efore The Turn, the entire main operations room of Zone Five would be lit up with fluorescent lights that took the length of the ceiling, and the many scientists working on the computers below would ignore their faint harmonic buzzing. Still, now only a single massive circular light was on as it hung above the raised circular workstation, and the lone scientist station there missed those days when she couldn't hear the buzzing but the busy chatter of her colleagues surrounding her. That had been over a month ago, forty-six days to be exact, when the army protecting the Centre for Disease Control fell, and her colleagues had been left with a tough decision. Continue working to find a cure or leave and take their chances out in the new apocalyptic world. But there were those who made an even harder decision, to 'Opt-out', as Dr Jenner had called it. Cassidy called it suicide. She remembered finding the bodies of some of her colleagues slumped over at their desks or on the hallway floors with holes in their heads. While Dr. Jenner had disposed of their bodies, it was she who cleaned up the mess that was left behind.

She'd only been working for the CDC in Atlanta, Georgia, for five years when this new virus appeared on their radar, dubbed Wildfire for how fast it spread. It had been discovered one hundred and ninety-three days ago. Since then, even with just herself and Dr. Jenner working, there have been little strides in finding a cure or vaccine. Dr. Jenner had been in contact with a team based in France, a group that believed themselves close to a cure, but then thirty-three days ago, transmissions stopped, as did the CDC's access to the internet and the power grid. Completely alone at that stage, Dr. Jenner found ways to conserve the last of the electricity, running on the generators far below them in the sub-basement.

Cassidy glanced up at the large digital clock that hung far back on a side wall, watching as each second counted down in a bright blinking red, mocking her and her colleague's limited progress. Dr Cassidy Ellen Frost wasn't a virologist like Dr Edwin Jenner, who worked away in a sterile lab within a sealed suit, but a biostatistician, as she had always been good with numbers, even back as a small child. Her job was to correlate the data Dr Jenner collected and look for patterns and recurrences that could help narrow down a cure or at least a way to control or prevent the virus. So far, with what little data Edwin could provide her, she found no evidence to support whether race, gender, body mass or age affected the reanimation process. The data was just all over the place, making her irritated.

Cassidy's lips were pursed, resembling a duck bill, as she ran a pencil up and down the chapped surfaces of her cracked lips fast, the small wooden object wiggling between her fingers. She did this because she was bored and lost in thought. This caused her not to hear the echoing footsteps of Edwin when he trudged himself onto the raised platform, his tired eyes landing on the working woman. He smiled, observing how she was zoned out, the numbers running through her head. In the last two months that they had been stuck together, alone, they had become close, forming a somewhat sibling relationship, one she'd shared with his late wife.

"Distracted?" He asked, moving closer to her side. Edwin watched the woman jolt in her chair, the force of her body causing the chair to fall backwards with her alongside it, making a loud echoing thump as the metal of the chair met the metal flooring, followed by the sounds of the wooden pencil cluttering against the floor beside the woman, whose eyes were closed from the sharp pain that ran down her back. Edwin chuckled lightly, watching as she hissed out a breath. "You alright?"

"Yes…" She grumbled with a thick Georgian accent. "I always find myself on the floor…" Cassidy's green eyes fluttered open as she stared up at the man as she watched him lean against her desk, his hands shoved into the pockets of his lab coat.

"A daily occurrence." Edwin joked, still laughing. Removing his hands from his pockets, he moved to help lift her, pulling her onto her feet with both hands and guiding her to lean against the workstation as he went to pick up the chair.

"Yes, yes…" She groaned painfully, arching her still stinging back, trying to stretch out the pained muscle. As Edwin positioned her chair back into place, he glanced down at her work, reading over the equations and data she'd put together. Cassidy watched as the index finger on his main hand traced over the computer screen and the notes written in her workbook, comparing the data for himself and analysing her work. She quirked a brow at him. "Are you trying to gather if my work is satisfactory?"

Edwin angled his head to her, a small smile on his lips. "Handwriting needs some work," He teased, eyes flashing at her before returning to her work. "But everything looks correct." Sighing, he stood back up straight, shoving his hands back into the pockets of his lab coat. "Well, I assume it is. I'm not the biostatistician here." The comment made Cassidy chuckle as Edwin faced her, that slight smile still on his lips.

