Sean Robin Hughes

The last infection was minor this time, but I wasn’t sure how it would affect my other health problems.  My eyes were still fuzzy from the virus, and the lesions on my legs were still pretty painful from the bacterial infection I had a couple weeks ago.  I was not sure if I was going to be able to keep pulling my time in the lab.  Every time I picked up a sample, I somehow picked up a lesser version of the same illness.  I followed lab protocols, I double gloved, wore a splatter shield with a breathing mask and eye protection.  My coveralls were always new and my apron was the heaviest gauge I could lift.  But somehow, every time, I got sick.  As if proximity was enough.  Considering very few of the pathogens I worked with were even communicable, at least over the air, it was an impossible thing.  No one else in my lab became ill.

I am probably the worst hypochondriac in the world.

…And I was quickly coming to the conclusion that working in the CDC was probably a death sentence.  Psychosomatic illness with lesions and symptoms is a real feat!  I should be in a record book somewhere.   Study measles, I get a strain of something that looks like measles.  Study pox, I get something that looks like pox.  You get the idea.

So why am I writing this down?   Why am I documenting the odd conditions that I find myself in?  Well the next sample that I am assigned to study is a very strange one indeed.  I have been reading the encounter team notes, and to say the least, this one is odd.  It is a virus from Brazil, communicated into the village by one of their hunting parties.  They were unsure of where they contracted the virus on their foray into the jungle, but they had come back with a particularly nasty little friend.  It wasn’t deadly to most, but ended up culling about 10% of the population in the village, usually the eldest.  It is labelled N54-220, and it exhibited very powerful flu like symptoms in most cases, including vomiting, diarrhea, fever, chills, muscle spasms, seizures, and occasional memory loss.  What is interesting about N54-220 is the fact that it didn’t just cull 10% of the weaker, older people, it improved another completely distinct sample, roughly 5% of the village.

For example, out of 100 people, 10 died, and 5 became healthier.  Not just more healthy… they appeared to be younger, faster, stronger.  One 35 year old man, Patient S, was able to pull entire trees out of the ground.  Not just small little saplings, but full size mature trees.  He was able to jump over rivers that required bridges, he was able to lift boulders that five men would struggle to roll.  A superman.  A very short, very powerful, tanned tribesman in the middle of the rainforest.  Weird, right?

I wanted to start this log of my personal activities as I studied N54-220.  For the world’s worst hypochondriac disease researcher in the CDC, what were my chances of picking this sample up and having it affect me?

Hypothesis:  I will study N54-220 and I will experience flu like symptoms which will result in death, normalcy, or… superman.  Or, nothing will happen, because I am a damn hypochondriac and will be following infectious disease protocols.

Day 1.  I am sitting at my bench, using my headset with the audio recorder on my phone, under all my gear. I have the sample in the hotbox, vialed up in a suspension isolate.  Today, I move the samples to dishes for growth and propagation study.  I have my transfer syringes, moving the samples to the dishes and the sequencing kit. So far, no affects noted.  No breach in protocols, with a clean transfer.

Day 2.  I woke up feeling ill. My back hurt and I was achy.  I came into the lab to review the results at my computer station.  I will stay out of the hot lab today.  Not taking chances.  Paperwork today, if I feel better tomorrow, I will suit up.

Day 3.  Definitely sick.  Called in.  Again.  I am going to get fired for the rate I burn up sick time.  Getting fired from a government job takes some real commitment. Ha.

Day 3, entry 2.  Woke up from nap with seizure.  Pissed all over my bed and floor.  Spent 20 minutes cleaning it all up and then took a shower.   Feel worse.

Day 3, entry 3.  The diarrhea and vomiting started.  Cleaning out GI tract seems to be prime directive of illness.

Day 5.  Have not been able to move until today.  Crawled out of bed, into shower, drank my body weight in water, crawled back to bed.  Try to enter log tomorrow.

