video; un: fiona

[cachemoney]

[Fiona is a little out of breath, like she just hustled very quickly away from somewhere. Which she did, but that's neither here nor there. The background behind her is some innocuous wood panelling; she's in a house.]

Okay. So. Crunch time. Things are getting nuts out there, if you didn't notice. We are gonna wind up super screwed if we don't hop to figuring out what the hell to do.

[She holds up a vial. It has some alien writing on it, as well as a familiar symbol on the label.]

We found this inside the hospital. A shit-ton of them, actually. So who wants to find out what Zymandis asshole is responsible for this mess and beat an antidote out of them?



[ ooc. PS, maya, hanzo, and mccree might show up in your threads. feel free to threadjack as well! ]

Comments

[cachemoney]

[DON'T TELL HER TO BE QUIET WITH HAND GESTURES, KEITH!!! She gets a disgruntled look on her face right away.]

I mean, whatever, I'm just saying. Let's not go around just assuming we can fight this guy... or guys. The same way we did the last time. Keep our options open.

[secondnature]

You're right about that. I just thought it'd be likely that they'd take someone in the hospital as a host, and then infect people that way.

Especially if they can.

The good news is that if it is the same type of ... infestation, we can deal with it better this time.

[cachemoney]

That would be the best case scenario. [She would prefer it if they had an immediate, simple way to kill -- or subdue, whatever -- the person(s) behind this.

She pauses.] Well, okay, the best case would be if none of this happened. But! You know! That's not possible.

[secondnature]

Yeah, but it's not surprising that ALASTAIR has an enemy that's out to stop them. [Only that they ... technically ... are the enemy out to stop Zymandis.

Hm.]

We need to see what else we can get from this person. Or people. This is two missions in a row where they've interfered.

[cachemoney]

Well -- we're the ones interfering, aren't we? [GET IT RIGHT.]

They were in Q-65 first, they were in Earth first...

[secondnature]

When this is done, we need to look into getting the Timeline program updated.

I'm not a big fan of being late to these things.

[That's an easier job than anyone can ask for, but ... what if they had gotten there on time? What if they had a way of looking at things to make a guess as to when Zymandis might interfere first? ... Ugh, he wishes Pidge was here. She'd be good at ... figuring this out and making a program to match.]

[cachemoney]

I don't know if we're late. If Zymandis's virus is what pinged the TIMELINE.exe [or whatever, she's not a technical person] in the first place, then it sounds like we're right on time. Unless the update means it can see into the future, which would be nice.

[secondnature]

If I've got the program down—[if, Keith is leaving room for doubt here on purpose]—I think Zymandis identified this as a world that could be culled, and found a means to do it.

[cachemoney]

[She's quiet for a second, frowning, as she mulls it over. That's right, Zymandis has a TIMELINE.exe themselves, which ostensibly sends them the relatively same data as ALASTAIR's own.

But...] What if... Zymandis wasn't directed to destroy this-- universe. World, whatever. Like. Last time, there was a temporal crystal they were trying to get at that was gonna make everything blow up. This time... a virus? They're different completely.

Maybe they're just testing something?

[secondnature]

The mission dossier said this world is in trouble if the virus breaks out. That's why we have to stop it.

The virus does the same thing as that crystal.

[cachemoney]

No, I know. It's-- I'm aware of how bad of a thing this is. [She wakes up to it every day.] I'm just saying, maybe that wasn't their intent.

[Not that it really matters. She shakes her head and wills herself to focus before she gets too far off-track.]

Well, anyway -- the important part right now is hunting this shit-head down.

[secondnature]

Why wouldn't it be their intent?

[Keith wants clarification on this before he agrees with her final statement.]

[cachemoney]

[She pauses, smacking her lips a little awkwardly before she answers. She doesn't like talking about how fucked up her home planet is, what was done to it, because it means people might pity her. But it's the only way she can think of to explain her reasoning.]

Let's just say I have experience with evil organizations using human beings as test subjects. Just to see what will happen to them if they're injected with this or that, in case the "data" is useful down the road.

[secondnature]

[That's ... honestly something that he can buy more than some of the other theories being thrown around.]

What if it's supposed to work both ways? If it works—then good, this planet is gone. If it doesn't, then they won't use it again, and whoever came up with that idea is gonna be, uh, fired. ["Fired." "Killed." He definitely means the latter, which is why there's a pause.]

[cachemoney]

[She smiles grimly.] That works with my experience, too.

[secondnature]

Mine, too.

A virus could be a subtle way of taking over entire planets. If they can get there first—[Then even if ALASTAIR is trying to stop it, they'll have to continue to put agents at risk.

And that's if they even get the coordinates for the planets where Zymandis is at work. Keith has the sense that they might've been lucky this time ... and last time. That something is leading them to cross paths after so long.]

[cachemoney]

That's why a cure is so important. [She'd originally been more concerned about a vaccine because that's what their mission was, but now that someone close to her is sick, she's changed her opinion. It just so happens that that's a better solution for multiversal health, too.]

If we can't always be ahead of Zymandis, at least we can clean up after them with as few casualties as possible.

[secondnature]

The good news is that they probably won't try anything once we have solutions.

Though I'd like to know how many times they've succeeded. How many worlds have they destroyed? [This is getting outside of the mission's paygrade, but it is a question that he wants answered.]

[cachemoney]

It sounds like they have more manpower than us, so... my guess would be a lot.