"Well, yes, I am the biostatistician out of the two of us," Cassidy stated, reaching over to flip her workbook closed. "Wouldn't expect you to be able to do my job."

Edwin pulled his left hand free from his lab coat pocket, raising it to his face to inspect the watch on his wrist. "Days over." He gestured with his head back up the small stairs leading to the hallway out of the work area.

Nodding, Cassidy leaned off the table and followed her colleague out, Edwin asking Vi, the Artificial Intelligence that oversaw the running of the CDC, to shut down the lights behind them—just another way for them to conserve their limited power. The two scientists made their way to the communal kitchen. When it came down to just the two of them, Cassidy used her mathematics skills to stretch out their food supply, despite the fact that they were living on borrowed time in the CDC. Edwin had sat down at the table as Cassidy had gone into the kitchen, preparing them some boxed mac and cheese for dinner. It wasn't the healthiest of meals, but with no access to fresh fruits or vegetables, it was all they had to go on. While the food was cooked, Cassidy pulled out the bowls and cutlery and grabbed two warm cans of soft drinks from one of the cupboards. Not using the fridge was just another way for them to conserve electricity. She brought the drinks out to the table, placing one in front of her friend and the other where she intended to sit before returning to the kitchen.

Once the food was cooked, she served it into the two bowls, dumped in the forks, and carried it out. "Bon appétit." Cassidy sighed as she placed a bowl in front of Edwin. He thanked her as she sat down next to him. The pair sat in silence. After spending all that time together, they found little to talk about other than discussing the progress of their work. They had conversed over so much as a form of entertainment that they knew too much about one another, almost intimately.

"I saw the timer…" Edwin finally spoke up while in mid-chew, his fork playing with the food in his bowl. He was staring down at his food, his mind burdened by the sombre topic. Cassidy was staring hard at him, her gaze emotionless. They only had a few days left, five at the most, before they officially ran out of fuel in the generators in the basement below.

"It wouldn't be good for our sanity to discuss such a matter…" Cassidy mumbled, finally looking away from him as she took a bite of her food.

Edwin nodded. "Yeah…" As much as neither of them did, as it was a sore topic, they knew what would happen when those generators ran out. Building-wide decontamination. It had been put in place long ago when the CDC had been built, a fail-safe to ensure that whatever viruses and deadly pathogens were housed in the secured labs would never leak out into the public if the building were to lose power. And if it did happen, the building would implode, burning everything it held until there was nothing left. Computers, furniture, pathogens, and people. It would all be gone. Edwin finally went back to eating after a moment as his thoughts continued to dwell on the fail-safe. While he had come to accept the end result of it all, to have his life end with his work, it was Cassidy he was unsure of.

Dr. Edwin Jenner was thankful to Cassidy that the woman hadn't fled when everyone else did, nor that the woman chose not to opt-out, but she was to keep working, just as he did, determined to find a cure. Edwin had accepted weeks ago that there was never going to be a cure. At the end of it, his and Cassidy's work was for nothing, but there was nothing more for them to do in this world but keep working, a means to an end. Edwin feared what existed outside the safety of the CDC, the hungry undead and the people he knew that had become just as dangerous. After all, it was human nature to survive, and humans would do anything to keep living.

After finishing eating, Edwin cleaned up the kitchen, as it was only fair as Cassidy cooked. It was something that had been arranged without them discussing it, the colleagues each rotating between cooking and cleaning as the days passed. Cassidy nursed her drink as she watched his back as he scrubbed at the dishes in the sink. "Have you made any progress?"

Edwin briefly paused his movements, but it was enough for Cassidy to notice. And Edwin knew it. In their time together, the brunette woman had picked up on all his tells, made obvious through his body language. Edwin sighed, placing the last of the dishes on the drying rack before turning to face her. "I don't think I ever will…" He sighed, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. "If we had more time…more people…"

Cassidy's face was grim as she watched him. She looked away, her eyes downcast as her fingers tapped at the side of her half-drunk can. "We keep trying, no matter what." She spoke with an unyielding resolve. The CDC and working on a cure were all she had left. Before The Turn, Cassidy had her parents, her three brothers, a sister-in-law and a young nephew. And when everything went to shit, her parents, Wyatt and Mary Anne, refused to leave their farm. Her young brother, Deacon, was off camping and unreachable, her older brother, Beau, was in New York for a work trip, but the eldest brother, Austin, was a confirmation. Cassidy had been on a call with him when she heard the sounds of an infected tearing into his flesh and his wife, Gwen, and son, Ellis, screaming in the background. It was with that that she accepted that her family was all gone.

