Players: Corrin and Quetzal
Summary: The SHIELD satellite is shorthanded because everyone aboard came down with the 'flu at once. So Corrin and Quetzal take medical supplies up, and discover… space rabbits!
Date: Jan 28, 2011
Log Title: It Had To Be Bunnies!
Rating: G
The SHIELD base has been receiving medical requests from their satellite operation of late. It seems that a virulent form of the 'flu got aboard, and a large percentage of the regular staff came down with it. SHIELD is now scraping personnel out of the deepest corners and sending them up to cover shifts until the outbreak fades.
That's why Corrin Kelly is in the uplink room, going over a half dozen pallets of medical supplies. He's waiting for the other commandeered personnel to show up so that he and they will make the next transport up. He checks his watch: is he making this trip alone?
Quetzal isn't usually the type to run late but he knew that this trip would be a lengthy one and needed one last smoke before going up. He's horribly addicted to the cancer sticks. With his cane clacking on the floor and Verde in front of him as a Chimpanzee, Agent Quetzal (dressed in his SHIELD uniform) finally makes it. "I'm sorry I'm late. I'm usually on time but with the cold and my leg, I'm not as quick as I used to be."
Corrin shoots Quetzal a smile. "Agent! Glad you could make it. There's still a few minutes before our uplink, so you're not that late." He checks his watch again and looks past the man to the door. "Koz, on the other hand…"
As if his name conjures him, Tech Specialist Kozlowski blows in through the door, uniform only mostly on. He's carrying over a dozen shoulder bags of various types and sizes, and is cheerfully whistling 'I Got A Feeling' by the Black-Eyed Peas. "Hey, Kelly! I hear we're a hundred pounds underweight for this trip…!"
"Not for long," Corrin mutters. He pinches the bridge of his nose, and he checks his watch again. Should he ask…?
Quetzal just has the one duffel bag with him with his stuff in it, he's used to traveling light with the missions he used to do. "I'm just glad that I'm actually doing something that isn't just translating." He admits as going from field agent to desk job sucks, he grumps about it enough. "I think that hundred pounds all depends on what form Verde plans on taking." Quetzal says looking at his companion who responds with - "I wanna be a space bear! Grrr!" Which is weird coming from a dog.
Time's up. "Everyone in the transport circle," Corrin says, pointing at the broad yellow outline painted onto the floor. "Koz! That means all of you, and all of all of those bags, too!" He'll hurry across the floor and grab the first two away from his office mate, slinging them on top of the nearest pallet. "Seconds to transport: five." A red readout is visible on the wall; it will do the countdown for everyone. Corrin grabs Koz's lapels and hauls him inward, even as bright, white light rises around the transport circle. "All means ALL, Koz…!"
WHOOSH!
Verde the Chimpanzee climbs up and holds onto Queztal as the transport lights them up and sends them to where they need to go. This is a new mode of transportation for him and it's a bit exciting.
It's new on Corrin, too, and he doesn't like it. His gut is doing flip-flops when the light dies, because his inner ear is convinced that he just got sucked up through a vacuum hose. Or something; everything is whirling, for him. "Ugh," he says, and he lets go of Koz to stagger to the nearest pallet. He's thinking, who needs 'flu, when you've got a SHIELD transporter which does THAT?
Koz, typically, is oblivious to the effect. "Hey! That is so cool. I wonder how it works?" He shuffles out of the transport circle and waves to the technician in the control booth overhead. The technician waves feebly back. He's got the 'flu, you see, and the only reason he's there at all is because he's the healthiest of the transport techs on board — which goes to show just how desperate the situation has gotten.
Once the trip is over, Verde climbs out of Quetzal's arms and sits on the ground for a few seconds. Quetzal on the other hand is doing his best to stay standing since it gave him quite the head rush. Both him and Verde are feeling the effects it had on the other as well. "Well, I'm not in a rush to do that again." He says as he takes a test step forward.
"You and me both, brother." Corrin shakes his head. He's got a bad case of motion sickness, but he really doesn't want to throw up on the transport circle. "Uh. Where's the med team who wanted these supplies…?"
In sickbay, as it turns out, flat on their backs with the 'flu. It takes most of fifteen minutes to find that out — the first twelve of which were taken up with getting hold of someone who could verify the identities of the new crew so that the doors out of the transport circle would unlock. And once they do, it turns out that Koz, Corrin and Quetzal may be the only able-bodied people in this part of the base.
