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.]]

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[closed, and bendytimed to the day before Quarantine ends]

[lives2annoy.livejournal.com]

Marco hadn't noticed it himself, but over the night he'd had a rapid change, the last few years falling away until he'd stopped at thirteen years old, and had just started fighting against the Yeerks not that long ago. Not that he was going to keep fighting the Yeerks. He'd told Jake, before he'd woken up on Stacy - that mission was going to be his.

Figures that right when he was about to get out of that insane mess, he ended up in an even more insane mess. (How's that for irony, Alanis?)

[encourage]

(Better than the rain on your wedding day.)

Rounds right now in Quarantine were a bit like watching family movies in reverse. If, for one, Sakura had ever seen a family film in her life, and if, for another, any of these people were family in the first place.

... Rounds right now in Quarantine were a bit like something she'd never seen before, with faces and forms that changed in startling (if interesting) ways. People might occasionally wish they could catch a glimpse of someone at a different age, normally older authority figures when they'd been much younger, but Sakura was quickly finding that she really wasn't comfortable with these glimpses into people's pasts.

For one, it wasn't their past anymore. For another, it was an all too evident sign that they weren't figuring things out quickly enough -- they were losing time in the most literal sense.

Passing by Marco's bubble, she hadn't expected as obvious change as the one she was confronted with when she looked up and over. She had half planned on seeing how he was getting along, as well as to check his deaging progress. "Marco?" How old was he now? If she had to guess, she'd say around genin age. Assuming he'd follow the same aging patterns as someone from her world. Most people appeared to be, so far. He'd definitely lost the signs and hints of a young male entering or currently going through puberty. "How're you feeling today?"

[lives2annoy.livejournal.com]

"How long do I have to stay in this bubble?" Marco said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm so bored right now that I'd even read a textbook."

[encourage]

"That can be arranged," she said with a small smile, saving the answer to his first question for last. Out of two questions, it meant he didn't have to wait all that long. "Though I'm guessing you'd prefer something with more pictures."

She glanced around the bubble, keeping her tone light. "If all goes well, not too much longer. We're pretty sure what you all have isn't something that just anyone can catch. If it's not infectious, then it means you get out again."

[lives2annoy.livejournal.com]

"Woah, does that mean you guys have comics?" Marco said, suddenly more interested. "Like, what about Spider-Man? You have them? Unless they've locked all them away cause he's on the ship...oh man, do you know how awesome that is? Spider-Man! He's like, totally the coolest superhero, hands down."

He still couldn't beleive that he actually had Spider-Man's autograph, back at Cassie's house. For real! "Hey...you know, if it turns out we can't get out of these bubbles and everything...do you reckon Spidey would like, do visits and whatnot? I mean, not that he has to," Marco added on quickly. "I mean, he's probably way too busy, right?"

[encourage]

At least she knew what superheroes were, thanks to Kon. Sakura waited through his barrage of questions, figuring he didn't expect an answer to most of them. She could try, for those she knew.

"We do, I think, though you're probably right about things being locked away." She thought there were some occasional exceptions, if none related to this Spiderman came to mind. Had she seen a name like that on the active crew roster?

"I'm sure he'd be happy to, if he's as cool as you say he is. What kind of superhero wouldn't come say hello to someone who appreciated his hard work?" She smiled, tamping down her confusion. "I don't think anyone is too busy to spare some time to do that."

[lives2annoy.livejournal.com]

Marco grinned, feeling giddy. "Man, that would be just seriously awesome. You wait till Jake hears about this..." Marco trailed off, his enthusiasm waning. Jake wasn't here though, was he? He was gone, sent back to the pods.

Talking to Spider-Man wasn't so fun if he couldn't talk to Jake about it.

"Well, I'll just tell him when he wakes up again," he mumbled.

[encourage]

Jake? One of his friends? Someone who had been here before, based on how he referenced waking up again. Not waking up for the first time.

Sakura hesitated, making a calculated gamble. He'd been emphatic about Eva not being his mother -- his free mother -- a few years older than this. Yet he was Academy aged, and liable to get younger as time went forward. The logical choice for who would be taking care of him boiled down to the person Kaya and Kang had both been concerned about, a woman Sakura herself had never met.

If Quarantine was going to end, they'd need to know where every person was heading. No one should be allowed to leave on their own, not without a support network to watch over and take care of them should things continue to get worse before they got better.