Day 6.  Woke up feeling much better.  Fever must have broke last night.  But that is not the interesting thing.  I had a dream about my hypochondria.  In my dream, I floated up out of myself, and was able to inspect my own fevered body with cold precision.  I analyzed my body, clinically documenting my condition in an abstract way, like one talks about the weather or the condition of a worn deck.  I looked down into my cells and noted that I was a mutant of sorts, able to infer biological conditions from my environment as a survival mechanism.  My immunological response was to emulate the biological contaminant before it made me a host.  I had the world’s first proactive immune system.  I wondered at it, watching my immune system build strange proteins and RNA strands, and letting the results run rampant, only to be trounced by the very system that deployed them.  What a strange dream!  It felt real.   I feel so good I should be able to return to work tomorrow.

Day 7.  I returned to work, feeling healthy and happy, and found my samples sequenced with the reports awaiting my review.  I dove in.  The pathogen N54-220 was a virus payload, related to the influenza virus strain that came out of China this year.  It shared a significant amount of payload material, but I could not determine anything outstanding from the results that would explain the observed behavior in the wild.   In a moment of playfulness, remembering my dream from yesterday, I grabbed the edge of the worktable I was at and twisted my hand up to see what would happen.  I bent the table. Twisted the metal lip almost a full 45 degrees. It felt like a twisting a twist tie on a bag of bread.  I pushed it back, giddy.

Day 7, entry 2.  I went to the gym today.  I have never been to a gym in my life, so I tried the Y.  All the free weights scared me a bit, so I headed to the machines.  Bench press was first.  I put the stack at 100lbs and pushed it up without any effort.   I bumped the weight by 50 lbs and tried again.  No effort.  I bumped the weight another 50lbs, tried again.  Same result.   I maxed out the machine at 220 lbs and did not even struggle.  I moved to the free weights, asked a couple larger guys for some tips and how to measure the weights.  They looked at my razor thin frame, all 150lbs of it, pasty white skin, and smiled at the “nerd” while they explained it all.  One guy laughed when I loaded the bench bar with four 45lb plates on each side.  Then they shut up when I busted out 10 repetitions.  I was too conspicuous.  I won’t go back.  I need to study this away from curious eyes.

Day 8.  Work went well today.  I studied three new arrivals without much fear or worry.  I don’t know why.  I feel… different.

Day 9.  I went out for a run today.  I have never ran a mile in my life.  In high school, I always had a doctor’s note. Today I ran at least 20 miles.  I did it in a single hour.  That clocks out to a 3 minute mile.  I felt like I could run faster… when I was done, I was sweating, but not uncomfortable or feeling ill.  I think I laughed all the way home.

Day 10.  All my symptoms and illnesses are gone.  My skin is clear, the lesions are completely healed.  My muscle mass appears to be unchanged, although my body weight has increased by forty pounds.   I feel as if I look the same in the mirror.

Day 15.  I spent the last week testing my limits.  I do have them, but they are hard to reach.  I think I need to go to Brazil. The desire came on me suddenly today.  I feel a compulsion to meet the others.  To… talk to them.  I don’t know why.  I filed a field request with my supervisor, but I am leaving regardless.  My flight heads out in three days.  I am packing everything I need and donating the rest.  I feel like I am not coming back.

Day 18.  This is my last entry in America.  Brazil or bust!

Day 20.  I rode the bus to the final point I could from the airport.  I hired a guide in the local village, Tom.  (If his name is actually Tom, I would be surprised.)  But he speaks English and knows where I want to head.   My CDC badge has gotten to the right places so far, I am trusting Tom to take me the rest of the way on foot.  He estimates about a day and a half to the village I am looking for.  We are starting our hike early tomorrow morning into the rainforest.

Day 22.  We walked all the way alright.  I arrived feeling fit and healthy.  Tom was amazed that I handled the hike so readily.  I waved it off.  Waiting on the path, about five minutes from the village, we met Caua. I felt as if I knew him.  Tom helped translate with Caua… he knew I was close, he could feel another “Sobre” close by.  I could not get a translation from Tom of what Sobre meant.  In Spanish, it was a preposition meaning ‘upon’.  I did not press it with Caua.  There are seven Sobre in the village and I was to join them.  Caua sent Tom back home and took me under his care.

