"Sure," says Sam, pulling out the word, still eyeing this guy a little dubiously. "I mean, apparently we're all stuck here, is the word on the street. And there's some kinda 'they' doing it, though no one seems to be able to tell me who that 'they' is."

That was a little bit less than minimally comprehensible. In Sam's defense, he's running a bit of a high temperature.