"Great - its not even 6 months ago that the world went down the toilet - No, humanity returns to the status quo after the first dust has settled. Sometimes I think we deserved this...", said Violet angrily and stopped pretending to help James. She knew it, her day has gone from bad to worse. Her face showed how much she disapproved of the current situation.

James shrugged and letting Violet vent he picked up and tossed aside a rock bigger than he was with some effort.

After about an hour of this, an inner room is revealed with a set of stairs going down into darkness.

"About time.", said Violet still upset but staying behind the men. "Is there anybody down there?", she spoke with a louder voice.

Fox pulls out his flashlight and heads down the stairs shinning the light around. The stairs go down what would be about 3 stories underground before stopping at a steel door which has been blown off its hinges and there is a large rubble pile where the ceiling has partially collapsed around the doorway. You can crawl carefully over it. Inside it looks like this must have been some kind of research facility but it has been throughly trashed. Everything paper has been burned to ash, and the computers have been destroyed and had their hard drives removed. In what was a heavily shielded room there is the remains of some kind of device, but explosives were used to reduce it to tiny pieces.

James follows Fox, pulling out his own flash light as well. He says,

"This is it. Was it. Whatever. In the other rooms they went after the people and left their stuff alone. Just the opposite here."

James picks up a computer and snorts,

"Took the hard disks? So what was going on here?"

James will spend a while and search this place throughally.

Violet stayed close to James using him as cover in case of an attack. She felt extremely uncomfortable.

"A pity they had to destroy the computers... What could have possibly been hidden here?", she walked around looking for clues and getting a bit further away from James.

Nonchalantly she added, "Maybe they had a cure or something like that?"

James says,

"Or maybe these are the bozos who created the plague."

"Like hell they did.", Violet remarked sarcastically.

"I can't believe any good american would ever do that. It must've been the russians or the chinese or somethin. Crazy people, you know?", Violet still tried finding something useful among the destroyed equipment.

Fox frowned, "Look around you Violet. This look like the work of sane people, destroying one of the few compounds of healthy people just to hide what they did? Still, I think you are right, I don't think they would have intentionally created the plague, but lots of bad things have been created by accident. I don't know what they were researching here, but they were definitely researching something." He climbs back over the rubble pile and wipes some of the dust away. "Lets see if we can find any survivors and get the hell outta here."

"For once we are of the same opinion, Captain. This grave diggin and cave trollin is bad for my teint.", said Violet waiting for James and Fox to clear the piles of rubble.

James climbs out and comments,

"Well, they were better at burning it than I am at finding it. Maybe in their leader's personal quarters?"

Fox frowns, "His quarters were on the second floor of this very building. Fraid that won't help."

James closes his eyes for a moment and gets a forced grin.

"Then we'd better hope for a survivor."

"Either we do a room by room search or hope someone was away from the compound. Or maybe one of the others found something. Let's check up on them."

Rachel did in fact hear sounds that could be those of a survivor or two. They are coming from beneath a pile of rubble surrounded by a handful of zombies who don't look quite as aimless as the others. She calls the rest of the group to come help investigate, and it takes only moments for the zombies to be dispatched. Rachel and Violet keep a lookout and begin picking off zombies that start to head toward your little group of life. Meanwhile, James and Fox use their strength to throw chunks of debris at the zombies splattering them at a distance and anomalously clearing away the rubble above the the sounds of the survivors.

After about 20 minutes and several dozen splattered zombies later an opening into a basement is revealed. Rachel is pretty sure that the survivors have retreated to the far side of the basement. "Sounds like a mother and her child from the whispering I hear. And she has a gun."

James says,

"Well, let's try talking them out."

James booms down,

"Hello the basement. We're not with whoever attacked earlier. I'm James."

Violet carefully steps forward and closes her eyes concentrating on the room. As soon as she sees the mother she smiles and reaches out emotionally to her, comforting her and giving her a feeling of safety and security.

