Participants:
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Scene Title | Fruit of the Scarlet Tree |
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Synopsis | The blood taken from the Sundered yields troubling results. |
Date | December 5, 2020 - January 14, 2014 |
“Okay, thank you. If everyone could take a seat? Or— Or stand where they’re most comfortable, I guess?” The blonde woman standing on the raised platform — the stage of all places — pushes a pair of black framed glasses up from where they’d slipped down the bridge of her nose. Her voice is raised to get attention, but it’s with a timid edge to it. Behind her is a large monitor, presumably hooked up to the laptop just to the woman’s left and controlled by the clicker in her hand. A polished mahogany cane with a crystal ball set in its pommel rests against the standing desk. “I’m ready to get started whenever you all are.”
The way she smiles is probably meant to be reassuring, but it looks a touch too nervous to work as intended. That smile does grow in strength, however, when she’s approached by the vastly recovered Nicole Miller, who hands her a cup of coffee. Their hands overlay for a moment, serving as a sign that Nicole means to convey something to the anxious woman. The two lean in to speak to one another in hushed tones and the blonde’s eyes widen a fraction, her spine goes a little straighter. The smile is less sure than it was before when she nods her head.
“Very good,” Nicole chimes sweetly, giving a gentle pat of one shoulder before she descends the steps from the stage back down to the plush sofas, barrel chairs, booths and tables that make up the floor. The previous pink and fuchsia color scheme has been done away with in favor of shades of royal purple and acid green.
Little Darlings
December 5, 2020
4:38 pm
Once those gathered have turned their attention to the stage, the blonde takes a sip from her coffee and clears her throat. “Okay. Hi! I’m, ah, Doctor Pride. I work at Raytech Industries with Doctors Yeh and Miller. Ms Thatcher assigned me to this project herself. Some of you have met me before, especially for blood draws.”
That gets context out of the way and ensures that those who haven’t met her won’t peg her for an Exterior interloper. In her black leather jacket worn over a gold sheath dress that falls to mid-thigh, sheer black-dotted stockings, and low wedge heeled ankle boots, she doesn’t dress the part anyway.
Although some present have met Agent Castle, so maybe the attire isn’t an immediate disqualifier.
Pride breathes out a sigh and stands up a little taller, squaring her shoulders. It’s likely she doesn’t speak to groups very often. “So, I’m pretty sure everyone here has seen that ridiculous nonsense that was on Twitter Monday.” Her eyes dart around the room for signs of recognition. Seeing enough of it, she forges ahead. “Only that wasn’t ridiculous nonsense.” With the control in her hand, she extends her index finger and points at Kaylee. “That was Ms Thatcher’s blood.”
That’s only left to hang long enough for it to sink in, but picked up again before the room can erupt into murmurs. Or worse — Questions.
“It’s just like that moronic lab monkey said. Those are nanites.” Pride’s brow furrows with her resoluteness. “But they’re not like anything anyone has seen before. They’re not made of metal components like we would expect. They’re organic. I won’t throw all the technical terms at you — see me after class for that,” she attempts to joke to lighten the mood, “— but what they’re made up of is the same stuff your bones and cartilage are.”
Bringing up an image on the monitor behind her now, she sets aside her coffee and steps off to one side to provide as unobstructed a view as she can. The image is mostly red. Dark red radial gradient background, brighter red three dimensional discs in the foreground. “These are red blood cells,” Pride indicates, stepping closer to the monitor to trace one of the circles with a glossy black french-tipped fingernail.
“And these…” A click of the device in her hand brings up another image, similar to the first, but with dozens of the same little insectoid shapes, floating about like debris in a stream, the same that were seen in the Twitter leak. “…are nanites. As you can see, these things are even smaller than those cells. I couldn’t see these details on any equipment we had at Raytech, so that’s why I travelled to KC to use their electron microscope.”
Her expression turns regretful. “The hope was if we kept it quiet, and made the lab sign enough NDAs to fill a collection of the Encyclopedia of Britannica,” her voice pitches up on that emphasis with her clear upset at this situation, but levelling out immediately, “that this sort of thing wouldn’t have happened. The good news is that your identities are safeguarded. Only I know who was assigned what series of alphanumeric codes.” Scanning the room again, Dr. Pride stops for a breath.
The theory is if Asi stands with her hands in her pockets, she'll look less murderous when the leak is discussed. It's not Ourania's fault it happened, she tries to remind herself. But hers is the easiest throat to go after for having exposed them in the first place, and on a phase where Asi had finally donated samples of her own to the mix.
Her expression remains unfailingly stern despite best efforts, eyes on the information presented, patient while the results are broken down.
Aforementioned Doctor Miller sits on one of the sofas roughly facing the stage, though 'sitting' is almost too generous of a word for how far back he's sunk while things were being explained, his head tilted upward where it's thunked against the back rest and hand plastered on his face in exasperation.
He lifts two fingers to peer out from underneath them, at Nicole, before almost immediately having his attention drawn to the monitor. "So we're effectively a host aquariums to artificial sea monkeys. Wonderful. Go on."
“And let's be fair, I’m the one that set up the deal a while ago and threw a War and Peace sized book of forms and NDAs at them,” Kaylee points out, blandly. “I should have known better and told the DoE, once we came to an understanding for cooperation. For whatever reason it just didn’t occur to me.” She’s heard about her results, but getting to see them again still brings with it a feeling of unrealness.
Settling in Kaylee lets the woman continue, glancing at the others.
“Don’t worry about it,” Gillian says to Kaylee in some sense of assurance, even if she might agree they probably should have told them. “We spent so long distrusting the government it’s hard to start trusting them even when some of us work for them in some manner of speaking.” Though she was only on the Safe’s Zone’s Council and a Library Board, and it didn’t quite count the same as being a ‘spooky government organization with a badge.’ But…
It was still difficult to trust them after all the years they spent not.
“As long as our identities were anonymous I think that we’re safe enough from anyone who didn’t already know who had these things in their bodies already at least…” So there was that much. They wouldn’t be kidnapped by a third, fourth or fifth party trying to experiment on them.
For now. Sadly, Gillian doesn’t speak science, so she understood about a sixth of that. Times like this she wonders how much her mom would have understood. Her biological one. Who had worked with Project Icarus.
Isaac Faulkner lounges in a chair, his attention focused on the creepy little nanobug things on display. "Well, that's horrifying," he murmurs. It is that, he supposes… but he'd be lying if he said that they weren't also interesting as hell. Fascinating, even.