"What the hell is going on?" Corrin says, looking both ways along a corridor that is empty, save for abandoned transport carts, stray papers, and forgotten personal items. "Earth 'flu never moves so fast or hits this hard!"
"And you think they'd be inoculated for something as simple as the flu. It's not like the flu shot is something that is hard to get." Quetzal says as he knows he's been injected with so many things since being with SHIELD that who knows what can get him sick. "Well, I think we should take precautions to make sure we don't get whatever is spreading around here."
"Do we even know what will work?" Corrin goes back to the pallets and opens one up. He offers up paper face masks and latex gloves. "You'd think once the station knew it had a problem, they'd do everything they could to contain it."
Koz is back to whistling. He comes in, towing a large transport cart. "Hey! We're in space. This is the coolest thing that's happened to me ever!" He'll start loading pallets on the cart. "I can't wait to see what's next!"
Quetzal will take the time to appreciate that he's in space once the job is done. Taking the face mask from Corrin he slips it on followed by the gloves. Him and Verde start to load up some of the supplies onto the tow cart. "Not a clue Corrin but you think they'd file a report if something was kind of fishy too. Maybe we should talk to whose in charge afterwards."
Corrin hefts a box of IV packs onto the cart. "Considering how fast it seems to have moved, I have to wonder if they had time for the report." Another box onto the cart. "Listen, most of my training is hum-int. I can make my way through a database if I have to, but it isn't my strong suit. Koz…" He sighs and shakes his head. Koz has just left, towing a cart with three pallets on it, and singing 'Zippity-do-dah' as he went. "I don't know that he'd focus long enough to get any answers. How about you? What's your specialty?"
"Linquistics." Quetzal replies. "And a lot of recon work over the years and intelligence gathering. But I can look through some databases and understand them pretty easily." His mind can just organize what it's supposed to say and translate it. "It might take a bit but that all depends on how much information there is."
Corrin nods. "All right. How about you start on that? Looking through the databases. I can get these things organized in sickbay. I'm betting the nurse station in there will have a link to what we need, or maybe the doctor's office." He finishes loading the tow cart. "Sound good?"
"Roger." Quetzal says as he starts heading over to look through the databases to figure things out. "Just be careful Corrin, don't need you being sick up here too.
Corrin mumbles an answer, and tows the cart to sickbay… and stops at the door, mouth agape. Sickbay is *overflowing* with human misery, with every bed filled, and extra cots stuffed into every corner. Not one man in five even notices him enter. "Oh, boy…."
Koz interrupts Quetzal. "Hey, Agent Q. Wanna go rabbit hunting? I just saw one scampering down the hall!"
Quetzal stops and just looks at Koz and blinkz. "Koz…think about what you just said. Does any of that seem…off to you?" He asks him raising an eyebrow. "There's a Rabbit in here? We're in a space station, Koz, how did a -rabbit- get up here?" He asks as he looks at Verde and the Chimp changes into a Bloodhound and tries to see if it can pick up on a scent. According to the bloodhound's nose? Yes. Rabbit. Actually, rabbits: at least three, possibly more.
Koz is still enthusing. "Yeah! A rabbit! White with a big black spot on its back!" He leans out around the edge of the door. "And there it goes again!" He dashes out.
Corrin doesn't know anything about this. He's dived into the problem in front of him, which is a sickbay full of sick people, all of whom need help and none of whom are getting it. "Ah, you need water? Sure… you, too? Can do. I'll get a pitcher and a stack of cups…."
"There are at least three of them." Quetzal as he nods to Verde who starts to take off after one of the rabbits. "Koz, go after the rabbits and try to grab one if you can. Don't you think this is at least connected?" He asks as his face starts to grimace a bit as Verde moves farther and father away and the tension starts to pull on his spirits. Verde though has the scent and he's looking to nab up one of the rabbits and bring it back to Quetzal and Koz.
The rabbit doesn't notice the bloodhound until the bloodhound is way too close. The reaction is almost comical — sudden big eyes, a leap straight up that easily clears the bloodhound itself. Then it takes off, claws skittering on the tiles of the hall and little rabbit voice going "Eee!" as it goes.
Koz yelps and hollers, "Tally ho!" and gallumphs off in pursuit of another rabbit. The space station, which had been ghostly quiet, is suddenly ringing with the sounds of the chase.
