Town of Samson, USA.

The agent glanced quickly through a crack in the boarded windows, shaking his head as those... things shambled around the street or simply stood in place like a statue, waiting for something - someone - to come their way. The team sat in the living room, silent as a grave. The agent's orders. The agent came back and flopped down onto the floor, groaning as he rubbed his sore arm.

After a moment, Hanzo spoke. "Agent...," The man began softly. "Where is your group? What happened here?"

The agent gave a weak, bitter laugh. "I'm not supposed to tell you that," The agent spoke after a moment's beat. "You're just here to get me out. You want to know what happened?"

He pointed at the wall behind them, a spray of dark red stained against the peeling wallpaper. "That," The agent said, "That was my CO. Gave himself a shotgun kiss. Our medic burned himself alive like those Buddhist monks out in South Vietnam." He laughed again, stronger this time, but just as bitter. "Everyone else is dead."

"All right, but what about the zombies mate? Mind explaining that one?" Junkrat ask, drinking down a aged beer he found in the kitchen.

The agent gave him a very annoyed look that even the gas mask could not hide. His eyes burned into the Aussie. "They're not... zombies. Well, they're not undead. Infected, if that's the right word." He pulled out a small manila folder from the inside of his coat and threw it onto the table. "And it's that man's fault."

Satya picked up the folder and opened it.

"Doctor Paul Mayfair. Child prodigy. In German, he'd be called a wunderkind. Part of the American super-soldier program years back. Had an obsession with pushing himself farther - a lot farther - than anyone would normally let him. When he got fed up, he left and tried to go public." The agent smiled darkly behind his gas mask. "The Americans... well, they crucified him. He went underground after that."

"Until now." Satya spoke mournfully. "He resurfaced?"

The agent let out a sadden sign. "Yes, the Organization tried several times to recruit our dear Doctor Mayfair, but we had little to no success. We tracked him here, with him protecting his ass with a small security team of humans and omnics. When we entered the town... Āllāha…" He put his head in his hands as he pull himself together. "He had poisoned the town's water supply. Most of the people here were turned within a day. Only thing that saved us is the fact he can't control the infected, and he lost most of his security detail thanks to us and 'them'. He's hold up in the town's high school, trying work a way out of here."

The agent stood, one fist wrapped tightly around his rifle, the other balled into a tight fist."We can't let him escape. We have to end him and his work here, and now. He won't stop at Samson. He's got plans to poison a dozen other towns in the region. If we hit him now, hard and fast, we can send the bastard to hell. We can save thousands."

"I don't know about ya mates, but this isn't what I signed up for." Junkrat scoffed. "I'm getting the hell out of here, mates. Right Hog?"

Mako was silent as the field agent seemed to freeze in the beginnings of a step, only to turn around and give the Aussie a heavy right hook that sent him flying into the floor. The team jumped to their feet, weapons drawn as the agent glared down at Junkrat with a look of hate behind the goggles in the gas mask.

"Haven't you been listening?
Mayfair is insane. Samson is only the start." The agent hissed through the ventilator. "If he gets away, he will do the same thing here all over the state. If we capture him the Organization will just find a way to use him. He has to die."

"You...you really not gonna listen to this nut? He's apeshit!" Junkrat exclaimed loudly.

"We can't let innocents come to harm," Hanzo spoke clearly. "We shall going to bring this man to justice." Hanzo was already thinking about putting a noose around this man, no, this monster's neck once they find him.

Symmetra nodded. "We were given a mission. We shall carry it out, no matter what happened here." Symmetra felt sick to her stomach, but hid it behind a professional face.

"Ain't no one deserve this, especially people who ain't fighters." Lúcio snarled. "This guy's gotta go." He was never more sure in his life.

"Come Roadhog! Talk some sense into these nuts!" Mako, for his part, was still silent. And Junkrat understood the silence. He understood what it meant. We're doing this whether you like it or not. And you're coming with us.

XXX.

Across the way sat Samson High School, where Mayfair and his bodyguards were huddled in safety. The team watched from a rooftop as the infected surrounded the school and filled the parking lot. The agent had told them the Samson's local police and surviving townsfolk had tried to hole up in the city hall. City Hall had been overrun within a day, made evident by the burned-out husks of police cars and the makeshift barricades. The main building of the high school had guards on them acting as lookout.

"Where's the nutjub?" Junkrat hissed. "I bet he ran off. I warned you about helping him out…"

"Jamison, please be positive in this. And no bombs." But Junkrat had a point. This was clear to Lúcio and the others. The agent had told them he 'needed to do something first' and had not been seen since. He couldn't have….

The explosion rocked the street. As one the group turned, to see the agent laughing manically as he tossed grenades left and right. Cars exploded and threw infected back or tossed them into the air.

"Hey! Freaks! Dānaba! Come and get me!" The agent giggled like a maniac. The infected moved towards him as he fell back, firing trying to get as many to come after him. Symmetra moved to help the agent, and paused.

"Let's go." She spoke. "He's drawing them off."

He was drawing the infected's attention, focusing them all on himself, so the team could get into the school. And it was working. The few guards on the school's roof were too busy looking at the madman throwing grenades at the infected.

"Shouldn't we...you know, help him?" Lúcio moved to help the agent, but stopped as Hanzo laid a hand on his shoulder.

"He made his choice." Hanzo replied. "Honor him by completing our mission." Hanzo took aim and let loose a arrow. Then another. And another. Two guards fell from the high school's roof and, with a nod from Hanzo, Symmetra created her lightbridge to cross between the two buildings.

"We can't just leave him!" Lúcio exclaimed. "No way, brother. I'm going to go and give him a hand." Scion moved in front of the young man immediately.

