A/N Chapter 3. Still don't own.

Lab work

Kurt Hummel sat in the lab of the Urban Development wing of the SmytheCorp company. Science wasn't really a strong suit of his, so he was content to watch Sam run the tests. Of course, he didn't actually know whether or not Sam was doing the tests or just putting on a show, but Sam struck Kurt as being a fundamentally honest person, for a SmytheCorp executive.

It was easy enough getting access to each facility. Sam would be waved on through by a guard, befitting his status. Usually Sam knew who each person was and could engage in some brief conversation while getting the samples he needed. In this manner, they made a circuit of the city, before returning to the upper plate, and the building that housed the Urban development portion of SmytheCorp.

Sam broke the silence, "Did you want me to call Tina to let her know you won't be in till the afternoon?"

Kurt quirked an eyebrow at him, "It's Tina now? Hmph." He glanced up at the clock, which read 6:26 am. "Well, Mr. Evans, that would be appreciated. Considering that I'm supposed to go in at 8."

Sam smoothed his hair back as he looked over the read out of the water samples that he had ran. "You can call me Sam, you know."

Kurt was alright with that. "Ok, Sam. What's the readout say?"

Sam handed him the paper that had spooled out of the printer. "Says it's clean. I'll probably have an assistant collect more samples over the next few days to make sure the quality stays the same, but I'm gonna lift the hold on the water mains."

"That's good."

"Yeah. I can't imagine Professor Figgins will be pleased though. He'd welcome more test subjects."

"You say that like you're displeased, Sam."

"Wouldn't you be, if you saw your life's work being warped like this?"

"Life's work?"

"The mako reactors, Midgar. It was done with SmytheCorp money, but the ideas were mine. Honestly, you do know that we're working for a bunch of monsters?"

"So, that's why I'm here."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"You're leaking information to Avalanche, aren't you, and you want to enlist me. I mean, you don't just walk into a reactor. They needed to be able to get around the security systems, hack the programs set up, and any alarms that might have been triggered."

"Kurt, this city is poorly designed. The reactors sit on the upper plate of Midgar which is attached to the lower plate, which is suspended by a series of pillars, one in each sector, that keep the city floating. Blowing a reactor has the potential to damage a support pillar, which could bring down a sector, killing thousands of people."

"You designed it."

Sam tugged on the cuff of his jacket, "Well yeah. No one was supposed to live on the lower plate. That's why all the sectors down below are collectively referred to as the slums. You can't even see the sky because the upper plate blocks off the view."

"I suppose even a perfect city like Midgar needs its whores."

Sam laughed, "That's right. On Honey Bee detail with the President?" He waited for Kurt to begrudgingly nod before continuing on. "Yeah. I've heard stories."

"No comment."

"I could do without the imagery. Not exactly my scene. Anyway, I do need to make sure the city is still standing. . ."

Kurt took that as his dismissal and promptly left. He knew that someone was leaking intelligence to Avalanche. That much was certain. Everything he had said to Sam was valid. He was too tired though, and resolved to put these matters out of his mind until he went into work in the afternoon.

After seeing Kurt out of the building Sam got out his communicator and left a message with Tina requesting Kurt Hummel be given the morning off. He sent the message to Karofsky who was the executive who oversaw the SmytheCorp military.

He ran a hand through his hair as he pondered the situation before him. The planning, and sending of sensitive data to a known terrorist group for the attack on the Sector 8 reactor had been entirely the doing of the Vice President. The die had been cast, so to speak. Karofsky was itching to declare martial law and impose a crackdown and bring a whole bunch of new security systems to bear on the population of Midgar in the name of fighting terrorism.

To be sure, there were workarounds to get access to the system to let people with faked identification cards through, however, Sam was being run ragged working on things that fell within his purview. He didn't have any spare time to devote to helping a terrorist organization. Well, not very much spare time anyways.

He looked over the plans of the train tunnels that he had pulled up on his secure terminal. Avalanche would need them because their cards could get on the train, but the new security protocols would kick in mid transit and they would need to leave the train and take the tunnels. He stared at the screen before him and thought things over. Sending the plans would commit him to a course of action that he wouldn't be able to back off of. There would be a trail, however faint, that would connect him to this group. There was a gas chamber in Junon with his proverbial name on it. His younger brother and sister could be orphaned, forced to beg in the slums.

On the other hand, Sam had seen things. SmytheCorp was no longer about producing cheap Mako energy for the entire planet. The energy was a means to an end. Now, SmytheCorp was about things like the reactor at Nibelheim, where human subjects were subjected to high enough doses of Mako energy to induce mutations that turned them into biological weapons. SmytheCorp was about placing reactors in mountains where rare species nested, destroying their habitat. SmytheCorp was about conquering the world. He had made it all possible as an up and coming man with an idea.

Sam sent the plans to Sebastian.