Withmore Globe

An ill omen to herald spring, a wave of viridans streptococci swept through Red Sector starting in mid-February. Urgent action by the WJF kept the outbreak from spreading to the upper sectors, but the toll exacted has strained city services and supply chains to an outrageous limit. In the end, the virus claimed 363,428 lives, permanently, and possibly more that were unreported.

Better known more innocuously as strep throat, v. streptococci routinely causes closure of the airways, painful swallowing, fever, and general aches and pains. However, this strain had a few novel features. According to Dr. Thomas Baker of Constantine General Hospital, this variant also caused weeping, oozing sores in what he termed "a wildly divergent mutation of the virus." The epidemiology lab in Constantine was too busy to supply comment, but a representative assured the Globe that they were in full collaboration with ViriiSoma's research team to determine the cause of this extremely deadly change.

The virus claimed so many lives in part because of an immediate and crushing demand for oxaprozin, the one anti-viral drug that it responds to. A representative from ViriiSoma said that the sudden supply shock caused ripples all the way along the production line. "ViriiSoma is committed to enhancing and protecting human life," said VSPR-032 in a SIC interview. "It is a tragedy that the city's reserves were not sufficient to combat the disease, but we cannot control how retailers stock our products. However, ViriiSoma chemical labs have done little else beyond synthesizing oxaprozin since the outbreak began."

Initial findings from research teams indicate that the virus had a long dormancy period, which is the period where a person may be infected and even contagious but not yet displaying symptoms. Contact tracing has shown that the disease began to spread in several regions around Red Sector at the same time, possibly due to an immigration influx as the harsh winter weather of the badlands rolled in. By far the most initial cases seemed to occur in northern Central Red and radiated out from there.

And even now that the disease has mostly run its course, there remain the problem of the remains. An anonymous Withmore City Services employee has reported that the massive amount of corpses has caused maintenance issues with the incinerator, leading to alternate storage locations for the bodies in public morgues. Private agencies that run crematoriums are also indicating a massive backlog and emergency shifts to see the diseased bodies disposed of. For now, however, Withmore breathes a collective sigh of relief that the worst is behind us.

March 1st, 2111

Announced moments ago by Judge Steele, the Withmore Justice Force has issued a temporary housing ban for Service Mixers curiously living on Green.

Put into effect until March 12th, 2111, the reason given was to help prevent disease spread as the ViriiSoma-engineered strain of streptococci C, the credit publicly claimed, runs rampant through Red sector and the death toll mounts into the tens of thousands.

Thanks so far to the hard work put in by the other megacorporations and the WJF, the illness has stayed contained to east, west and central Red. Despite attempts from some aggrieved souls attempting to cause infections topside, preventative measures put in place are holding strong.

Judge Steele was clear that the temporary ban impacted all service mixers and applied to all apartment and housing complexes on Green. People who fall under these categories have been given until 8AM on 3/2/2111 to find lodging in lower sectors, and failure to follow the order will lead to forcible removal or being shot.

Stay tuned to the Withmore Globe for future updates as the situation continues to develop,Vernide LerholfenBreaking Outbreaks News ReporterWithmore Globe

Today weather control systems slipped out of control at the PRI Citadel. During a routine winter snowstorm, a bolt of lightning struck a power junction on New Light Avenue, instantly killing 15 maintenance engineers and wounding dozens of others. In the brief power outage that followed, a cell of terrorists infiltrated the NLM tower. Fortunately, their incompetent attempts were cut short by NSec, which does not require electricity to work as a well-trained team.

This comes shortly after a failed response by PRI's security team. A recent concert outside their headquarters led to some rowdy patrons exuberantly entering their lobby. And PRISec's response? A bloodbath that led to multiple citizens dead, members of their security team dead, and hundreds of thousands in corporate property missing. In a continued churlish act, PRISec Agent Enola Catawanee, during a rant about skinning cats, blatantly purchased the death of an unrelated Red Sector citizen due to their frustration with their team's own incompetence.

Combined with a lackluster offerings of new products since the merger, it becomes time to ask: Is there a problem inside PRI? Does leadership even care about public perception of the corporation? Do they actually have any understanding of the technology or servics that they inherited from their parent companies, SHI and Skywatch? An institution that once prided itself as egalitarian, bridging the gap between corporations and the Mix, now orders the deaths of Red Sector citizens on a whim, seemingly without compunction or care. Perhaps their resources weren't on a planetary scale, after all.