ʟɪᴋᴇ ғᴀᴛʜᴇʀ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴅᴀᴜɢʜᴛᴇʀ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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ataraxionlogs2015-03-14 09:38 pm
milagros) wrote in ataraxionlogs2015-03-14 09:38 pm
Entry tags:
ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʀᴇ ɴᴏᴛ ᴛʜᴇ sᴘᴀᴄᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ʟᴇᴀᴠᴇ ʙᴇʜɪɴᴅ ( ᴏ ᴘ ᴇ ɴ )
CHARACTERS: Dr Mila Gallo and you.
LOCATION: Medical Bay; Dr Gallo's office.
WARNINGS: Terrible bedside manner. (I'll update with appropriate warnings as necessary. Let me know if I miss something!)
SUMMARY: Dr Gallo's door is always open.
NOTES: TL;DR since so much of her CR is taking on various weird and wonderful medical cases, and she's always referring blandly to her office hours, why not an open log. Do not feel obliged to be a sicky. Perhaps you actually want to visit her and she's generally easiest to find at work. Also, I will match whatever format you tag me in.( one day is very like another. dr gallo has a regular case load she wouldn't have anticipated, when she first positioned herself with medical, but even so, plenty of her time is left to busy-work, as much because she's at work too much as for any other reason. but what else is she going to do with herself? there's only so many looping runs she can take, so many times she can punch a swinging bag she would never admit to solomon she's imagining lindberg's smug goddamn face on, so many hours that can be spent in communion and contemplation in the oxygen gardens. it is not accidental that very little of what she does in the hours not spent here involves anyone else, either, so there's that.
so she's here, a lot. she keeps meticulous and detailed notes - refreshes herself periodically on old case files, those belonging to patients no longer aboard the ship, because you never know. they might be back, or it might prove relevant to something else, or-- a hundred other things. she has blood samples for projects that have been indefinitely shelved due to a jump absence and paperwork to go along with it, her record-keeping slightly idiosyncratic but nevertheless thorough, and (mostly) available to her colleagues where required. she's not the most forthcoming of women, professionally or personally, and she's been known to make unilateral decisions about what is and is not need to know information.
it usually plays out in her favour. still.
she can be found in her office, which - after months - is finally starting to look like it's used by a particular person, and not just as a very clean and oversized spartan storage closet with a desk and a coathook. )
no subject
He fishes in a pocket, before bringing out a small finger-sized air shot vial. The substance inside is bright blue. He holds it out for her to take. ]
Depends, I guess. Ever heard of Antizin?
no subject
( she's got a lot more experience in designing and developing medications than she does in being polite to patients. )
no subject
[ More than he had for a while, at least, so he's not gonna sweat it... Until it's too late, probably. Anyway. ]
It's a suppressant. Someone else told me this place doesn't have, uh, zombie... problems, but if it came up, these can shut down the virus if someone gets bit. It's not a permanent solution-- [ doesn't he know it ] --but it could help in a fix.
[ As for the woman's bedside manner, it's more reassuring than not. Having someone talk to him straight was preferred more than anything else. ]
no subject
though she refrains, he can almost certainly pinpoint the exact moment her manner shifts from 'tolerating a hopefully brief interruption in her day' to 'bracing herself for more work'. at this point, she's almost made her peace with the fact that yes, she is the local expert on this bullshit and he has in fact come to the right person after all.
she gestures to the seat in front of her, because now she has to ask him questions and take notes and at no point openly complain about when did embracing life start involving so many goddamn reanimated corpses. )
We do not have 'a zombie problem', ( she says, setting the vial down ) but I am the person to see regarding projects that ensure that remains the case. I have a few questions you'll need to answer.
no subject
Looks like I came to the right place, then. [ as unfriendly as the woman seems ] I'm no scientist, but I can try to answer what I can.
[ Which isn't much.
=D]no subject
it's not so much unfriendliness as it is a lack of friendliness, coolly neutral until she feels inclined to be otherwise. it's offputting, for a lot of people, which mila has long viewed as 'not my fucking problem' because a lot of people are douchebags. that's a professional opinion. she marches to the beat of her own drum. specifically this drum. )
Let's start simply. What do you know?
( it isn't derisive. it's a question, and she expects a thoughtful answer. )
no subject
He runs a hand over his head and shifts his weight uncomfortably. If this turns out like all of his conversations with the twins, he is going to regret this. ]
Not much. [ at all ] It's an airshot that can suppress the effects of the virus for a limited time. Eventually you'll start having seizures, your vision will go... Which is your warning to take another dose.