Day 23.  Tomorrow Caua and the other Sobre are going to take me into the bush.  We all feel the pull.  The jungle calls us.  We yearn to go.  The Sobre will not be coming back, they are giving their belongings to others in the Village.  I hear it now… the song.  It pulls on me, caresses me.  It sings a call to action, a call home.  It is getting stronger, every moment.  The jungle calls us.  The jungle… is asking us to be something more.  And I am the key.  I am the key to saving everything.

This will be my last entry.  I don’t know why… but the sense of immense purpose makes me calm.  I am not worried about what the future holds, because I will be making it.  That sounds crazy, doesn’t it?

Maybe.

… can wait a bit.  I have other things bubbling up.

To be continued.

I managed to ‘walk’ back to my office.  I walked for about 6 blocks in LA before I pulled it off though.  And the ‘blocks’ in LA are flipping humongous.  My legs were burning by the time I managed to find my way back.  Good thing too, because I felt a small measure of panic when I tried the first thousand times with no success.  How I did it so quickly the first time is beyond me.

Just lucky?  As soon as I managed to step back onto my street, 17th by the way, I pumped my fist a few times like Rocky.  Its the eye of the tiger, its the thrill of the fight, risin’ up to the challenge…  of our survival?  No that’s not right.  Eh, close enough. It felt like survival once I got back.  I mean those blocks were looooong, man.

My office was the same office that I had left, and strangely, it started to feel like home already.  That couch though, sorry Tony, but that couch will have to go.  It is just plain nasty.  If it was from the 1950’s, I would be shocked.  I was guessing it was older than the United States.  Shit was old,  and not in a good way.

Out of habit, I emptied my pockets, but found that the keys and the wallet were missing. I panicked for the second time.  I stepped outside my door again, and patted my pockets.  Wallet and keys were there.  I pulled them out, held them in my hands and crossed the threshold again.  No steam, no smoke, no magic.  One second, wallet and keys in hand, the next, poof. Gone. I stepped back out of the threshold into the hallway, and felt my pockets again.  Wallet and keys.

I am an unwitting David Copperfield with the objects in my own pockets.  I shut the door slowly while I shook my head in mild disbelief. Something to chalk up to the mystery of the Verse.  I’ll figure that one out later.  For now, I will get to work. Best place to start is to reread the open cases and talk to Tony.

PrimEstates vs Authority; V. Hale; and Miles vs Takai.  Tony said the last one was minor. Start there.

Miles vs Takai.  John Miles had incurred a damaging debt from Takai of the Angelus.  He was looking to dispute it.  Otherwise he was Colos-bound.  It did not say that explicitly, but I picked up on the gist.   Sounded like I just needed to hear both sides and pick who was right.  Simple enough, I guess.

v. Hale was odd.  It was a dispute between Michael J. Hale against himself?  How the hell did that work?  The dispute was over a commitment made to the Authority, yet the Authority was not a party to the dispute, and the commitment was not explained or mentioned.   The details were super thin, probably will have to talk to Mr. Hale myself to even get a clue on that one.

PrimEstates vs Authority was a much larger file.  A lot of pages with precedents and exceptions noted about the history of access to Prime for those that had departed.  PrimEstates was a corporation of sorts that was looking to open super high end real estate markets on Prime to the highest bidder of those off-Prime in the verse.  Essentially allowing ‘rich’ dead folks to have real estate on Prime.  Of course, the fuckers were trying to find a way to take it with them. That made no sense either, but it probably would as I went along. (I hoped.)  It seemed there were very strict rules about how Nexters (the term for Prime souls that had died and moved on) interact with Prime.  My experience was so far contrary to most of the rules cited, but then again, Chuck had pointed that out right away.

Then the 800lb gorilla slowly, meekly, raised his hand and the big question finally, somehow, managed to barge its way into my conscious thought.

