Sneak up and listen.

You point with your chin into the direction of the conference room, and, quietly, the two of you tiptoe along the wall into that direction. The voices are getting louder, and you can see through a glass wall into a room with a big table, surrounded by at least a dozen people. There are flipcharts in the back and a projector beaming a presentation onto a white wall.

"... percent is enough!", you hear a women's voice saying.

"I am still not convinced", replies a man. "We know for a fact that there are people resistant to the ****, and we still have not found all of them."

"Irrelevant", says somebody else. "A negligible quantity. Once we start phase three, those few don't matter. Plus, it will be even easier to identify them. We can flush them out, so to speak. This was always part of the plan and you know it."

"Is the access to all major ventilation systems guaranteed?", asks a voice which immediatly makes all others go silent. The man asking this seems to be of a higher position than the others.

"Yes, Mr. Webster", answers a woman.

"Show me!", says the man who has been called Mr Webster.

The presentation on the wall is forwarded several slides until a map of the city shows up, divided in areas of different colours. "We have access to all major office buildings in the central district", says the women, and a red dot flickers across the area marked deep violet. And area that also includes the office building you are working in. "We also have access to all schools, public buildings and hospitals or police stations at the outer districts...", more violet coloured areas, "and we can spray a cocktail of our **** along the main roads of these areas here...", several lines in pink appear on the map. "We don't have yet complete control of the new office area in the West. That's mostly small start up companies and such. Some are connected via their ventilation system, but a lot of those aren't. We probably need another few weeks to plant Happy Maids there. And obviously there are always outside workplaces which we can't target. But adding up the aforementioned 67 percent coverage of private households, we are probably talking about a coverage of 80 to maybe 90 percent of people being exposed to the **** once we start contaminating the air in offices and workplaces. I strongly recommend starting phase three now, Sir, as even waiting a few weeks longer will not raise that percentage significantly in any case. Of course, this does not include those who still seem resistant to the ****."

"Thank you, Tiffany", says Mr. Webster, while you try to make sense out of those words. They want to expand their operation, that much is clear. And your office seems one of the targets!

"Mr Webster, with all due respect, but this sounds risky to me", says a male voice. "If I add up the numbers, there could be still 20 percent of the population not yet affected, plus an unknown number of those resistant to the ****. And all those will witness a rather... ah... **** behaviour of their colleagues, co-workers and friends. This will certainly make some people suspicious. You said the success of this project is tied to the fact that the **** work so slow and unobstrusive that people won't realize what's going on. Phase three is almost certainly about to change that. People will notice. People will ask questions. If, say, somebody with genetical resistance calls a police station that is not yet..."

"We control all police stations", interrupts another woman.

"Whatever. Maybe he doesn't call the police, maybe he calls the media, some not yet affected blogger or maybe his relatives in another city."

There's mumbling and low key arguing around the table. It's difficult to make out words when everbody is speaking at the same time.

"We start phase three", says Mr Webster, and the room falls silent again. "We take that risk. But we put our special task forces on Yellow alert, and if people don't submit, they will be hunted down and caught. A few other cities have started phase three as well, and from what I hear, things are mostly going fine. I suggest..."

Sara is rolling her eyes at you, clearly indicating that you should leave. The meeting might soon be over and there is no real hiding place once those people start to leave the conference room.

You hesitate. This seems like an absolute incredible possibility to find out as much as possible. Mr Webster must be someone very, very high up the hierarchy.