Epidemic Exsilium: Stage Two

[initiates]

Date & Time: June 8th - June 14th
Location: Throughout Exsilium
Characters: Anyone participating in hunting down the sleeper agents; anyone participating in taking care of the ill, or being ill themselves.
Summary: Stage Two of the Super Virus Epidemic strikes; sleeper agents of the United Earth are revealed.
Warnings: Illness, violence, needles. (Those IVs, man!)

Sniffles and coughs aren't unusual during the spring, with people combating allergies even in the far future, and colds being as present as always. But with more and more people falling ill, and none responding to antibiotics, things are starting to get worrying.

The first death is of an infant, on the night of the 7th. It's not the only one: three more are recorded not long after. It's unknown about the state of patients who never presented for medical assistance. Those familiar with viral infections fear the worse, especially as the usually healthy demographic starts arriving, coughing and displaying symptoms of the same sort of illness.

If that's not enough out among the natives, the Initiative has received its own information and insight into the true nature of the virus. "Wasmannian" Agents, spies of the Initiative in the United Earth, have reported back information at great cost to their security in their undercover positions. There is a super virus headed your way. They've been shipping it in to the island since December 3312. These are the manifests. We've deciphered most the code-names. Good luck.

Now the Initiative turns to the Transports for additional manpower to hunt down the United Earth's sleeper agents, pick up the shipments of the virus, and track down its physical origins in order to do something to stop the impending decimation of Exsilium's population.

Things are getting scary. It's a sick, sad world out there. Where are you, in the middle of it all?

Comments

a, june 14

[taijiya]

[Sango's been good about wearing her face mask, as ineffective as it might seem to some. But it did work, at least for a couple days. It is working, Sango tells herself now despite the harsh coughs that lurch out of her chest.

It's deep into stage 2 and Sango is still going, buzzing about with exhausting speed, always doing something--always steadfastly ignoring the possibility that there's something really wrong, even as she has to take long pauses to gasp for breath and cough and sweat cold. Even as she grows increasingly clumsier and more liable to bump into random people on the street, such as a boy in a bugsuit.]

Oh, crap, I'm sorry--

[khajidont]

[It's something of a surreal experience just walking down the street in full uniform, but he's got errands to run for the clinic, and he'll be no use to anyone ill. When someone bumps into him, he turns to tell them it's all right when he recognizes a girl he had spoken with over the tablet.]

Oh--

[A girl that Blue Beetle doesn't know, even if Jaime Reyes had spoken to her. Even so, Blue Beetle's got plenty of reason to talk to her now. He reaches out to grasp her elbow, trying to steady her, then pauses as the Scarab makes a note of her condition in the back of his mind. Accelerated heart beat, irregular breathing...

And a definite victim of the latest round of biological warfare.] It's okay. [He frowns, eyebrows crinkling together underneath his mask. His voice is gentle when he adds on,] But you're not.

[taijiya]

[Sango frowns--which is only notable by the way her eyebrows draw downward, since the lower half of her face is covered by mask. She begins to pull her arm away from the stranger's grasp (even if his voice is somewhat familiar).]

What? I'm fine. If I wasn't, I'd be with the others in the clinic.

[khajidont]

No, I mean...

[He rubs at the back of his neck. Sango would seem a little shaky from the standpoint of a normal observer already, but he's got a step up on them. He's broken the news to a few people by now and suddenly has a heck of a lot more respect for doctors, because telling people they've got a serious disease is on the list of things he never wants to do again. His mouth twists in sympathy.]

This thing - [he taps one finger right above the lens that covers his eye] - can detect the bug. You've got it.

[taijiya]

[Deeper frowns. He has no reason to lie to her. And if she's honest, she's known it all along. So instead she just sighs.]

Fine, whatever, so does everyone else. If you'll excuse me...

[khajidont]

Whoa, whoa, hold up for just a second. [He crosses his arms and frowns at her, feeling distinctly like his mother for a moment. It's technically none of his business what people who've come down with the illness do, but it's a supremely bad idea to keep on going when the ramifications of this one are so severe.]

Not everyone. I can see it, remember? This isn't really a 'fine whatever' kind of thing. You have heard about what this thing's all about, haven't you?

[taijiya]

[A sigh. A frustrated Sango rubs at her temples.]

Look, I appreciate it. But the thing is, I'm still walking and talking, and as long as I am I can be helping people who aren't walking and talking. I'm useless in a hospital bed.

[khajidont]

Being able to walk and talk is a really sucky way of determining whether or not you should actually be up and about.

[He brings his hand to the bridge of his nose. That came out a bit tetchier than he necessarily meant it to.] Look, it's important that everyone takes care of themselves too. Besides, this thing going around? Kind of super-contagious.

[taijiya]

[Mask!! Tapping!! Because obviously that is a thing that is working!]

I'm being careful.

[Don't make her go lie down. Don't do it, man. 8| ]

[khajidont]

It's a super-virus. If it all it took was a mask to stop it, we'd be home free. What's so important that you can't take a day off, anyway?

[taijiya]

Not stop it, I...

[Okay she can't really argue with that. So she just frowns.]

What's important? It's people dying every day. People that the Initiative won't resurrect because they're not us. You just said it's a super-virus. If anything I can do to help gets us one minute closer to fixing it, when for everyone in that clinic one minute is the life or death difference, that's what's important.

[khajidont]

[It's obvious that arguing will get him exactly nowhere here. He can recognize that sort of pig-headed look on anyone's face - honestly, it's remarkably like Brenda's.

And he's never won an argument against her. If he was his mother, he could probably lecture her about all the reasons she needs fluids and rest and how she's actually being selfish by doing what she's doing in mom-logic, but he's not. So he does the next best thing he can think of.]

Okay, okay, so you want to help. That's cool. It just so happens that I'm on my way to pick up some more supplies for the Clinic, and I could probably use an extra set of hands. That sound useful enough for you?

[taijiya]

[She already knows he's going to try to pull something with this, but she's more interested in pacifying this well-meaning but exasperating stranger right now than she is escaping him in the long run.]

Alright, fine.

[khajidont]

[...Well, that was easier than expected! Onward-ho!]

Okay, [he says, sounding just a tad bewildered that he didn't have to belabour the point. He starts walking, though he keeps the pace fairly slow.] Well, let's go. I'm Blue Beetle, by the way.