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 "...Delaney," she says, tugging at her friend's attention, briefly trapping her tongue between her lips. "I'm a little terrified I might have hit the jackpot." A distributed, programmable system that came in vial form. There was nothing saying this was a neural modification - neural network was the software paradigm and said nothing about the biological component - but if it was, the chances this was relevant for Townsville suddenly seemed significant.
-**✘ IN PROGRESS**
+<fc #008888>In almost all circumstances 'jackpot' was a good word. Maybe it was the tone, but Delaney suspected they'd just found one of the exceptions. She leaned against Keneh's shoulder to glance over the forms. Then stopped glancing and read them properly. "Neural network would be software, software interface... well, that could explain the 'telepathy', it's not like we've seen any of them shoved in a Faraday cage," the biologist mutters.</fc>
+<fc #008888>Physical explanations for mutant powers is good. It lets people understand them, and if you understand something you can counter it. Remote pyrokinesis and telekinesis are more of a struggle to justify. Especially when even the most tentative solutions - projection of a pyrophoric liquid or gas, and either some sort of ultrasonics or a simple air pressure wave - would require large scale modification of a human body. Messing with the central nervous system she could (barely) comprehend. Realtime restructuring of large amounts of the body struck Delaney as pure science fiction. Although if it was happening around her she guessed she'd have to reassign that to science fact.</fc>
+"Software interface means it can be extended," Keneh comments, meaning it as a tentative correction. "So whatever this is, it's meant to be a module... - a framework, perhaps." Keneh's motions are slow now, very cautious, regarding the bottled substance with wariness. //Blood vector// - according to Ethan, or whatever had been left of him at the time. Please let that not have been a lie. If this was airborne in any way, she didn't want to be anywhere near it.
+'Calm down, this could be anything,' she told herself, but the knot in her chest did not want to budge. "Can you tell me anything about the biological function of it?" she asks, glancing up at Delaney, with a look on her face asking to be either told 'this is unrelated' or, at the very least, 'it's not airborne'. The fact she could open the case relatively easily either doesn't strike her as a reliable way of determining that it must be a very low-risk contaminant - or it hasn't occurred to her, either way.
+<fc #008888>"So we have an operating system in goop form? Windows Slime?" Delaney asked, gesturing at the bottles. That was a disturbing though. Yes, it was probably a more flexible alternative to trying to shove hardcoded things into a body and expecting them to play nice, but biological systems did not respond well to bugs. Possible case in point, Townsville. Who for once probably //could// use some Power Puff Girls.</fc>
+<fc #008888>She turned back to the consent forms. Lots of disclaimers... okay, frankly scary amounts of disclaimers, including what looked like 'if this kills you your family cannot sue us for millions, and if we only cripple you we pay your expenses for a year at most'. Possibly significant but she wouldn't be surprised if their were similar templates in mild stuff like steroid cream just in case. Nothing on transmission vectors but equally nothing indicating it was //supposed// to be transmissible. In fact she could assume that no, that bit was BAD, nobody will ever regulate that. Not to mention being a nightmare to profit from. Medical piracy in a brave new world, that.</fc>
+<fc #008888>Aha! "It's meant to be administered intravenously and then it crosses the blood brain barrier," Delaney read. "It doesn't spell out what it is supposed to do once there. I think they were still making sure the test subjects weren't about to drop dead? There's a mention about possible seizures but that animal models were inconclusive."</fc>
+That brief elaboration is plenty to twist Keneh's gut into a knot as well. She's decided she doesn't feel so well. In a careful but firm motion, she pushes the case a few inches away from her. In her mind, a sense of responsibility wrestles with an instinctive disgust.
+They should take this to someone who knows more about this. Deiparous in... wherever they were situated. They might be responsible for the Townsville apocalypse, but they were also extraordinarily well qualified to handle it. Maybe they knew something about the substance that would allow them to come up with a vaccine, or a cure, or anything else that might stop it from actively spreading itself to new hosts.
+But she already knew it would take a supreme act of will to sit in the same car as this stuff, even if it was complete superstition on her part. The case clearly wasn't about to bite her.