Who the hell typed these briefs up?  And if I was a mediator of some sort, and we are talking trillions of souls in the whole verse, then all the fights and disputes would come to me?  How the merry hell did all that work?  I am just one guy.  Even with all the time in the world, only one guy could not solve every single dispute across all of time and space.  I flipped through the file again, looking for some secretary or typist notes.  Nada.  I grabbed the next case and did the same thing.  Nothing.  Third one, again nothing.   Where the heck did the files come from?  There was no typewriter that I had found in the office.  These things came from somewhere then.

I finally (finally) reached out and grabbed the map.

“Hello?” Tony said.

“Hey Tony. Sorry for taking so long.”

“I don’t experience time in here like that, so don’t worry about it.  You know how sometimes you get lost in thought and you don’t notice how quickly or slowly time is going by?”

“Yeah.”

“That is what being an abstract is like.  No sense of time.  Just thought.  To me it could be a second since our last talk or million years.  Doesn’t matter.  What did you find out?”

“I read the cases, and then a guy named Oman stopped by.” I admitted.

“Oh, crap.  I forgot about that.  Did he explain what was going on?”

“Yes.  Seemed a little odd.” I said.

“I didn’t have a chance to look into it.  Sounded a little crazy.  But I have seen plenty of crazy in my time.”

“Yeah, I bet.”  I didn’t want to tell the saint about my little encounter with the girl at the center of that ball of crazy.

“What about the cases?  Anything jump out at you?”

“You could say so.  Who the heck writes these cases?  Am I the only Adjudicator?  How can I possibly serve all the cases that pop up?  Back in the legal system on Prime, there are millions of cases a year, probably billions.  I can’t do that.”

“True.  You wouldn’t be able to.  But the good news is the rate of cases is small.  A handful a month.  Most are minor.  The system works pretty well.  Of course, the Verse has had millennia to hammer it out.  It better work well after all that time.”

“How is a case made?  Is there a complaint box somewhere?”

Tony laughed. “Remember the career fair?”

“How could I forget?”

“There was a booth that you walked by for the Office of the Adjudicator right at the front.  It employs a couple million people. Bureaucracy at its finest.”

“Why don’t I share a realm with them then?”

“You are where the buck stops, as FDR used to say.  When something reaches you, it ends.  When you end the case, how you end it is entered back into the Office, and future issues are alleviated before they reach you.  What makes it all work is your impartial nature.  You are separate because you have to be.”

“So somewhere out in the Verse, there are millions of people supporting what I do on a daily basis?”

“Yep.”

“No pressure then.”

“None at all.” Tony chuckled.

“And these files just show up on my desk?”

“Turn around.  See the filing cabinets behind you?”

“Yes.”

“Its the first one.  The top drawer.  Pull it open.  Take the new cases out.  Put your closed cases in, push it shut.  Done deal.”

“That easy?”

“That easy.  Any questions about the open cases?”

“I think I need to track these folks down and talk to them.  So not much to ask.  Do you have anything?” I said.

“I hate to say it, but I am pretty certain I am fading. I can’t remember things.  There are gaps… about my childhood. About my life.  About everything.  Don’t pick the map up again unless you need to really pick my brain… because every time you do, I become less.”

“Great.”

“I thought you would like that.  Talk to you later, Doug.  Good luck.”

“Good luck?  I have no idea where to start.”

“Start at the beginning.  See where it takes you.  After all, you have eternity to figure it out.”

Audio Transcript, Case File: 52u334x00
Title: Gregorius v. Authority
Finding: for Authority
Adjudicator: Fernando Martins de Bulhoes::re.AUTH::re.ANGL
Plaintiff: Gregorius (aka Pope Gregory I), via Interpretor Vigilus

Adjudicator (A): State your name for the record.

Plaintiff (P): Gregory of Rome, son of Gordianus

A: Good morning, sir.

P: Good morning.

A: I have read your case stated against the Authority. What I don’t understand is why now?

P: Why now?

A: Exactly.  You have had 800 years of Authority experience, working directly, why make a case of injustice on Prime now?  Especially for yourself?  Most complaints are brought up within the first year post-Prime.

P: It took a long time for me to realize the injustice, I suppose.

A: You suppose?

P: Do you know who I am?

A: I do.  You just stated it.  You are Gregory of Rome, son of Gordianus.

P: I am Pope Gregory the First.