"No matter what." Edwin parroted her words. He didn't say anything else as he passed her, grabbing his drink and leaving her alone in the dining room. They had both lost the ones to this virus. While Cassidy lost her family, Edwin lost his wife. Dr Candace Jenner had been the head scientist of the CDC, and a brilliant and inspiring virologist, whose intellect was unmatched. When one of their own didn't destroy the brain upon his suicide, only to come back as an infected shambling corpse, which led to Candace being bitten. Resigning to her fate, Candace had given herself over to be studied, becoming nothing more than a test subject, wanting her death to serve some good. It still weighed heavily on Edwin and Cassidy.

Cassidy continued to sit there, lost in her thoughts about her family, Candace and Edwin, while her fingers played music against the side of the soft drink can, even long after it was empty. Sighing, she stood from the table and tossed the empty can into the garbage before leaving the room, asking Vi to shut everything off behind her. She slowly made her way to her office, which had been turned into her living quarters with the help of a cot she'd pulled out of storage. She'd been thankful for all the time she had to pull overnights before The Turn, as Cassidy already had a duffel bag full of clothes and toiletries stashed in her office. She sighed as she entered the office, taking in the sight of the space. Cassidy had no desire to shower that night, just wanting to sleep. If it was just her here, she wondered if she'd bother to shower or make herself somewhat presentable at all. Sitting down on the cot, her green eyes landed on the picture frame on her desk, which had been turned to face her. It was the last photo her family had taken together in Easter. It made her heart ache to see everyone's smiling faces, including her own, staring back at her, just reminding her of everyone she had lost.

With pursed lips, Cassidy reached forward, slamming the photo down on her desk, no longer wanting to see those smiling faces staring back at her, haunting her. She begrudgingly laid down on the cot and threw an arm over her eyes. "Vi, turn off all lights except for Dr. Candace Jenner's office." She spoke, alerting the AI, which confirmed her order, the lights in the room flicking off, blanketing Cassidy in darkness. She didn't bother kicking her shoes off as she waited for sleep to claim her, the young woman wanting the day to end and the next to begin.


Cassidy didn't know what time it was when she awoke. In truth, if it wasn't for Edwin and that watch on his wrist, she wouldn't know if it was night or day. Sitting up on the cot, Cassidy stretched out her back, popping the sore muscles that came from sleeping on the uncomfortable cot. She sighed, running a hand through her dishevelled brown hair.

"Vi, lights on in my office and bathroom, please," Cassidy spoke, waiting for the lights to flicker on before she stood, moving into the bathroom adjoined to her office, slamming the door shut behind her. "Thank you…" She grumbled, kicking off her boots. Cassidy removed her jeans, shirt and underwear, taking a moment to flick on the shower. As she waited for the water to heat up, she leaned on the vanity, staring at herself in the mirror. Having spent over two months underground in the CDC's basement labs, her skin looked sunken around her face and her body more frail. She's always been thin, but she wasn't sure whether it was from rationing food or stress.

Stepping under the water, the heat doing wonders for her aching body. Cassidy gave her body a much-needed wash, as she hadn't showered in a few days, a way to conserve power. She made sure to wash her hair, as it had been beginning to feel oily every time she ran her hands through her mane, and it was starting to annoy her. She reluctantly turned the water off with a deep sigh, stepping out of the shower and drying herself off, taking special care to dry her wet curls. She missed having a diffuser and having to settle for using a towel, which she felt did damage to her loose locks.

She dressed back into the clothes she'd been wearing the day before, not even bothering to put on fresh underwear. As she left her office, Cassidy noticed that the hallway lights were on, meaning that Edwin was awake too. She found him in the cafeteria, busy eating a bowl of cereal with long-life milk and a cup of strong coffee. He nodded when he saw her.

"Morning," Edwin swallowed a spoonful of cereal. "You sleep alright?" His eyes trained on her as she moved into the kitchen.