He frowns as Dr. Pride pauses, glancing up to the stage. "Do you have any theories as to what these…" he hesitates, glancing at Dr. Miller and taking a breath, "…these sea monkeys might be doing?" Faulkner asks, tilting his head curiously.
The scientist has been standing with a vaguely deer-in-headlights stare watching as she’s losing the room. “Oh god,” she utters under her breath. Her mouth opens to start to respond to Zachery, but Kaylee is offering assurances — which are great from where she’s standing — and Gillian is there with backup.
Dr. Pride nods her head along to acknowledge the conversation. Her sheepish gaze drifts to Faulkner, apologetic, because it is horrifying, and she’s up here being the bearer of bad news. But when he asks his question, her face lights up. Snapping her fingers, she points to him. “Great question!”
And just like that, she’s off to the races again. “Right now? They’re doing a whole fucktonne of nothin’!” And that has her excited, for some reason. “I think that the brain bleed put them into Ms Thatcher’s system. But they’re just swimming. They’re alive, such as they are, but they’re not active beyond… chilling on the lazy river of the vascular system.”
Somehow, she’s utterly delighted by this. “My hypothesis is that they were released too soon, or they weren’t meant to leave,” she traces a large circle in the air to indicate her head, “the brain at all. Whatever they’re meant to do? I don’t think they’re ready yet. They may not be ready at all!”
Now she points out to the crowd with both hands, her eyes wide and full of light. “You’re all missing something!” Dr. Pride’s gestures only get more expansive as she goes on. “You weren’t supposed to be released yet either. The plane crash. You were on the way to somewhere else, and you never made it. There’s something missing. I posit you were all on the way for some kind of upgrade.”
She stops short wagging a finger at herself. “I can’t take full credit for that idea. That was brainstormed, not on my own. But I think there’s something to it! That plane wasn’t supposed to crash. You were supposed to arrive somewhere.”
Before they can begin to ponder aloud on that, she’s turning back to her screen, voice lifted to carry now that she isn’t looking directly out to her audience. “Unfortunately, there’s no use speculating on that, because we have no idea what component might be missing, or what it might do. But!”
The clicker on her remote is pressed again and there’s another image, another blood sample. “This is Dr. Miller’s blood!” Pride proclaims, turning back to the others with a wide eyed look that suggests she thinks people should know where this is headed. The reveal that what they’re looking at isn’t just another example of what blood cells are meant to look like. “No nanites!” She points to the screen, then back out to the gathering.
“I had Dr. Miller’s sample processed second because he had the chip removed from his brain. Now, not only does he not have that thing in there, he didn’t have a brain bleed.” Pride stops to breathe, but with her finger held up in the universal sign for I’m not finished. A mile a minute, this train is not showing signs of stopping. “So, the chip may be what’s sending a signal that’s triggering the release of the nanites, and probably the bleed. I suspect the bleeding is an undesired side effect.”
Her fingers curl into loose fists which she brings in toward her chest, bouncing them slightly just once before finally clasping them together at about the level of her sternum. “Thing is, I have no idea why this is happening! And that pisses me off!” The way she gesticulates now suggests that she envisions this problem as a person, and she is poking them square in the chest so they understand exactly how unhappy she is with them. This. Whatever.
With a toothy, manic sort of grin, she vows, “That’s why I’m sticking with this! I’m gonna figure this out, and we’re going to fix this!” Pride nods resolutely, then lets out a deep breath. “Okay! What else?”
Nicole’s hand is spidered over the lower half of her face, her eyes a little wide as she watches their presenter take the ball and run with it. “Is she like that at work?” she murmurs to her husband without turning to him, only shifting her eyes in his direction, hiding the movement of her mouth behind her palm.
"Only while her heart's beating," Zachery answers in a voice he just barely bothers to lower.
She has remained quiet in the back of the room, paying attention to the slides despite the fact that she cannot hear what's being said. Between Gillian and Kaylee's efforts to translate for her, Brynn has the general gist of what's being explained. She's no more a science geek than her 'aunts' so it's something like a game of Telephone. Glancing at the women, she signs, So… taking the chip out didn't get Dr. Miller his ability back. And the thingies loose in people's blood streams— because that's not utterly terrifying —are not giving them back but are also not awake, what happens if they actually wake up?
Zachery leans slowly forward to land his elbows on his knees and to take a closer look at the image presented. And for the first time since gathering, he looks surprised.
Right as a hint of relief takes hold in the slack of his shoulders and relaxing of his expression, skepticism has him knit his brow again. "I don't think any of us quite expected the strokes to be a feature rather than a failure." Then, somewhat more slowly with the weight of incomplete thoughts, he adds, "… Unless it was meant to kill us. But that seems conspicuous for a company which doesn't try to catch its lab rats. Unless release after subsequent procedures was never part of the plan."
Well. That's a sharp turn, isn't it? Faulkner raises an eyebrow at Pride's sudden enthusiasm… but can't quite keep an amused smile off of his face.
The smile fades to a more thoughtful expression when the doctor puts forward her theory about the plane crash being an interruption of their journey, about them missing some next step. He nods slowly, but elects not to say anything just yet.
Asi focuses on the work rather than the presenter, airing quietly, "Either we're missing some critical control piece— half-upgraded— or they intended for us to die after we were replaced back into our lives right where we left off. Either way, the plane crash was a snarl for them. In no world can I imagine that event and our discovery was intentional."
Was she sure, though? Why were so few of them grievously injured from an event so severe, anyway? How could she rule that out confidently?
"When do these next results come in?" Asi asks abruptly. "A few days? Seeing if the nanites are present in all of us except Dr. Miller seems like the next point of verification. If the nanites are biomaterial rather than mechanical, perhaps they just broke down and have been reabsorbed, in his case."
Kaylee sits quietly listening, translating as she needs. #1E90FF|That is the question of the hour.## It’s all she has at the moment. It’s a lot to process.
Ourania points in Zachery’s direction. “I mean, probably it’s a bug, not a feature. But… Whatever’s going on here, they may have wanted to try and—” It’s even too morbid for Dr. Pride to tell the entire room that maybe they were supposed to die. That maybe that’s the ultimate end goal here.
