ArchivedLogs:Perspectives

Perspectives
Dramatis Personae Iolaus, Rasheed	Monday, 9 March, 2020 "We need a scalpel." (Part of Future Past TP. Followed by an overdue talk.)
Location <NYC> ??? and <ATL> Briefing Room 3 - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
<NYC> ? It was an apartment once, perhaps; gutted and burned out, now, the husk that is left doesn’t look much fit for habitation. Doesn’t look much fit for science, either, and yet there have definitely been accoutrements brought in to give it a kind of makeshift laboratory feel -- despite the generator powering the lights and microscope and centrifuge, the other bits and pieces scattered around, it certainly doesn’t feel much like other laboratories elsewhere in the world. Holes in the drywall and table surfaces made of plywood propped on cinderblocks, seating composed of what folding chairs could be dragged in. A small screen propped on one table -- a tablet set upright against a small stack of books to keep it vertical -- serves by way of camera display. And Rasheed, in shabby faded jeans and threadbare blue sweater, grey hair and lined face, sitting in front of it. Still jotting notes in a small notebook, even as he waits. <ATL> Briefing Room 3 - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The briefing room at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looks quite like similar rooms at government conferences all around the world. Drab walls and cheap government-issued chairs that line the edge of the room. Swivel-chairs for the more important people around the long table with microphones in front of each. At one end of the room stands a large American flag with a golden eagle atop, and next to it, a slightly shorter pole holding up the flag of the CDC. At the other end of the room, is a large display, currently displaying the CDC emblem and the long title of the department running the meeting: Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, Office for State, Tribal, Local, and Territorial Support, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It barely fits on the slide. There is a red marking on the top and bottom of the slide, packed in with the rest of the verbiage: TOP SECRET//SCI//PROJECT EVE. People are trickling into the room, chairs filling up quickly - people in suits, white lab coats - people in military uniforms. And Iolaus, in a crisp white lab coat, light blue dress shirt and black slacks, neatly combed hair, standing in front of them, shuffling through a stack of notecards in his hand as he waits. <NYC> ? There’s not a lot of fanfare when Rasheed’s monitor comes to life. A bright blue light to signal his camera turning on -- his face in tiny thumbnail in one corner. The face that appears to fill his screen is of an age with him -- though where Rasheed is grey and lined, surroundings burned-out and derelict, Tony Stark and his laboratories have fared better. It takes a moment (possibly a moment and some pointed words) for the doctor to /remember/ he was awaiting an audience. Look up. Blink slightly wide-eyed and owlish at the camera -- right, /right/. Meeting. The small pat of his hand against his ragged sweater will have to pass for Making Himself Presentable. “I want,” he begins, clinging to some vestiges of formality regardless of what else has been stripped away, “to thank you for your time in -- ah. Meeting. With me, today. In a different time I might have been coming to you with a very different proposal -- I know circumstances these days are not,” his tone is just a little on the wry side, his eyes flicking momentarily away to a charred and blackened hole in the floorboards nearby him, “ideal.” <ATL> Briefing Room 3 - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention A quiet sets over the room as Iolaus looks up from his notes and gazes around the room. He straightens up slightly and tugs the wrinkles out of the edge of his coat. “Thank you for joining me today. I know you are all quite busy, and I am honored that you have taken time out of your busy schedules to meet with me.” Iolaus turns and presses a button on a control. The next slide pops up on the screen - Project Eve. “As most of you know, I founded the Mendel Clinic and acted as its CEO until my departure in 2018. I then joined the CDC and have since been working with a dedicated team of researchers on tackling the public health issues around mutants.” <NYC> ? It isn’t the most /polite/, perhaps, Texting While Meeting, but under the circumstances Rasheed makes do with what he has at hand. The image of him on screen is briefly magnified to a more intense closeup of his face as he fiddles with the tablet, shooting off an email to Tony with a wealth of compiled documents inside. “I am sure you’re aware of my past research history -- both working with the government and when I took over the Mendel Clinic after its founder’s departure. There were things that I accomplished there that I wish --” There’s a small cracking. Maybe it’s in his voice or maybe it’s in the feed; his connection isn’t the most stable. His face comes back into focus, jaw a little tighter than before. “Much of the technology being deployed against American citizens today has been developed and formulated from treatments I created. It is far too late to reverse the course of that research -- but I have made promising headway into, I believe, counteracting it.” <ATL> Briefing Room 3 - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Iolaus’ eyes scan the table, meeting each person’s eyes in turn with a slight smile. “I imagine my joining the CDC was rather unexpected for many of you, but we have been doing good work.” The smile on his face fades as he continues, voice building in strength as passion works its way into his words. “The public health situation around mutants in this country is deplorable. The casualty rate is far above national averages, and the death total of mutants and humans alike is nothing short of catastrophic. It is worst conflict in American history - with more Americans killed than every war in our nation’s history - put together.” A new slide - a surveillance report of disease rates in the internment camps. “And even with these horrifying statistics, by any standards, the situation in the internment camps is deplorable. Disease rates as high as third world countries, widespread violence, starvation, not to mention the deprivation of human rights. But we have made promising headway into, I believe, stopping this terrible calamity in its tracks.” <NYC> ? “The X-gene suppression serums utilized by the Mark 3 and 4 Sentinels are derived from work that I began in my time with the government -- though there was a time when the research began with the goal of weaponization, it ended as a /treatment/ developed for our patients at the Mendel Clinic. Still, given its roots I can’t claim any surprise at the applications it has seen in the past years.” For a moment Rasheed pauses, spindle-thin fingers pinching at the bridge of his nose, rubbing at the hollows of his eyes. “But the war being unleashed right now -- on mutants, on the country as a whole -- regardless of what I may have thought or worked for in the past, this catastrophe needs to be stopped. The devastation that has been wreaked on people all across the country -- without a good means of combating the abuses already underway, what is going to happen, what /is/ happening, is nothing short of genocide.” <ATL> Briefing Room 3 - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “The X-gene suppression serums used by the Sentinels are very similar to treatments that we developed for some patients when I worked at the Mendel Clinic. But it was never meant for widespread use, nevertheless with such haphazard dosing. And the statistics show that - the drug kills a large number of the people that receive it. We wouldn’t allow even experimental treatments to remain on the market with this kind of safety profile; why should we be administering it?” Iolaus pauses for a moment, eyes giving a hard look at one member at the table in particular. “The war that’s extending across this country… it needs to stop. The abuses are piling up and I can’t help but feel like many of the medics on the ground must have felt in Rwanda, or in Nazi-occupied Poland. But it doesn’t have to be this way. The X-gene suppression serum being used by the Sentinels is a sledgehammer, applied wildly left and right. We need a scalpel.” <NYC> ? Rasheed’s fingers drum downward against the tattered notebook on the table in front of him. “It might be foolish optimism but even after everything I’ve -- seen,” the doctor informs the watching screen quietly, “I think there is a chance to turn this tide. Conditions here have -- not been optimal. But in modelling the treatment I have worked up, I believe, could act as an inhibitor -- reverse the effects of the suppression drugs. Perhaps even inoculate against them. Unfortunately I have neither the equipment nor the funding, here, to give this the trials it needs.” Which, perhaps, is where this meeting comes in. <ATL> Briefing Room 3 - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Iolaus’ hands fold towards each other, holding the cards with both hands as he looks over the crowd. “Project Eve was started with a radical idea: could we, safely, end this fight without bloodshed? Could we find a way to put the proverbial apple back on the tree? The X-gene suppression drugs are aggressive, but they are sloppy. They need to be individually administered, and they kill. This, this is different. Ladies, gentlemen. Meet J-488.” Iolaus turns to face the slide for a moment as it switches to a video feed of a vial, inside a plexiglass box, with the edge of the BSL-4 facility in the background. “It doesn’t look like much, but J-488… she’s a piece of beauty.” <NYC> ? “I know that this step won’t be enough. Will be /far/ from enough. It certainly will not end the horrors of this fight,” Rasheed says quietly. “It’s likely that for a time it will even aggravate them. But to end this conflict with the eradication of an entire people -- that is where we are heading. And that might -- maybe -- lead us to peace, but it won’t lead us to justice. I think that with your help, with your resources, we could give people back the power that has been stolen from them. The /lives/ that have been stolen from them. It is an unfortunate truth that those in power often won’t /listen/ to any voices that are not --” His fingertips press together in front of him, then come apart as his hands spread. “Sufficiently amplified. And for the past few years they’ve been working to rob people of their voices, of their autonomy, of control over their very bodies.” The small twist of his smile is not, it must be said, without its own hint of irony. “But maybe I can help return some. Look the research over. It is -- a start.” <ATL> Briefing Room 3 - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “Not a drug. A drug will never be able to stop the slaughter before genocide happens and we end up killing each other. Nature isn’t cruel; she is indifferent. Man is not so strong to defy her whims, even with all the robots in the world. No, the urgency of the situation and our ethical obligation as physicians call us to turn to a different direction. J-488 is a genetically engineered virus, based on two of the insidious killers ever to walk the surface of this planet.” Iolaus shakes his head, looking with fondness at the video recording of the small, unmoving vial. “It is ironic, perhaps, that the best hope to stop this bloodshed lies with a virus derived from smallpox, using some of the same techniques that the HIV virus uses to recode cells. J-488 is transmitted via droplet contact, with an incubation period of about a week and a half. Its symptoms are superficially similar to modified smallpox itself - subclinical fever, malaise, muscle pain, small red lesions. To people without the X-gene, that’s the end of it. Clinical trials show over 98 percent of people resolve without any treatment, with the other two percent - mostly immunocompromised people - needing some form of supportive care.” Iolaus clicks to the next slide, popping up a graph titled ‘Suppression Rates vs. Mortality’. “As you can see, the current gold standard for X-gene suppression has a high mortality rate - informally surveyed as high as 35 percent. J-488 has a mortality rate under 0.5 percent in our trials, with an additional percent and a half needing supportive therapy to relieve discomfort. Its clinical effectiveness is equally high, successfully suppressing the X-gene in over 90 percent of patients, including physical mutants who are at the highest risk with current medications.” Scanning the room, Iolaus’ expression is firm, though sad. “Too many good men and women have died, ladies and gentlemen. It is no light decision for us to play god and turn our attentions to subverting what Nature and God has intended. But inaction is too high a price. These mutants deserve our /help/, not for us to herd them up and slaughter them. J-488… restores their humanity. That vial, if opened in a camp and then all people released, could end this war within months, saving millions.” <NYC> ? “I realize the support I am asking is a lot. The risk you would take -- but the risks, I believe, of not fighting this are too great. You have always been a visionary, Mr. Stark. I don’t think you /need/ to be one to see which side of history you’ll want to be remembered on, when all this dust settles.” The expression on Rasheed’s face grows heavier. “If all this dust settles,” is softer; perhaps it wasn’t meant to come out. “We can’t afford not to act. The risks -- well. We could save so many.” <ATL> Briefing Room 3 - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Iolaus clicks the remote, and the screen switches to a counter in black, counting slowly up, and up, and up. “This is the number of people who have died so far in this terrible chapter in our history. With your help, we can stop this genocide before it eclipses some of the worst tragedies in our species’ history. Give me permission to release J-488 into the public. We can’t afford not to act. The risks -- well. We could save so many.”