@katelin.philips

[covertness]

after the fire, i talked to one of the firefighters on site. he said the fire started at the nurse's apartment and that the nurse was found dead inside. no cause of death known at the time, but they were already considering the fire suspicious. he said there'd be a full investigation soon.

i went to have another talk with him, together with marcos diaz. [ between her powers of emotional manipulation and marcos' truth inducement, they make a good team. ]

he's not involved in the investigation, but he's heard a thing or two. apparently someone was stockpiling carcasses of the smaller creatures that attacked in one of the other apartments. apparently people have been doing that, looking to resale the bodies.

not sure how useful that is, but i figure we're better off sharing whatever information we get, no matter how random. maybe we'll spot a connection or a pattern at some point.

Comments

[covertness]

nothing worrisome about the probable intent of selling them on the black market, either

[ that's very kind ]

maybe there was a connection between the nurse and the person stockpiling the bodies
but the fire and the bodies weren't connected, i think

[drivein]

Yeah, maybe.
But I mean that weird infection that went around and the bodies of these monsters.

[covertness]

that one's definitely likely
my working theory is that it's some kind of pathogen that got released
maybe it came from the monsters

[drivein]

If it was a pathogen, it's not a normal one. We cured people by touching them, with whatever's inside of us. I wasn't here for the monster, but there's a lot of coincidences here.

[covertness]

we don't know what's inside us
could be the cure's some kind of biochemical reaction

[drivein]

So, can we test it?
Monster parts and their effects on the people breathing them?

[secondnature]

I'd be willing to have it tested on me.

[covertness]

are you sure? we don't know what it would do

[ bobbi can admire the willingness to jump off a cliff while also being concerned. katelin? katelin is just concerned. ]

[secondnature]

If it caused us to be angry like that, then we do know. If it didn't do it, then it wasn't involved.

We might need someone who wasn't cured. Just in case.

[covertness]

it could have other side effects than what we've already seen

[secondnature]

I don't care.

[It's really as simple as that as far as Keith is concerned. If they can figure this out and prevent it in the future, he doesn't care. People were hurt. And he just led a group to cure others. So, he wants to prevent it, and getting ahead of it means someone might need to fall on a knife.

Hence: volunteering himself.]

[covertness]

maybe you should

[secondnature]

I'm fine with it. Isn't that what matters?

[drivein]

That's a big offer.

[secondnature]

This is bigger than me.

[drivein]

I get that, but if you're out of commission that isn't good for anyone.
I'm a journalist, remember?

[secondnature]

I remember.

That means you know that we have to do this test. It might not even work on me. I've been cured once. Would it happen again if it's the cause?

But we know what the cure is.

[drivein]

If you turn into Dr. Keith and Mr. Toxic Masculinity Nightmare you can't say I didn't warn you. There's also a rainbow of other effects that it might have.
But yeah, we have the cure. Hopefully.

[secondnature]

That doesn't even make sense. I know what I'm like when I'm on that.

[covertness]

i could design some experiments
if we got our hands on monster parts

but there are ethical implications we shouldn't ignore

[drivein]

Yeah, I have the tendency to agree, but there are people out there that this is affecting.
If it happens again, we have to be ready. If you've got a better idea, I'm ready to hear it.

[covertness]

at the very least, we shouldn't make any decisions about it without thinking them through

[drivein]

[ wHY ARE ADULTS LIKE THIS??? ASSUMING SHE'S AN ADULT

BECAUSE

adults would do this!!! ]

Tell me what I should be thinking through.

[covertness]

what the possible consequences might be
what side effects might occur both short and long term
what safeguards to take to make sure negative consequences are limited

and that's just the ethical side of things

there's also how to design the experiment to make sure we actually test what we want to test
figure out ways to eliminate all other factors
a control group of sorts would be good

we don't want to jump to conclusions because someone inhaled some dust that had the effect and we think it's the monsters, or something like that

[drivein]

So don't narrow it down to just human testing---there are a lot of other ways that we can do this. Does Morningstar have a lab? Now that we have an idea, we can toss it through something specific.
I can't say that I know how chemistry works outside of a science class, but I know that in terms of finding something useful, we could really save a lot of people if this helps find a cure. It's not jumping to conclusions, it's playing at process of elimination.
Let's find a way to make it work, instead of imagining all the ways it won't.

[ he's young, and he's got a lot of drive. he wants to help people, and is trying desperately to find an in to do so—this might not be it, he could be completely off, but he knows if he doesn't pursue it that he's going to regret knowing that he could've done something, and didn't. ]

Help me out.