It’s much easier to shift focus to Asi’s question instead. “I’m hoping to have enough data to deliver a report a week. If I’m right about when the next results should be in to me, I should have something for you Tuesday or Wednesday next week.” Pride has started to deflate, frustrated with her lack of answers. “I’d say who I’m expecting to receive, but I think we’re better off with only me knowing. That way if there’s another leak… There’s only so many people it could have come from.” She’s a little grim when she suggests that this scenario could repeat itself. “That’s… highly unlikely now,” she assures, “with everything filtering through the Exterior, but…”
But.
Raytech NYCSZ Branch Office: Conference Room
December 15, 2020
4:49 PM
No makeshift presentation setups this go around. The Raytech conference room has everything Dr. Pride needs without all the awkward staging. She’s been seated on a tall stool at the front of the room, just aside from the large monitor currently showing the Raytech Industries logo while it remains in sleep mode, waiting for everyone to settle in.
“Alright. Let’s just jump right in, shall we?” The preamble seems largely unnecessary at this point. “I’ve got two more sets of results in. One of them confirms what we already know.” From her perch, she hits the button on her remote and the screen comes to life. Predictably, there’s a slide with an image captured from someone’s blood sample.
“This is Isaac Faulkner,” Pride tells the group. “As you can see, we have more nanites.” The picture zooms in for a closer look at the microscopic bio-machines. “As with Ms Thatcher, they are doing a whole heap of nothing. The quantities are consistent with what was found in her sample. Nothing really… shocking about it.” That’s a bit of good and bad, from where she’s sitting, but at least there’s no obvious sign of alarm.
Jac Childs slouches in one of the chairs around the table, having lost track of time in the lab. It happens, occasionally — especially when the teen is caught up chasing questions down rabbit holes while working alongside Doctor Pride. It was too late to escape this time, but at least came with a snack.
One foot pushes the chair so it turns, spinning slowly until the right arm touches the conference table; then the foot pulls to slowly spin the chair until its left arm lightly taps against the table.
The motion is kept up while others filter into the room. Blue eyes watch those entering with a mild expression. The slow tapping continues while Ourania begins speaking. At least at that point, Jac has shifted her focus to the scientist and the screen. Her eyebrows raise slightly at the magnified image. Robot bugs — which they'd heard about in the meeting she stormed out of — but doing a lot of nothing.
Isaac Faulkner lounges in a chair of his own; it's not quite Jac's slouch, but there's a certain detachment as he views the evil-looking little nanobioroids swimming around in his bloodstream. Nanites, inert, same bullshit, seen this before, nothing new. Unfortunate.
But.
Dr. Pride's wording had been deliberate there, hadn't it? She'd said that one of the samples confirmed what was already known. What about the other one, then? Isaac is faintly amused; he almost suspects that she might be showboating a bit. Well… fair enough. This is a pretty big opportunity for her, and she's certainly been putting in the work; no reason she shouldn't get to showboat a bit, right?
Might as well set her up with an easy pitch.
"You said that one of them confirmed what we already knew," Isaac says, affecting a puzzled frown. "Does that mean that the other one didn't?" he asks.
Asi looks more tired today, dark divots in the hollow of her eyes. She leaves the questions to others, drinking silently from her coffee.
“Mister Faulkner again with the excellent questions,” Pride murmurs, seemingly impressed. “The next sample I have confirms a different hypothesis.” Pressing the button on her controller again, the image changes. More blood, no more nanites. “This is Jacelyn Childs. As you can see… No cartilage critters.”
She has such a way with words.
“It could be a fluke,” the scientist grants with a wave of her hand, “but it’s doubtful. I expect we’ll continue to see nanites in the blood of those affected by the November Eighth incident.” Ourania’s blue eyes find her niece’s, offering what she hopes is a smile of encouragement, however small. Whatever’s happening to the others hasn’t happened to her. With any luck, that trend will hold.
There is a soft, “Huh” of interest from Kaylee as she watches the results. There are no questions from the woman, as she quietly watches and listens. Much like Asi, she doesn’t look like she’s sleeping well or maybe it’s the constant nagging migraines.
Brynn is paying close attention and she tips her head, looking at Jac. Is it because of the changes that were made while you were away, maybe?
“So you’re theorizing that the — nano bugs— only got released in the people who had attacks,” Gillian states quietly, even as she takes a moment to press a hand against Jac’s arm to try and offer her some support. It doesn’t last long, because she’s trying to keep up with signing so that Brynn can stay up to date with most everything. Even if she doesn’t have the slightest clue how to science. “That this isn’t something unique to Jac herself? Because of everything that she’d been through in the last year?” She states Brynn’s words out loud for those who do not understand her, with a gesture toward the young woman as an indication it had come from her.
#1E90FF|I don't know.## It’s as much a mystery to Jac as everyone else why she doesn't have seemingly dormant bug-bots in her blood. She glances up at her mom, acknowledging the brief offer of support. Everything else is the same, she continues, returning her eyes to the screen. It’s probably like O said, but only seeing mine and Isaac’s… She wasn't one of those who suffered a stroke-thing, and Isaac was. It's not a much of a pool for comparison.
Asi frowns over the top of her cup, leaving it held to her mouth while she considers the results. Jac's unique genetic situation could make her an outlier, maybe.
Swallowing her drink, she voices, "We'll have to see come the next set of results to be sure. Won't we."
Isaac straightens up in his seat, tilting his head. Everything she'd been through in the past year? Huh? He frowns, scrutinizing Jac… but whatever it is that had happened to her, no one seems particularly keen to talk about it.
Well. Fair enough. Whatever it is, it doesn't particularly matter to him except in the context of this situation… and there's an easy way to answer that question, anyway. He looks back to Dr. Pride.
"Is there any evidence of another factor that might be responsible, from what you've seen so far?" Isaac asks. He considers for a moment longer. "Also, based on what you've seen so far… have you noticed any common factors that might account for why we, in particular, were taken in the first place?"
Dr. Pride nods her head. “That’s my theory, Gillian, yes.” Her eyes follow the movements of Gillian’s hands, and those of her daughter, pausing to give the interpreters a chance to catch up. Sometimes she gets moving far too quickly. She looks directly at Brynn before continuing, acknowledging that the question she’s addressing was hers. “That’s an excellent point, Miss Ferguson. Normally, I would be inclined to say that Jac might be an outlier, given the unique markers of her own genetics. However…”
For this, Ourania turns back to Jac, while also flickering glances to Gillian to recognize that she has more than just a small stake in this as well. “I’ve seen no abnormal signs in your blood from what I’ve seen in any of the others. Your baselines are all more or less identical. Not normal, compared to someone who hasn’t been affected by your incredible circumstances, of course, but for what passes as your normals… That playing field has been remarkably level.” With a gesture to Asi, she grants, “Further results will either confirm or disprove what I suspect to be the case here.”
