Fall 2008 - Preface

Metagame translation: I’m giving background information for the character that I’m playing in HvZ this semester. It justifies the info that I filled out when I signed up as a Security man on www.rebuildourfuture.com. Also, my character finds notes left in the form of Zombie Journals from my previous 2 semesters. I was zombified on Day 5 of 7 in the second semester, and I was a survivor in the first semester. Thus, this is a continuation of my old struggle manifested in a new victim. I am weary of Syrner as the mods in-game may try to screw us over.

I’m making pretty good money for what I have to do, just toting a revolver around and looking menacingly at teenagers that wander too close to the complex. It suits me, though. Having an easy job allows my mind to wander to deeper issues; what to make for dinner that night, how to impress that girl that works in Personnel. Ok, so maybe I’m just lazy, but damned if I’m not imaginative. And my favorite thing to do is to dig through all the old records of what Kirksville, Missouri was like before I was hired for Project Rebuild, before Syrner took over the city, during the plagues in the first decade of the new millennium.

What Syrner told me, what they told all the employees on orientation day, was that a freak strain of the Ebola virus got some people sick. Not knowing they had the virus, they didn’t quarantine themselves or go to a doctor until it was too late. After a week there was no communication to and from the town, and the military sealed the town off soon after. I guess Syrner found this strain interesting, so they took over the town and rebuilt it after cleansing it of all contaminants. That was in 2008. Now it’s October 17, 2013 and the town is once again inhabitable. Syrner has power-generating plants, biological laboratories, and state-of-the-art research centers with tons of the top scientists in different fields. It’s a marvel of humanity and the pinnacle of scientific achievement. That’s what Syrner told me.

Syrner is my employer insomuch that some fat cat in the 42nd story of some building somewhere makes 10 times my salary just to make sure that I get money every week. I can’t stress it enough – a job is a job, and money’s tight. That said, I’ve done my objective research into the underbelly of the business. If there’s one thing I know about big corporations, it’s that they’re never as perfect as they’ll make themselves out to be on paper. Syrner is hiding some juicy secrets.

There was an incident in 2007, unconnected to the media and very hushed, about a killer Ebola virus that wiped the town near Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. Newspaper clippings showed that a helicopter flew from the quarantine a few days after the military took action, but that the chopper crashed and everyone died. Sad story. But it gets worse. The Syrner archives have some classified material that was collected before the purging of the Ebola virus, and naturally I’ve thumbed through bits of it… there are some pretty astounding accounts by some guy who wrote under the penname “Tarmo”…

“During the 8-day siege - from the outbreak of the infection to the day that the helicopter came - the zombies grew more desperate and more cunning. The surviving humans either became more stealthy or joined the ever-swelling ranks of the undead. After a week of unrelenting zombification, the uninfected pooled their technological resources (and those of surviving technicians in Mt. Pleasant) and transmitted a radio distress signal. The helicopter came around 11:00 pm on Day 8, and only 9 people made it on.”

Tarmo was referencing to the Mt. Pleasant events! But how did they get to Kirksville? Reading on, I found that the survivors from the helicopter were collected and re-quarantined and left to die. Tarmo tried to send help signals to no avail, and was only able to escape when rogue researchers broke into Mt. Pleasant to collect evidence concerning the events. Tarmo escaped and made it to Kirksville. The conspiracy to cover up Mt. Pleasant had extended to research in the town of northeast Missouri, and the mysterious anonymous author hitchhiked to the town to uncover the truth.

His journals of the Kirksville events were not as extensive, and only lasted about halfway into the siege (the length I determined from another set of journals). After these confidential reports and independent research, I’ve concluded that everyone, including the mysterious “Tarmo”, died in Kirksville from the infection.

But was it all to be taken at face-value? What were the “zombies” Tarmo mentioned? Why was Syrner concealing these documents? What was the connection? There’s something bigger going on here and I intend on finding out what it is, starting by volunteering for the anti-zombification militia as assembled by none other than Syrner itself.

Until next time, this is John Mohr.