[ Backdated to yesterday, noonish. ]

[wise_ass]

Bert walks out of the sickbay with a small crowd, all of them having been nudged out by the doctors who needed time, space and a piece of silence for their examinations.

In the small waiting area just outside it, the remaining residents of the Proserpina are in varying states of bewilderment, panic and exhaustion. The people they've lost-- all of them, apparently, boasting some kind of magic ability, at least to Bert's limited understanding-- had been all been tracked down and brought into the sickbay; those left standing had done whatever they could to help John, Lauren, and Sherlock hook the patients up to the machines that might be able to save them.

And there's the matter of the clock to contend with, which hasn't disappeared, but just run down to zero.

"Is everyone all right?" he asks of the room at large, breaking up the alternating silence and whispered conversations. Of course they're not all right, but Bert can't stand to worry by himself in silence.

Comments

TO ALL

[6seasonsandamovie]

Abed is still filming with his communicator, like he has been ever since he saw his first unconscious super. He's decided to call them supers, even though it isn't exactly right; it's shorter than 'people with abilities', and it's either that or 'the specials'. He's still filming, and narrating to the video as he slowly pans across the small crowd, focusing on anxious faces and wringing hands.

"And now, with all the supers out of commission, what are the baseline humans to do? What dangerous trial awaits them? With the life of half the Proserpina residents hanging in the balance, will the station doctors find an antidote in time to save them, or will the space station claim so many victims in one fell swoop? Anxiety and tension are reaching a new high, just a week after getting out of the Sanctuary."

Re: TO ALL

[xiii_legion]

"Who's he talking to?" Pullo asks no one in particular, glancing around himself at the gathered crowd. "He's telling us stuff we already know. That's not very helpful."

[highfunctioning]

"He's processing." Sherlock breezed out into the waiting area and out again to the hallway. He needed something from the lab.

ASIDE TO THE DOCTORS

[highfunctioning]

"John, I need a butterfly needle and half a dozen vials." Sherlock was standing beside Thor's gurney, tightening the tourniquet with his teeth. Everything was sorted, or just about, and now it was time to move on, but he seemed to be the only one who knew that.

"John? Molly?"

Re: ASIDE TO THE DOCTORS

[dr_lauren]

"My name is Lauren," came the terse response (it was not the first time it had been directed at him), "or Doctor Lewis. Supplies are over in the cabinet. Marked supplies." She glanced over from where she stood by Erik's bedside, directing a hand in the right direction. "Help yourself." She had long since given up on trying to get him to vacate the sick bay and only hoped that he was as competent as his attitude made him out to be when it came to live patients.

[highfunctioning]

"Busy just at the moment -hands full."

He didn't drop the tourniquet, knowing as he did that Thor's physiology was much more interesting than Erik Lehnsherr's [and of course he remembered their names because they were test subjects at this point], and also because it had been just slightly more effort than he'd expected to find the vein in the first place.

That and he didn't want to.

"John."

[sharpshooting]

"What, Sherlock, yes, I'm here," John said impatiently, turning from the next bed as he made a note on the drop in Elphaba's blood pressure. Sherlock glanced up at him expectantly, and John gave an irritated huff, stalking over to the nearest rolling tray and dragging it behind him as he went back to Sherlock's side.

"Last time I'm playing fetch and carry," he warned. "There's enough work for five here and there's only three of us."

[highfunctioning]

Sherlock might have launched into a tirade pertaining to John's economy of motion or lack thereof, but his hands and mouth were both working on the next puzzle.

When he had two full vials of Thor's blood, he stepped back.

"Every hour?" He was addressing Lauren this time.

[dr_lauren]

It took her a moment to realise this, given she wasn't used to being addressed or even acknowledged by him. Eventually she looked up, eyebrows raised. "I'm sorry?"

[highfunctioning]

"Every hour." Lauren gave him a look that was so reminiscent of John that Sherlock understood without repeating himself a third time.

"New blood samples; we'll do well to have them every hour."

[dr_lauren]

"If you want to take the time to do that I can't stop you," Lauren told him, though her expression was dubious at best. "But don't you think there are better uses of our time? Analysing the samples we already have, for a start? And trying to find a way to reverse the damage?" It wasn't that she didn't understand the desire to be as rigorous as possible, but really, with nineteen patients and three of them - only two of whom were actual doctors, as far as she could tell - they couldn't afford such luxuries.

[highfunctioning]

"Obviously. Which is precisely why we should put the brainpower where it's needed most."

