IC - 8 - Commercial Sector - Jojo

[Mephistophilis]

'An infection? But the Marshal said he killed himself!' says Richards, clearly confused. Marshal Favre, I will initiate a Level 2 biological incident and collect Sergeant Montrose's body. Unless you have any objections Dr Johnson?'

Nurse Richards starts collecting the biological protection equipment and mortuary trolley and Jojo returns to looking through the medical records. He still has hundreds to sort through but it does seem like there is something going on. The number of sleeping tablet prescriptions seems very high and there are a lot of complaints of insomnia and nightmares, all dating back over the last year. A few people also report more troubling psychiatric symptoms, intrusive thoughts and a sensation of being watched.

OOC,Roll Library Use, this will determine how quickly Jojo is able to piece the information together

[Starspawn338]

OOC,Library Use 20 0

Jojo nods to Nurse Richards. "Yes, take all precautions." Then he goes back to scanning the medical records to find if he can begin to pinpoint when, where and with whom the incidents began.

[Mephistophilis]

After familiarising himself with the medical coding system used by the late Dr Holzer it is relatively simple for Jojo to devise a search algorithm to cross reference the records.

What he can see is that there has been a surge of insomnia, nightmares, and other psychiatric symptoms. While there has always been a baseline incidence of these problems within the station workforce (not uncommon this far out from the core inhabited planets), starting about one year ago the rate has steadily increased. More recently miners have been reporting unusual intrusive thoughts at the end of their shifts, including powerful urges to wade out into the methane sea or to disconnect their oxygen supply.

By interrogating their employment records he determines that most of these complaints come from miners working Pumping Station 4 and to a lesser extent Pumping Station 5. A number of miners working on Pumping Station 4 also report a sensation of being watched while they work.

He also notices that there are a surprisingly high number of physical injuries being sustained by convict miners working on something Holzer calls the 'Pumping Station 6 site'. While interrogating some of those records he finds that quite a few of these individuals have since left the colony, their records being marked as 'sentence discharged'.

While few of the convict miners complain of psychiatric symptoms, Holzer does note in some records that they seem particularly affected by a new religious movement doing the rounds in the station, although he doesn't give any details. It is not unusual for exposure to the deeper parts of space to trigger religious experiences; psychologists refer to it as 'Space-Rapture.' Some physicians attribute it to cosmic radiation affecting the human brain, while more philosophical types believe it’s a reaction to being forced to acknowledge how small and insignificant humans are in the universe.

[Starspawn338]

Now that he's deduced some information from the records, it's time to loop in security.

"CENTRAL, can you tell me where Virgil is?" Before talking though, Jojo wants to examine the scrapings he got from Sargeant Montrose. He removes the vial and using all applicable contamination protocols, he attempts to determine what exactly he's dealing with here.

[Mephistophilis]

In response to Jojo's question, CENTRAL promptly answers, 'Hello Doctor Johnson. Executive Officer Steinmann is currently in the Commercial District.'

Jojo carefully takes the sample he scraped from Montrose and looks at it under the microscope. At first glance it appears like a mixture of a soft sand or dust-like substance mixed in with more filamentous material, like a mold or some other fungus. It has an olive or even khaki colour. Obviously Jojo has no idea how it smells because he is using a Level 2 containment box.

OOC,Can you roll once and note whether the roll is under your Medicine, Biology, and Chemistry skills

[Starspawn338]

OOC,Medicine 80 Chemistry 75 Biology 75 0 Fail fail fail. I've never seen this before.

Jojo has no idea what he is looking at.

[Mephistophilis]

Despite its macroscopic appearance Jojo finds the powder and the filaments don't have any obvious cellular structure when observed microscopically. It is quite difficult to work with in the Level 2 biological hazard box, perhaps if he brought it out into the ventilation hood?

OOC,Scratch that. JoJo could take more time to examine the substance, he'd need to take it out of the relative safety of the hazard box. Or he could ask for help

[Starspawn338]

Jojo is disappointed with himself for not being able to focus better. Before he takes any steps to break quarantine, he'll wait for Nurse Richards to return with Sargeant Montrose's body. Perhaps there will be more he can find out in an autopsy.

[Mephistophilis]

Richards returns to the Medical Centre wheeling the mortuary trolley. He is still dressed in full biohazard clothing but through the transparent visor, Jojo can see he is white as a sheet.

Jojo cannot make out whether the previous smell persists due to the body being sealed inside the plastic sheeting of the mortuary trolley. In the limited illumination of the emergency evacuation lighting he did not get a good look at Montrose's body but he can now see that the whole top of his head has been blasted off, leaving a ragged bloody hole. As in life, Montrose appears wasted, there are some red sores on his his skin, but his face, arms, and upper chest, basically all of his skin that is visible is almost completely covered with blotches of the olive green powdery substance with a slightly filamentous surface, like microscopic hairs. This has progressed markedly since Jojo saw him alive.

While Jojo is used to seeing dead bodies he's never seen anything like this infection.

OOC,Rolling Sanity for Jojo, 0, lose 1pt Sanity.

[Starspawn338]

Jojo is repulsed by how much Montrose has deteriorated in the short time since he saw him last but manages to settle himself down. This is more serious than he had originally anticipated, but the fact there aren't more bodies out there with these symptoms means there might be time to stem this outbreak... whatever it is.

It's time he sought out the others. They need to be updated and they also need to know what they are up against. Jojo will send Virgil a message that they need to talk.

[Mephistophilis]

Jojo's datapad pings. Opening it up he sees that there is a message from Virgil on a secure connection. 'Johnson, Virgil Steinman here. Please reply using our team’s private channel.'

[Starspawn338]

"Right. Maybe we should just meet. Where are you?" Jojo replies to the message on the same secure connection.

[Mephistophilis]

Jojo doesn't hear anything back from Virgil but after a few minutes he receives a message from CENTRAL. 'Hello Doctor Johnson. Marshal Favre has instructed me to inform you that she is on her way to the Medical Centre with a casualty.'

[Mephistophilis]

OOC,Moving here: [url]https://www.callofcthulhu.org.uk/pbp/viewtopic.php?f=472&t=7339#p246451[/url]