S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11) by Saul Tanpepper

man’s.”
    â€œIs it possible a CU got out when your vic entered?”
    â€œNegative. There are three auto-locking barriers here. The victim made it through all three in succession and was found here in the aeration chamber. If one of the missing units happened to have gotten as far as the gate, protocol dictates that the guard immediately alert someone of the breach.
    â€œBut we know they’ve already broken protocol.”
    He sighed. “True.”
    The tension on Captain Harrick’s face deepened.
    Eric was well aware what was worrying her. Confirmation, or even a strong suspicion, that an uncontrolled Reanimate had been inadvertently released into the general population required them to activate the mandatory “shelter-in-place” warning system, and that could be a royal pain in the ass to clear. Lower Manhattan had called their own S.I.P. situation nearly a month ago, and it was only just now getting ready to clear it.
    Eric knew she was waiting for him to declare the situation fully contained. He wished he could oblige her, but he couldn’t. Not just yet.
    â€œOf the six units in the facility inventory, I’m still waiting on visual confirmation of two of them. We’ve traced signal from one implant, but not the other. The shift supe believes the implant device may have been destroyed.”
    â€œWhy would he think that?”
    â€œHe says there’s a blockage at one of the outflow valves, so it looks like the last unit fell into the pool and got sucked into a pipe. The tracked signal localizes to the same pipe, suggesting they’re both in there. Arc just sent authorization to send a third unit down into the pools to get a visual.”
    Captain Harrick’s face tightened. “Can’t they just drain the tanks? Wouldn’t that be quicker?”
    â€œDraining’s not the problem, it’s diverting the inflow material. The Second Street plant is down for repairs, so this site has taken up the slack. Apparently it could take up to eight hours to bring enough spare capacity online to reroute all the waste flow.”
    An edge left the captain’s eyes. Now she just looked tired. The recent spate of Undead-related issues that had cropped up in the past four weeks had taken their toll on her— on them all. “It’s been ten hours since they first went off-line,” she reminded him. “If we don’t clear this up soon . . . .”
    Eric shrugged. He knew she was looking for him to throw her a life preserver. Ten hours was an awful long time not to resolve a CU problem, but the lack of sightings of the fluorescent green jumpsuits used by the Omega civil servants worked to their favor. There were no reports of attacks, and, most telling, Arc’s implant network hadn’t picked up any new death clusters which couldn’t be explained by other causes. If an unlinked CU had gotten loose in a populated area, they’d almost certainly have heard something by now.
    â€œLet me know when you have confirmed visuals on both of the missing units,” the captain said.
    â€œWe may never get a visual on at least one of them,” Eric warned.
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œI think one got pureed,” the supe chimed in nervously, leaning in toward Eric and speaking directly to the captain through his Link. Eric pushed him away.
    â€œWhat’s he blathering on about?” Captain Harrick asked, her frown deepening.
    â€œThe missing signal,” Eric explained. “There’s a mechanical grinder underground for processing large chunks of solid material,” Eric explained. “It basically pulverizes everything. If a CU got into it, there’d be nothing left to ID. The system reported a small pressure spike at—” He checked his tablet. “At ten-oh-seven this morning. It’s consistent with the explosive capacity of an implant’s self-destruct mechanism. I sent Officer Vanne down