A: I recognize that you were a Pope on Prime.  Late 6th century… ish.

P: Where do you hail from, my son?

A: Portugal.

P: No.  When.

A: As Adjudicator, that is not relevant to this discussion.

P: It is.

A: Fine. Early 13th century.

P: Splendid.  A Christian man?

A: I am asking the questions, Gregory.  Let’s try to focus on your case.

P: It is relevant to my case!

A: Then, yes, I was. For disclosure, a Franciscan Friar.

P: So to you, I should be well known.

A: (audible sigh) Pope Gregory the Great.

P: Indeed, my son.  I was canonized.

A: I fail to see how this relates to your case against the Authority …Gregory.  And please remember, it is my choice as to how this plays out.

P:  Of anyone, you should understand.  I was a devoted monk.   A very devoted man of God.  I prayed with most of my time.  Sometimes forgoing food, drink, and rest.  I prayed for the world, for the sick, the poor, the unwanted.

A: Like the sick dying monk you threw on the manure pile out of spite?

P: That story is always taken out of context. He was not dying, he was dead.  It was meant as a symbol.

A: It just happens to be in the file.  Please continue.

P: I was devoted to finding the truth of God.  The Godness of God, if you will. I expected to see a vision of the greatest Creator of all.  Not necessarily understanding Him, but communing with Him, in my own way.  I argued for Him, I fought intellectually for Him, I wrote works for him… long dialogues about the very nature of faith and belief in the Creator.

A: I have read some of them.

P:  Then you know!

A: Know what?

P: Its all a lie!

A: How is it a lie?  Your belief in God paid off didn’t it?  You found that God exists.  How is that lie?

P: Yes, he exists.  But…

A: Let me remind you, as Adjudicator, it is my duty to understand the facets of your case, and lay out the decision that will set precedent in this matter for all future matters that may arise.   It seems your case has reached my desk because no one has any clue on how to riddle the twisted logic for your claim.   A claim… let’s see here, I have it right here… ah.  A claim that, and I quote, ‘The Authority should publish its truth on Prime as not to mislead billions of individuals that the concept of Heaven and Hell not only do not exist in absolute terms, but that the life after death is mostly subjective from person to person.  The absence of absolute truth in this has slighted every man of faith since the dawn of creation.’

P: Those are indeed my words.

A: You are not the first to demand some form of Prime education effort as to the so-called afterlife.   That has been well addressed in precedent and most would consider the matter closed.  So, on that alone, it would have stopped your claim immediately.  What tripped the office up is the last line.  The absence of absolute truth being presented as an act of transgression against you personally by the Authority.

P: It is an act of transgression!  I was lied to!  For the last 800 years, I have been lied to!  There is no heaven!  There is no hell!

A: You have seen the Authority.  You have worked for it for 800 years.

P: I have. With faith and diligence.

A: So what is the problem?

P: The problem is that I spent my entire human life praying, with an expectation of a heaven on the other side of the veil.

A: So have many others.  That is not a slight against you, but a choice you made.

P: And that doesn’t bother you?

A: I try not to think about it.

P:  We have been lied to.  There is no heaven.  There is no hell.  I could have spent my entire life doing evil things and the result would have been the same.

A: True. You expect recompense for your faith.

P: Yes! For all this I expect recompense for my faith!

A: Your case is dismissed.

P: What?!  You cannot do that.  I was a Pope!  I am a Saint!  I demand the rewards I was promised!

A: Yeah, well… news flash.  You are not the only saint in the room.  I suggest you suck it up, your grace.  Just because there is not a heaven or a hell where we are at does not preclude them from existing. As I was told, as you were told, this is just the next step.

P: But…

A:  Perhaps, your grace, you should focus on doing the right thing all the time, and let the rewards seek you out.  That way you are not wasting everyone else’s time.

P: But…

A: Speaking of, you will be charged for my time. Have a good day.

P: Now, you wait a minute… Friar.  I was a Pope!  I demand answers!

A: Then I suggest you take to your knees and start praying.  It might help.  Never know…  Maybe this time you will actually get an answer.