Strange Light

Conference

When Ishcate entered the conference room and took a chair at the end of the table, she felt the familiar pressure of eyes on her. But no one spoke. No one asked her how her research was going, or if she'd done anything over the weekend, or if she'd read the latest article published by the lab below hers. It was the never-ending cycle of her life. Always watched, forever ignored.

There were about twelve people in the room. Cosmo- or, officially, Dr. Karl Mokovitz- and Dr. Harris were at the front of the room. Cosmo was no longer the official leader of anything, but he had been the investigator to discover the genetic experiments coming out of Russia, and thus had been the first scientist to get his hands on the transgenic kids (aka, Ishcate) once they'd been rescued. He was still considered the leading expert in all things SP67 gene, with Ishcate technically being the second. Ishcate had known him for as long as she could remember. Although his interest was in the gene itself, he had always taken a special interest in her. He had almost been like a father-figure. And he and his daughter-figure had recently been in a family quarrel. Ishcate was older now and had grown to resist his directions and orders. He was not formally over her in any way. But he had power. It was complicated. Like a weird family dynamic, she supposed.

If Cosmo was a surrogate father, Dr. Yolanda Harris was the surrogate mother. And in fact, Cosmo and Dr. Harris had been married before, albeit for two miserable years. They were much better as research partners, and everyone had been relieved when they finally ended their marriage. They got along much better when they weren't sharing a bathroom sink.

The rest of the people in the room, Ishcate knew only by association. There was a familiar man from the Surgeon General's office, and a doctor-turned-administrator. There was another researcher, Dr. Rosenberg, who specialized in the protein that Ishcate's abnormal gene created. There were not one, not two, but three people in military uniforms. One was a high-ranking member of the Navy's research laboratory, and the other two were her... assistants, maybe? There was a member of Homeland Security's Biohazards division, and, of course, Norman's boss, the head of the joint CDC-FBI investigative task force, who managed all information about people like Ishcate. And finally, Dr. Claude, who handled all the in-hospital cases, and had handled Ishcate's own medical history as long as she could remember.

"Good morning, everyone," Cosmo said stiffly. "Let's get right down to it, I know we've just received a lot of information and we're under a lot of pressure to move quickly."

Ishcate's chair creaked as she leaned back, and everyone's eyes flickered to her again. Cosmo gave her a cautious look. The last time Ishcate had been in a meeting like this she had ended up yelling at Cosmo over a p-value.

"Mr. Bhattacharjee?" Cosmo said, gesturing to one of the surgeon general men in a navy-blue suit. "Would you debrief us, please?"

Mr. Bhattacharjee got up with a heavy sigh. "Yesterday afternoon at around 2:00 pm, we received a call from the University Hospital about a sixteen-year-old girl who had been brought to the emergency room with a strange symptom profile. According to witness, she had sustained a laceration on her hand, and then seemingly become unable to see or hear anything. She was sedated upon arrival, and her parents were notified. Dr. Claude was called in when we made the connection between this latest victim, Anna, and her younger sister, Emma Kate, who had already been treated for the virus about a week ago."

"How old is the younger sister?" the hospital administrator broke in to ask.

Mr. Bhattacharjee looked annoyed at the interruption. "I don't know. Dr. Claude-?"

"Eleven," Dr. Claude said.

"Thank you." Mr. Bhattacharjee retrieved a notebook from the table in front of his seat and began flipping through it. He offered a half-hearted apology and grumbled, "I left my daughter's birthday party for this fucking mess. All right... the ER doctor who admitted Anna said she was given phenobarbital upon arrival, and IV fluids after being admitted. Her laceration was stitched up and a physical exam showed no abnormalities. Uh... an EEG then revealed abnormal findings that were consistent with the, um... the condition that, well, we-"