Corrin pauses by the sickbay door. What…? Then someone groans and he goes back to pouring water for sick people. If it's important, or if Quetzal needs help, he's sure Quetzal will page him.
Quetzal crouches on the ground and let's Verde do his thing, after all with the strain he can't do much. He does though contact Corrin. "Agent Corrin, I think we have a lead on what's going on but you're not going to believe this. Rabbits." He says as he focuses on what Verde's doing. "Verde's trying to capture one." He closes his eyes as Verde continues the hunt, waiting until he's close enough to shift into a rabbit himself so that he can try to get the little sucker.
Corrin stares at his comm unit. "A… what? A rabbit?" He looks around the sickbay. "Right… I'll ask around here, and see if anyone here knows anything about escaped rabbits. Good luck on the capture." He shuts down the comm unit and looks around the sickbay. Picking a person who looks somewhat compos mentis, "Uh, hi. What do you know about rabbits in the halls…?"
Koz skids to a stop next to Quetzal. "They're in the walls!" he warbles, grinning ear to ear. Then he's off again, on the chase.
Verde will corroborate. He was chasing a rabbit…! And then it ran straight into the wall. As in, it went into the wall. No holes, no nothing. Just… gone.
Once the rabbit vanishes into the wall, Verde comes right back to Queztal and shifts into a Wild Cat and jumps into his arms. The almost cling to each other for a bit before trying to figure out what to do. "Agent Koz!" He yells after the man who just runs off and he wonders how Corrin can tolerate working with the crazy agent. "Alright Verde, we gotta figure out if this thing is actually a rabbit, group of rabbits, or not and what the hell is going on here."
Koz barrels out of a cross corridor, cheering. "They're fast!" he carols. "Space bunnies, ahoy!" He disappears again, halloo-ing all the way.
On the heels of that, Corrin calls Quetzal. "Agent Quetzal? Every agent I've spoken to in here says he's seen the rabbits… but none of them talk about them to each other. It's weird." He looks around sickbay. "It's like they have to be reminded about them. Have you caught one, yet?"
"No, Verde tried to but they vanished…into a wall. It's like they're phasing bunnies. I don't know how many there are but they're in the walls." Quetzal watches Koz go running off again before talking to Corrin more. "I think we might need to seal off an area if possible, and maybe gas 'em out? I don't know. And is Koz always this…hyper and unfocused?"
"What's Koz doing? Hollering and chasing them?" On getting an affirmative, "Actually, for him, that is focused." Corrin is moving med boxes to tables in the center of sickbay. Now that he's there and helping, some of the sick are getting up and doing for themselves. He watches them as he speaks. "Gas… for bunnies that get into the walls? I don't know that would work. I'm distracting people here… and they're getting better. I think this is mental." Pause. "I suck at mental things…."
"Wow." Quetzal says as he's not exactly used to working with someone like Koz. "And mental…yeah, I'm not good at mental things either." He's never really fought many super powered individuals as that wasn't ever his job. "Rabbits..in a space station this is just crazy unless, is it something that's making people see things? That kind of mental?"
Corrin says, "Uh, yeah? I think so. I don't know much about it either… but we'd better get help soon. These guys in sickbay. They really don't need thinking they should be throwing up again."
Quetzal lets go of Verde, letting the wild cat go back onto the ground. "Okay well I'm going to have Verde start checking out the air ducts, see if I can find anything there like if it's a gas or something messing with people's minds." He says as he walks over to an air vent and lets Verde go in as a mouse. Quetzal himself stays outside but runs along whatever path Verde is trying to stay as close to his spirit companion as possible.
"Good idea. I'll keep asking the people in sickbay about the rabbits and see if I can't learn more about them. I'll leave the comm line open — yell if you need help." Corrin clicks off and moves through sickbay, helping some, questioning others. "Rabbits…? When did they show up? Were you feeling ill at that time…?"
A few minutes later, he's back on the line. "Agent Quetzal, the people here say they started feeling ill before they started seeing the rabbits. It seems most of the base started feeling ill at about three in the afternoon, yesterday. The rabbits started showing up around midnight."
Meanwhile, Verde is finding that the air ducts are actually quite clean, for air ducts. He has no trouble moving through them… and neither do space bunnies. He watches one emerge from one wall and go through the opposite wall, without seeming to notice the walls at all….
Even though the walls are there Verde tries to follow the Rabbit, right through the wall. Who knows if it will work. "Rabbits in the air ducts Corrin, but they seem clean. I'm afraid we're gonna start getting sick too so we better figure this out before it's too late."
