LAB REPORT: NOVEL CONTAGION[edit]
ANALYZING… FILE TYPE: Status Report
PERIOD: Colony Era
SPEAKERS: Song, C. [ID: CSNG], Wells, M. [ID: MWEL]
TOPIC: Contagion Research
SUMMARY: A recording of Dr. Clarissa Song and her technical assistant, Molly Wells, discussing novel contagion research.
[CSNG]:
This is… Dr. Clarissa Song, beginning status report. My eyelids feel like sandpaper. Limbs are heavy. Heart is heavy.
[CSNG]:
This morning, we split one set of rations between us. Algae tea. Paste, the cheese flavor…
[MWEL]:
I like the honey oat one. Tastes more like breakfast should, you know?
[CSNG]:
I… I have with me Molly Wells, my tech assistant.
[MWEL]:
Not to interrupt, but could I take a look at the newest contagion analysis?
[CSNG]:
Ah, sure, if you can make sense of it.
[MWEL]:
This rate of neomorphic mutation is…
[CSNG]:
Impossible? Yeah, that's what I thought. But every analysis gives the same result.
[CSNG]:
What's more, two centrifuges are offline after leaking superheated gas. There was nothing inside that could've caused such a strong exothermic reaction. Just the contagion samples.
[MWEL]:
Must be a maintenance oversight. I'll request a crew to—
[CSNG]:
Ah, beat you to it, kiddo. Already checked the logs; everything was perfectly normal before those samples went in.
[MWEL]:
So… what? Our tiny volume of samples spontaneously combusted?
[CSNG]:
They did today. A week ago, we had software errors every time we tried to run analysis. A week before that, samples congealing into non-Newtonian fluids. Every result is impossible and impossible to replicate.
[MWEL]:
Can't replicate anything, can't form a coherent theory—we're no closer than we were at the start! At this rate, it'll take a miracle.
[CSNG]:
Well, I'm short on those. I hope nobody believed the propaganda on our way here. Colonizing an exoplanet was never gonna be easy, but Tau Ceti…
[CSNG]:
Maybe it's more than we can handle. Maybe it doesn't want us here.
[MWEL]:
You sound like Darius.
[CSNG]:
Well, before the admins took him offline.
[MWEL]:
Let's go for a walk.
[CSNG]:
You think I'm going crazy.
[MWEL]:
I think you've been staring at that screen all night. Let's stretch those legs. I have coffee back in my room.
[CSNG]:
You're kidding. Who did you murder for coffee rations?
[MWEL]:
Nobody important. Come on. Maybe Tau Ceti doesn't want you here, but I do.
[CSNG]:
Molly…
[MWEL]:
What? Why are you looking at me like that?
[CSNG]:
Your nose. It's bleeding.
TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [X]