Point of Documentation: Marshall, Phoenix 11
The next few days creeped by in a slow drawl that had Marshall in and out of doing odd jobs, things that the Captain could trust him with, and getting checked up by Robert. Today was one such day. He sat in the quarantine room that they had been forced to set up in the storage area, kicking his legs back and forth on the makeshift medical bed. Marshall was growing more and more bored as the time went by for Robert to get back into the room. The man had told him not to move a muscle, that he would be back in ‘three shakes of a lamb’s leg’... whatever the hell that meant. Yet the man had been gone for well over half an hour now.
As if summoning the man, Robert stepped in the room and closed the door behind him. He held a device that looked sort of like a defibrillator with a large tube coming out of the top of it. Marshall cocked his head and asked the obvious question: “What… is that thing?”
Robert heaved it over to a counter and laid it on there. It must have been heavy as the man was no lightweight. “It is a device that helps to measure the contamination of an infected individual and tells us how far along you are. The display is archaic, as these things were mass produced in the years after the Rifts opened, but it works well enough even a couple hundred years later.” Robert flicked a couple switches on the thing and it started up with a whirr.
While Marshall was really only fearful of needles, he also had the innate fear of something loud, foreign, and possibly defunct from age. He held up a hand and said “Now hold on, why do we need that thing? Isn’t the suit sufficient to keep me from getting worse?”
Robert raised an eyebrow before sighing. “I thought you said you understood how the Void-Scourge worked? It was the whole reason I only handed you the scrubber without going over all the related health issues and otherwise.” Robert seemed to be in a huff over this, of which Marshall almost instinctively threw up both hands in a ‘hold on’ gesture. Robert sat the device’s paddles down on the machine again and produced his holo-pad.
“Alright, let’s go over this from the top then, so nothing is misunderstood. The Void-Scourge is a plague that is contracted from not having proper PPE, or Personal Protection Equipment, near the Nests of Voidlings. The important thing is the radiation-like aura that emanates from the Nests and its foundation; however the air around it is also directly infectious as well. The scrubber I gave you was so that you don’t pick up trace amounts and make the infection worse by introducing more doses to yourself.” Robert flipped through some things on his pad before continuing. “Most humans, or Terrans as I’ve heard you call us, have a natural resistance to it at very low doses over a short time. You don’t have that, now. Once you’re infected, anything more is dangerous to you.”
Robert turned the holo-pad towards Marshall at this point and showed him what was on it. Marshall instantly recoiled at the image on screen. It was some kind of desiccated man who had sections of his skin boiled over and what seems like a Voidling’s limb sprouting from his neck. Robert flicked the image and showed another, of a man in a cell. The text next to it said ‘Doppelganger’ and an image list of thirty some photos. He didn’t scroll through these, but left it at that and turned the device back around.
“There are four results of infection: mutation, replacement, aberrations, and fully immunities. The first option is the best: either you or your offspring get some kind of mutation in your genes. This sometimes is seen in powers, abilities, or full shifts in appearance and genetic makeup at more extreme ends. The last one is typically the more hereditary one too. Replacement is a bit more esoteric… The more infection you develop, the more of a beacon you become for nearby Voidlings. They will be able to hunt you much more effectively, and you feed them more than a normal human does. Some Voidlings are more human-like, and will attempt to replace you in society by taking your form after killing you. Those we call ‘Doppelgangers’. They’re nasty, so hope you don’t attract their ire. The third is what you saw: you literally become the monster. You’ll start getting growths on you until you either die or become a freak and try to kill people. The last is the most mundane of them: you become highly resistant and nearly immune to all Void-borne particles and the infection as a whole. Some have even said that you grow scent-blind to Voidlings, but I’d pay a month’s salary for you to find someone brave enough to throw themselves out in front of a Voidling to test a theory like that.”
Marshall listened intently to all of this. It was wildly different to what he had heard in his basics. As if to prove what he had heard had grounds, Marshall spoke back to this. “What we had been told was: if your suit or cockpit was breached and the Void-Scourge came in, you had a short time to live without proper medical treatment before you died a painful death. I was going off the thought that I needed to get home to be treated… but you’re saying there are actually some benefits to this?” Hope blossomed in Marshall’s chest as he said this, but the doubt was always present at the back of his head.
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Robert’s next words all but confirmed it. “Kid, the bad results are highly likely, and the good ones are low. It’s something like a seventy-thirty split of bad to good chance, and most of it is based on your genes and exposure prior to it. Not sure on your genes, as I don’t have a lab here, but your exposure sounds pretty damn low to me. Just keep your rebreather on and let me use my machine, alright?”