"What about Rachel? You could tell her, if she might not think it's as cool as Jake would. Or Eva. You could always tell your mother in the meantime, couldn't you?"

[lives2annoy.livejournal.com]

Marco froze. Tell Eva?!

It had nearly been two years, back before he woke up here. Two years, since she'd disappeared into the ocean. Two years since she'd died. He couldn't talk to her, not now, not ever again.

"That's not funny," he said flatly. "My mother is dead."

[lives2annoy.livejournal.com]

Marco froze. Tell Eva?!

It had nearly been two years, back before he woke up here. Two years, since she'd disappeared into the ocean. Two years since she'd died. He couldn't talk to her, not now, not ever again.

"That's not funny," he said flatly. "My mother is dead."

[encourage]

My mother is dead. She was building an incomplete understanding about how someone's home life collided with a different kind of war, and it wasn't entirely intentional. Eva was clearly alive on ship, and from what little else she knew from Marco and circumstance, that implied her death as he referenced it now had either been an assumption made by her family or cover until a later point in time, when the Yeerk she was host to brought her back into the public eye.

Secondary realizations, if in a way this was kinder. Not that Marco was being set up by outside forces to meet his deceased mother, but that in doing so, his first thought wasn't yet her years spent as a prisoner in her own mind. "That'd make a pretty poor joke," she said, "If I was kidding."

There were different ways to broach the topic, but one of the simplest boiled down to the very ship they were on. If he didn't remember his mother from before, on ship, it was also an indication that he was suffering greater memory loss than before -- or maybe that the conflicting memories were being repressed by his own mind. Making the situation make some semblance of sense when it was already confusing enough.

"She's alive, here, on ship. Do you remember?" She paused, giving him the chance to respond before continuing on. "Stacy rescued people from all points in their timelines. All living points in any one person's life, or any one world's history."

[lives2annoy.livejournal.com]

"Stop it," Marco said, starting to sound agitated. "I said that's not funny, alright? I think if my Mom was here, I'd remember it. And she's dead. She's not coming back."

He hoped that she would come back, back when she had first gone missing. Except she never had, and Marco had known that her miraculously surviving somehow just wasn't realistic. Better to just accept it. It hurt less, then.

[encourage]

Definite memory loss around events happening on ship. She could hear the agitation in his voice. It wasn't in his best interests, nor hers, to make this worse on him than it already was going to be. Someone should contact Eva.

That wasn't a conversation she looked forward to. "I understand," she said simply, letting her voice soften. "It's never funny to make light of someone's death. It's disrespectful. I'm sorry."

She bowed, if she wasn't sure it meant anything to him at this age. Or any age, really. Out of the times she'd bowed to Marco in the past, one had been out of politeness, the other out of something approaching irritable (almost) spite. This time it was to apologize. Something she further illustrated, as she said, "I hope you can accept my apology."

Even if it was an apology for not knowing what to do, or to say, when the reality was that his mother was alive. Apologizing because he'd have to re-learn that, too, and she knew it wouldn't be easy. How would Sasuke have reacted, being reintroduced to a member of his family he believed had died? At this age?

Maybe even before he left the village?

[lives2annoy.livejournal.com]

Marco bristled a little, ready to snap at her the moment she showed even the slightest hint of pity. Except then she didn't, even while she was apologising, so he just ended up hovering awkwardly.

He didn't say anything for a minute, before relaxing a fraction. "Alright," he said grudgingly.

Re: [closed, and bendytimed to the day before Quarantine ends]

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Zouichi wasn't sure how old the person he was looking for now was, but he stopped at one of the bubbles -- the boy in this one bore more than a passing resemblance to Eva.

"Marco?" he asked.

Re: [closed, and bendytimed to the day before Quarantine ends]

[lives2annoy.livejournal.com]

"Yeah?" Marco said, sitting up. He looked at the guy sideways. "Hey, aren't you that guy who used the sensoriums to turn into a dolphin?"

Re: [closed, and bendytimed to the day before Quarantine ends]

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Zouichi blinked. "Yes, I am."

So Marco was the dolphin. Who was the elephant, Rachel? At least this Marco seemed relatively calm.

"If you don't mind, I came to apologize to you."

Re: [closed, and bendytimed to the day before Quarantine ends]

[lives2annoy.livejournal.com]

"For what? Chasing the fish?" Marco said, eying Zouichi like he had gone completely nuts.