With a smile, she turns to Isaac next. “I hope that answers the first part of your question, Mr. Faulkner. As to the second part…” Pride’s smile fades as she tilts her head to one side, thinking. “I do have some thoughts on that. I’m sure the rest of you have, too. So, I’ll share what I’m thinking.”
A couple clicks of the remote in her hand flip through slides quickly until she brings one up with the InVerse logo and what looks like a press release. “The words here aren’t important,” she assures before anyone squints trying to read the less than ideally sized text. “InVerse has been developing synthetic blood. I’ve compared what I’ve seen in your blood,” she makes a sweeping gesture to make clear she means the group, and not any one individual, “to what InVerse is doing. At first, I thought maybe that’s what this was about, just advancing their science. But… If that’s what you’re doing? If you’re kidnapping people to experiment on? You’re grabbing nobodies. You don’t grab SESA leadership,” she gestures to Nicole, who glances away uncomfortably, “famous authors and activists,” that motion to Gillian, “cops, and COOs, and kids? You just don’t.”
Say that with a bit less certainty, Dr. Pride.
“But if you’re trying to pick people in strategic positions…” The scientist glances around the room, leaving that hang for a moment.
“You take the SESA leadership, the COO, the cops, the activists…” Nicole concludes with a sigh. “The couriers, the scientists… Somehow, everyone here must fit some desired role, even if it’s not yet clear to us what that is.” Under the table, she reaches out to clasp her husband’s hand. Her other hand comes up to her forehead, shielding herself from what little light is able to filter in over the top of her dark sunglasses.
There's a slow shrug as Brynn points out, Generally speaking, though, me and Jac are nobodies. Maybe an overstatement but they certainly don't fit the same profile as most of the others grabbed.
And then the deaf girl pauses and considers, Unless you're looking for people who have access to some other people. Maybe it's not really about who and what we are but… who and what we might be a stepping stone to?
Not like that gets the group anywhere either.
Faulkner nods along with Dr. Pride's explanation, looking thoughtful… but Nicole's conclusion sees a frown steal over his face. Once Brynn's response has been translated, Isaac nods. "I'm in the same boat. I mean… I'm not even the most interesting person working for Pigeon Courier," he says, eyes moving to Dr. Pride for a moment. "Shaw, I could see. Considering he's from… out of town." Way out of town.
"But the whole 'targets determined by alternate reality' theory hasn't been disproven, either," he says, shrugging. He opens his mouth as if to say something else… then pauses. He frowns, then shakes his head. "It's a thought," he murmurs, settling back into his seat and falling silent.
Asi moves from her position in the back of the room, restless energy leading her to refill her paper cup from a carafe of coffee on a table in the back. She tries to set it back down quietly, but it lands with a muted thunk. Blinking at her… clumsiness?, she shakes her head and turns back to the presentation.
"We're still missing data points to successfully argue one way or another. Early theories regarding threats to Mazdak, or persons who were exposed to a certain entity— we don't have enough to prove or disprove even those. It almost feels likely that several of us were chosen at random to throw off figuring out which ones of us were chosen for a reason. Whether that's the kids, the couriers, or others of us entirely…"
Asi closes her eyes to keep her voice even, but frustration creeps in anyway. "We're missing a key piece to that puzzle yet."
“We know there was a list, which is a fairly big piece but missing context,” Kaylee says with a shrug, but then she gives a bit of a bitter laugh, “For all we know it’s been written by someone who can see the rivers of time.”
Looking at some of the others, Kaylee mutters rather blandly, “Cause it’s almost always about some sort of fucking vision of the future.” Yeah, she might have jazzhands it at the end of that bitter statement. Bitter because it was probably true.
“This whole damn world is because of a vision or prediction or whatsit.” As a Ray, Kaylee was so over her head in that shit, of course she’d think that and by the look of her she didn’t like it.
I am not a nobody. Jac’s stamps out her argument to Brynn’s observation without a spoken word. Her expression probably says enough for those who don't know sign to recognize some strong disagreement. “It's like Mrs. Miller says, and the list Kaylee’s talking about. There's a reason, it's not just coincidence or fluke.” She glances up at Asi after speaking up. With less frustration, she asks, “What hasn't been looked at yet for the missing piece?”
There’s an audible groan from Nicole that goes along with the thunk of the coffee pot. “I don’t disagree with you, Asi,” she says after she recovers. “It’s entirely possible some of us were taken to throw off a pattern. Give it some outliers and it’s suddenly hard to see what’s really going on. Still…”
That's not what I meant— Brynn starts to object, but then the doctor is talking again, she subsides.
“Jac…” Ourania cuts in quietly, her expression sympathetic when the sign is translated aloud for the rest of them. No, she’s not a nobody. She shakes her head. It isn’t something to discuss in front of the group, but she hopes the girl realizes she cares. That those closest to her don’t believe that sentiment for a moment, and neither should she.
Nicole cuts in again neatly, glossing over the moment before it can become something awkward for anyone involved. “An alternative theory I’ve been kicking around is that maybe… we weren’t all taken for our strategic positioning, but maybe for what we can do.”
“But you’re all so high profile,” Pride counters. “That’s ridiculously risky. There have to be other people who can… suck the life out of a battery. No offense.”
“None taken.” Whether that’s true or not, Nicole’s smile doesn’t betray her, even for how tight it is. “But… think about it. My husband can… If he had his ability, he’d be able to read what’s going on with us. No MRI required. Ms Thatcher read minds.” The importance and versatility of that shouldn’t require explanation. “Maybe Dr. Yeh would be able to regulate some of what’s going on in our systems.”
The blonde doctor at the front of the room frowns. “Jesus.”
“So, maybe some of us were chosen for who we are, maybe some were chosen for what we can do. Maybe some were chosen for both. They still could have picked out some outliers. But maybe by grabbing… extras, it’s given us more conflict to solve. More mystery to mire us in.” Nicole closes her eyes to block out the overhead light. Her sunglasses mostly hide this fact, depending upon how close on is sitting and how hard they look. “Almost all of us were within one to… three degrees of separation. It doesn’t account for all of us, admittedly.”
