There was a sense of satisfaction in having figured out one way to vastly improve the security of his site, even if he couldn't tell anyone exactly why he'd decided to change all the doors back to manual locks. It made it a little more difficult to request the funding, since it went over the normal site running costs, but he was sure if he cited concerns following Epsilon-1 being completely lost, his request would be granted. The first thing he was going to do with the funds was change the lock on the door to the security room.
Still Conall couldn't shake the feeling that there was
more
he could do, and more he could find out from the Epsilon-1 security videos. He wasn't exactly sure what, but there was more to it.
Of course, he had emailed Eon again that next day to thank them again, and say that the videos had already given him some valuable information. He quirked an eyebrow at how they complimented him on his diligence in their reply, but it was harmless (if a bit weird) for them to praise his efforts in securing Phi-2, so Conall let it slide. Instead he turned the conversation back to the safety of discussing music and movies. It was something else to occupy his mind with, other than his worries and thoughts of the footage he had watched.
It was a few more days before Conall felt like he had the energy after work to go back to the videos. He checked back on his notes for the timestamp of when all the metahumans were released, and then he dithered about which area to choose to look at.
He wasn't sure what he was hoping to find, since it seemed the locks disengaging was the instigating incident, but maybe he would get ideas for updating the Phi-2 containment breach response plan. There would have to be contingencies put in place for if site comms went down, too... Maybe walkie-talkies in the offices for each area? God, it was a lot to think about.
He ended up looking at the security recordings for several of the common areas of the site. He supposed he should approach it systematically - first those in one section, then the other. He had started with Area Alpha, so he might as well look at the videos from the break rooms and halls there first. He wrote down the areas he wanted to check, crossing off the hallway he had already looked at.
A brief look at the next hallway showed nothing interesting right at the time the cell doors opened. A few minutes after, the former containment subjects emerged, surprising whoever was in the hall at the time. It was pretty much the same as the other hallway in the previous video he'd watched, as well as the outcome. Conall noted one researcher booking it down the hall away from the emerging metahumans. He followed their progress into the next hallway, switching videos to keep track of them, and watched them dart in the door to one of the employee break rooms.
Curious, he found the video for that break room and clicked into it, forwarding to the time the researcher arrived. The researcher burst in, shut and locked the door behind them, and babbled to the other staff members about what happened in between taking ragged breaths.
So if the door was locked and there were no metahumans in there, nobody in the break room looked affected by any transformations, and presumably similar scenarios had occurred elsewhere in the site... How come Conall hadn't heard of anyone who waited out the containment breach and escaped? Watching what happened there might give some insight as to why there weren't any 'survivors' who remained untransformed.
Conall watched as the staff went through various levels of panic, some whipping out their phones to contact coworkers they were worried about. People could surprise you; some didn't seem perturbed at all, while others looked about ready to faint. One said they might as well unlock the door and get it over with rather than waiting around, and they were quickly overruled. Another threatened to go out with a chair and fight the metahumans off so the rest could escape. Conall had to laugh when that noble offer of self-sacrifice was met with a "this isn't a zombie movie, dumbass". It was interesting to watch, even if nothing much was happening for him to take notes on.
About a half hour in, one of the staff members commented that there was a sweet scent coming from somewhere. Some of the staff said they couldn't smell anything, while a few others agreed with him and searched around for the source before stopping in front of the vents for the ventilation system. The man who first mentioned it looked confused, but not worried by it, and shrugged and leaned back against the wall under the vent to listen to everyone else bickering over what to do about the
situation
outside. The others who mentioned noticing the smell too didn't stray far from it either, Conall noted. It might be nothing, but, well, it might actually be important. Hard to tell at that point.
He fast-forwarded in ten minute increments, seeing if anything else had happened each time he stopped and played the video. The first real sign he noticed of anything unusual was people near the vents loosening their ties and shirt collars, and starting to shuck off lab coats and other top layers. Some complained about feeling hot, while everyone else told them they were imagining it.