(Empathic Manipulation on woman and child. Trying both to calm down and make more responsive to us)

She goes from holding the gun out and preparing to fire to lowering it, but she still seems wary. "You're not with the others? I don't trust you, but we've been trapped down her without food or water for nearly two days now. Can you please get my daughter some water to drink?" She looks up at the hole in the ceiling hopefully. The stairs are mostly destroyed by the collapsing of the house. "And get us out of here please? You aren't slavers are you?" She starts to look worried again and grips the gun a little tighter.

"Everything is going to be fine Ma'am.", Violet slowly came closer raising her arms carefully avoiding hasty movements. "We're here to help you but please put that gun down before someone gets hurt."

(Activate The Voice and using Empathic Manipulation again)

"Captain, can you get us some water for the Lady and her daughter, please?", Violet tried to get as close as possible to the woman whispering to her. "We're getting you out of here, I promise."

James watches Violet take point and notes with some amusement she's much braver with live people than with dead ones.
James says,

Sure. I've got some with me. James jumps to the bottom of the stairs, pauses a moment to pull out his flashlight and the bottle of water, briefly shines one on the other, then starts walking to the three.

The woman relaxes and puts the gun behind her belt. "Thank you so much." She takes the water bottle from James and first takes a small sip herself, then satisfied that it is just water, she gives it to her daughter and makes sure she doesn't drink too much, too fast. Once her daughter has drunk more than half the bottle she takes another drink and slowly finishes it off. "That was the best water I've ever had." She says it with a smile and reaches a hand out to James.

"I'm Susan, and this is my daughter Jenny. What happened? We were attacked by men in helicopters so me and my daughter ran down into the basement to hide, and after a while it got quiet and you are the first thing we've heard. I tried to start digging us a way out yesterday but I almost broke my leg when part of the stairs gave way. Since then we've been hoping for rescue and dreading that it might be the attackers coming back."

"I'm Violet and my handsome companions are Chief James and Captain Morgan", Violet knelt down to be at eye-level with Jenny and smiled at her.

"Look who we've got here. Such a beautiful girl." Violets voice sounded playfully while she ripped a small piece of cloth from her shirt to carefully whipe some dirt from Jennys face.

(OOC: is the girl very excited?)

She let the men tell Susan what happened and concentrated on keeping Susan and Jenny at ease.

James says,

"Susan... we think after the helicopters shot the place up you were overrun by heavily armed types. They very interested in the computers and equipment in the research building where the commander lived. Did a really good job of wiping clean whatever was going on there, everything is gone, burned, or in pieces. Someone knew what was there and what they were doing, probably had inside help of some flavor."

"By that point everyone was dead or captured and they dropped a couple of truck loads of Zoms in here as clean up. Morgan's base isn't far from here so the extra Zoms ended up there and tried, and failed, to overrun us. We back tracked them to see what was going on and found you and this."

"Question we have is, 'What caused this? What was going on in that building?'"

Susan looked aghast at what James says and uncomfortable at the final question. "Maybe we should go someplace a little safer to talk about it." She looks around at the basement. "This place isn't very comfortable and I'd really like my daughter and I to be able to take a shower and clean up a little. Plus, we are very hungry. I'll be glad to tell you all about what I know if you will guarantee our safety." She gives Violet and James a pleading look.

"I promised you're going to be fine, Susan.", Violet smiled at her warmly.

(OOC: Rapport roll please - I'm really trying to keep her comfortable around us)

"Still we need to know what happened here. We have a base to keep safe and it wouldn't make much sense rescuing you and then falling victim to a similar attack, would it?"

(OOC: using The Voice again - if applicable)

"Well, my husband was one of the scientists. He didn't talk about his work much. Before Z-day, he never said anything at all because of the top secret nature of his work and the government was very strict about that. We were located at another facility then in Virginia. After we moved here he told me that the research might help reverse the zombie plague someday. I don't know if that's true though, he may have just been saying that to keep our hopes up. Just from little things I overheard the other scientists talking about since we've been here, I'm not sure it had anything to do with the zombies. They mentioned 'portals' and 'gateways' and things."

