Propaganda (audio story)

 was the first audio story in Among Us 2.

Publisher's summary
Orr is desperate to get to Voloshnik. The city's sealed off in the middle of a war the world's forgotten. There has to be someone left to save.

Plot
During a civil war in a former Russian satellite state, the town of Voloshnik goes quiet aside from videos made by Robert Wilson and a number of virologists, nuclear scientists and weapons experts go to find out what has happened, ignoring emails warning them not to go. The aeroplane carrying them is shot down and Orr, representing Torchwood, is unconscious in the wreckage for two days before kidnapping a rebel and continuing their journey with Dr Gupta's testing kit. However, the rebel reveals that he is the General and captures them, interrogating them before having them beaten to death.

Orr wakes up in a hospital during their autopsy, surprising their pathologist, Tania, who gives them a lift in an ambulance after dropping off her mother to look after her son. They manage to pass the cordon around Voloshnik by confusing the soldiers and, wearing hazmat suits, find that the residents have all been turned to dust. By looking at autopsy results, they learn that everyone in the morgue died from measles, which Tania's son is not completely vaccinated against and which has apparently mutated to cross the inoculation barrier.

After finding Robert, the sole survivor, Orr discovers that he and his employees spread conspiracy theories and propaganda online using fake accounts. He kept his workers sat at their desks until they died, shooting one of them to scare the others into spreading misinformation on what could be killing everyone until they themselves died. Robert knocks Orr out and takes Tania hostage to escape the cordon, but Orr scares him with the ambulance and saves Tania, with whom they share their theory; the situation in Voloshnik was engineered to encourage conspiracy theories of all kinds, with contradictory evidence planted.

Robert is shot by the soldiers after running at them with a gun drawn, but Tania is able to take some of his blood in the hopes of finding out why he was immune to whatever killed the townspeople. However, Orr reveals that Robert was deliberately spared so that countries would fear and desire the weapon used, i.e. one that can target a particular group. To keep this a secret for as long as possible, Orr tells Tania that they will fight propaganda with propaganda and pretend that Robert was indeed immune, but they will not be able to keep it a secret forever.

Cast

 * Orr - Samantha Béart
 * Tania - Amy Beth Hayes
 * Robert - Milo Twomey
 * Ellen - Naomi McDonald
 * Gupta - Maanuv Thiara
 * The General - Alex Jordan
 * First Soldier - Jonny Glynn
 * Second Soldier - David Menkin
 * Mother - Lisa Bowerman
 * The Old Man - Andrew Wincott

Worldbuilding

 * Ellen drinks black coffee with no sugar.
 * Dr Alice Applewhite was aboard the plane.
 * Orr mentions being entangled with a deity.
 * Tania is a doctor in gerontology.
 * Tania has a son, Maxim, who keeps his toys in her unused car.
 * Maxim's father died in the civil war.
 * Orr and Tania listen to Billy Joel.

Continuity
to be added