As soon as I got to my rental car and made sure there were no listening bugs in it, I called Jane instantly over the secure number we usually used to talk with each other. She picked it up instantly. "Frederic, Frederic are you there?" Jane asked.

Recalling that that was the name I was going by (though most called me Fred, she always did like full names), I answered her, "Yes Jane it is me, I have made sure that everything is secure, no bugs in my car, windows tinted to make sure no one reads my lips and all the other usual procedures. What is this all about? This is quite unusual for all the time I have known you."

She rushed on breathlessly, "Frederic, this is bad, you remember the town of Hope, Idaho all those years ago?"

*flashback*

It was easy to sneak into the town, even though they were watching for the virus, they were expecting people trying to go out, never in. Though none of it mattered anyway as I was sure I could take them all on. Experimenting with such a deadly thing, these people must be stupid. Hadn't they seen George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, zombies just swarm and eat you in the end. Shaking my head, I slipped into town with none the wiser, using the uniform of a Blackwatch private. I was curious as to what these people were doing with the plague.

"Nothing good, most likely trying to make it into a weapon, one that could blow in their faces," I thought wryly. I looked at some of the civilians, coughing up blood as the plague wracked them, and my heart went out to the children the most. I resolved to put them out of their misery, screw this experiment and whatever it might yield. As it was an army town, I knew I could get enough ordinance to blow the place sky high, and with a little nudge I could even convince Blackwatch to do it quickly.

*End Flashback*

"Yeah I remember Jane," I said after a quick memory flash. "What happened, did they salvage some data? Or did they actually start up the experiments again?

I heard Jane suck her breath in and sigh loudly before she said, "Worse, Frederic they never stopped. Apparently they had a survivor, Elizabeth Greene and her unborn child, and they have been experimenting on her for years. However, that's not even the worst part. Somehow, through ancient records and a lot of digging, they found your home village John, the one you told me you grew up in. They found your home village of Ishanbar, and worse they found a slightly corrupted version of the original strand."

I was dumbfounded. That the virus could survive so long without cohesion in a host itself was a curse, but to have even a fragment beyond what they had already gathered from mummified remains was terrible. My mind was working possibilities, going impossibly fast. Blackwatch I already knew was connected to Gentek through many ways, and I had been keeping tabs on them, but with the destruction of Hope, Idaho I thought them weakened. I had severely underestimated them to my own deep regret, and now I would have to get serious.

I said to Jane, "I think it's time I arrange my own premature demise Jane, this doesn't bode well, not only for me, but also any living thing that plague gets to. Call up the regulars for my identity change, standard fee, plus a few diamonds to make sure they pull out all the stops, I need this done quickly. Also, send all information to my secure drive, encrypted of course, and delete it off your machine, if they even catch a hint of you looking into this…I can't lose my favorite super spy."

She chuckled, "Awww, the old guy has a heart after all does he? Well, it was hard getting that much, but I would suggest going to Turkey to see if they are still there. It can't be easy to smuggle that virus across international borders. Contact Jared, I am sure he will be happy to guide you again. What name do you want to go by this time for your rebirth?"

I smiled wickedly, saying, "Joe, or as I know you are going to put me down, Joseph. Looks like you can't drag me shopping everywhere as you were planning to do in my free time though, so one good thing came about this. Can we do a less painful death this time, that crunching of a car accident was rather painful in regions I would rather not need to heal, how about a gas explosion, just to cast some suspicion on the General Electric fellows. Can't waste all that hard work after all right?"