Mission: Bad Science Saves the Day

[initiates]

Date & Time: Mid-Day, 3310 | Present Day June 14th-16th
Location: Andersfeld, in the (far former) state of Alaska. (Also known at one time as Anchorage, Alaska.) | Back in Exsilium, those manning the Transport Pads, or working on developing the antibiotics and administering them to the ill throughout the city. Yet others will need to hop-scotch through time gathering sufficient supplies to save lives.
Characters: Volunteers to alter medical research, people working on antiobiotic cures, people distributing appropriate cures, and those who are doing minor missions into the past to retrieve adequate supplies to treat the sick in the present.
Summary: Transports are asked to help save tens of thousands of lives, first by traveling two years into the past and altering scientific research. Second, by helping with the manufacture and development of antibiotics or other cures, once the mission is complete. Third, by distributing the cure to the affected parties. Fourth, by going on pointed supply missions solo, or with up to two other people, in order to get enough supplies to save people in the present.

Whatever your character decides to do, the weight of saving lives is on their shoulders, unasked, and perhaps unwelcome. What will they do when faced with this decision?

Warnings: Illness. Freezing cold. Possible death. Drunken scientists.

In Andersfeld, the snow falls in thick, fat flakes, winds blowing in gusts up to 60 kph. Everyone is bundled up against the weather. Spirits are generally low, if not outright alcoholic. Safety lines and lights guide those brave enough to venture outdoors from building to building.

For the Transports with a six hour window to alter a future that will kill over a hundred thousand people in three weeks, it's a dangerous and necessary bravery.

In Exsilium, the success of the mission to Andersfeld is felt as soon as scientists notice the virus responding to antibiotic treatments. It becomes a race to finding the most effective means of combating the now bacterial infection, and of mass producing any working cure for distribution.

Some help with the production.

Others hurry to cart the supply out to the places hit most heavily. Yet others work directly with administering the antibiotics, in most cases, via an IV line. Those less heavily affected will be granted ridiculously large antibiotic pills, needing to be coaxed down spasming throats.

Those who need action, or who are no good with the sick, are asked to make countless small trips through time to secure the supplies needed to produce enough of the cure to save the tens of thousands who are ill but not yet deceased.

And for those too ill to assist, now is the time to rest, heal, and get better. In a world like this, one never knows what surprise might next lie in wait. The Transports and the Initiative have thwarted total disaster for now.

Mostly.

Comments

in Exsilium- open

[accidentalrebellion]

[A

She's barely aware of what's happening when she finds some of those antibiotics being shoved into her hands somewhere out in the Hold. When a stranger informs her in a gruff voice that all who are able should administer this medicine to as many as possible as quickly as possible, before he disappears.

The reality is that she doesn't have a choice but to comply with those instructions. If she doesn't want people to die, doesn't want more blood on her hands than she already has, then she has to do it. Whether she likes it or not.

The other reality is that there isn't a worse choice for this job. It couldn't be any more obvious that she would rather be anywhere else, doing anything else. As she moves from place to place, from sick person to sick person, her struggle with the impulse to run in the opposite direction and a continual herculean effort to keep from throwing up are written all over her face. She isn't a great conversationalist on her best days, but right now, conversation is effectively impossible to maintain, much less initiate.


B

After a while, it becomes clear that noble purpose isn't enough to sustain her. Noble purpose has no hope against the horrors that being in this place entails. She can't handle this for another second. Can't handle being around the sick and the dying, around suffering, any better than she ever could in her house in District 12, while her mother worked.

Maybe she's caught trying to stash the remainder of her supply in some place where someone who's better qualified for this will be able to find it. Or maybe she's caught trying to make a quick escape out the proverbial back door of the hospital. Whatever the case, there's a deserter on the loose.]

B

[cowardwithoutfear]

[Aidan was running supplies when someone from the Initiative asked him to find someone who had disappeared with a supply of medicine. He was given Katniss' description and sent on his way.]

[Truth is, they really care more about the medicine than Katmiss, but finding her is more likely to find it, so he's looking for her first over as much of the area as he can.]

[accidentalrebellion]

[Getting out of here as quickly as possible is what's preferable. Simple as that. Her stomach's churning, whatever's coming up in her throat is more difficult to keep down than it was before, and the more time that passes, the harder it is to breathe. She needs whatever semblance of fresh air she can find, and she needs it fast.

It's when she's finding a place to leave the medicine for someone else that, for the first time, something else enters into her perception, and therefore her one-track line of thought. The sound of footsteps from somewhere around, coming closer.

She stops. A hand holding one of the pill bottles freezes in midair.]

[cowardwithoutfear]

[The footsteps come closer and then suddenly stop. If Katmiss were to take a glance, she'd see a cloaked figure, probably male but it's hard to tell except that would be a really tall woman. The figure has started hovering above the ground, moving more like he's skating than walking. That would account for the sudden stop in footsteps at least.]

[He's apparently systematically looking through the various side streets and alleyways near where Katmiss is hiding, and unless she does something is going to see her at any moment.]

B

[redheadcarrier]

[Asuka is lucky, in a way. She's managed to avoid getting sick, but that meant she'd been dragooned into helping with the sick. Much like Katniss, she's done her best, but she's never been good at actually facing down things that scare her. And the visual results of the plague - that's enough to put her off. She's just outside one of the side entrances to the hospital, trying to keep her lunch (as meager as it was) from coming back up. She doesn't want to do this anymore.

She doesn't want to be here. To see or hear it. And she doesn't want to think about what it might meant for some of her friends who have caught the damn plague. She glances up as the door bangs open and Katniss hurries out. For a moment, there's guilt written all over Asuka's face before she hides it behind haughtiness and assumed superiority.

Not that it does much to hide how green around the gills she happens to look.]

What are you doing out here? Shouldn't you be inside or something?

[She has no idea who Katniss is, but the best way to avoid being questioned is to turn it onto the other person.]

[accidentalrebellion]

[Yes, Katniss is definitely hurrying out that hospital door. She's hurrying out that door like she's on a mission. No, almost like her entire life depends on it.

(It's possible that it does.)

So when a strange voice pops up out of nowhere and addresses her, it's somewhat startling. The cessation of her footsteps is accompanied by a sharp intake of breath, and it takes her a moment or two to recover. To process.

Maybe there's something in the other girl's tone that annoys her. Maybe at any other time, she'd be likely to respond to it with some form of hostility. But right now, all she's able to offer is the simple truth.]

No. [A slight shake of her head.] I shouldn't be.

[That much she can say with confidence.]

[redheadcarrier]

[Asuka's mouth curves into a frow nand she folds her arms a bit defensively, half-turning her head in an unconscious little gesture that's meant to hide the eye patch she's wearing over one eye (and fails, but that's why it's unconscious). She's judging Katniss, perhaps. She really shouldn't - but Asuka has always judged other people, even when she's guilty of the exact same thing. Sometimes she's aware of her own hypocrisy, other times she isn't.]

It is pretty bad, isn't it? I mean, it's not like I haven't been around sick people before...

[The dying? That's something else. The judgement is (mostly) gone, but there's still some arrogance hidden in there.]