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

[encourage]

"Cross the geriatric revolution off a list of possibly occurring future events," she said, sounding more serious than she was. It was a good point, and she had to acknowledge that. "We definitely don't need to worry about more age complications."

She examined the screen along with Howard and Anwei. "People brought the clock up in interviews with you, too?" She frowned, looking at the pattern of stars on the map itself. Maybe...

"Cross-contamination's certainly possible." If some mixture between the potion's stall and the clock merchant's wares could feasibly create the conditions needed to start sending someone backward through time. "Ask her if there's anything in her memory banks that would suggest this is possible, or if she knows of any kind of clock able to cause this kind of time-reversal on its own. Or just ask her to do exactly what you said. It's a better lead than anything else we've had so far, and one way or another most of them point right back to XaXing as it is."

[8wings.livejournal.com]

"We'd better make sure we make a note of what the cure is after we put it into storage. Labels on it, hard copy with it, soft copies in the Library and in off-network memory. Just in case-" and she let that thought trail off. Just in case none of them were around when it was rediscovered, because they were in GLaDOS, or in the pods. Or dead.

"It might have some supernatural component. Maybe it has to look like a clock, or it doesn't work. Or the person who has it is testing to determine how to reverse-engineer it. That person probably has some very useful information. Let's hope they are willing to share." She gave a quick, narrow smile that slit her face with very sinister glee.

"We write up what we know. If Doctor Henderson is willing to sign off on it, we can probably consider dropping the quarantine. We make a general announcement to the crew about the clock shop, and another one to Command recommending that we question Stacy - maybe she'll actually answer them."

She took a sip from her thermos/dehumidifier. "And we hope that we get the answers, and the cure, in time."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Stay cheerful, Anwei," Howard says, knowing exactly where her train of thought was going. He flexes his toes in his bitten-up shoe, not pleased to be reminded of how close that call had been. "Pretty much everyone brought up the clock, but pretty much everyone brought up everything. Still our best bet by far, according to the powers of every horror movie I ever sat through in my childhood."

He sighs dramatically. "Life would be so much easier if we could just snap our fingers and tell Stacy to go somewhere." He snaps his fingers to illustrate.

"What's our backup plan, in case she doesn't listen to us? I mean, we could just resolve all those guys to their fates as the world's oldest premature babies, but I'm thinking nobody's going to be cool with us just sitting around without working on plan B."

[encourage]

"We could ask if stasis might be able to prevent the continued loss of time while we figure out a plan B. Are there any other craft that can navigate or handle the Bleed?" Sakura felt a headache coming on. Space, space travel -- there was so much about it for her to learn, and so little of it as intuitive as she'd like.

"We'll probably still be moving some people right back into Medical. If Doctor Henderson signs off that we're not considering this contagious, there's still a number of people who'll need closer monitoring as time progresses." She paused, looking down at her data pad. "And we'll need to be prepared for that possibility, even if we're turned around and heading back to XaXing within the day. Help make sure anyone taking responsibility for friends and family is prepared as well."

For those who had either in anything close to abundance on this ship.