Cassidy shrugged lazily. "As alright as one can on those cots, they aren't made for long-term use." She looked through the limited options of cereal, picking out one that was high in fibre and pouting it into a bowl before adding some of the long-life milk. While still in the kitchen, she poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot that was sitting warming, adding two spoonfuls of sugar. With the bowl in one hand and the cereal in the other, she joined Edwin at the table, sitting opposite her colleague. "What are you working on today?"

"The TS-19 samples," Edwin spoke, looking down at his breakfast as he ate. "You?"

Cassidy used her spoon to play with her cereal. Her lips pursed as she debated how to spend her day. "I can either go over the data that was left behind by Dr. Curry or continue looking at what I was going over yesterday." She finally took a bite of her cereal. Edwin's brows furrowed, and his hand paused on his mug. Edwin wasn't the biggest fan of Dr. Isaac Curry's work, believing it to be nothing more than hogwash and science fiction. But it had been enough to entice Cassidy's geeky heart, especially now that they seemed to have slipped into a science fiction novel with all the dead walking around. Dr Curry had theories that, like all viruses, the Wildfire could also evolve, making the infected smarter and stronger.

Edwin shook his head, sipping on his coffee. "Avoid touching his work."

Cassidy paused her chewing, staring blankly at Edwin. She watched the man stand, taking his empty bowl and coffee mug into the kitchen and dumping them in the sink. She waited until he left the room to begin chewing again, annoyed with him. Cassidy dumped the spoon in the half-full bowl and used the heel of her hands to rub at her eyes. While she respected Dr. Edwin Jenner as both a colleague and friend, sometimes his level of determination could be a hindrance. Not once in the last forty-seven days had the man listened to her input and advice, not since Candace had been bitten. Part of him had shut Cassidy out since then, taking his work more seriously than he should, and why should he listen to Cassidy? She wasn't a virologist. She didn't have the insight he did.

After finishing her breakfast and coffee, she washed and dried the dishes before finally heading to the operations room and her workstation. Edwin was already there, making a transmission update on the status of the Wildfire virus. He needed to clarify with Cassidy that it had been one hundred and ninety-four days since the start of the virus and sixty-three days since the global outbreak, which she confirmed. As Cassidy sat down at her workstation, turned on the computer and opened her notebook to a fresh page, writing the date, October 26th 2010, in the top right-hand corner, she listened to Edwin speak. There was no clinical progress to report, but he finally got the scrubbers in sector E shut down, the man lamenting that he wasn't an engineer and how much power he could have saved if he was.

"Not feeling very well these days, not sleeping well. And Frost…" He turned around, looking at the woman's back. "How are you doing?"

She sighed, getting up from her station and making her way over to him, leaning over his shoulder to come into view of the camera. "Forty-seven days stuck with this man. It appears to have had no negative effect on my sanity." Cassidy spoke, leaning away from the screen and returning to her computer. "Which goes against the studies presented by mental health professionals!"

Edwin pursed his lips. "Frost is doing better than me…" He chuckled, ending the transmission, not even knowing if it went through or not. Edwin stood. "I'm heading down to the lab, should be down there all day."

"Going to come up for food today?" She asked over her shoulder. The man had a problem with closing himself off in his lab, not coming out for anything, not even food or bathroom breaks, and it had only gotten worse the longer they'd been locked away in the CDC. "Don't make me quote how important it is for brain health!" She glanced at him, watching him go without a farewell, making Cassidy frown. But at least she would have peace and quiet to focus on her work. Cassidy had spent approximately twenty minutes working on Edwin's data from the previous day before she'd had enough, deciding to change her focus and look through the data collected by Dr. Curry. There wasn't much to go on, but she could always compare it to existing data in regard to current evolution patterns.

Over the next several hours, Cassidy found herself engrossed in her work, only remembering to step away when she needed to use the bathroom or get herself something quick to eat for lunch, settling for an instant ramen cup. She wasn't sure how long she had been working, using the decontamination countdown timer to estimate that it had been seven hours when Vi's robotic voice rang out alongside a bellowing alarm.

"Alert status. Air qualifiers indicate corrosive fumes. All personnel must clear Lab C. Corrosive element is deemed poisonous if inhaled."

Cassidy shot up from her desk, looking down at the hallway that led to Lab rooms A, B and C. "Oh no!" She bolted down the narrow hallway, racing to check on Edwin.

"All personnel are now clear. Full decontamination in effect."