The wall is solid. Unfortunately. Which is probably not what Verde wanted to discover.
Corrin pinches the bridge of his nose. Now that Quetzal mentions it… "Actually, I'm starting to feel off myself, Agent Quetzal. Um." Think, Kelly, before you can't. "Uh, if it's mental, like hallucinations and stuff, I'm thinking there has to be a source mind. Maybe one of the sick people? I'll ask around here in sickbay, but… uh." His sinuses are feeling tingly. Not a good sign. "Uh… Koz might be good. To help you. He's pretty oblivious to everything but repetively applied 2x4's." Corrin hopes that includes mental suggestion and other such manipulations.
Quetzal calls Verde back to him and the mouse shifts so that it's a bird now on his shoulder. "Agent Corrin, do you know if we have anything like gas masks here?" He asks so that way he might be able to stop inhaling it but who knows. While he heads off he runs to find Koz. "Koz!" He yells out. "We gotta see if there's someone here who isn't sick. We have to make sure everyone is accounted for see if there's anyone missing or anyone extra."
Koz pokes his head around a corner. "Find folks? Okay!" He salutes Quetzal and then starts poking at his wristwatch. "The fastest way to do that would be to access the main security tracking, and that's probably in main security…" A last poke and light blooms in the corridor around him, a hologram of Santa and his reindeer. "I need the map of the SHIELD satellite. Hang on…."
Corrin, meanwhile, has checked with someone in sickbay. "Agent Quetzal, there's a Commander Reinheld here who says that emergency life support supplies are available in wall lockers at the intersections of all main corridors." He's feeling dizzy, now, and wonders how much longer he'll be able to help Quetzal. "Should include gas masks…."
Quetzal heads over to the life support supplies and gets himself geared up, and grabs stuff for Koz and Corrin. "Corrin, I'm gonna come buy and drop this stuff off to you, Koz, get yourself set up to stay safe." He says as he plans on seeing Corrin. "Koz once you get the map, can you sent me the image too?"
Koz's holographic image melts and reforms into the image of a massive satellite station. "Woo! Jackpot!" He pokes at his watch, then sighs. "No, that's the Stark satellite. Hang on…." If he heard Quetzal's request, he shows no sign of it….
Corrin is now feeling sweaty and dizzy and he's getting tunnel vision. "Um. Agent Quetzal… uh. I'm thinking no. Too late. I'm coming down with it. With whatever they've got. The others." He rubs a hand over his face. "Best find the source. Stop this at the source. Okay?"
Quetzal tries to figure out where to go, he isn't sure where anything is on this base. "Okay…Verde…there's gotta be a command center, lets start there." He says as he knows there are rabbits about and he tries to think what he knows about them. "Okay Verde." He says talking with his companion as he goes to find the command center. "Rabbits, breed like crazy, what else.."
"AHA!" Koz gets rid of the Doombase satellite diagram and finally gets the SHIELD satellite diagram up. "Here we go! And we are… here." The base is vaguely mushroom-shaped, with a wide, saucer-like upper portion and a long stalk pointing at the world below. Koz points into the stalk about a third of the way up from the bottom. "Docking ports and mail cargo, and the secondary sickbay." Point. "Main elevators." Point. "Main crew quarters." The lower part of the saucer. "Command center, here and here and here." Two arcs along the outer edge of the saucer, and a bubble at the top. "Hey, Agent Quetzal! Wanna go exploring?"
"Of course." Quetzal responds as he takes the firearm out of it's holster and double checks it before going. "Secondary Sick bay…anyone check that?" He asks as he he figures he'd head towards the main elevators. "Command Center seems like another good spot to check as does the main cargo." He says as he lets Verde fly a bit of head of him to be his eyes.
Corrin answers Quetzal's question. "I'm in the secondary sickbay, it seems." He sitting against a wall, feeling completely mashed. This illness — if it is an illness — hits hard and fast. "Um. Something about needing facilities close to the docks for fast care. Or something."
Koz has been listening to the chatter the whole time, but this is the first time he cuts in. "Hey, office buddy! You're sounding kinda tired. Gettin' enough sleep?" He leads the way to the elevators. "You should take better care of yourself." Aside to Quetzal, he says, "Corrin's a good guy, but did you hear? He got beat up in Ireland and he's still recovering." Wise nod. He does something with his watch and BING! An elevator arrives. "Ha! Works up here, too." He bows to Quetzal. "After you!"
