This is a Test

Ch. 19

Lia's text alert summoned everyone to the Garden area. They congregated as she prepared them for the next shoe to drop. "I do not know if this will make things better," she said, "but I felt you all had the right to know."

She created a connection between her tablet and that of the others. Being linked to the servers downstairs allowed the rest access to the internet so they could see all the wondrous horrors that Anoptica had dreamt up for them, a vision of a world in chaos.

It had done a masterful job on the rest of those there. Miranda and Dante, the over-emoters, wept openly, and hugged one another. Karina frowned harder than Cashe imagined possible. Alan was dumbstruck, wide-eyed as he looked from one to another. Having dispersed madness further into their midst, Lia sat quietly, hand folded in her lap. Cashe, in the meantime, filed his paperwork with Anoptica, as they were sticklers for reports being dispatched in a timely manner. For all he knew, his bonus could be based solely on how accurate his inventory numbers were.

They waited for the waterworks to subside before hitting the group with the next gut punch. Lia cleared her throat, which the translator did not relay. "There have been some cases where the virus didn't affect some, but I believe it is better if the medical doctor explains." Lia tapped her tablet and Miranda's screen flickered with new colors. She examined the results and news stories.

"It's believed that newborns have a natural immunity. Ones that were in the womb when exposed... Or right after?" She scrolled through, more concerned with every page she passed. "It seems that when pregnant women come down with the virus and give birth, most of the children have a natural immunity, as can happen when still in the womb."

"Well, that's good news, right?" Alan asked. "Babies are being born all the time, so they should be able to have a cure pretty soon."

"Not necessarily. It is after they are exposed, in vitro or not, that they are afflicted, and even if they were, in order to create a cure from the antibodies, they could only take so much blood from the infant, so it would be a slow process. Also,..." She scowled as she scrolled through.

Cashe could tell she was reading more in depth in the 'in vitro or not' part, focusing more on the 'or not' aspect. When her hand flew to her lips, he figured there would be another round of tears slowing things down again, so he summarized for the rest. "It is said that in order to create more of the cure, there was no way people could tell how long the mothers were sick in order for the child to be immune, and it always resulted in the death of the mother, but they found the same results occurred right after the child was born... and exposed."

"How could they be exposed after?" Karina said, but Cashe could feel her inching towards the answer. "In the hospital?"

"It seems that after the reports of exposure producing antibodies got around to some less than scrupulous people who decided to tell the theory on newborns, finding the same results as if it had happened by accident."

"So from what you are saying, they were intentionally infected."

"So it seems."

He let that sink in, standing around for team camaraderie, as he felt it may be too off-putting to walk away at that point. It was Alan that brought the freshest shitstorm to bear. "So, if we wanted to protect ourselves from the virus–"

"No one is forcing any of us to have a fucking baby!" Karina yelled.

"No one was trying to say that," Cashe said.

"And regardless," Miranda added, "it would require exposing an infant to a horrible disease with no assurances that it would survive."

"This is bullshit." Karina was shaking. "You all invented this."