trans_9 | Melting Clock: Quarantine

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Melting Clock: Quarantine

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.]]

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"It was this giant clock face, and it was melting," Marco said, shrugging. "Made this weird chime too, made it sound like the word 'doom' or something stupid like that. I just thought it was some kind of cheap gimmick."

Edited 2011-05-02 07:40 (UTC)

"That might be all it is," she said honestly. "Do you remember anyone else being in the area with you at the time?" A gimmicky clock that rang out doom.

See, XaXing had so much culture to provide the masses! If the biting coincidence behind a clock stall being involved might be too much for her to want to handle on a sanity level, it would almost be appropriate for the absurdity of an illness that sent people back through their own personal time.

"Nope, was just me there," Marco said.

She nodded, inputting that further detail into her data pad. "I'll check and see if anyone else remembers the clock merchant, or this clock you mentioned." Which meant conversing with the rest of everyone who'd conducted interviews so far. "Were you on planet for the entire duration of shore leave?"

"Pretty much, except for when I brought stuff back," Marco said. "That planet might have been weird, but they definitely had a lot of cool stuff."

"And a lot of useless junk," she said lightly. "Like any good market." Sakura honestly agreed with his estimate, if she abstained from saying so for the moment. "Did anything else stand out in the last few days?" The clock stall might sound promising, but it might also be a false lead.

Marco shrugged, and reeled off a few more of the more bizarre locations he'd been too. "That's probably it, though."

Sakura nodded, finishing the latest update to her charted list. Hopefully it would be enough to get started comparing with the other interviewers. "Thank you." It paid being polite enough to acknowledge someone else's cooperation. At least he had sobered up, so to speak. "The more we know about everyone's circumstances before this, the better we can trace this back to where it started, and figure out a solution."

Which was the kicker, in so many ways. A repetition of her logic from earlier, and a reaffirmation of the process. Shifting her weight back on her heels, she watched Marco for a moment. Funny how much his body posture had changed over the interview. She suspected some of his tangent on nonsensicals like dating had everything to do with distracting himself from what was going on, and what he couldn't know with certainty. She thought back to his argument with Kaya, to how he'd talked to her over the omnicomm before he'd been brought in.

She couldn't blame him. Not for the paranoia, or for wanting a distraction. A shinobi must never show tears, came to mind, one of many permutations on the basic premise that had seemed so logical to her growing up. A shinobi must never show emotion. Not how they felt, in the face of a mission, or the reality of any given moment in life. Distract, deny, repress, because lingering on what it meant meant breaking another rule. A shinobi must always put the mission first.

The individual was rarely ever the mission itself.

"I have nothing else to ask for the moment. Until we get a better idea of some consistency between cases, picking your brain over for the minute details on everything won't be necessary." She brought her data pad up to her chest, considering possibilities. "You may have another person or two come by to run another interview, depending on what Doctor Henderson feels is needed." Sakura offered him a wan smile. "Consistency in details and reporting being what they are. Is there anything reasonable I can do for you right now? Check in on Rachel? Anyone else?" She didn't mention Eva, if his mother's name came to mind.

Sakura had been right, to an extent - when he was talking about XaXing and trying to get Sakura to go out with him, it was easier to pretend that his wasn't out there. Easier to not keep mulling over that constant anxiety over the fact that Marco just couldn't believe that she wasn't still infested by Visser One. Didn't mean that he wasn't serious about asking her out, but it had definitely helped to act as a distraction.

"Is Rachel still having a serious case of split personality?" He asked - they'd put him and Nice Rachel far apart from each other, so he couldn't see her. He'd known that Mean Rachel had brought in though - he hadn't seen her, but he'd sure as hell heard her.

He didn't ask about his mother.

"For the moment, she does." Which brought her back around to a question she'd asked before, and hadn't had the chance to find an answer. Sea stars weren't part of her area of knowledge. "The split has to do with a starfish morph?"

How had it been so capable of splitting personality as well?

"Yeah. Like, when a starfish gets cut in half, it regenerates into two different starfish, right? So when Rachel morphed it and got cut in half, instead of just one half demorphing, they both did."