She breathed a sigh of relief as Vi announced, hinting that Edwin had been able to leave the lab safely.

"Full decontaminate complete."

As Cassidy reached the airlock for Lab C, alarms still blaring away, Edwin was turned away from her, his hands and head pressed against the glass doors that led into the lab, the purifying waters hosing down his body. Swallowing the lump in her throat, Cassidy pressed the intercom. "Edwin…?"

His back heaved before he stepped away from the door, his saturated body turning to face her, a look of utter defeat on his face. Edwin slowly approached the glass door that separated them, pressing the intercom on his side. "They're all gone. The TS-19 samples." He gritted out, his eyes casting downwards.

Cassidy sighed with him. While they did have other samples, the TS-19 had been taken from their last test subject, Edwin's wife and Cassidy's friend, Candace. To Edwin, it was more than losing his work but losing what he had left of the woman he loved. The alarms had finally ended screaming as the waters in the airlock stopped, the doors opening to reveal the waterlogged Edwin. Cassidy had reached over to one of the nearby built-in shelving units, pulling out a towel and tossing it to him. "At least you don't strip down completely like Dr. Caldwell did when he set Lab B on fire last year." She spoke, watching as he stepped out of the air-locked room.

Edwin chuckled as he began to dry himself off. "Best to spare you that sight…" He forced a smile, trying to find the humour in his words. He was thankful the woman hadn't brought up the TS-19 samples or the others that they had stored in the other labs. "I'm going to go dry off…put on a fresh pair of clothes."

Cassidy nodded. "Appropriate. It's not wise to walk around in drenched pants and underwear. Not comfortable."

"Not going to talk about me catching a cold?" He asked, moving down the hallway, heading for the stairwell leading up to Candace's office, which overlooked the operations room.

Cassidy followed behind him, making sure to avoid stepping and slipping on his wet footprints. With her being as klutzy as she was, it was prone to end in disaster. "An old wives tale. There is no scientific correlation between wearing wet clothes and getting ill." She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, watching her colleague ascend.

Edwin peered around his shoulder at her, smiling down at her. "I know," He retorted, getting a confused expression back. "I'm just…playing with you."

"Oh." She mumbled, face softening. "I did it again…" Edwin laughed hard at her, finding her antics enjoyable.

"I'll join you down in the operations room shortly." He spoke, finishing climbing the stairs to his wife's office.

Cassidy sighed, running a hand through her hair, becoming very aware that it was a nervous tick about her. She returned to the operations room, asking Vi to turn off the power to sector B, which held Labs A through to C. No need to waste power if Edwin wasn't in there working. Once again, sitting down at her station, Cassidy closed off the file containing Dr. Curry's data, not wanting Edwin to see that she'd be working on it and proceeded to open up Edwin's work on the TS-19 sample. She stared at the file, unsure of how to react. Any normal person would feel uncomfortable looking at the data collected from the reanimated corpse of someone they cared dearly for, but Cassidy felt nothing. It was just another job for her. But she knew that Edwin's work on the TS-19 samples had weighed heavily on his mind for weeks, steadily getting worse the more he exposed himself to it. She could see his mental health declining. It was obvious to her in his lack of sleep, eating habits, and mood. He used to be far more carefree and attentive, but now, Edwin was distant in everything, even forcing himself to interact with his remaining colleague.

When he finally entered the operations room, a bottle of wine and two glasses in hand, Cassidy raised a brow, unsure of his intended actions. His mouth was tight as he looked at her. "I needed something after today."

"Engaging in alcohol use as a way to suppress negative emotions isn't healthy." She commented back, her brow dropping.

"Nor is being trapped in an underground bunker for over two months." Edwin retorted, stopping at the computer where he made his video logs. He popped the cork, pouring the two glasses before approaching her with one in hand, offering it to her. "I think we both need it."

She sighed, taking the glass from him in thanks and taking a small sip. Cassidy turned away from her, looking back at her workstation, listening to his feet as he moved away and sat down at his computer. "Making a transmission?"

"Mhmm." He grunted, flicking on the computer and enjoyed the red wine, letting it dull his senses. He quickly drowned the entirety of the glass as he started the transmission. "The TS-19 samples are gone. A tragedy of their loss can not be overstated. They were our freshest samples by far. None of the other samples even came close. Those are necrotic. Useless. Dead flesh." Edwin leaned in close to the screen, his tone turning darker, gaining Cassidy's attention and making her watch him with concern. "I don't even know why I'm talking to you. I bet there isn't a single son of a bitch out there still listening, is there? Is there?" Cassidy stood, moving over to the man and pushing him back away from the screen as she leaned over to end the transmission on his behalf.

