Good News, Bad News, Better News.

Posted on Fri Mar 27th, 2020 @ 12:47am by The Narrator

Mission: S2:1: Into The Drowning Deeps
Location: Canopus Station Medical Centre, Quarantine Lab
Timeline: MD4 12.00

Tink. Tink. Tink.

Kitcher stood by the glass wall looking into Aimee's little fishbowl of a hotel suite. The Security Officer looked well, given she'd last seen him beaten unconscious and in a ruptured bio suit exposed to the Concordance infection. In fact, he looked downright chipper, as he took a bite from an apple he held in one hand.

"Hey Doc," he said as he finished a mouthful. "You want the good news, the bad news, or the better news?"

Aimee was reading a psychological journal from the PADD in her hand because it wasn't like she had really anything else better to do for the moment. She heard the noise and sat up to see Kitcher and was thankful that he had recovered from his injuries, "I have three options?" She quipped with a slight grin on her face. She had already tested herself again and it still came back negative. The Computer had indicated that the infection had been completely eradicated and she felt great.

"I suppose I'll just take all three in whatever order you choose."

"Bad news it is then," Kitcher smiled. "You got the entire Security department angry at you for this stunt. If it gets out that officers in Medical can do the daring-do without a Gold Shirt around, well it makes us less than important. You hurt our feeling's like that and we're not likely to run after you when the danger happens."

He held up one finger to make his point, and then added a second.

"Good news is, turns out the Concordance infection isn't airborne. At least not from infected individuals. I'll be honest I was shitting myself something fierce when I woke up in isolation, but not fungal particulates and an fMRI shows I have nothing but what came with the original packaging riding up here," Kitcher tapped the side of his skull. "And as for the better news, hey Doc you want to come over here and let her know she's gonna be let out of the hamster cage?"

They'd made some conversation over the time Paulsen had been stuck in here, but nothing earth-shattering. Mostly, Murray had been running tests, exploring hypotheses and studying every damn detail of what had gone on, what was going on and what might happen within the human universe contained in quarantine. She was a glitch in the system, an unexpected solution to an intriguing and dangerous problem, and studying the Concordance infection via the ship's medical database had been an extremely interesting read. Murray was a little disappointed, however, that the infection hadn't taken. Such a bountiful and well-documented, safely contained opportunity chance to observe this phenomenon from inception to fully present was no small victory. However... potentially creating a means to counteract, or at least prevent also offered some glory in discovery.

He let the Security Officer pander to Paulsen's ego, despite his own views on her actions and Murray wandered over to stand beside Kitcher as he was personally addressed.

"Glad to hear you're all clear," Murray told Kitcher, then he smiled and regarded Aimee through the glass. "You ready for freedom?" He asked her.

Aimee stepped out of isolation still wearing her undershirt and uniform pants. Her jacket was slung over her shoulder, "Well tell Security that I apologize for upsetting them," She told Kitcher relatively calmly, "And as for you... I'm thankful you've not been infected with that condition. It's certainly a plus," She turned and looked at Doctor Murray, "Any idea why the fungal thing wasn't able to breach into my brain?" She asked him, "Not that I'm upset about that..."

"Yeah. I mean if you can tell me the Doc is a Ex-Borg and so her nanobots ate the fungus, I know a betting pool in the mess hall I can get you in on," Kitcher said with a grin at Murray. "So far the money is fair she messed up and injected herself with saline, or that she's secretly a Q. I got my money on acute allergic reaction on behalf of the fungus."

He watched her step back out into the lab, a little regret waving a flag from the privacy of his own mind. But this was a space station, a captive population, and Dr Paulsen wasn't going to be far away, especially now considering what they all now knew. Miracle Girl was the complicated answer to one of the Big Problems, and her system held the clues that Murray needed to unravel. He had a sense that Ingram would approve of pretty much any solution that ensured immunity, or at least a cure, so it would just be a matter of the PR.
Soooo, he had to sneak around a bit, medically speaking, or he had to sell it right. Both part of Murray's skillset, thankfully.

"Yes," he answered Aimee. "You presented a unique immune response caused by a asymmetric protease structure in your T-cells." He let those words hang in the air for a moment, mostly because he was impressed that he'd pulled those words from his own brain. Kinda.

Then Murray looked from counsellor to Kitcher and returned a broad smile. "Not a Borg survivor - though I'm definitely up for the betting pool if you'll have me. Your money's likely lost however, sorry - not an allergy from the fungus, but an incredibly hungry human immune system. Our little lady here is killing the fungus with her 'superhuman' white blood cells. Holyfield and Tyson. Ear biting kinda side swipe from the left field on account of Aimee's unique... metabolism."

"So the million bars of gold pressed latinum question is can the results be replicated under more controlled conditions and some sort of cure be replicated?" Aimee asked Doctor Murray. She didn't quite understand the science behind it because she was not a medical doctor, but a psychological doctor... A head doctor... A person who told people that they were mentally sick not physically sick. "Also," She looked at Kitcher next, "There's a betting pool?"

"You injected yourself with crazy person juice with the assured confidence of a 'Bwuhahaha' mad scientist. Not only is there a betting pool, I think there's a guy down in the Quartermasters Office selling merch," Kitcher said. And to a prove a point reached into a jacket pocket and pulled out a badge.

