Hayden surveyed the gore through a monitor, darkly. The pictures were low quality, taken with a cell phone on the sly, but she was used to that. Phages thrived on secrecy and attempts to bring them into the light often met with violent disagreement. That wasn't what was suspicious. She lit a cigarette and rechecked the attached message.

Ths is bob nicholson he was killd by a vampir dont ask how I kno we need ur help plz

It had been sent from a disposable prepaid cell phone, which had then been disposed of. There was no contact information, the phone had been paid for in cash, and the cashier couldn't remember anything about the buyer. The call had been sent from the CHAANK Corporation HQ, but said building was over 60 stories tall and occupied on almost every floor, meaning that almost anyone could have sent it. Coupled with the fact that it had been sent to her work phone, Hayden could only come up with two possibilities: either some very, very careful person needed her help, or it was a trap. She sighed, took a drag off her cigarette, and brought up Nicholson's obituary.

He'd been a CEO, and there would therefore be a high level of security around him. So his killer was either someone he trusted, or strong enough to tear through whatever bodyguards and precautions a multinational arms dealer would possess. Or both, she supposed. Cale hadn't yet heard of a phage strong enough to rip a man in half like that, but that didn't mean one didn't exist. Unfortunately.

Compared to many hunters, she was supposed she was fortunate. She had a high paying job that gave her plausible reasons to travel to different locales, she hadn't lost any limbs, and she was almost perfectly positioned to infiltrate the highest echelons of the CHAANK Corporation without raising too many eyebrows. You couldn't put 'vampire hunter' on your resume, not more than once. Well, trap or no, she'd deal with it. She stubbed out her cigarette and called GSE. She had a job to do.

John Carpenter's office was filled with paperwork, photographs, and yelling.

"Shark attack, that's the best shit you could come up with?" Scott would have thrown a pen at John, but he'd run out of projectiles a long time ago. John winced a little, some economically minded man in the distant past had decided to save money by making the walls out of the thinnest and most sound conducting material available, so the entire floor was now privy to their little argument. Bringing this up would elicit Scott's typical reaction to unpalatable facts, ie he would get louder. John decided to try placation.

"We had to tell the press something, and I didn't see you coming up with any good ideas."

"Fuck you!" He slammed his hands on the desk. "I am in charge of public relations here, and I did not ask you to do my fucking job for me!"

"Keeping quiet would just breed speculation and more bad PR. Now, what have you heard about our new CEO?"

He took a deep breath and seemed to actually consider the question, "Hell, I don't know. She's supposed to be a 'reformer',-" John could practically see the air quotes, "-she's gonna cause problems for us. We'll have to do something about her."

Alright, clearly John would have to spell it out for the kid, "Well, yes but that isn't the problem."

"Get to the fucking point."

"Scott, these reformer types never actually do anything. We act contrite for a while, and wait for it to blow over. Nothing's going to happen on that front. We need to worry about Dante."

"Dante? What about the Hardman-"

"Hardman Project's a dead end anyway. Worst case scenario it gets shut down, no loss for us. But think about Dante's 'special needs.'" He gestured irritably with his cigar.

The conversation died for a while, as both participants pondered the inevitable train wreck that their meeting would produce. After a while Scott broke the silence.

"When does she show up?"

"Next week Monday."

"Fuck."

Another lengthy pause ensued, finally ended by John.

"Want to get a drink?"

"You buying?"

John snorted. "Sure, kid."

"All right."

It was the nicest truck he'd ever hung out in. Hard work by all three of them had made it that way, and now Weyland had a place where he could plot the downfall of capitalism and play his guitar in peace.

Had anyone asked, Weyland would have said that he was getting a little tired of being the voice of reason. Yutani had never had much in the way of restraint, but Weyland knew that Raimi, at least, was capable of stopping to think for 5 seconds. But since Yutani was out getting weed, this was the best opportunity to talk to Raimi he was going to get. He put his guitar down carefully and began.

"Do you really think we can trust Morse?"

Raimi just seemed confused, "Hasn't been wrong yet. Why?"

Sometimes Weyland thought he was being dense on purpose. "Do you really believe in vampires?"

"All his other info was good."

"He's crazy."

"Look, this is America, the right to believe in vampires is in the Constitution." Raimi checked the door for Yutani's return, then continued, "Maybe he's a kook. I dunno. But he's our best chance of taking out CHAANK. We can't back out now."

"He's unstable. He's a conspiracy theorist, he probably believes in lizardmen too. How do we know his source isn't just the voices in his head?"

Before Raimi could answer, they heard the familiar knock on the back doors, Yutani had returned.