Re: [closed, and bendytimed to the day before Quarantine ends]

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

"No, not that." Zouichi wasn't really sure how to address the child Marco had regressed into. Maybe it was best to start at the beginning. "I am not human. I'm something called a Synthetic Human, and scientists on my version of Earth created me in a last-minute attempt to counteract a disastrously infectious disease. Perhaps .000001 percent of humans who contract it are immune. The rest..." He shrugged. "It takes less than an hour."

"So was extremely important that I protect the humans that were left. And there were not many, by the time the ship picked me up."

Re: [closed, and bendytimed to the day before Quarantine ends]

[lives2annoy.livejournal.com]

"And this is relevant how? Marco said. What the hell was with this guy? "Jeez, man. You don't have to apologise for being a robot or whatever the hell you are."

Re: [closed, and bendytimed to the day before Quarantine ends]

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

"Bear with me, please." Marco was awfully impatient. Maybe he was at his rebellious stage.

"When I was brought aboard this ship, I wanted to continue protecting people. And the most obvious way for me to do so was through Security, since I was told it is their job to defend the crew from onboard threats. However, when I joined, I also counted myself as having implicitly agreed to a code of conduct that would not have been required of me back on Earth. For example, not forming snap judgments about alien crew members and judging them by human standards. Many of the crew come from worlds in which what I would consider immoral is commonplace, even encouraged. Stealing. Child endangerment. Xenophobia. But in my view, a Security officer needs to protect all the crew, not just the people they personally agree with. Because whatever else has happened, the people on this ship have agreed to set aside their differences to fight a greater threat.

With that understanding, when one of the Yeerk members of the crew contacted us, asking for protection, I asked why, and attempted to listen to his account as objectively as I could. It didn't sound like all of what he said was true, but it didn't sound like it was entirely false, either. And since the Council member I spoke to about it didn't... since we had disagreements, I thought the fastest way to determine what parts of his story were true was to contact as many people I could about it.

However, after talking to someone from the other side of the conflict, someone who had been a host themselves, I believe I was too blunt with you. I still don't think I fully understand what it was like; perhaps I never will, without having experienced it for myself. But if I made you feel as though I was backing you into a corner, I apologize. That was not my intention."

Re: [closed, and bendytimed to the day before Quarantine ends]

[lives2annoy.livejournal.com]

"Hang on, you're that guy from the comms?" Marco said, blinking. Okay. "Look...it's no big deal, okay? You just wanted to know about the Yeerks, right?" And Marco had just snapped at the guy. Except he couldn't really figure out why. More people knowing about the Yeerks was a good thing, right?

"I don't know why I was so pissed off about it," he admitted. "But you do know that you shouldn't listen to Iniss, don't you? You can't trust him."

Re: [closed, and bendytimed to the day before Quarantine ends]

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

Zouichi blinked. Not the reaction he'd been expecting. "Yes. My name is Kanoe Zouichi. But just Zouichi is fine."

"Iniss is..." he hesitated. "I went to speak with him personally, to try to figure him out. I think he's a sociopath." Did thirteen-year-old Marco know what a sociopath was?

"...he can be trusted to act in his own self-interest. That was my conclusion."

Re: [closed, and bendytimed to the day before Quarantine ends]

[lives2annoy.livejournal.com]

"Uh, I'm Marco," he said. "Though I guess you already know that, huh?"

Marco's expression darkened. He wasn't the hardened guerrilla fighter he'd become in the future - had been, just a week ago - but he'd already learned an intense hatred for Yeerks. Including the one that had infested his best friend's brother as well.

And he knew what a sociopath was, alright. "Yeah," he said darkly. "He acts like he really wants to 'help' everyone, but he's only doing that because if he didn't, he'd be completely screwed. I'd bet my right arm that moment it benefits him more to do so, he'll turn against everybody."

Re: [closed, and bendytimed to the day before Quarantine ends]

[zouichi.livejournal.com]

He nodded. "Marco. And your friend is Rachel. Kang told me a little about you, but not very much."

It was a little distressing to see an expression like that on such a young child. "Most likely. On the other hand, I don't think he'll do anything that will draw too much attention to himself. At least, not as long as he's afraid of the consequences from the rest of the crew." Which was either smart on Iniss's part, or cowardly. Maybe both.