Nova Leverett, Gabriella Milos, and Daphne Millbrook make for some incredible gaps in explanation. The latter to a lesser extent, but her physical location prior to waking up in Manitoba doesn’t make a lot of sense. Why her? And why’s she the only one pulled from so far away?
Unsettled, Nicole falls silent, indicating she’s finished for now with a shake of her head.
Kaylee listens to Ourania and Nicole with a touch of mild amusement that pulls her lips to one side. “Yeah, well, if there is a precognitive vision behind this, who we are or how risky we are to take doesn't matter.” She looks at the others as she speaks, “It's our part in whatever they are trying to stop or make happen.” Cause it could be either way.
“Unfortunately,” Dr. Pride cuts in, “speculation isn’t going to do us any real good here.” An apologetic look is given to Kaylee. “But it’s something we all can… noodle on.” Cool blue eyes scan the room slowly. “I think we can wrap this up. If anyone else has anything they’d like to ask about the medical side of things, come on up front and see me. Otherwise, if you think of anything later, you all have my card."
Eric Doyle Memorial Children’s Library
December 24, 2020
5:45 PM
With the library having closed for the holiday, the Sundered are gathered in one of the conference rooms without worry of interruption. The lights have been dimmed low both to allow the monitor up front to be better seen as Dr. Price gives her presentation, as well as to benefit Mrs. Miller, who practically has her head down on the table for all that her migraine has laid her flat today. She’s got on her dark sunglasses, as usual, but also a sweatshirt with a large hood that hangs down partway over her eyes, blocking out any light that might try to come in over the top of those glasses. Occasionally, she presses her fingers against her ears to drown out the sounds of chairs pushing in toward tables and doors creaking. She’s in rough shape.
At the front of the room, Pride’s call to order is much more subdued than usual. She simply raises both hands in the hopes of capturing attention with the wiggle of her fingers, then slowly lowers them again to indicate she’s ready to begin. “So.” Her voice is quiet, only loud enough to fill the space and she makes sure someone has nudged Nicole so she knows to unplug her ears. She also makes sure she has a clear line of sight to Brynn before she starts in.
“I’m sorry we had to meet today, of all days. I know we’d rather be spending time with our families, so I appreciate your understanding. I unfortunately have no control over when we receive results. However… The federal government works on Christmas Eve, which means I was able to obtain one more result, and why I pushed us to today, rather than waiting until our next meeting.” The blonde tucks her chin in toward her chest slightly. “Unfortunately, this means I haven’t had a chance to go over these results with the subject in question. Because…”
Pride lifts her gaze to Nicole, who’s looking vaguely ill while she sips on a glass of water. Only after the darker-haired woman sets her glass down again does the doctor finish her thought. “Because… federal employees worked today.”
Nicole finally lifts her head. Her results are in, and she has no idea what they say. “It’s okay,” she finds herself saying before she realizes she means to say anything. “Whatever you’ve found, we can all find out together.”
There’s a small, apologetic smile given. “I want to recover the results I’ve had more time with first, if you don’t mind?” With a permissive nod received, the scientist turns her attention back to the greater group. “First up, then, is Abby Beauch—” She catches herself, eyes shutting briefly with a short shake of her head. “My apologies. Abby Caliban.”
A few taps on the keyboard of the laptop resting on the podium she’s seated in front of and Ourania’s brought up her first image. “As we should be coming to expect by now, we have the presence of nanites in Mrs. Caliban’s blood. As with the other cases, there’s no activity. They’re just… there. Moving around, but otherwise inactive.” Gesturing with one arm in a shrug, Pride purses her lips. “As I’ve had this opportunity to build a more complete picture, I’ve at least been able to determine one piece of good news. Your blood is stable. While the samples will eventually have a shelf life with an expiration, the blood that’s circulating inside of all of you will keep renewing itself, like it’s supposed to do.”
That should be cause for relief from the other scientists present, given that this was a concern they shared together.
“So I shouldn’t get… worse? Or I should at least stay like this?” As shitty a way to be is. Abby has sunglasses perched on the top of her head and like Nicole, showing at least traces of a migraine but otherwise it’s a so-so day. “Far as you can tell?”
"If listening gets to be too much…" Zachery leans to the side to say, quietly, to Nicole. He neither finishes his sentence nor looks at her sitting next to him, but does tap the notepad in front of him with the back of a pencil - a blessedly dull noise thanks to the nub of eraser on the end.
Leaning forward over his notes as he takes them and begins to outline a space for notes to come, he looks slightly more lively than he did the last two meetings. The flask of vodka in his coat pocket may or may not have anything to do with this.
Asi is considerably less relieved by the news, brow furrowed, arms folded tightly across her chest. "Stable—" she seems to agree, save for that she doesn't. "Except for the part where it's caused a number of us to have minor strokes…" One arm falls out from the fold to gesture vaguely at the room. "And could stand to do who knows what else to the rest of us."
As ever, her frustration is less with Ourania and more with the situation they face overall. Her attempts to bring hope or at least some semblance of good news doesn't go unheard, just met with a dose of … realism. At least, Asi tells herself it's realism.
Outburst done, though, Asi looks back to the projection, her arm held out slackening. She doesn't apologize for her tone, but she does quiet.
"Is it the blood that's caused the strokes? Or something in our brains?" the voice of Isaac Faulkner croaks.
His voice is low and hoarse, and only a step or two above a mumble despite the pains he's taking to enunciate clearly; he doesn't sound great. He doesn't look like he's doing too well, either. At the previous meetings he's been, for the most part, attentive and focused… but on those days, the migraine had been mostly tamped down. Today, though… today he's slumped in his chair, the hood of his hoodie raised and shrouding his eyes in shadow.
He may not turn to her, but Nicole leans over to drop a kiss on Zachery’s cheek all the same. That he needs to be able to jot those notes is what keeps her from resting her head on his shoulder and taking comfort in the proximity and the warmth of him, the metre of his breath.
“I—” Pride’s response to Abby is cut off by Asi’s interjection. She lowers her head so as to provide no perceived challenge. She needs to get it out of her system. They all do. So, she waits through that, and the question posed by Faulkner in its wake. As if revived from some kind of sleep mode, she lifts her head again. “For now, those of you who’ve already experienced something on November Eighth appear to be stable. Your baseline normal is… what it has been since your discovery at the crash site. There’s been no change in any of your readings.”