Just another example of the fact that Marco's life was completely insane.

Like Zetsu, if not... exactly like Zetsu. "You don't happen to still remember how the two Rachel's rejoined, do you?" If it'd be a problem at all. Considering that this aging backward was such a literal time-loss that it was sending people back not to just moments in their past, but specific instances of their past selves, there would be a point soon where it wouldn't matter.

With the time reversal continuing, Rachel would hit the point where she'd never been split.

Taken back long enough... It won't get that far.

"Some weird thing were they acquired and morphed each other," Marco said, shrugging. "Good luck convincing them to go along with that though. We had a hell of time convincing them back home."

He didn't say it, but the unspoken thought was that waiting until they deaged back far enough would be easier.

"We'll see. I don't think half of Rachel wants anything more to do with me than she already has." Waiting was the easiest course, if the most disturbing.

"Oh man. You ran into Mean Rachel?" Marco said, wincing.

"You could say that," she said, shrugging. All in all, first literally running into her and going through a bear fight, then coming back across her with the group that had helped bring her in? "The bear morph's one of her usuals for direct confrontation?"

"Are you kidding? She loves her grizzly morph," Marco snorted. He leaned forward conspiratorially. "Hey, since you're still walking around apparently unmaimed, does that meant that you kicked her ass? Please tell me you kicked her ass. That would give me so much ammo if you had."

Sakura crossed her arms, lifting an eyebrow. "I really don't see how that has any bearing on what we've been discussing."

Ha. Bearing. "Though as a matter of public record, I only did what was necessary to try and get her to calm down." Clearly it hadn't worked, but they'd parted ways before Sakura had caught back up when Rachel had been fighting the rest of the crew who had finally brought her in. "Considering I ran into her twice, and only the second time did anyone succeed in bringing her in, make of it what you will."

Skimping on the details? Never.

"Oh, it definitely 'bears' on this discussion," Marco grinned, unable to resist the pun. "Especially since this discussion is now about you telling me exactly what went down. Spill, Barbie. I know Mean Rachel, and there's no way you'd ever get her to calm down. Did you get in a good hit?"

"Oh, it is, is it?" She rested her free hand on her hip. As a general rule, the only people interested in Sakura's exploits were the people she reported to. Genin and Academy students were more likely to play that game, asking for details like the gossips people tried to pretend they weren't a few years later.

"I'd barely call it that," she said neutrally, if her lips twitched up at the corners. No smiling. That would be decidedly unprofessional, and she was supposed to still be conducting interviews here. Though she could pass this off as maintaining patient mood... sort of. "It wasn't that exciting. I body checked her when she was morphing to throw her off balance. She swung at me, I dodged, and at some point I ended up tossing her against a wall." At least early on.

Hey, the opportunity to hear about Rachel getting her butt kicked (and not in the scary, Controllers-nearly-killer-her kind of way) was just too good to pass up.

"Tossing her against a way sounds pretty impressive. That grizzly's not light," Marco noted. Then he smirked. She was making jokes! See, he knew she had a sense of humour. She just pretend that she didn't. "Come on, what next? You can't just give me the 'bare' details."

"I don't have to give you any of the details," she pointed out, quirking up an eyebrow yet again. She flashed him a smile, amused. "Dressed up or otherwise. You'll just have to bear up under the disappointment. Besides," Sakura said, "Compared to the ones from the Forest of Death, the grizzly's weight wasn't that difficult to manage."

"But Barbie, not knowing is unbearable," Marco said, grinning. "And this Forest of Death sounds like a fun place."

"I wouldn't want to strip you of a chance at knowledge ..." Still, she wasn't giving him anything more at the moment. It felt rude, considering Rachel was in the same area. Not that she was close enough to hear, but before Rachel was back to being one self...

Sakura brought her hand up to her mouth, tapping her index finger on her lips. "Sure, it's a walk in the park. Between the giant bears, humongous millipedes, and gigantic snakes, it's not like people go missing every exam year."

Marco eyed Sakura sidelong, distracted from trying to see how long he could keep Sakura making puns. "People go missing during your exams?"

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