Melting Clock: Quarantine

[cityship]

After Sam Henderson's announcement, the Contagion Containment and Treatment lab was going to get busy. Anyone suspected of being affected by the mysterious affliction would be brought here, and put into one of the large bubbles that would keep any potential contagious diseases in - and the patients themselves. Once in inside, they wouldn't be able to get out again until the Medical staff had cleared them.

And before they could do that, they needed to find out what was causing this - and why.

They had a lot of hard work ahead of them.

[[ooc: Just start your own sub threads under the main threads, guys! And if you're happy to have anyone tag in, put "Open" in the subject line. If you've already got plans for who you're threading with, put "Closed" instead.]]

Comments

[hi_there_aliens]

Daniel couldn't begin to approach this medically, other than it sounded like he had black outs and might have gotten violent on everyone around him. Maybe he was just losing time during these black outs or having memory problems, not actually de-aging or something.

His notes looked like chicken scratch at the moment;'memory like swiss cheese', 'bugnuts crazy' littering the margins, all very professional, medical terms that Janet would have a heart attack if she ever got wind of these notes. Kon-El's words, not his. Daniel might not approve of using the term 'crazy' carelessly, but it wasn't his place to go rewriting Kon Els's report. It was up to him to jot down what he said, as close as he could, and see what they could glean from it. Changing it might result in losing some vital evidence.

Daniel still tried to hide the wince at the notes. 'Bugnuts crazy' was really going to drive the linguist in him, well, 'bugnuts crazy'. Now he was just making words up. There were so many other ways you could describe it, and he didn't even begin to see what bugs, nuts, or a 'bug's nuts' could even be remotely connected or relevant to string together.

"At least that seems to narrow it down to a set time frame. Sometime after arrival at XaXing. Would you mind giving a run-down of everything you did or visited during that time?"

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

"Mostly hung out there with my friend Rob. Hit the clothes shops for some new boots. Hit different techie shops so Robs could fix up his little bat-toys. Hit a bunch of dusty old shops looking at weird stuff. Like I told Dr. Doctor earlier, nothing really stands out. I had like five shop-owners say creepy stuff at me to try to give me the heebs so I'd buy their junk."

Kon scratched at his chin.

"Nothing where I remember losing time right then."

Wait. Wait.

Time.

Kon arched an eyebrow. "There was one shop, though...that was a little on the weirder side."

[hi_there_aliens]

Creepy? 'Creepy' wasn't exactly how he'd describe the merchants he encountered when he was down there. Maybe highly dedicated. Very enthusiastic. Creative sellers. Not really creepy though. What exact part of town had Kon-El been shopping around?

Daniel looked up from his notepad. This might be promising.

"Can you describe it in as much detail as you remember?" he asked "How it looked, what was there, anything you felt, smelled or heard?"

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

Well, he and Robin were the types to go traipsing around the worse parts of town like they could beat up anyone that looked at them cross-eyed. Namely because they probably could.

"One place was full of old mystical-looking junk. The weird part was the guy just...wanted me to see something. Like, he wasn't pushing it to sell it, you know? That's why it sticks out. Everyone there was selling something, but this guy, he's like 'Come take a look at this.' And then instead of trying to bargain, that was that."

Weird, now that he thought about it.

[hi_there_aliens]

Mystical junk. Now the archaeologist in him was railing. What might be junk to them now was highly valuable hundreds of years down the line, and not just in a monetary sense. There probably were legitimate antiques or artifacts in that store and Kon-El had likely ended up relegating it to the junk pile in his mind.

He really did wish Kon-El would remember that Daniel hadn't made it to the store. He needed a name. Something. Right now all he got was a vague store with a merchant who just wanted him to look at the merchandise, not necessarily buy. That was interesting, since it was so highly irregular for that society, but it still didn't even so much as identify the store.

"Could you be more specific please? Like, describe the store, the man, this 'junk'." Daniel asked. "Assume you're trying to get someone to see exactly what you did. It could make all the difference."

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

"I didn't pay attention to the name of the store, I don't remember most of the junk, and I don't remember where it was. We hit a lot of stores and kinda wandered aimlessly. It was just one more shop, you know? Cluttered, lots of little knick-knacks."

Kon rubbed the back of his neck.

"But I do remember what he wanted me to see. This is all time stuff, right? Well, what he wants me to look at: it's a clock," he said. "It looks like one of them surreal paintings, you know, with the clocks that are all melted? It's all drooping and melting like that, but it's still ticking. Then...then the shop guy disappears while I'm looking it over, and it chimes a couple times while I'm looking at it, real deep. 'Dooom dooom dooom,' almost like it's a word. Then he comes back, doesn't really try to get me to buy it or anything, I look around the shop a bit more, don't find anything I like, and leave. I just thought he was some kinda weirdo and didn't really think anything of it."

[hi_there_aliens]

Having at least the name would've been a good place to start. Of course it wasn't going to be that easy. The archaeologist let out a sigh before he remembered to stop himself. He covered up the frustrated noise with a cough.

"Dali's The Persistence of Memory" Daniel corrected absently. Now why had this shopkeeper roped them into looking at it. What for? He suspected that he wasn't going to get that answer out of this patient. The man to ask was the merchant himself. "And yes, it's definitely strange that he didn't even try to sell anything to you. And then you started feeling weird after you left the planet, not right then at that clock?"

What was it that affected him? The sight or the sound? Both? Maybe something else? He didn't have any lab results here, and even if they were here, there was a good chance he wasn't going to understand most of it. This sort of thing really was Sam's area.

Daniel reached into a pocket and withdrew a map that Guide had given him. It was a rough map of the city. He smoothed it out as best as he could, and flattened it against the bubble. "Sorry. Think you point out the general neighborhood you were in at least?"

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

"That I think I can do."

Kon looked on the map and then tapped at a location.

"There was this sidewalk market, right here. It was somewhere around there. I remember there was a guy selling hubcaps nearby."

[hi_there_aliens]

It was a start at least. Daniel circled the area. "Thank you. I think that'll do for now."

What was it some of the nurses back home used to ask? Oh that. "Did you need me to get you anything before I go?"

[so-pregnable.livejournal.com]

"Not unless you have the cure in your pocket."