Quetzal enters the elevator and leands on his cane. "I've got the injury from a trip to Mexico." He says with a faint smile. "I do believe that he's a good guy but we all take our lumps sometimes." He says as he looks to the bird. "Okay, so I'll hit the command center and you hit the mail cargo? Maybe something got shipped up here."
Koz nods agreeably. "I can do that. Hey!" He brightens visibly. "I can try out the new scan functions on my watch!" He starts poking at it again. The SHIELD satellites disappears, replaced in rapid succession by the Stark satellite again, a diagram of the interior structure of the Statue of Liberty, and an old episode of Baywatch. There are flashes of bunnies in all of them.
Koz will get off first, about halfway up the stalk of the station. When the doors open, three bunnies are visible in the corridor. "Ha! Tally ho!" Koz leaps out, and the doors close. The car starts up for Level One, the top command center.
"Can you scan for life?" Quetzal asks as he's wondering if there is an extra person in there. "Good luck!" He calls out to Koz as he rides it up. As soon as the doors open, Verde steps out back in Bloodhound form and Quetzal falls shortly after with his gun in one hand. "Let's see what we can find Verde." He says as he moves forward looking for either something in the room or a command console he can start fiddling with.
"Of course I can scan for life!" Koz sounds almost surly that there is any doubt that he can scan for life. "And… nothing within thirty feet of me. —But there's a bunny right here? My watch is on the fritz!" Muttering.
Quetzal gets out on the command level. The corridors are bare, even of bunnies. Verde can smell lots of people, but that's mostly traces of the regular shifts in here. There's only two fresh scents, and one of them is Quetzal's.
"Follow it." Quetzal says to Verde who knows exactly what he's thinking anyway. Picking up on the other scent, Verde starts to follow it while Quetzal follows behind. "There's two scents on this floor, one is mine so, we're checking out the other one Koz." He says quietly into the comm as he tries to be quite as he heads down the hallway but it's hard with that cane.
"Ooo… bunny lair!" Koz replies. He cuts the comm, but not before Quetzal can hear him giggle.
Verde follows the scent into the main command center, which is as deserted as the corridors. Most of the boards are on automatic. Verde will lead Quetzal to the far corner of the room, where one, lonely SHIELD agent is slumped against a comm console, obviously in the throes of the 'flu. This must be the person who gave the all-clear when Corrin, Koz and Quetzal came aboard. Judging from their current state, they've been in this chair since midnight last night.
Rushing over to the SHIELD agent, Quetzal kneels down next to him. "Agent, can you hear me?" He asks as he tries to pick the man up to his feet. Verde shifts to a Gorilla and goes to aide the man up as well. "Verde, you go bring him to the medbay if you can, I know it's gonna be rough being apart but I'll start looking through this console." He says as he tries to look for deliveries before theirs.
The agent is semi-conscious, and thrashes as he's picked up. Mind, a gorilla is so much stronger than a human, the thrashing doesn't matter. Main sickbay is three levels below the command center, however: Quetzal will likely be feeling the strain.
Corrin is feeling thoroughly miserable, down in the secondary sickbay. Around him, he notices that the men and women who were starting to get up and help themselves have gone back to bed. "Agent Quetzal." Breathe…. "Things are deteriorating down here again. Have any good news?"
Good news: Quetzal sees no rabbits up on the command level. Bad news: Verde encounters one going into main sickbay… which is PACKED with sick people.
The physical discomfort is almost unbearable to Quetzal as he looks through the console. "Nothing, this is ridiculous, just nothing but fake rabbits…and they seem to be concentrated on your floor, let me double check with Koz. Koz!" He calls over the comm unit. "You see anymore rabbits down there? It's pretty empty up here so I might head back down." He says hurrying towards the elevator.
Koz warbles into his comm unit, "There's bunnies everywhere! And some of them are lavender." He's very pleased, actually, because he now galumphing back and forth again, scanning things, and trying to figure out new and interesting ways to scan that-which-is-obviously-there-but-which-is-not-showing-up-on-regular-scans. Heaven.
Quetzal will get to the main sickbay level and promptly encounter a bunny, which scampers away from him.
Corrin, down in the secondary sickbay, listens to the comm and tries to think past the horrible feeling he's got that he should be throwing up. "Um. Agent… Quetzal. And Koz. No rabbits here." Just so they know.
