Play@YSDC

Mr. Crompton, this is not a test.
CDC Headquarters
1600 Clifton Rd, Atlanta, GA, USA

14 March 2013
00:12



Darrel watches the mass spectro spit out the result from the sample. The slip has highlighted three components. The mass spectrometry analysis of cerebrospinal fluid sent from CAD, Maine, shows it´s heavily contaminated. The cubicle on the seventh floor is the only one active at this time. All other research personnel had punched out long ago. Security still is walking the halls and this is the outcome he had been dreading. This means he has to pull an all nighter. Again.
That´s when the email arrives.

Darrell looks at the readings and lies to himself. "It could just be an anomaly", The reality is setting in that these 'anomalies' aren't all that abnormal anymore. The spectro was just calibrated last month with only minor adjustments made. There's something going on, something that's causing these readings to show elevated matches across this batch of samples. "But if it's not accidental contamination of the batch, then why are these traces showing up in CFS?"

The guard takes a look at Darrell and shakes his head, "Working the late late shift again, eh Darrell?"

Darrell sighs and grabs another cup of stale cold coffee and sits down at his desk to document the findings. As he begins his report and notifications, he sees an unusual email requesting his attention. A quick distraction won't hurt. Especially this time of night.

Darrell shrugs and clicks on the email.

As the email opens up, he gets the ever so common spam-alert. Full caps notification in the subject line. SAVE CASH FOR NOTHING, it reads.
Always the same nonsense. The picture shows promise, though. The woman was wearing almost nothing. But there were no links to follow and when he reads the sender verification, he finds that it comes from a location in Connecticut. darrengrifffith@dg.gov
Almost a namesake.
An ip-number is attached to the sender verification.

Besides forests and lakes, the only thing Darrell knows of Connecticut is Yale University and the C.A. Dean Memorial Hospital (CAD).


For some time now, the CAD account had been had an increasing amount of anomalies.
Whatever they were doing over there, it would soon set off some huge alarm bells.

The subject line echos is Darrell's head, causing yet another distraction. Darrell opens up a link to Youtube and queues up some Dire Straights. "Money for Nothing" starts playing in the background as Darrell flips back to the email.

"Mr. Griffith,

It appears your dg.gov account is sending out SPAM. Might want to look into that

Regards,

Darrell Crompton"

"Shit...]" He says, as the reply is sent. Darrell realizes that if it were a SPAM bot, he just left his signature block attached to the email giving the receiver a full set of contact info for both himself and the lab. Neither of which would be difficult to get, but to willingly give the info to a spammer just stings the soul a bit.

Darrell's mind wanders between the background music, thinking about the samples coming in from CAD and what they might mean, and what is actually showing up in the tests. Darrell's still awake out of sheer necessity and too much coffee. The results aren't making a whole lot of sense right now, but he knows something's just not right.
It's late, or perhaps early to the rest of the world. Darrell lets music keep playing as he tries to make sense of everything. Looking at the image, Darrell randomly clicks around on the image to see if there's something he's missing. Darren Griffith sounds familiar, and Darrell remembers the last "Spam" that came through. Seems to be a pattern here at least. The model does seem to be looking at something, like the image was cropped a certain way.

Hmm.... *click*

A new tab opens and a transcript from CAD comes up. It´s dated ten days ago.
It shows fourteen victims arriving at CAD for processing. They are DOA and are of age ranges between 3-7.
An extra set of victims show up at the bottom. Three women in the 27-42 range.
No names are given.
Cause of death: Blood loss due to sharp edge injury.

The samples are in Greenville.

He spins his chair at Clifton Road, Atlanta. He had been given a place to stay near CAD when he had signed off on the account.
Yet, he has to go there. Now he might have a reason.

The question is, how does this Darren Griffith know of his connection with CAD?

The recently sent mail gets bumped and arrives in the in-box. FAILURE TO DELIVER

OOC: Btw there´s a dice tab in the list above the message box. Chemistry@ 40% [dice]0[/dice]

[dice]0[/dice]

Darrell weighs the pros and cons of going. Staying here and processing labs and reports is easy work. Mind-numbing, simple, easy. Darrell likes easy, it's low stress, and that's part of why he's here.

One line from the transcript especially stands out to him: ...fourteen victims...They are DOA and are of age ranges between 3-7.

Darrell has seen plenty of 'disturbing' things. Dealing in forensics has hardened him to most, but the thought of 14 kids sends a shiver down his spine. Maybe it's the lack of sleep, but he feels a strange attachment to the report. The thought makes him feel slightly ill.

OOC:

Calling up the chief doctor Adams at CAD gives Crompton an address in Greenville, Lily Bay Road 181. A place where visitors to the hospital or even employees are using. There´s even an opening to lease it, should Crompton be interested.

Dr. Adams insures Crompton that all the test material should be ready at his arrival.

Already being a known name to Adams, Crompton has no trouble getting a visit in.



Directions to the house: Lily Bay Road 181

Darrell starts getting his paperwork in order in preparation for his trip to Maine. Meanwhile, a DVD-R spins up in the drive, a quick 'off-site' backup of his various findings from CAD, along with the records from other lab techs that we're shared on the network drives. Looking at the amount of space left on the disc, Darrell curses the 'no USB policy' and grabs random assortments of PDF's a white papers to fill up space on the disk.

Copying materials is a bit of a grey area around here. Most of what Darrell's been working on doesn't have any personal identifiers with it, but to be on the safe side, a disc with a collection of reference materials that just happens to have some current lab results mixed in is less suspicious than just a disc of lab lab results.

A one-month lease at the house should be plenty of time to dig into things a bit and still have a nice little vacation on the lake. All work and no play makes Darrell a dull boy.

A new checklist is created on his phone.

Things to pack:

• Laptop
• Cell Phone Charger
• socks
• underwear
• shirts
• pants
• mp3 player
• Auto Insurance
• Passport (just in case - close to Canada, eh?)
• Travel sized toiletries. (stupid TSA)
• Carton of smokes
• spare lighter

Darrell spaces out, trying to figure out what else to take. Need to make sure all the bills here are paid for too. Nothing worse than going on vacation and coming home to find out there's no water or electricity. Learned that lesson the hard way.

Darrell books his flight and rental car, courtesy of the CDC. It is, 'Official Business' after all.

Darrel gets his luggage and waits for a cab to take him to the airport.
The cab drives away with Darrel, who light a cigarette and relaxes.

This is where the trail stops.

No trace of Darrel Crompton after this instant.