It's no cure, sorry to say. But it works completely as a suppressor as long as the person has access to it. I can guarantee it.
no subject
I can study the sample that you've given me in my own time. What I need from you is to know more about the disease that it's suppressing. What do you know? What have you had the opportunity to observe? What's the accepted intelligence and for how long has it been an issue?
( these are, hopefully, questions he can more readily work with - she isn't asking for the hard science, just what he's witnessed, his descriptions of lived experience. he's familiar enough with what he's talking about in the first place that she assumes he must have some. )
no subject
...The classic zombie case doesn't explain enough? [ no no; he won't be an ass ]
Yeah, okay, it's the dead people come back to life type. According to what I know it's rabies derivative, and transferred by bodily fluids. It's also UV sensitive--the real big mutated fuckers can't be in the light at all. It burns them away. The, uh, ..."normal" ones are more sluggish during the day and more active at night. Give or take.
[ What has he observed? A hella lot, and even with everything Rahim comes to mind. ]
...It doesn't kill you right off, unless the bite is a wound that would normally kill you--a severed artery, your stomach ripped open, all of that. If you want to know more about the corpses, I'll tell you what you like, but for the infected people, as long as they have Antizin, they're exactly the same as anybody else. Without Antizin, it really depends. A couple hours... A couple days... Everyone turns differently. And people have known about it for-- [ God, Crane, how long has it been? ] A month, two months. Government might have known about it more.
[ Yeah, some things he's heard have been making him more sure of that. ]
no subject
or.
she could just stare judgmentally until he self-corrects, which is what actually happens. )
It's a limited window for reliable data even for someone more experienced. ( which isn't so much intended to reassure him as it is dr gallo stating a fact. ) But what you've seen of its variety - do you know if there's a known cause of more extreme mutation?
( presumably he can elaborate on it himself if he also knows what it is, but she's working her way through what she considers the basic background. )
From your description, a bite or an attack isn't strictly necessary to pass on the contagion. Merely a transferral of fluids. I'm assuming, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that the turn comes at the point of death, and you've indicated that severity of wound is a factor in the obvious, but have you ever seen or heard of a case where a relatively minor wound acted as quickly as one that would have proven fatal regardless?
( it may seem like nitpicking - but she's narrowing down the details. is it 'everyone's just different, man' or can she tie it to cause and effect. how similar might it be to the strain that she's already studying, or not. )
no subject
Pretty sure that the cause for the mutation is an attempt at a cure. There was this doc back in Harran; he was sure him and this other guy could work out a cure. They dosed this meat and left it out, and found out the mutated fuckers are from those same areas. No cure, though; that's for sure.
[ Crane shrugs, and actually looks mildly remorseful. ]
They were... working on gathering more information when I came here.
[ Remorseful because then he would have had more information, and because if he had stayed.... Then he probably wouldn't have to be sure of Harran's demise. He could have done something, changed something, fuck life...!
He barely hears her last question. He shakes his head as if to clear it. ]
Not me, at least. Sorry to say that I wasn't the most knowledgeable on the process. You start dying from a bite, but nowhere close to the fatal stuff.
no subject
the survivor's guilt is noted, too, but she leaves it aside (for now) for different reasons. )
It's a strong correlation, ( she says, instead, neutrally. ) What you're describing largely fits with what I would expect to hear, and the conclusions I would draw myself. Are the attacks driven by need or by aggression?
( she is obliquely asking if the restless dead are cannibalizing their victims. so. )
no subject
[ At least she doesn't think he's crazy. That's one thing to check off the list. Her question, though, he muses at. ]
Need or aggression....
[ He understands what she's asking, and it's something that should be simple, but he's seen more of the variants than most in Harran. ]
It's not that clear-cut, sad to say. The general "normal" biters-- [ What a thing to say. ] --seem like need. They attack, they down you, they eat you.
[ He shrugs; simple. ]
The rest of them, though... Seem like they more just want to kill any living thing that moves. Some of them have a toxin they spit. If they kill someone through that, they just leave them there. Then there's these big motherfuckers. They would just crush a man and then walk away.
The Volatiles--uh. Like, super... zombies.... God, that sounds stupid. Anyway, those are definitely your aggression ones. They'll hunt you down until you're dead. The rest leave off after you're out of sight. More or less.