"This is why you don't drink on an empty stomach," She sighed, staring down at him with crossed arms. "You haven't eaten since breakfast, and drinking an entire glass of wine in one gulp means it's absorbed into your bloodstream quicker."

"What are we even doing here, Cassidy?" Edwin sighed, leaning back further into his chair and rubbing a hand down his face. He was utterly defeated, feeling like he'd wasted weeks and weeks of his time with nothing to show for it. "There's no cure. There never will be!"

She frowned, sitting on the desk next to him. "We tried. We didn't give up." Cassidy looked to the counter, watching the red numbers trickle away. Edwin followed her gaze. The clock was showing far less time than it was supposed to, meaning that the decontamination procedures had taken a good chunk of the power. "Three days…"

Edwin nodded. He wanted to comment, but his mouth was dry. There was so much he wanted to do still and so much he'd yet to complete. But he and his colleague were going to die, either by the CDC's safety measures when that clock ran out or by the horrors outside. It wasn't safe anymore. Humanity was dead. "I say we spend the next three days getting absolutely drunk." Edwin stood, ignoring the lecturing gaze she sent him. He grabbed the wine bottle, drinking all of its contents. "How far do you think I can throw this?" He asked, shaking it in front of her. Cassidy didn't get to respond before he was hurling it far across the room, the sound of glass shattering echoing. "Out of the park!"

Cassidy stared at him, a mix of awe and dismissal at the sudden turn of his behaviour, believing the man had reached his breaking point. When she opened her mouth to speak, planning on telling him off, the console beside her went off, gaining both their attention. Edwin leaned in close to the console, observing the perimeter alarms going off. "Is it infected?" She asked, her eyes moving between her colleague and the screen.

Edwin sat down, switching over to the cameras. "Survivors…" He spoke. Both of their eyes were glued to the screen, watching as several humans walked outside the building, looking for a way in, but the security shutters were down.

"My god, they have children." Cassidy breathed, watching as the infected slowly began moving towards the group and some of the men taking them down with headshots with their weapons. "They're going to attract more!"

The group appeared to discuss something before turning back the way they came. Only one of them stopped. A man dressed like a small-town sheriff. He'd noticed the camera above the entrance moving, following them. The group moved back, one of them trying to pull the sheriff away.

"No…just go away…" Edwin whispered, staring hard at the monitor. They watched as the man stared up at the camera, continuing to bang on the security shutters. Cassidy tentatively reached over to the keyboard, turning on the sound. The two scientists listened as the man begged for their help. They had women and children, no food, and hardly any gasoline. The man in the dark shirt continued trying to pull the sheriff away, the latter screaming that they were killing them by not helping the group. With one look at Cassidy, Edwin swallowed as he breathed heavily. When he finally looked back to the screen, he entered the command to open the shutter doors and turn on the power to the top levels, giving the group entry to a lit foyer. "I'm going up to meet them. Stay here." Edwin stood, making for the elevators and taking a gun with him that he'd taken off a soldier on day sixteen of the outbreak.

Cassidy finally stood up from the desk, green eyes on her friend's back. She quickly took his seat, switching over the cameras to the foyer as the group of survivors slowly trickled in, their weapons raised as they slowly scoped out the massive room for danger. The survivors trained their weapons on Edwin the moment they saw him. The sheriff and the scientist had a back-and-forth discussion. The group claimed they weren't infected and that they wanted a chance to live. Edwin told them they needed to submit to a blood test to enter the facility and that they wouldn't reopen once the shutters were down, they wouldn't reopen. The sheriff agreed, clearly the one leading this group.

As soon as the group returned from collecting their belongings, Cassidy had the shutter doors closed, with Edwin nodding up at the camera, nodding to her, before guiding the survivors to the elevator that would lead them down into the basement that held the majority of the CDC's labs. The moment the elevator doors closed, Cassidy stood, switching off the cameras and turning off the power to the top levels but not the elevator, before deciding to head down to sector B to collect the materials needed for withdrawing blood samples.