"Koz, I'm meeting up with you." Quetzal says as he starts to head to where all the lavender bunnies are reported. Verde is headed to meet up with him as well. Verde shifts into a bunny to try to blend in as he meets up with his spirit companion. "Koz, what kind of readings are you getting?"
Koz is muttering into his comm unit. "Where did you…? Oh, pink. Flowers! Of course!" Galumph. "What? Oh, Agent Quetzal. I'm in the stairwell! Fancy this place having stairs. The bunnies are coming from above me, somewhere." Pause. "Wait. Aren't you above me, too? Maybe you know where they're coming from?" He will, with uncharacteristic thoughtfulness, send Quetzal a map of the satellite.
Corrin, listening in down in the secondary sickbay, is trying to clear his head. Clear… clear… getting sicker… getting sicker….
His eyes pop open. He's getting sicker if he's clearing his head? And the people in here got better when he distracted them… With a groan, he'll climb to his feet. Got an experiment to try. He won't interrupt the others in their hunt, though. Just in case he's wrong and this doesn't work.
"That's what I'm trying to find out but I'll see what's above us." It takes a while for Quetzal and Verde to be reunited and the two head up from Koz's location. "I feel like I'm in a Aliens movie but instead of killer aliens it's plauge bunnies." He comments as he goes to head to the locale above Koz to try to find the bunny source.
The more levels down Quetzal goes, the more bunnies he encounters. First just one or two, then three, then half a dozen. By the time he gets to the last barracks level, the level just above the stalk and therefore just about dead center of the satellite, it's more difficult to avoid bunnies than not. It probably isn't very reassuring to have one run *through* one, though.
Koz arrives on the level at the same time Quetzal does. "Oh, look! There are green ones, too! And blue, and orange…" He's all but dancing in place. "They're so cute!" He dashes off down a random corridor, trying to grab bunnies and having his hands pass through them. This doesn't bother him in the least; he just keeps trying.
"Okay wow, there are tons of Rabbits down here." Which means that he must be getting close. Quetzal starts to move slower now with his Rabbit Verde next to him as he advances further into the area. "Yeah Koz, they're about as cute as the black plague."
Koz gives Quetzal an offended stare. "The Black Plague looks nothing like cute bunnies," he says, because Literal'R'Us is Koz's middle name.
Most of the rooms on this level are empty, their occupants in the sickbays. A few still have occupants, however, people curled up in their bunks in clear misery. Only one is clutching a stuffed rabbit which resembles the bunnies in the halls….
Quetzal nods to Verde and has the rabbit go in first while he stays out in the hall. He figures maybe rabbit to rabbit, there might be a better change. "Hello." The rabbit says to the one clutching the stuffed rabbit. "My name's Verde, what's yours?"
Verde doesn't get an immediate response, but he can eventually rouse the agent-cadet enough to get an answer… of sorts. "Go 'way," mumbles the young woman in the bed. She flings a hand at Verde in an uncoordinated shoving gesture. "'M sick." A bunny seems to rise out of the one in her arms, and it twitches its nose at Verde before hopping off the bed.
The rabbit in her arms is a stuffed one. Closer examination confirms: fake fur and stuffing. Kinda old; the fake fur is worn down in places, and there are handmade repairs here and there.
Quetzal walks into the room and grabs a chair to sit down by where the woman is. Verde jumps up into Quetzal's lap and settles there. "So I see you have an affinity for Rabbits. I'm Agent Quetzal and there is my rabbit Verde. We're here to help you all get better. What's your name?" He asks the woman hoping she will answer.
Bleary, the agent-cadet comes out from her pillows to glare (muzzily) at Quetzal. "I'm Cindi," she mumbles. "An' you're in my room." She falls back into her pillows. Another rabbit emerges from her rabbit and hops off. "Got th' 'flu. Go 'way, b'fore I give it to you, too." And with gargantuan effort, she drags her pillow over her face. This close, Quetzal may be feeling symptoms: lightheadedness, and stuffiness, and an all-over body ache that is settling into the bones….
Koz sticks his head in. "I think they're coming from here… oh! You found them, already!" Then, seeing there's someone on the bed in here, he lowers his voice to a bellowing whisper. "Agent Quetzal! Is there anything you need me to do?"