There’s a helpless little shrug of the doctor’s shoulders. The further they’ve gone down this rabbit hole, the more her enthusiasm has been dialed back. Which isn’t to say she’s been deterred, just not quite as plucky as she was last month. “Your counts are all… skewed from mine in all the same ways they were before.” Her gaze sweeps the room slowly, lingering on Nicole just long enough that Mrs. Miller starts to sit up a little straighter in her seat. “The only difference,” Pride continues, looking more nebulously down the table than at anyone seated around it, “is that some of you now have nanites, and some of you don’t.”
Picking her glasses up off the podium, Ourania slides them onto her face before she peers across to Isaac in order to properly address his question - and Asi’s concern by proxy. “I can throw darts at the board all day long, but it’s like someone’s fed me six shots of tequila, blindfolded me, spun me around until I can barely stand, and then asked me to find the center.” She shakes her head, concern plain in her expression. “I don’t even know what zip code the answer to that question is in at this point.”
It pains her to admit that. Not just because it makes her feel like a failure as a researcher, but because she doesn’t want to fail these people. “That said, the basis of my continuing research is that there’s something to the notion that you’re all incomplete in some way, and that…” Snapping her fingers suddenly, then holding one up to indicate she needs a moment, she starts typing rapidly on her keyboard, bent over her laptop now. “Let me circle back to that. I need to look through my notes.”
For now, she flips the image on the screen to another slide of another bloodstream, sans nanites. “These are Doctor Yeh’s results.” For all that she’s still tapping away on that keyboard, there’s no intonation indicative of distraction in her voice. “While Dr. Yeh is a remarkable mind, her blood isn’t showing us anything we didn’t already expect. However, every expected result is invaluable in proving the hypothesis.”
Asi looks to Faulkner after the answer to their question is found to not have an answer. After all this progress, in some ways it still feels as though they've gained such little ground. She brings her hanging arm back into the fold to observe the latest results.
To reflect on the thought they're incomplete, and ruminate if this is something they could endeavor to fix. Somehow.
"So, the nanites are bugs, not a feature," she ventures. "The process which regulates them where they should be may be failing and causing the strokes." Her eyes narrow slightly at that hypothesis. "I'd put money on that, perhaps."
There's a subtle expression of puzzlement, as Brynn asks, Wait please? Some of us have bugs in our blood and some don't? Is the stroke the only difference between who does and who doesn't? She's not certain she understands the information that's been given.
“I’m with you on that theory,” Kaylee finally pops up from her corner. She’s been quiet this whole time, looking a bit like someone had stomped on her favorite toy. “I’m feeling like we can expect more strokes like these…If the processes are flawed, then in theory we can figure on a further degradation right?” Which terrified her and made her wish they had met in a bar instead. “I guess we’ll know if any of us have a second stroke.”
“Precisely. The nanites appear to be a feature somehow, but the fact that they’re either releasing too soon or not doing anything once they are appears to be the bug.” Dr. Pride responds without looking up, though she makes sure her head is lifted enough that Brynn can see her speaking. And when she recognizes that the deaf woman’s question is being spoken aloud for her benefit, the blonde does her the courtesy of lifting her gaze away from her laptop and looking directly at her so she can address her concerns.
“So far, yes, that seems to be the case. Those who’ve suffered strokes have had nanites appear in their blood streams. Those who have not… haven’t.” Pride shakes her head, offering an apologetic smile. “We’re just in a chicken and egg scenario at this point. Is the stroke causing the release of the nanites, or is the release of the nanites causing the stroke? I don’t have that answer yet.”
Letting her gaze slant back down to her screen again, one glossy manicured nail taps restlessly on the aluminum case of her work machine. “However, those of you who did suffer a medical emergency on November Eighth… It all seemed to happen at the same time. If that doesn’t scream code push to you…” Pride’s look lingers on Asi for a moment, expecting she probably understands that a bit better than some, perhaps unfairly. “But, I can’t do more than speculate on that, either. I have no idea how they’d be transmitting such a thing.” Now there’s a brief look settled on Faulkner, her blue eyes narrowing faintly as she seems to consider something.
At the conference table, Nicole is topping off her glass of water. Or trying to. She tips the carafe and the water misses the glass entirely. A fact which she doesn’t notice until it spills over the edge of the table and into her lap. “Shit!” she hisses loudly enough to disrupt the group. Or at least the presenter’s thoughts. Setting the pitcher upright again, she swipes her hands over her pants to try and clear the excess liquid before it seeps into the fabric and chills her skin. “I couldn’t even see—” Her voice cracks along with her composure, but only just. The dam yet holds.
“Could someone step out and get some towels for Mrs. Miller, please?” Ourania asks with a quick glance around the room. When Yi-Min volunteers, her posture eases some, but her concern doesn’t abate. “We can talk about my conjecture at a later date,” she promises. “Let’s go over your results.” Her tone is gentle. She wants Nicole to have the opportunity to leave at any time now, without feeling like she’s going to be missing out on the information most important to her.
Clearing her throat, the scientist queues up another slide on her laptop, but doesn’t yet broadcast it to the monitor for the group. “Now, as I said before, I haven’t had a lot of time with Mrs. Miller’s results to analyze them.” There’s an anxious energy that seems to permeate the air, or… maybe that’s just her own and she’s desperately hoping she’s not alone. “So this is what we see in Mrs. Miller’s blood.”
The slide comes up and, true to form, it is another image of bright red blood cells in the sea of duller red, and it perhaps isn’t terribly surprising to see the presence of nanites, but this… is different.
“As you can see,” Pride says in a level voice, making sure to keep it from wavering or becoming too soft, “Mrs. Miller’s blood contains a significantly higher concentration of nanites.” There’s a quiet creak. The shift of a chair? “In addition, the iron levels seen in her blood are 75% higher than what we saw before her procedur—”
The glass in Nicole’s hand shatters.
The mention of a second stroke brings a sneer to Zachery's face, doubt evident in the cant of his head and the sigh that follows. He drifts a glance to the side when the sound of water hitting somewhere it shouldn't sounds, and pulls his notebook to the side somewhat passively.
But the moment the glass breaks, the pencil drops from his hand, and in the next beat he's pushed himself back in his seat with a scrape of chair legs and grabbed hold of Nicole's wrist, turning her arm so he can have a look at her hand.