Another ten minutes, and there was a couple standing up against the wall who were speaking very closely, too low to hear, and getting so far into each other's personal space it was astounding nobody had commented. Wait - yes, now they were making out. Against the wall of the breakroom in the middle of an outright containment breach. If that didn't count as strange behaviour, nothing did.
Conall skipped forward five more minutes to see the two from earlier were practically grinding on each other. More layers of clothing had been shed by the staff closest to the vents, and a few of them were also getting
very
well acquainted, in a way that made Conall's cheeks heat up while watching it unfold. There was some sort of metahuman contamination in the vents, then - or an aphrodisiac, or something. It was
weird
that it didn't affect everyone in there. At that point some of the others had expressed annoyance or incredulity at their colleagues who were making out in the middle of a crisis situation. No, it seemed like only those close to the vents were affected.
Well, that meant he would need to see if he could find some evidence of tampering with the ventilation system in the other videos, Conall supposed. Which would take ages to narrow down, considering the vents sprawled through the whole site. He sighed and noted it down on his to-do list.
After ten more minutes, the staff members near the vent were mostly half naked and touching each other and themselves in distinctly lascivious ways, apparently completely unbothered by the rest of the staff who were freaking out about it a little bit. Someone had lined the chairs across the room to form an impromptu barrier between affected and unaffected staff, as ineffectual as that would be if the affected staff were interested in anything aside from feeling each other up. Conall shifted a bit uncomfortably in his seat as he observed them. Some of those affected were looking distinctly fuzzy at this point with fur in patches, one had curling horns developing, another few looked like they were growing
leaves.
Conall had a feeling he knew what was up with that, even if he didn't understand
why
they started transforming without direct contact. When he skipped forward again, his suspicions were confirmed. The horned one had become a satyr or faun of some sort, the leafy ones were dryads, there were a bunch of bee people humping each other in a corner. Vines had even started sprawling down from the vent itself. Somehow, impossibly, grass and plants were starting to grow from the cracks in the linoleum on the vent side of the room. It was fae faction influence, no question of
that.
Though he was confused as to why the newly created fae metahumans hadn't made any advances towards the rest, who were still hunkering down on the other side of the chair barrier.
He did note a few of the staff members were missing, though the door still seemed secure. After a bit of skipping back and forth through the footage, he discovered a group had decided to up and leave at around the same time as the chair barrier had been put in place. That seemed a bit reckless to him as decisions went, but - he supposed stress, unexpected circumstances, and seeing your goat-legged former coworker jack off in front of you would do that. Conall wrote down the timestamp, in case he wanted to see what happened to the group, even if the answer to that would be 'ensnared or allured by metahumans into becoming one of them' in all likelihood. It was still important data, probably.
Conall ended up watching the developments in the staff room for another few minutes, waiting to see what might happen to the remaining untransformed staff, as well as observing in a sort of apprehensive fascination as the new fae blithely fell into an orgy while their side of the room gradually terraformed itself towards something more suited to their new forms. He was hit with the feeling that they were being fools at best to try and categorise their subjects according to the rules of science - this was magic, the supernatural,
myth
made
flesh
. None of the creatures in the security footage would have seemed out of place in the works of Ovid or Homer or any of the numerous other myths and legends handed down from the ancient world.
That unsettling feeling was what snapped him out of watching at last. He shook his head to clear it. Yet another reason why it was baffling for Orpheus to recruit and then promote all the way up to Site Director somebody who had studied
Classics
, for goodness' sake. He'd really never had a scientific mind, though he tried his best at researcher level, where the knowledge had occasionally come in handy - whenever a metahuman arrived who looked like something straight from one of the myths he knew. Conall knew he was a bit prone to flights of fancy, not so organised, not so objective. Not exactly the qualities needed for leading a secret research facility. God, why hadn't he just studied music and joined an orchestra or something. He probably would have been happier that way.
He shut off his laptop and put it away, then fussed restlessly over his CD collection to try and calm his mind and certain
