is part of my distributed equipment for being in the field." she waved the sanitizer at him before tucking it away and motioning to where she had parked the car. "so does your NDA preclude you from telling me what you're gonna do with all those records?
She motioned and he took a step and suddenly she was transported back 11 years. They were seniors, they were facing down finals and futures. The twins’ mom was sick and adulthood was rushing up toward them. She could remember feeling like she couldn’t wait to get away, to leave and make a way for herself that didn’t involve her sisters. Her oldest sister was pregnant with her first baby that year and the look in her parent’s eyes when they eyed their four other daughters and hungrily anticipated a houseful of little mormon babies popping out of each of them it turned her stomach. She couldn’t get out fast enough.
But it had been easier then because when they finally smashed into adulthood it had nothing good for any of them. Tommy got to deal with his right away. Brooke knew about his role in that, how he had been there and the others hadn’t. She had held Charlie’s head against her chest as he drunkenly sobbed and confessed to her that he felt both glad and guilt that he wasn’t there, that he didn’t have to see the last breath collapse her chest in and give her body the uneasy look of stillness that came over it in death. The two of them had seen that last breath in war, whether from starving children, abused women, or battered soldiers. That last haunting image of a vibrant breathing body turning into a cadaver would never leave the mind. Charlie had that image for strangers. Tommy endured it with his own Mother.
Easily she took her place beside him, not bothering to let him walk ahead of her like she had anticipated this would go. They were friends, or had been. As the awkward silence invaded the sacred space of their reunion she wondered if that was true anymore. Brooke had been the one to pull Thomas into their life overseas. She would send him snaps from bars, both her and his brother drunk and calling out that they missed him, selfies in bathrooms with her hip cocked to the side, hair pulled to one side, peace sign up and a sleepy drunk droop to her eyelids. And then there was the letter writing. A lot of what she sent him was stream of consciousness bullshit that didn’t make sense. And when he didn’t respond she had assumed that it was because whatever she said had been too much or hadn’t made sense. Brooke never would have thought that good, kind Thomas would ignore her.
But then she’d let his brother die and there weren’t responses to her last emails.
He spoke up about not wanting an escort and she smiled at him. It was worthless, though. The mask wouldn’t show any change in her features except maybe the skin under her eyes wrinkling a touch. ”Maybe next time you should kick their ass or something, show them you really don’t need it. You could probably take me right now, this new gig has me soft.” And it was true. When she was in the combat zones her body was leaner, her muscle more developed and defined. Now that she was filling the role of hulked-out police officer she’d regained a little more roundness to her hips, her breasts hung a little more full, and there was a layer of padding that took some of the definition from her abdomen. If the masks weren’t mandated she would go running, she told herself. But there was no breathing in the things and it didn’t make a lot of sense.
Brooke laughed, feigning offense to his accusation, ”How dare you, I would never piss someone off!” She was teasing, of course. With the people that didn’t matter to her whatever came to mind slipped right past her pale pink lips and into the world to wreak havoc and cause offense. ”No, this is just my job now.” How did she say that the reason she was there was because her mental health made her unfit for duty in a more high-risk zone? Could she say Actually, I’m here because I watched the back of your brother’s head explode. I think I even got some of his brain matter in my hair. Not like this, she couldn’t. ”The world went crazy and they had to call in people like me to do the grunt work while people like you save the world.”
And he would be able to tell she meant it. Brooke wasn’t teasing him. Thomas was one of the smartest people she had ever known. ”You’re gonna do it, right? Close? To finally putting all of this to bed?”
The task came in over email and she read it over: escort a Prism nerd back to the lab. It was pathetic, Brooke knew. She’d faced down the barrel of automatic weapons but now she was walking at the back of a scientist while he struggled to lift a filebox of medical records. She could see them struggling to push their glasses up their nose, little beads of sweat from the heavy box of data at their side, and she’d let it happen. After all, in all the movies the guards never carried the precious cargo. That made far too much sense.
So she was posted up in the staff room, arms crossed and watching expectantly for the dweeb to make his way toward her. But 1300 came. And then 1315. She found herself opening the email, checking and rechecking the time and then tucking it back in. At 1330 she texted her CO to check in and get further instructions. Should she go in and find them? Her face felt warm under the mask as her mind raced to try and work out what had them delayed. She could picture it in great detail, the interception of data, the corporate espionage, the riot? Brooke found herself checking her person. She touched at the gun on her hip, the knife on the other side, and closed her eyes to settle herself from the rising feeling that there would be action coming.
It was the one feeling she could never quite get a handle on. She had spent so much time in a constant state of readiness that slipping out of it in the civilian places was hard to do. It was different when they were off duty and hanging out. With other soldiers everyone lived onthe edge of a knife and so everyone shared the same energy. Civilians never saw anything coming. They never expected the unexpected. It was why so many were dead when the world turned upside down. Humanity had placed themselves at the top of the food chain, developed weapons that could destroy the world, and then relaxed as though the world couldn’t develop weapons of it’s very own to do the same.
She heard someone approaching, he spoke behind his mask. It muffled the man’s voice but he was apologizing about being late. Brooke turned and her heart stopped. She tensed and watched the ghost start toward her. It felt wrong to have his face masked. Charlie had avoided the world going to shit, he’d gotten out before it got bad all over, and here was his face covered in the N95’s that every professional wore. She tried to keep her breathing steady and the demons in the cage she kept them in when the sun was up. Because it wasn’t all bad. It was good to see him. Tommy was just as much her friend as Charlie was, but Tommy wasn’t dead.
He spoke up, he recognized her, and she reached up to touch her face but reminded herself halfway there that they weren’t supposed to do that. She lowered her hand down gave a little bit of a shrug, ”Transferred home. Lucky me, right?” He’d phrased it like a question, though, and after a second she knew that he deserved more than that, ”It’s only been three weeks. A lot of it has been a blur of chain of command and orienting myself with protocols.” To keep her hands from playing with her hair she crossed her arms. She wanted to say that she’d thought about looking him but that felt like a copout and Brooke didn’t want to explain to him that seeing his brother’s face was going to be difficult or that she wasn’t even sure he wanted to see her. So she just cleared her throat and motioned to the door on the far side of the room opposite from where he’d come in. ”The car’s on the street, hopefully we haven’t gotten a ticket with the delay. Ready to go?”