'Thinking You're Crazy? See My Shrink!'

"I hear the beanies sold out before they could replicate more. Face it, you're a minor celebrity among the Security and working stiffs."

Murray raised an eyebrow and frowned lightly at the idea of merchandise. He regarded Kitcher with an expression that clearly demonstrated he wasn't entirely sure if the man was joking, then grinned and nodded. "Well," he said. "In this case that hero worship is likely a good thing. I only have one Amiee Paulsen to work with and I need to find a way to protect us all from this fungal infection or we're screwed. Not sure on the cure yet, that's gonna take a little more time to determine. Time," he grimaced. "And a lot more tests. Like really a lot. So don't stray too far, unfortunately I'm gonna need to be your Number One Fan, for a while longer. Which means more time in here."

Aimee eyed Kitcher while rubbing the front of her head, "Well then..." She muttered and tried to decide for herself who's wild idea that was before directing her attention to Doctor Murray, "Hopefully the computer will give us some sort of context clues as to how it wasn't able to break the brain barrier before the white blood cells fought it off?"

As if on cue holographic data panes appeared, detailing the various scans, tests, chemical filtering agents, and other medical technobabble that had been perpetrated against Dr Paulsen. One of the more animated holograms was a computer-generated model of a blood cell interacting with the fungal infection, with a tag that read 'Spencer, J'. It looked like a poorly made red flesh dought nut covered in a light fuzz of grey.

The grey fuzz grew and fizzed atop the red blood cell slowly sinking in until a blinking 'Infected' status light appeared.

Then another window appeared, labelled "Paulsen, A'. The red blood cell was there, making a mockery of all good-natured bagels out there, wearing its coat of grey fuzz. Tendrils of the fungus tried to work and worm into the blood cell, but there sinking stain of it never seemed to catch. Then a blob of off cream came in from off-screen, gracefully caressing the red blood cell with a tendril.

The moment the tendril touched the grey fuzz, the red blood cell was engulfed in the white fluffy murder mass known as a white blood cell.

"Trojan Horse," Kitcher said wit ha nod, and then looked at the two doctors. "Right? Like, this first image I guess is from an infected soldier? The fungus gets into the cell carrying oxygen which will pass into the brain. Whereas your one, the fungus can't get into the blood cell so it can't hide when the bodies rent-a-cops turn up. I mean if I'm off base let me know, cause I specialise in the mall cop business don'tcha know."

"Correct," said Murray, watching the pretty bio-movies with them. Imagery spoke so much louder than dry words, that was for sure, the simplicity spoke volumes. "You explained it way better than I did," he added with a grin to Kitcher. "Now the challenge is to replicate what our girl here can do and share it with the other kids. I can figure out how to do that and we're good to go play outside again. Well, I say 'I' - the computer's doing most of the work here."

Jacobs looked from Kitcher to Aimee then, as he considered ways and means. "If I can make it so that all of us have red blood cells that quickly recognise the Trojan Horse move, then our own white blood cells will do the rest. I just need to be able to do that without turning us all into 13yr old versions of ourselves," he added with a wry smile.

"LIke a mass blood transfusion?" Kitcher asked, looking at Amiee. "I don't think pint-size here can do a whole person."

"Exactly," said Murray. "And on both fronts. But we don't need to tranfuse everyone all at the same time. A few test subjects ought to be able to help us out with the volumes, once the process begins to start working."

"What if we used a sample of my blood to synthesize some sort of counter agent that could help eventually develop a vaccine and cure?" Aimee asked thoughtfully, "My Doctoral is not in the medical field so I'm not sure if that's entirely feasible... But, it's something."

"Hey don't look at me, I'm just Expedition Security for when you lot go for a ride around in the great unknown," Kitcher said and held up his hands. "Just get her out of the quarantine ward so my rent-a-cops can buy her a drink."

Aimee looked at Doctor Murray, "Thoughts?"

"Yes, you can go out for a bit," Murray said, though he sounded distracted now. He'd never had to deal with anything on this scale before, or really anything as high profile, but the whole set-up was fascinating. "Go have a drink," he added, though this gaze and his mind were clearly way more interested in the problem at hand. "I think a vaccine is more likely to be forthcoming than an immediate cure.." He murmured, lost in some silent through process. "Something that encodes into the endothelial cells or blood cells... something that reminds the blood brain barrier not to let this fungus in. A hard stop. And I'm not sure this problem is really part of anyone's specific field as yet, it's a new problem. Definitely not on any curriculum I'm aware of. But new ground is where the best challenges are..." He finally looked back to Kitcher and Aimee. "Go, drink, have fun," Murray said with a brief smile. "I'm pretty confident I'm not going to fix this in the next few hours, but I have a great deal of work to do."

Aimee shrugged, "Very well," She said and looked at the chronometer on the nearby console screen against the wall, "I have an appointment that I need to go handle anyway." The Counselor shrugged and then departed.

Once Aimee had left, Murray began to look into the records of the infected. He watched the brain scans uploaded to the station medical computer and frowned. "Maybe we don't need to completely remove it," he mused quietly out loud. "What if we could just hack... rewire... this thing?"

"I have trouble programming the replicator," Kitcher said and patted Murray on the arm. "Good luck with the science project doc."