James comments,

"Interesting... especially since the hard disks were gone. If they took the research, and I think they did, then they might have taken some or all of the scientists as well. He might still be alive."

"He's only going to stay that way if we get to him. Who ever did this is ruthless, they'll only let him live as long as he is useful."

"Susan... can you tell us anything about what the helecopters looked like, any markings on them? Or maybe your husband mentioned another base? Why did you have to leave the base in Virginia?"

"Chief?", interrupted Violet.

"Maybe we should get outta here and talk about it on the way back to our base? I think Susan and Jenny need a break and most important - a good warm bath.", Violet smiled at James and gave him a look to convince him that Susan was already trying to be cooperative.

"A few hours won't make that much of a difference, now that we know whats going on? Besides that, we should maybe alarm the others ASAP?", she grinned at Fox, a little proud that she could use some of his military language.

Fox nodded. "That does sound like a good idea. Let's get out of here and we'll continue this conversation on the way."

Once they had gather up the others and gotten everyone situated Susan spoke again loudly due to the rushing wind, "Before Z-Day we were at a government research facility. It was nominally a military base, but I'm pretty sure that was just a cover for the real work going on there. It was in the mountains near Roanoke, but it didn't have a name that I know of. We lived in town so I never actually saw the base, and like I said, my husband never spoke of what they worked on there, but I did get the impression from him that it was very important. Then in the days after Z-Day we packed up and a military transport brought us here before things went completely out of control. We've been here ever since."

James says,

"Fox, what kind of range do those 'copter have? Roanoke is too far isn't it?"

"Yeah, it's definitely too far. On the other hand someone able to maintain attack helicopters is organized enough to have some refilling depots stashed around the country. I was actually thinking of trying to acquire one myself, for purposes of mass elimination of zombie hordes, but it would take a team of men to keep one functional even with all the spare parts and ammo just lying around. These guys sound pretty formidable, definitely more organized than we are."

James' thinks for a moment and says,

"OK, so they came in with the 'copters and took the base. Killed everyone who got in their way, rounded up the survivors, and took what they wanted. Then they let in the Zoms to kill or infect everyone who was left."

"So... did they bring the Zoms with them? You or me might just breach the gate and let them come in on their own, these guys might have trucked them in."

Fox says, "I saw some truck tracks leading up to that big breach in the wall. I'd guess that they lured the zombies there and then got out of the way while the Zombies mopped up the survivors."

James says,

"Hmm... trucks too. How many air force bases are within a 100 mile radius?"

"No, better question. Fox, you said you were thinking about doing something like they did, going air born with those 'copters. Where did you think you were going to get them and where would you supply them around here?"

"If they have someone like you then they should have chosen the best place, just like you."

Violet looked a bit annoyed and bored. She understood that they've found something really important and maybe even the source for a cure. But why did she have to get involved?

She smiled at Susan and Jenny trying to distract herself from these thoughts. "Once we're at the base I'll take care of you two personally. A warm bath should do wonders for both of you. Maybe I can dig up a bubble bath somewhere? Shouldn't be that difficult.", Violet said confidently.

"There are any number of bases where they could get the parts or choppers or even advanced fighters. With everyone turned into zombies its pretty much a matter of just picking them up when you feel like it. As for the trucks, they could have gotten those anywhere, no need to bring one from any distance. Just set down at an abandoned house and drop a couple guys off to grab whatever has gas in it." He looks thoughtful, "If I were them, I would have some hidden fuel depots spread around the country, but those could be anywhere."

James looks up at the mention of a bubble bath and glances at Violet, but doesn't say anything.

(To Fox) "So what does that leave? Checking out their place by Roanoke?"