unknownseas | WEEK 6

Another week, another three lost - and this time all to one murder case. And that's to say nothing of the execution, or whatever went on with that ouija board that still sits in the library... strange things are afoot in the facility, and some of them not even your captor seems fully equipped to explain.

The other of the two doors in the main living area finally opens after another lost Saturday, and what lies beyond is... strange, to say the least. Looks like there's no shortage of changes, even in the architecture. It certainly seems like you should have gotten something like this before the water park at the very least, don't you think?

Angel's still out and about at night, if you want to be found. And who knows what else you might find if you're out alone? Apparently, you might have a ghost on your hands.

SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

[ooc: Welcome to Week 6! If you want Angel or to try your hand at the ouija, please make sure to note in your toplevel, same as an investigation! AC is over here, regains are here, and, well...

You've all got a new app on your devices! Use it wisely. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Heh.]

Technically, I am a medical doctor. Not a practicing physician, granted, but I did have to go to med school, and I can see patients if needs be. I usually stick to my specialized field, but I'm not bad with generalized stuff. It's just been a while.

Huh, really?

[ Rin stops what she's doing and looks up again, eying him. ]

I guess I just assumed you wouldn't have to know that stuff for whatever it is you do. But... That makes sense, I guess.

[ Though, again, Rin hasn't been to school since she was 14 or so! She doesn't know shit about fuck. ]

My work is a little more hands-on than most. I run a lot of live trials, and we're at a point where we're running tests on humans. So it's good to have that sort of knowledge as well.

[ As soon as he says tests on humans, the other bits and pieces he's mentioned snap into place. It isn't a particularly good feeling. Highly confidential, less than ethical projects, being run on humans, possibly under government contract...

She hopes she's wrong. Maybe he's working on vaccines, rather than the virus. But she can't just assume that, and Rin has never been the kind of person to look the other way. ]

Is this about something else you'd call "on the wrong side of ethical"?

[...it takes him a moment, but jesus christ, rin- ]

You know, believe it or not, you can't exactly shove out vaccines and cures without testing them on people first.

I know that, but you're the one that keeps mentioning how your work is... Like... [ In lieu of finishing the sentence, she harrumphs. Her face has already started to redden. ] Look, I know the kinds of things people in power are willing to fund on the down-low, so you can't just tell me you've worked on a bunch of shady projects and then expect me to take human testing without question!

Bear in mind that I'm a virologist, and the world I'm coming from is currently dealing with a really nasty outbreak of the undead.

[He shrugs a bit, though; he doesn't really mind this particular strain of conversation, believe it or not. It's something he's mentioned at trials, either way.]

A lot of the..."people" I work with aren't exactly people anymore. A lot of the way we have to treat them would make literally every humanitarian effort on the planet hate us, just because they want to hold on to what they remember those things being like when they were still alive.

If it'll ease your mind, before you start suspecting I'm doing stuff like...I don't know, melting the faces off the local orphans or something - a lot of the more unethical stuff I've done has dealt with people who are infected but haven't turned yet. They're absolutely going to die, they're absolutely going to come back from the dead, and they're absolutely going to be a biohazard when they do. Some of them are just more...still-alive than others, when I get them, and that's what tends to make people upset.

That's it. Work on the already-infected but still-conscious.

[ He makes it sound so reasonable—but maybe it is? She hasn't lived through anything like what he's describing; she has to take a mental step back, trying to imagine herself in the circumstances. ]

I— [ She starts to say that she wouldn't suspect him of something like that, but then she stops herself. ] It sounds... hard. I don't know, even if there's no chance they could recover, I don't think I could go through with treating someone like that when they're just a person.

[ A zombie would be easy, but...

...But it's not exactly a condemnation of what he does, either. She can understand, at least, if there's an argument to be made for its necessity. ]

Yeah. Believe it or not, I do get it, and our turnover rate is pretty high. Probably due to the whole trauma thing. That's probably why I've lasted so long; I'm kind of a trainwreck already, so it's not like it's going to bother me too much.

[...At least he's aware that he's a lot of things and "normal" isn't one of them.]

But yeah, most people really don't condone "you're going to die and get all bitey anyway, might as well treat you like shit while we figure out exactly how this works and what we can do about it." Even fewer are okay with actually going through with it themselves. But it's kind of a necessity - we can't do anything about the ones that are already infected, but we want to see what can be done for the people that come after. It's why I didn't really get involved in all the...needs-of-the-many screaming that everyone was doing.

[ That last bit gets a... Well, it's just a breath through Rin's nose, but it sounds a little amused, at least. ]

Hey, if Clarke hadn't taken the bait, you all probably would have been looking at me in another five minutes. [ Which is to say that Rin isn't... unfamiliar with weighing the scales. It's just that Birkin's work sounds like it goes past the levels she has learned to stomach. ] Do you... No, I probably don't want to hear about the gory details. But if you're testing out a vaccine, shouldn't that help make them more, you know, compliant?

[ Any chance of survival is better than none, and all that. ]

It can, and it usually does. But people don't tend to get the specifics of what we're doing, and sometimes things go...really unfortunately. We've had cases of the virus just absorbing what we put into them once, and if anything it amped it up. So now they're pissed, they're crazy, they're really hard to kill and they're on the zombie equivalent of PCP.

It's kind of hard to tell people "maybe this will work, maybe you'll just be undead and completely off your face."

I guess, but if I'll be dead either way, it isn't my problem if I make things harder on the people who have to clean up after me.

I guess it's moot point, though. Here's hoping you don't have any more incidents that go that badly.

...At least it's kind of hard to top that. Closest thing to a silver lining there is.

...Yeah. I guess in your line of work, learning from failure is the best you can ask for, sometimes.

WEEK 6

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