He was far too impatient to wait for John and Lauren to clear anyone else for him to 'monkey about with' as John so eloquently put it, so he grabbed the tray he'd been working on and headed for the lab, calling over his shoulder.

"Start with Zoe in twenty minutes, John." I'll be back.

[sharpshooting]

"I'll apologize, yet again, for him," John said, digging the heel of his hand into his eye, blowing out a weary breath through his nose. "I wish I could say he'll warm up to you, but." He shrugged. "The bitch of it is, he's usually right. I'll set a timer for twenty minutes. It doesn't seem like there's much more we can do now but keep them stable."

TO ALL

[withmyshield]

The half of the station that's left has to get it together. There's no other option, given the scientific and physical firepower lying inert behind the glass Sharon's leaning against.

There's no time to freak outright now. Over somebody's shoulder, her eyes settle on the shiny surface of a shield and quickly move on. She hadn't even seen someone grab it from the hallway outside Hyde's cell.

"When they're done in there, we need to talk about a plan." They're almost all together right now, which is good, but they need to round up the stragglers and make sure they stay on the same page and informed.

Re: TO ALL

[6seasonsandamovie]

Abed focuses the camera on Sharon when she speaks up, zooms in slightly - there isn't much zoom on this thing. He's standing a few feet from her, with a small group of people who quiet down when se talks, and he has a direct shot of her with nobody in the way, a small blessing.

"With all the supers out of commission, it is no surprise to see Sharon Carter, Agent Thirteen of SHIELD, step up to the plate," he narrates quietly. "But will Captain America's girlfriend manage to assert her leadership over the other normals, or will somebody else end up in charge?

[withmyshield]

Sharon's mouth presses into a tight line, but she takes a deep breath and doesn't actually snap at Abed. They're all doing the best they can, and just because he doesn't seem to be phased in the least by this new development doesn't give her license to treat him badly. She's also just never been fond of being referred to as 'Captain America's +1'.

"Nobody's in charge, Abed. We just need to make sure we're working together."

[wise_ass]

"Are we sure that it was only the... super-powered people that were affected?" he asks of the group at large, feeling a little behind everyone else, but also like there were a few people in the sick bay, anyway, that Bert had always taken for... normal. "Are any of us feeling ill? Weak? Anything?"

Aside from the obvious signs of stress, he hasn't noticed a thing.

[good_cop]

Sam purses her lips, glancing up from her communicator and briefly around the room. "I feel fine," she comments in her mild Yorkshire brogue, "I suppose we should get ourselves checked out once they've got everyone else stable."

To anyone who's been paying attention to Sam - and to be fair, it wouldn't surprise her if that was 'no one' - she looks considerably more comfortable and in control than anyone's seen her before. Certainly there's a marked difference from the rather twitchy, nervous-looking woman from the Sanctuary, although of course few people were at their absolute best back then.

Glancing back to her comm briefly, she says, "From what I've been able to figure out, the only person here who could be considered to be anything other than entirely human is Amy. Depending on where in her continuity she comes from the TARDIS turned her into a complex space-time entity, but obviously that doesn't give her any special powers... I assume... I didn't really watch Who... I mean, not everyone comes up on searches, though - I can't find anything on Zoe, for example."

[good_cop]

Sam blinks a little in mild surprise, but seems to take this information in her stride, more or less. "I s'pose that might explain why she has no surname - is Zoe an acronym or something?"

[notjustapiece]

"I don't know. She never got that far explaining it," Peeta admits. He wishes he had more information but for now he guesses a little information is better than none.

"She's from a world with really advanced tech and she's a genius with it. That's as far as I got."

[wise_ass]

Bert's eyes have been bouncing between Peeta and Sam like a fellow watching a fencing match ever since Peeta accused Zoe of being a computer program?

No, no; he must've heard wrong.

"Surely being clever with machines doesn't make her supernatural," he ventures, a little uneasily.

[wise_ass]

More than a little mystified by Peeta's bold declaration that Zoe is, in fact, a person-- a fact which Cuthbert had held to be utterly self-evident-- he just gives the young man a slightly concerned expression and looks back to Sam for possible further clarification.

[good_cop]

Sam raises her eyebrows at him as if to say 'Got me'. "Well, as you say, Peeta, obviously the station considers her to be more like... them... than like us. Unless anyone wants to tell the group now that they're not, in fact, a bog-standard common-or-garden human. Which would probably be useful to know as it'd help Lauren and the others narrow down what's happening... Anyone?"

