An Average Day at Laminax

Chapter 10

We were both silent as we travelled through the night. He broke the silence when I asked him "So.. where am I? What town is this?" "Colorado Springs. Alright, that's enough questions from you. I need to ask you a lot of things." He said to me as he turned a corner. I nodded. "Okay, so I just want to ask: What are you supposed to be? Why were you hiding behind the restaurant? Is that just a super realistic costume? Are you drunk? What should I call you?" He spoke. "I am a former human, infected into an anthropomorphic cat, I was hiding so nobody could see me, this is not a costume, I am not drunk, and you can just call me Oliver." Even more silence.

"Former human? What?"

"I was infected by that bucket in the back. My full name is Oliver Henry Davidson, and I was born in Indiana. I studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned a degree in biology; I was offered a job by Laminax as a researcher at the Houston branch. Laminax may seem like another electric utility company, but they aren't. In the 1950's they discovered a crystal cave in New York. These crystals could power electricity, but it could also infect people. An entirely new species was discovered from the crystal cave, and they were called the Gootraxians. In the 60's when they were still trying to figure out exactly what the Gootraxians were, the same person who discovered them, was infected right in front of other scientists eyes. This led to a major infection of workers, and a shutdown of the lab, and it was covered up as a gas leak Despite this, Laminax expanded across the world, and they discovered new species of Gootraxian in various places. In all of the continents in the world, operations were set up. There are three types of Laminax operations: Laboratories, research facilities and power stations. Laboratories are the most common and focuses on science, biology, and chemistry work, among other things, research facilities focus on the Gootraxian species alone, and power stations contain crystals harvested from the caves to power electricity and have the least number of workers. Countries with only power stations operated by Laminax are either a poor nation, or a country that uses a high amount of electricity so they can charge more. Take the UAE for example. That's where Laminax gets most of their money from, powering both the cities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. From 1996 to 2008, Gootraxians were artificially created in laboratories until it was banned by the current CEO, Pete Henderson. Gootraxians are infectious parasites with unknown origins. If you get infected by any of them, the chance of losing your human mindset is very high. I was infected, but here I am, speaking to you."

"Ohh, oh.. well... that's a lot to take in."

"I would expect so."

"Wait... Laminax has a laboratory and power station near Albuquerque. Same with Santa Fe and Las Cruces. Do they all have a have a... crystal cave? Do they study the Gootraxians?"

"Only the Albuquerque laboratory has a crystal cave, and its man-made. Not every laboratory has a crystal cave. For example, in the flatter regions of the world, they don't have crystal caves, such as South Africa, the Netherlands, the Midwest, and the Deep South. If they did have a crystal cave for each laboratory, it would way to expensive and would take too long to make. In fact, in most countries, they don't even build the laboratory underground. They buy a large, flat plot of land without any trees and divides the laboratory into sectors. For example, Laminax's laboratory outside of London was built over a field and spilt into sectors, same with the Copenhagen, Helsinki, Winnipeg, basically any city where the surrounding areas are flat, you get it. In mountainous regions of the world, the caves are natural, or manmade. One of the few expectations of the laboratory getting spilt into separate sectors, is the Houston branch, where I used to work."

"Ohh.. okay."

He didn't speak after that. We were now on the highway, leaving Colorado Springs. Eventually, he said "I can't believe that's what Laminax does other than generating power. I mean, this is something that nobody would've guessed, if they even were guessing that Laminax had something sinister beneath the surface. They do charity work and host events to raise money..." "So they can look good for the media. They've done controversial things in the past, and this is this way to make the public and the media forget about it." He nodded and things were silent again.