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[tenuefarfalla]

You've reached Cho. I'm not here right now. Please leave a message, and have a wonderful day.

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text; UN: Spides

[itsnotaonesie]

Hey Cho, it's Peter

from the lizard thing

quick question, do you know Kabal pretty well?

text

[tenuefarfalla]

That seems like a subjective question. I’m sure the threshold for knowing someone well differs from person to person.

He’s my friend, though. Has something happened?

[ She does not flat out ask what Kabal has done, but a rather large part of her mind is dedicated to wondering just that. ]

[itsnotaonesie]

[Oh don't worry, Peter's way too annoyed with this whole thing to sit here and beat around the bush.]

Friend, okay, that's good

he's rolling around in the damn fungus getting high as a kite and I can't talk him out of it

I really hate to drag you into this, but do you think you could try to talk some sense into him?

[tenuefarfalla]

Oh goodness.

[ It's not the worst possible thing he could be doing, but it's not great. ]

I can finish what I'm doing in about five minutes. I need to re-catch some animals and get this blood on ice. Where is he? Are you still with him?

[itsnotaonesie]

see

I wasn't with him, he posted this thing on the network

no idea where he is but I'll try to find him

[tenuefarfalla]

[ Well, that certainly puts a slightly more urgent spin on things. ]

I'm leaving now.

[ Cho doesn't bother to collect the animals which are loose. none of them factor into the food chain of any others, and this is a far more pressing matter. She grabs a few things to stuff into her bag, and writes a quick note to leave on the door of her room. The note reads: Animals intentionally loose. Please please please do not open door. Everything is fine. Thank you. ]

I'll start on the ground floor, you start at the top, hopefully we'll stumble onto him before we meet in the middle. Call me if you find him first.

[itsnotaonesie]

[Sorry to interrupt your critter adventures, Cho.]

Will do, heading out now.

text; @Qubit (probably backdated by like a week)

[superposition]

You're a biologist, correct? How are you with infectious diseases?

Re: text;

[tenuefarfalla]

That is correct.

My familiarity with infectious diseases is almost entirely theoretical, but it IS extremely broad in that theoretical sense.

Why?

[superposition]

Because, as you've no doubt noticed, we've got one spreading through the colony like wildfire. But my preliminary tests are saying it's the same pathogen that hit us last month, or at least another strain thereof. I want to know why it's back, and why it's so much worse this time. And - perhaps most critically - why some of us don't seem to be catching it at all. I'm reasonably sure we've all been exposed, at this point.

Can you help me?

[tenuefarfalla]

Are we sure it's not just the same disease lingering in some people before being passed on? I'm not really sure what sort of incubation time we might be dealing with. Or maybe it's just making its second round, if it's managed to mutate enough already, like a cold? I thought it was running its course in a few days for everyone? Is that not the case any more?

[ Granted, she doesn't really see everyone on any given day. If you're gravely ill, you're probably not coming to breakfast or dinner, and she's holed up in her room or the lab for the bulk of most of her free time lately. ]

[superposition]

[ Qubit has the same problem, some days - he has a bad habit of skipping breakfast, or getting too absorbed in his work and missing dinner, and since he lives out of his lab, he doesn't often end up around the dorms. He's been trying to get better about it, but there's always so much he needs to do.

He's paid enough attention to know this is bad, but he isn't going to judge Cho too harshly for not doing the same. Besides, her immediate curiosity is encouraging. ]

Correct, it's not. This is lingering longer, and the respiratory symptoms are much worse this time around. We've got people coughing up blood, for instance.

The rest of your questions are the ones I need answered myself. Provided I can get you blood and sputum samples, and any equipment you're lacking - how soon do you think you could complete a profile of this thing?

[tenuefarfalla]

I had no idea.

I can free up about ten hours each day, I think. I'll bring you a containment carrier for any samples you already have, and I'll start with that. It would be best if I could also do physical examinations, and some lung capacity tests. Particularly on anyone who's been coughing up blood.