"Are you alright?" He asks urgently and loudly, before quickly adding in a much more hushed tone, "Shit." One hand pressed to Nicole's back, he levels a glare up at Ourania, like it's somehow her fault.
The sound of the shattering glass breaks Asi's intense focus on Ourania at the mention of a code push potentially having caused the November 8th incident. In silence, she considers the other information. That Nicole's displaying aberrant results compared to the others— likely due to what she went through.
This time there's no accusation to her as she looks back up. "What else? Is that all?" she asks deadpan.
“Can we get rid of them?” Abby looks to Nicole as glass shatters and there's a wealth of sympathy for the woman and her husband. She shifts in her seat and goes for her purse, producing an honest to god white cotton hanky and slides it across the table to them.
“Dialysis can rid the body of toxins that non-functioning kidneys can’t. Chelation removed metals and the like from the blood. Can either of those processes feasibly be used to get these… inactive bugs out of us before they might become active? Before a… second software upgrade attempt happens. If that's what happened on the eighth.” Abby roots around in her purse and comes up with a little first aid kit and pushes that over next. “Here,” offered in her drawl. “I can help if you want.” To take care of Nicole’s hand.
“I’m fine.” Nicole is quick to nod her head to Zachery’s question, but her voice is small. “Like when we first met, isn’t it?” Except that had been a defensive wound and not a self-inflicted one, however unintentional. The pain of the minor laceration of her palm at least keeps her from straight up dissociating from the moment of surreality that her results are somehow different from the others. And that, at first glance, they appear worse.
It might be that Ourania considers helping, but there are other capable medical professionals closeby, and the look she’s been given by Zachery warns her off. Perhaps that’s fair.
Taking the handkerchief from Abby, Nicole murmurs a sincere thank you to her before pressing it against her hand. Hissing and wincing, she makes Zachery apply the pressure for her, because she’s already in such a delicate state that she’s having trouble forcing herself to add to the pain she already feels all the time.
“A- As I was saying,” Dr. Pride attempts to recover, her sympathetic look rearranging itself when she shifts her focus back to the greater group. No, Asi, that’s not all. She shakes her head. “I don’t think dialysis will have the desired effect. We can’t certainly try, and it’s an avenue worth exploring, but I’ll be honest with you when I say I don’t think it will bear much fruit. Every possibility eliminated still tells us something, however.” Her slender shoulders shrug.
Returning her attention back to the monitor, Pride nods her head toward it. “While Mrs. Miller’s concentration of nanites is far more numerous than what we’ve been seeing in the other samples, the key difference here is that all of these nanites are damaged.” That declaration draws Nicole’s attention again while her husband tends to her hand. “They aren’t simply passive like the ones we’ve seen previously, they are dead.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” is the most obvious question the woman whose blood is the topic of this segment of the conversation can think to ask.
“It means that whatever you did when you inadvertently nearly fried your brain matter like the eggs in a skillet of a Nineties drug PSA, it took those things out. They’re decaying and your body’s absorbing them the same way it would with any normal dead cells of that make up.” The blonde shakes her head. “Now, I don’t advocate anybody nearly killing themselves to zap these organic bugs into oblivion, but it’s told us that they are susceptible to this.” She only hopes Nicole can recover eventually.
“Congratulations,” Pride says wryly. “In your desperation to find an answer, you found an answer. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to the question you were asking.” Sighing quietly, she starts to look through her notes again to re-center herself. “The most important thing any of you can do right now is self-report your symptoms. If not to me directly, then please to Doctors Yeh or Miller, so can share that information with me at their discretion. Regardless of whether you keep me in the loop, it's going to benefit all of you to share information so you can correlate and coordinate.”
Apparently as satisfied by the answer as she's going to be, Nicole remains quiet now while Ourania once again surveys the room. “Unless there are any other questions, I should have the last results by the middle of next month. I hope to have more definitive information to share about the nature of your blood by that time.”
Kaylee has been quiet for all of it, her face passive and thoughtful taking in all the information. The glass breaking had initially made her jump… Now brows furrow at that last bit. “Fuck, I need a drink,” she says under her breath, suddenly getting up to leave. They were done anyhow. She just needed to get out of there.
Asi lets her arms come unfolded, fall to her sides. It's a lot. This is all a lot. And it's Christmas tomorrow besides. Speaking to discretion, she looks to the others present to tell them, "I'll be updating the portal with a place to track symptoms. Start helping us identify similarities and differences. We'll see if maybe we can't spot future issues before they get here."
That's a lot to hope for, but if they don't have hope…
The former technopath swivels her head toward the woman at the front of the room. "Thank you, Doctor Pride," she acknowledges with a stiff nod. Then she, too, decides she needs a stiff drink to cope with this and opts to follow Kaylee out.
Zachery's gratitude for Abby's help comes in nod and a murmured, "Thank you." He busies himself with Nicole's hand, a smirk hinting at his mood having momentarily lifted at her comments. But not for long, it turns out, his jaw setting once more.
Once all information has been doled out, he decides, "We're scheduling an appointment to have that thing taken out of you, and those dead little shits with it." Then, lifting his head and throwing a quick but sharp look around at those still present to hear it, he says, "I'd suggest anyone here to do the same. If you need encouragement, I'd suggest you weigh memory issues against constant migraines, brain bleeds and near fucking death."
With that, he turns his attention back toward Nicole, breathing a bitter laugh with what little energy he has left. "But what do I know, right."
“Doctor Miller,” his colleague attempts to cut in, but Pride finds herself immediately spoken over by Nicole.
“Zachery,” his wife calls for his attention firmly. “I need some time to process all of this, okay?” Before she goes making plans like having her skull cut open and dealing with more instances of memory loss.
She’s already lost so much there, too.
Dr. Pride makes another attempt. “We don’t know what the lasting effects on either of you are,” she stresses. “We don’t know if the loss of the chip will somehow make things worse, or if the death of those nanites will make things better. We just… There’s too little data. And I just don’t know that I can advise a rush to have everyone undergo brain surgery with what little we do have.” If she seems upset, it’s because the situation is upsetting. “I believe everyone should make informed decisions about their health. But we don’t have enough information for that.”
Nicole’s uninjured hand rests on Zachery’s forearm lightly, keeping him connected to her further and beating him to the punch before he can respond further to the other woman’s warnings. “Right now,” she requests, “I would like to get this looked at and see if I need stitches. Do you think we can do that?”