Marshall solemnly nodded as Robert took up the machine and sat his paddles against the chest. Robert watched the display beside him, frowning slightly as he waited for the response. Robert lifted the pads and pressed them down again, a beep coming this time. “There we go. Let’s see here…” He read something on the display and arched another eyebrow. Marshall swore those things traveled more than he did sometimes. “Odd. I’m detecting almost a fully doubling of Void-Scourge in your system. I’ll start you on some medication tomorrow for it, once I run these numbers. Do you feel weak? Ill? Anything off?”
A shake of Marshall’s head and a solid no made Robert frown again. Marshall guessed this was unusual from how he was acting, but Robert just patted him on the shoulder. “Keep the scrubber on and don the suit for now. I’ll talk with the Captain about this and see what he has to say. For now, no shots, and go talk with Cadence. I think she has a job for you.”
Marshall nodded slowly, confused at what this might entail, and did just what Robert ordered. He donned the suit as Robert stepped out with his holo-pad. He felt the need to snoop around in the room for things, and as such looked at the device that Robert had left on the counter. It had some words on the display that didn’t make much sense to him, but some numbers and images did land solid with him. It read an 11% infection rate on prior log, and a 25% infection on current log. Lots of numbers popped up when he tried clicking on the percentages, but he got the gist of it from the percentages alone. Something was happening to him, and it was not good. He finished donning the rest of the suit that complimented his scrubber and left the room.
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Marshall met up with Cadence in the armory, her personal rifle under her arm and a large backpack slung over her shoulder. He approached her and asked her what she was doing and what she needed him for. Cadence turned and, without a word, tossed him a backpack as well. It wasn’t heavy or burdensome at all landing in his hands. He actually thought it was completely empty upon hefting it over his shoulder. It was then that Cadence spoke. “Take the alice-pack and keep it handy. The Captain will be stopping Betty soon to do some checks and let her rest for a bit. Our job is to go to a nearby equipment hub for supplies. Friendlier faces than raiders for sure, but still keep yourself modest.”
Cadence slid the rifle onto her shoulder and packed what seemed to be three magazines for the things into her pack. “Uh… friendlier, huh?” Marshall commented as he saw this.
She gave a shrug and said “Yeah, I said friendlier, not peaceful. Shit happens.” She then began to load what seemed to be old and decrepit equipment into her pack. Her eyes looked over and saw his own looking down at the equipment. A sigh escaped her mouth and she spoke again. “Do you know how trade and bartering works, Outlander?” Marshall nodded to this, but said nothing. “Wonderful. There is no currency in the Badlands, only trade and useful scrap. So we gather up things we don’t need anymore or items from towns we pass through that haven’t been looted yet on our water-finding trips and trade them for other useful items. Money only really exists on the other side of the Wall anyways, so it won’t be of much use to us here.”
Marshall noted how annoyed she was at him, but said nothing. He was not part of the crew, so questioning their stand-off nature towards him seemed a little too out of line for now. For now, that was. He planned to eventually question her on it. But for now, he just nodded again. “Well… that makes sense. So what are we getting with all of this?”
A large gyro slipped into her pack as she spoke. “Well, the radio mast is fried. That means anything long-range is pretty much borked. That and I need to replace a lot of parts in both guns. The radio, however, is the most important thing. Without that, we aren’t getting near the Wall, let alone in it.”
Marshall’s head tilted slightly at this and he asked “Why? We don’t look like Voidlings, and we’re in a Mule. Isn’t that normal for Badlanders?”
Cadence gave a shake to her head and spoke again. “Mules are not as common as you think, even if the raiders had one too. The Wall dwellers aren’t really people you can put a blanket statement over when generalizing. Some are nice, some are not. The ones we’re going towards aren’t our home base, but it’s the closest ones to get you on the other side of the Wall. That and now we actually need a repair bay for Betty. If we don’t identify ourselves, however, they’ll take us for a raider group that wandered too close and send us straight to the great beyond ass-first.”
A hissing sound occurred from somewhere outside and echoed through the ship with a reverberation. Marshall guessed that was the Mule coming to a stop, and Cadence standing up pretty much confirmed it. Marshall stood up too and felt for the pistol on his hip. It was in its holster, but even knowing it was there was such a reassurance.
She waved her hand as she went for the hatch. “Come on fly-boy, let’s show you what civilization looks like.”