[girl_who_waited]

Amy's been trying to look into the sick bay for while now, half listening even when they said her name, but finally she's turned back. "I'm human," she says with a frown, and then she just stares at Sam. "I'm sorry, it turns me into a what?" And she's looking between Sam and Abed of all people, because Abed's the walking encylopedia about what happens to everyone, and Sam just said-- well.

"And I feel fine, and I seem fine, and when you say computer program do you mean a robot or something? Maybe-" She screwed her mouth to the side. "I mean, everybody's a little weird here, but maybe she's got powers nobody knows about?"

[good_cop]

Sam waved a hand. "I don't think it matters in this context," she said. "Your space-time status, I mean - not Zoe. Hopefully the... medical team... will be able to figure out who or what Zoe through examination."

[girl_who_waited]

"Well," Amy says, frowning, "I mean, it matters in the context of me, and if I'm going to just fall over some time now. You're saying I'm not human? When, exactly, do I go from being human to being not human? Do I turn into an alien? Do I get tentacles and things?" She's babbling, mostly because she's scared and stressed and she knows that there's got to be some sort of solution for this, but what it is... well. She's not a scientist or a doctor and it's just sort of up to the dozen or so of them.

[good_cop]

Sam sighs, reaching to pinch the bridge of her nose, but when she looks up at Amy her expression is sympathetic and she shoots her a tight smile. When she speaks, though, her words are on the matter-of-fact side. "The fact you're here suggests you're fine - everyone else seems to have dropped at almost the same time. The Doctor Who information is rife with speculation from fans and the Cortex doesn't really distinguish between fact and guesswork. There's a suggestion that regular time-travel changes the way a person works on a quantum level but honestly I didn't research you in detail and all the science in that show appears to be incredibly dodgy and narrative driven - I'm a cop, not a writer, so I'm afraid I have no idea. Can we focus on the issue of the people who're presently in comas, please? If you start feeling weird, say something, but in the meantime you might need to join the queue..."

[girl_who_waited]

Amy's brows shoot up. "The queue of people standing out here because we can't really do anything because we're not doctors? Sorry, when you say I'm possibly not human - and just so you know, the stuff you've 'researched' - which, PS, may or may not actually even be about me, as the two Sherlock Holmes's in there may attest - it makes me just a wee bit concerned." She huffs out a breath, and then turns back to the group. "Alright, then. What're we going to do? Besides help the doctors as much as we can."

TL: a little later on

[good_cop]

"...All right," Sam says as she lifts one ankle to rest across her knee, cradling her coffee in both hands. "So we're agreed that the vents are worth investigation. I can't think of anything else we can do until we have some sort of news from the medics. So I suppose all that's left is wild speculation. Assuming that this thing, whatever it is that's doing this - the station or its keeper or whatever - has pumped gas into the air to somehow affect only the... abnormal residents. What can we take from that? Is there any precedent for it, anything similar to this that's happened before? Who's been here longest?" she added, glancing around.

[wise_ass]

"About five months," Bert ventures, raising his hand slightly. "Sharon's been here awhile. And Lady Grantham-- I believe she told me that she came here with the first big group, over a year ago."

He gives Sam an almost imperceptible shrug, which is to say that he doesn't expect Lady Grantham will have much for them in the way of theory.

[good_cop]

"All... right," Sam said, nodding and pursing her lips. "So... d'you remember anything like this ever happening before? Anything abnormal from the station at all? Any sort of precedent for anything that's going on here?"

[withmyshield]

"Usually the attempted murder is more interactive."

There's certainly no shortage of danger and probable death, but it's never been something as insidious as poison. And certainly, they'd be in a much tighter spot if the Proserpina decided to hit them with the other type of crisis now.

[good_cop]

"What about malfunctions? Assuming for a moment this isn't some sort of test or joke on our captor's part, given the alarm bells and emergency procedure and so forth. Has the station had glitches on that scale before? I know about the level five doors, but that's pretty minor by comparison..."

[sharpshooting]

John had gone for a little walk and come upon the group talking. Good a time as any for an update, I suppose. But Sam's train of thought interrupted his own-- here, at least, he could give some useful information.

"There's been nothing on this scale before," he said, sticking his hands in his lab coat pockets. "I've been here eleven months, and from what Sherlock's told me, when they first got here it was like the place was just coming back to life-- they had to work to get the power on, a lot of places were locked down, that kind of thing. The replicators... they've always been the way they are. But there's never been anything accidental that could've killed people."

He had to believe that, at least-- the things they'd endured, all they'd experienced-- it had to be for a reason. It had to mean something... even if he still had no idea what that something was.

[good_cop]

"All right, thanks, Doctor. Any news on the patients?"