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

[retraced]

Wait, no, you should be in bed. Here, take mine -

[Because sitting up is a good idea, that's what he does. Except in reality it's a terrible idea and the minute that he's upright he regrets it. The room spins in what feels like a complete 360 before he finds himself with his face planted back into the pillow before he has a chance to even feel himself fall over.]

[velveteened]

You clearly need it more than I do!

( that said he's going to stay sitting over here for a minute don't mind him. )

[retraced]

[He only manages to raise his hand and point one finger in a weak attempt to ask Oz to wait a minute. He'll continue this argument as soon as the world stops moving.]

[velveteened]

( it's not lost on him that this would look pretty sad from a third person's perspective.

but he does wait so there's that. )

[retraced]

[It takes him another second or three, but finally he raises his head, blinking his blurry eyes a couple times before he's finally able to refocus on Oz.]

Is that all you wanted [cough.] to say...?

[velveteened]

( flatly: )

You're an idiot.

( okay now he's good. )

[retraced]

Mm. I won't argue with you this time.

[Another weak cough and he rests his head back on the pillow, letting his hand sit back over the top of his eyes.]

That woman...

[velveteened]

Woman?

( sits up a bit curiously, looking over at gilbert. )

[retraced]

The one who -

[carried]

- helped me back. I didn't get her name. Again.

[velveteened]

You mean you've been meeting with a lady behind my back?

( being sick in no way means he's not allowed to have fun. )

[retraced]

T-that's not what I said at all!

[WOW MEAN.]

[velveteened]

That's what it sounded like, meeting ( a couple of coughs ) a lady "again." Isn't it a little soon for courting?

( we all have hobbies )

[retraced]

I keep running into her on accident!

[Yelling is a bad idea, but these are not words that can be spoken calmly and rationally.]

Don't get the wrong idea!

[velveteened]

( he's just laughing don't mind him )

[retraced]

There's nothing funny about it!

[There really, really isn't!]

1/2

[velveteened]

( there is, in fact, a sudden threatening atmosphere filtering in, enough to make the hairs on the back of one's neck rise. )

[velveteened]

( a shadow falls into the doorway, and a figure looms there for a long moment before striding in with a stern look. luckily for gilbert, the beady look she directs at oz is more than enough to stop his laughing, amusement quickly replaced with a carefully schooled innocent impression that

probably fools no one in the room. )

What was it, ( she says ) I told you about leaving your room before you were better?

1/2

[retraced]

[THREATENING ATMOSPHERE-- has Mrs. Kate arrived in the city?!]

[retraced]

[Okay maybe it's not her, but the feeling is undoubtedly similar. Enough that Gilbert tenses up and leans over to stage whisper to Oz:]

T-there's no use arguing with her-!

[velveteened]

( without looking away from the nurse, oz lifts a hand and gives gilbert a hard shove.

to her, he offers a sunny answer, pointing a finger from that still outstretched hand in gilbert's direction )

He counts as supervision.

( her unimpressed look is all the answer that gets. )

[retraced]

[Yeah because he looks like the perfect picture of health at the moment.

Especially after that shove that leaves him needing to cough so hard that he loses his breath for a moment.]

I - [gasp!] I count...

[FOOT. TAP. SHE'S GROWING IMPATIENT, OZ.]

[velveteened]

( IT WAS WORTH A SHOT.

there's a long silence in which she shoots gil a don't you enable this glare, before reaching out to grab oz by the ear and dragging him, protesting, from the room.

rest well, gilbert. )

[retraced]

[As Oz is pulled from the room, he feels his anxiety levels drop with ever step that the scary woman takes away from him. Not just because he's having flashbacks to cat-attacks pulled from the pockets of Mrs. Kate's apron, but because he knows that Oz will at least get some rest this way.

Meanwhile, he'll just be in his room curled back up into a ball and finally accepting that he isn't going to be able to talk his way out of a fever.

I really am useless, he reminds himself as he falls back asleep.]