I don't feel comfortable committing to a time-frame before I have some idea of the complexity of the virus. Are you with the samples right now? I can come get them in thirty minutes.

text | @lazarus

[benhargreeves]

[ Ben is still learning things about being social. Something he's found in this place is that, if he's feeling a bit lonely or bored but not really up to seeing someone in person and talking out loud for a whole conversation, he can just text. Texting is wonderful. Texting is life-changing.

So one afternoon he impulsively messages Cho: ]

Hey, Cho. How are the fish?

text | @cho

[tenuefarfalla]

[ Well, how perfect is this timing? Cho is doing a feeding and a weight and density check on the fish in question right at this moment! ]

They're doing really well. Growing quickly. I think this might be a good genetic build for a stable farm-able species.

[ She attaches a picture of a tank of little fish, most of them around four inches long. They're dark in colour, with subtle golden striations along their bodies, and tiny little whisker like protrusions near their mouths. Even if one knows fish well, they will probably not be able to guess a specific species. For good reason. ]

[benhargreeves]

A genetic build? So you, like, compiled their DNA out of a bunch of different species? They're bespoke?

[ God, if Ben understand the situation right... science really is the WILDEST. ]

[tenuefarfalla]

Bespoke. I like that. I'm going to start using that.

Yes, I altered compiled DNA to modify their genes. I'm trying to combine the best parts of resilience, mass, and growth rate.

[benhargreeves]

And you can just pick that stuff out, genetically?

Like 'there's the gene to make this fish an absolute unit'.

That's crazy.

[tenuefarfalla]

Yes and no. Which I know is a super frustrating answer to get, because it's not really an answer. Genes are complicated, but we've made a lot of progress toward full understanding. It's kind of like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces upside down. It would be easier if you could see the picture, but it's still possible. Just difficult.

Does absolute unit mean really big?

[ She is guessing from context. ]

@lazarus | text

[benhargreeves]

You've got a lot of opinions about like fashion and clothes and stuff, right?

[ Ben may have only seen her in various sort of running outfits (that's what he thinks of them as) but she is always SO well put-together. ]

[tenuefarfalla]

I LOVE clothes.

Does that sound really shallow?

I don't care. I love clothes.

[ Ben has only ever seen her ready to do lab and/or kitchen work, or preparing to run (for her life or for pleasure), so he has no idea the extent to which she adores fashion. And yet, his instinct is perfectly spot on. He's insanely observant like that. ]

[benhargreeves]

It doesn't sound shallow at all.
Not like you're saying you judge everything about a person based on what they wear.
You just like clothes. Which I could kinda tell. Which isn't a bad thing.

[ A pause before: ]

I don't know a whole lot about picking clothes. We all had the same uniforms growing up.

[ You know, to go along with the general dehumanization and all. ]

My sister showed up and she's been talking about, like, giving me a makeover.

[ He's winding his way towards the point gradually. ]

[tenuefarfalla]

[ The more Ben says, the more excited Cho gets. It's a nice feeling, to be excited over something. She's smiling, and nothing is forced and nothing feels bad and sharp and broken. There's just so much good stuff. Ben's sister is here! That's amazing! She wants to give him a makeover. That's also amazing! One decidedly less so than the other, of course, but she can be happy about lots of things to varying degrees. She's not going to turn away any happiness that comes knocking right now.

Cho is curled up in a ball on her bed, knees hugged to her chest, biting her lip while she stares at the screen and hopes for the text that will ask her if she wants to help out. ]

That sounds like so much fun. Not that a little black number isn't extremely timeless, but there's always room for a bit of polishing of the personal image, right?

[benhargreeves]

That's pretty much what she said.
With a bit more mocking in there. (The good kind).
You two would probably get along super well, actually. I should introduce you later.

But the thing I was gonna ask is:
Can you, like, be my second opinion on stuff?
Like if she suggests outfits or colors I should wear or whatever?
Can you make sure I don't look... pretentious or stupid or wrong?

[tenuefarfalla]

I would be honoured.

[ It doesn't occur to her to worry that that might come across as sarcastic. She means it. She feels very special that Ben wants her to meet his sister, that he trusts her taste enough to have her be his second opinion. What she thinks counts for something to him. That's an honour, in her book. ]

Is her taste usually eccentric?