<strong>Francie’s Place, (the loft)<br/>The Pits</strong><br/><br/>Tamis opened her mouth to snap something caustic in reply, then stopped. He was right, about Rob. About everything. It was her own cowardice, rather than greed for wealth or position, that had kept her in the company all this time, through all her promotions, despite her misgivings and opposition to its practises. What was it she’d said to Rob, when they were offered choice positions, right out of college?<em> If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em</em>, naively believing that she could make some kind of a difference as a part of the machine rather than trying to fight its enormity from the outside. The sting of guilt his words produced also forced her to admit to herself that she’d loved the research, the excitement of discovery, the resources and opportunities to learn offered by the GenCorps Laboratories. He was right. Obviously, he also knew who she was.<br/><br/>Dropping her tactics, Tamis sat, eyeing the liquor he’d brought up with him. She’d kill for a drink. “I’ll be straight with you. I’ve got information about what they’re doing up there, stuff Soames can use.” She pre-empted the next logical question, “Why? Because that pain and anguish you think I enjoy so much is nothing compared to what they’ve got cooking Downstairs lately. Because those units…” Tam corrected herself, quickly, “... those<em>creatures </em>they shot the other day had gunpowder on their hands. They were fighting back.” She tugged the holoprojector out of her bag, set it on the table. “And because of this…”<br/><br/>Slipping the disc into the projector, she flipped a switch. Flashes of bodies riddled with bulletholes, close-ups of furred and clawed hands.  Then stilling on a vague image, formed against the dingy white of the wall opposite, flickering into a more solid 3-D after she tapped the settings.<br/><br/>“What you’re looking at there is the prototype for a means to bring this planet back to health. And efficient, self-sustaining, self-replicating environmental filter.”<br/><br/>Tam paused, let him take that in.<br/><br/>“GenCorps owns the patent to a cleaner world. They have the means to control the future of this planet itself. Add to that the things I’ve glimpsed in the military labs, these new GenMod slaves they’re selling under the counter, who can speak, who have the wit and the will to turn a gun back on them…” Here, she levelled her gaze on Logan, flatly. “It won’t be long before they’re running the world with an army of monsters to back them up, and there won’t be a damn thing the WGC can do about it. Think of what suffering there’ll be, then.”<br/><br/>Tam picked up her glass then, and took a grateful swallow of brandy, closing her eyes briefly. She was tired. Muddy. And smelled like a swamp.