"Hi Cindi." Quetzal replies to her starting to feel sick himself but he tries to fight it. "So tell me about this rabbit of yours you're holding." He says before looking at Koz. He looks Koz for a bit and nods. "Maybe, I think we found who got everyone sick around here."
Muffled sounds emerge from beneath the pillow. They resolve to, "This is Muffin. Muffin keeps me company when I'm far from home. Or when I'm sick. Like now. Go away so I can sleep! Please." Though a great deal less clear.
Koz leans in the doorway. "Aw… she's the first case? I'll go look up her records and get a timeline established." He disappears, then comes back. "Uh… what's her name?"
"Cindi." Queztal replies and he looks down at Muffin. "Hey there Muffin. So Cindi, I think most the crew is getting sick and we really need everyone functional here. Myself, Agent Koz and Agent Corrin all brought up some supplies. We can get you some medicine if you like, so you can feel better."
Cindi actually comes out from under the pillow. "Medicine? You can make me feel better? PLEASE!" She falls back into the pillows again. "I caught this and now I feel awful and I think I gave it to my roommate and I can't even get out of bed to get to sickbay…!" Tears. Really, she's very young, and very self-centered in her misery.
Koz says, "Cindi? Cindi what?" and he goes wandering off. Maybe he can get her name from her room number.
Quetzal reaches out and takes one of Cindi's hands with his own. "Cindi, I need you to tell me your last name before I can get you your medicine, please?" He says before trying to reach Koz over the comm until. "And get some medicine if you can." Hell even a placebo might work on this woman.
"Murcheson," Cindi says. Quetzal relays that to Koz, who mumbles something about spelling. A few minutes later he comes back to say that Cindi Murcheson transferred up for a cadet tour on the satellite in the orbital mechanics lab (she's a math wiz, which Koz appreciates). The 'flu outbreak started shortly after she arrived, but progressed so quickly that no one has her on record as being sick.
The supplies brought up with Quetzal and crew do include medicines to alleviate 'flu symptoms. Koz crows about this, and gets a rather snappish answer from Corrin to 'stop yowling, Koz, and come get a dose for the poor girl.' Chagrinned, Koz does as he is told, and brings it to Quetzal within the half hour.
During that half hour, Queztal tries to talk quitely to Cindi, find out how long she's been up here, how long she's been with SHIELD and such. Once Koz comes back with the medicine, Queztal tries to talk Cindi into letting him administer it. "Once I get you all fixed up, everything will be okay Cindi." He says as the flu symptoms has really hit but he's fighting it the best he can to make sure Cindi is okay.
Cindi has been on the station TWO WHOLE DAYS and they were AWFUL, because she's been SICK, and that's awful, too, 'cause she got a SPECIAL grant to come up here, because she's only SIXTEEN, she goes to Barnes, and she doesn't want people to think she's all weak and GIRLY, 'cause then they might not let her stay! And she's more than willing to take the medicine, because she'd really rather get back to the lab and prove she should stay.
Koz, meanwhile, is ignoring privacy restrictions and snooping in her files. "She isn't labelled as a telepath or an empath or anything like that in her files," he tells Quetzal. He's sitting with a laptop
beside Cindi's bed, infuriatingly untouched by the malaise that is hitting everyone else aboard the station. The wretch. "She has something called…" he peers at his screen, "hyperfocused technical recall and holistic imaging potential". —I think that means she's really good with machines and can make light images of them."
Quetzal smiles down at Cindi. "Well how about you go back down to the base with us. I won't let anyone know you got sick up here or you had to leave early for any reason. If you like I could tell people that there was a security breach and we had to get you to safty." Stories can go a long way. "Also I'd like to get you back down to earth so that way we can make sure that this nasty flu is gone, okay?"
But she doesn't want to go back down! She wants to stay here! Doesn't Quetzal understand, this is her LIFE she's talking about, and if she goes down now SHIELD will NEVER let her come back up, and that would ruin EVERYTHING!
Welcome to teenage angst, Quetzal.
There's a sigh from Quetzal and one wonders why he never had kids. "Cindi, I'm a SHIELD agent, trust me, this won't ruin everything an you'll be able to come up here, I promise. SHIELD agent honour." He says as despite her protests she is going back earth side if she likes it or not.
And protest she does! Futilely. She is removed from the station, and instantly, all the bunnies there disappear (which disappoints Koz, but he doesn't get a vote in the matter.) Within the hour, the sick agents are getting better, enough to leave sickbay, anyway, and start taking up their duties again.