There’s no waiting for his response. She climbs to her feet and grabs Zachery’s book of notes to put in her purse, looping the straps over her arm. All while allowing her husband to maintain his own hold on her wrist and bleeding hand. “Thank you, everyone. You know how to reach us if you need anything. Sorry about the mess.” An apologetic glance is given Gillian’s way. “Send me the bill if anything needs replacing.” She’ll be making another donation to the library regardless.
With that, she makes for the exit, Zachery and all his impotent fury in tow.
“Happy birthday, Mrs. Miller,” Ourania offers meekly in the wake of their departure.
Ma’am, This is a Chat Room
January 14, 2020
5:32 PM
Ourania: Sorry for the delay. Getting a signal out here is murder.
Ourania: Bear with me. I’ve got a bit to type out here.
Ourania is typing…Ourania: I’ve received the last batch of results. I’ve reached out to those individuals to discuss the findings with them. Everything was consistent with what we’ve come to expect from previous results in subjects without brain bleeds. No nanites present. As such, I don’t see much fruitfulness in discussing those results directly (although I’ll answer any questions anyone may have thought of between now and our previous meetings).
What I would like to do instead is propose a couple different ideas we might implement to see if there’s a change in the expected outcome. We can attempt dialysis, as suggested, though I don’t believe this will yield much. It’s still worth trying.
Pursuant to the notion of the nanite releases being the result of some sort of code push, I would like to see if we can find a volunteer willing to isolate themselves, preferably with an observer who isn’t among the survivors. This would need to be in a remote location without data infrastructure. My hope is if we can cut whatever receiver may exist within your bodies OFF from a Wi-Fi or cellular source, we may be able to prevent the next push.
This will not be an undertaking made lightly. Ideally, I’d like to find a teleporter to support this project. Someone who would be able to get our isolationist back to the Safe Zone quickly in the event of a medical emergency. If anyone knows someone capable of this, please consider reaching out to them, or putting me in touch with them. If you’re interested in volunteering for this trial, let me know.
Apart from that, I’ve introduced the blood with nanites present to my porcine subjects and so far they’ve shown no signs of distress or deterioration. I require further observation before I’ll be quite sure what to make of it.
Ourania: Does anyone else have thoughts about what they may wish to try?
Nova: I don’t know anyone who can do that, but I can volunteer to be the isolationist if you need one 😬
Nova: Also are we sure this is secure, or is DOE aware of this plan? Do they have a teleporter?
Asi: _i know of two teleporters who potentially could assist. one can only teleport places they've physically been before and the other is harder to pin down
Asi: _with that in mind if other alternatives exist we should explore those persons first. if there is a chance someone could be tapped quickly they should be paired with nova or whoever … we should move on that experimentation sooner rather than later
Asi: _where exactly would we be sending our volunteer??? is there a location already secured or is this something needing investigated?
Isaac: How long would this be for?
Isaac: Also, wouldn't whoever went out to wherever it is be (more) vulnerable to getting abducted again?
Unknown: The Department has someone capable of moving quickly between distant locations, as long as you supply access to the location that is being used ahead of time.
Nicole: What — and I cannot stress this enough — THE FUCK?
Nicole: Who invited them?
Daphne: Well, that answers Nova’s question.
Ourania: So it would seem.
Ourania: To answer the other earlier questions: The length of time is undetermined as yet. We wouldn’t know how long is enough time until something happens that would give us enough data to know if lack of access to a signal disrupted the possibility of an “update.”
Asi has set Unknown's name to DOE interloper FKA Unknown
DOE interloper FKA Unknown: 😢
Asi: 💔
Ourania: I don’t have a location in mind. “Out west” was as far as I got on that. I don’t know the lay of the land well enough here.
Ourania: You have my attention, “Interloper.” Tell me about your location jumper.
DOE Interloper FKA Unknown: Just what I said, if you give access to the location they can come and go on-call in case of emergencies. But they probably couldn’t stay there the whole time — we are quite busy right now — so I’m not sure if they are what you would want.
Asi: _right now "trustworthy" "quicky deployed" and "on-call" are our criteria, and she ostensibly fits all three
Ourania: The point of this exercise is to be remote. Quickly deployed won’t do much if there’s no means of communication. And a means of communication defeats the purpose. Still, I’m not dismissing the possibility.
Ourania: Beggars, choosers, all of that.
Nova: Are we talking days or weeks? With all this on my mind, I’m gonna call this semester a wash even though it hasn’t even started yet. But other than classes, no one’s going to miss me much. I don’t have real obligations like the rest of you do.
Daphne: I have no obligations, but I’m still not volunteering. More power to you, though, kid.
Gillian: I might be able to volunteer for the remote test. I have someone with a medical background who could go with me, but I would have to ask him and see if he was up for it.
Asi: _so it's just a matter of finding a hardened bunker with doors, then
Isaac: _Um. Aren't doors kind of a standard feature? I mean, I'm totally not an expert on advanced bunker architecture or anything, but that really seems like it should be a standard feature…
Ourania: I’m not certain a bunker is necessary. If you prefer one, then I’m not opposed. It shouldn’t affect the test.
Nova: Should we double up with one person who was affected in November and one person who wasn’t? We still don’t know why that was the case, right? OtherwiseI’m happy NOT to go if Gillian wants to. I’ve never gone that long without wifi in my life 😬 😂
Gabriella: #GenZProblems.
Asi: _lol.
Asi: _i'd recommend sending them somewhere we're sure is hardened. with the state of infrastructure being what it is in the US i would suspect any uplink to be satellite-based…
Asi: _unless we're dealing with some kind of quantum communication method for pushing these suspected updates. and should that prove to be the case we're soundly fucked on methods of stopping it from happening. that tech is so new that finding an effective countermeasure would be greenfield research.
Asi: _the longer i think on this "remote" may not even be a necessity if we can produce a powerful faraday cage
Asi: _i apologize for not leading with that suggestion. the smoke from the fires is giving me a hell of a headache today.
Ourania: A Faraday cage is a brilliant notion. If you can find a practical solution there… I can talk to people at Raytech. Maybe someone can reach out to Yamagato?
Ourania: Nova brings up a good point. Whoever’s doing this may attempt another “update,” so having someone from the affected batch present in whatever isolating setting we decide upon would have the potential to present us with some excellent data.
Ourania: I think we’ve got some points to jump off from now. I have to prepare for my evening job, but I’ll answer any messages left for me first thing tomorrow.
Ourania: Stay safe, everyone.