"Don't waste his sacrifice with your own death," The Scion snarled. "Don't be an idiot. Follow the mission."

Lúcio wanted to argue more, about letting the man get himself after saving them earlier, that is was simply the right then to do, but gave in after seeing no one else would support him.

"Fine…"

XXX.

The smell of death hung heavy in the high school's hallways. It rose up and wrapped itself around the team's throats, choking them with the scent. The team held their breath as they moved through the hallways, making quick work with any infected still shambling around. Shots and explosions could still be heard outside, but they paid the sounds no mind. They stopped the stairway as Hanzo pull out a map given by them by the agent and Symmeta created a teleportation pad, if things went south back to the bed and breakfast where they first arrived.

"Mayfair should be in the auditorium." Hanzo spoke. "Fawkes, you and Rutledge will hit the main office and the front doors. Santos, you take the school's garage. Vaswani and I will take the gym. If anything happens, contact the rest and fall back."

XXX.

The scientist said it was simple testing. That it would not take long to give him the results he needed. That is what he said. He never mentioned he was poisoning a whole town into monsters, nor that he couldn't control them, nor that some shadowy organization was after him. At definitely never told him that most of his men were dead or worse.

The mercenary leader was a man who was beyond angry. And yet he could only watch uselessly as the scientist puttered from work station to work station, muttering under his breath about who knows what, working on his 'keys to the kingdom'. The auditorium (the gym had been set on fire to keep the infected away) had all of the chairs ripped up from the floor to make room for Doctor Mayfair's equipment: tubes with unknown liquids, needles and syringes, and gurneys with both the dead and infected strapped into them tightly.

"I am so close... just need more time..." Mayfair muttered to himself. To the casual observer, he would look not out of place as a comic-book's example of a mad scientist: wild and dirty grey hair, cybernetic implants embedded in his head, bloodshot eyes, and a look in his eyes that even the mercenary leader felt uncomfortable under. "I'm so close... I can find it..."

"How much longer is this going to take, Mayfair?" The leader snarled. "The car should be fixed by now. When it is, we're leaving."

The scientist glanced up from his work, his eyes boring intently into the mercenary leader. "Be silent! You have little idea of the accomplishments I have done here. I am one step closer to starting the new age. MY AGE!" He yelled out and waved his arms in glee as the mercenary leader could only watch in disgust.

The mercenary commander was tired, angry, and ready to just take out his pistol when the pop pop pop echoed faintly in the room. He grabbed his walkie-talkie and pressed down on the button firmly. "The hell? Echo 2, report. Echo 2, is it more of those things, or is it that nutjob in the gas mask? Come in, over." Nothing, but static as the shouts and shots got closer.

"Can't you idiots do anything right?!" Mayfair roared.

The mercenary commander was just about to pull his pistol on Doctor Mayfair, his fingers brushing against the holster, and... and the doors burst open. Lúcio rolled in and, taking advantage of the shock, used a sonic burst on a mercenary to throw him into a table. The crash of equipment and test tubes came like glass rain against the hard floor. Mayfair wasted no time, grabbing a metal case and making a run for it.

His reward was an arrow to the knee.

"Now Doctor..." Hanzo remarked. "Don't think we'd let you go like that..."

The doctor looked up from his bleeding keen to a group of very angry people. "Now, now ...I am sure there is something we could work out…"

XXX.

The town of Samson was put into lockdown mode. After... dealing with the dear Doctor Mayfair, the team was able to get into contact with MacLaren and the Organization. Within a few hours, a cargo aircraft full of special field agents send by MacLaren landed and began the arduous task of clearing the town and surrounding area of the infected. Row after row of body bags lined the streets, sidewalks, and the parking lots of the town. The team sat in silence on the steps of the high school. They couldn't find the words to talk of what lay in their hearts. Just...sat in silence. Even Junkrat said nothing, if out of some form of respect he could muster.

"Well..." A voice above them spoke. "Look at you all. Well done, boys and girls." The team glanced up to see a man swathed in a light brown suit, a dark red tie hanging down the middle of his chest, with the same color of his red leather shoes. A tattoo of a cross lay prominent on his hand. "You saved a lot of lives from Mayfair's work."

The team did not say anything.

"Where is Doctor Mayfair?" The suit continued. "His work?"

They look at each other before Lúcio spoke up. "He...got killed in the crossfire with his bodyguards and the infected. The fire destroyed his work. Nothing left." A lie like any other.

The suit only rise a eyebrow but seem to accept it. "A pity. Despite his madness, he was invaluable. Oh well. No reason to cry over split milk." He pulled out a cigar and lit it, puffing smoke and exhaled contentedly.

"What happens to Samson?" Hanzo asked. "To everything?"

The suit took his cigar from his mouth and exhaled, a thin puff of smoke wafting upwards. "Erased, of course. The town of Samson will be removed from every public record. Every map, book, tax code, birthday." The suit took another drag of his cigar. "Every person from here will be removed from the book, or relocated given a new death. Every building will be torn down."

The team looked at each other uneasily. Was it that easy? Removing a whole town and all its people? It was one thing for a town to die through a natural disaster, like Pompeii, but this? Roadhog looked uneasy, the proposal reminding him of what happened in the Outback as Lúcio press for more answers.

"But...what about any survivors? Did anyone besides that one agent make it?" Lúcio asked.

The suit nodded and exhaled, another waft of smoke drifting lazily upwards. "Ah yes. Agent Rani, your friend with the gas mask. He managed to survive, and currently recuperating in a rehab center. He has extensive wounds, mental and physical. Other survivors?" The suit shrugged. "There's no one else." He turn, and toss his cigar. "Get some rest. You all need it." He walked away as the team pulled themselves up from the steps and walked back to the Pegasus as Samson and the horror here was wrap from existence.