+"...so," she says slowly, after an awkward moment's pause. "I vote we take this to wherever it was meant to be taken... then tell the staff what happened in Townsville, if they haven't heard about it yet, and hope they can engineer something to counter it."
+<fc #008888>"As long as the driver didn't just see everything going to hell and jump in the first vehicle there and bolt out of town. It'd explain the crash," she cautioned. "Or if he wasn't delivering it to Townsville and saw something and decided to turn around." It was hard thinking of her home as a total no-go area. Hard, but vital, and there was more than enough sheer panic at the thought of returning to enforce that.</fc>
+<fc #008888>Still, finding Deiparous and giving them the stuff was probably a good idea. Unless they got arrested for theft. But this was not a video game, companies were not supposed to be evil in real life, she doubted they were BIG enough to be able to act evil in real life (unlike, say, Monsanto), and within 24 hours they were going to be getting //extreme// bad publicity. And nasty government attention. Surely they'd be grateful for any practical attempts to help or at least not make things worse, and giving suspicious documents and formulae to the media counted as 'worse'.</fc>
+<fc #008888>"Do you remember which bit of paper any of those addresses were on?" Delaney asked Keneh before pivoting to Robert. "Thoughts?"</fc>
+Robert has evidently been staring at them in silence. Judging by his body language and facial expression, he's not particularly happy about the sudden extra responsibility, but isn't going to complain - this has the potential to be a more tangible help than any previous attempts they've done. That their previous attempts all went awry... he's going to ignore that for now. "I have no interest in staying on this road any longer than absolutely necessary," Robert says, flatly. "If you want, you can put the other cases back, but as far as I'm concerned, we're going to Cloncurry before we do anything else. Then we can look for addresses."
+<fc #008888>They were en route to Cloncurry, the van was facing in the same direction, the van was presumably on route to Cloncurry and then past there because there was nothing interesting labwise there. So it was the right direction. And maybe someone from Deiparous could come to them if they phoned. Wouldn't that be nice?</fc>
+<fc #008888>(No, mutant Townsville hivemind did //not// count as part of Deiparous, even if it had started in one of their labs by eating their employees.)</fc>
+<fc #008888>Delaney levered herself to her feet. "Okay, so we definitely need this case, we can probably skip the others? As long as we've a clue where we're going or who we're calling later."</fc>
+Okay. Okay, taking the suitcase along required actually //taking// the suitcase. Keneh frowned - then closed her eyes, letting the battle rage on inside her. A drawn-out exhale morphs into a motion - then she's snapped it back shut and is shuffling to her feet with it. //Calling// might be the easiest exercise of the mentioned ones, given every single page they've read so far has a footer in fine-print with the most basic information about the main headquarters of Deiparous - but unfortunately, that's in Townsville. On the other hand, Deiparous had clients, and where there were clients, there were prospective clients, and while they hadn't looked for numbers and addresses on their website before - given they'd only wanted to verify that it was, in fact, a company that could conceivably be responsible for the Townsville disaster - there no doubt would be. Alternatively, there would be a list of clients, and //those// could be asked.
+Keneh's gaze dips down to the pavement, regarding the other suitcases. There was a strong urge to just leave them where they now were, simply to get away faster, but it was best if it wasn't completely obvious they'd raided the van... especially if others from Townsville came past here. Other //less human// passersby. She glances to Robert, dithering - then passes the case to him and begins to collect the other cases. Putting them back required walking back to the van and Delaney wouldn't like that, but nothing had exploded yet and she just really could not feel intimidated by a set of cylinders that looked like you could drop a bomb on them without that they'd get as much as a scratch.
+<fc #008888>Ack, the van was still a death trap. Then again, it was a moderately contained one and surely the gas cylinders would have pressure valves. There was no ominous hissing. If they were quick and careful it should be safe-ish. If this blew up in her face - literally - it would be on her head, though. At least if they weren't hit she'd be able to say "I told you so" for the next week.</fc>
+<fc #008888>...which should not be an argument in favour of doing something dangerous. Clearly she needed sleep.</fc>
+<fc #008888>Still chastising herself under her breath Delaney bent to help Keneh with the spare cases. The sooner they were back on the road, the better.</fc>