EC Conger 's Profile

In the Before Times

Blurb:

A journey through a world in transition, as seen through the eyes of a child pushed to grow up faster and learn to build a more résiliant world with unexpected tools.

Excerpt:

The first light of winter bled weekly through my grime encrusted window as the heat slowly made its way up the tired pipes from the basement as my feet slid from the warmth of my bed to the cold bare floor, it wasn’t much but it was home and it was heated, I’m lucky, even I have to admit it, I’ve got a heated apartment, a job, and I can get to work on the train, I don’t have to transfer to a bus at all, just walk to the train head downtown then walk the three blocks to the NIH building, easy and relatively safe in my little bubble. I am a programmer nothing exciting but it’s an essential job so I have more freedom to move and better pay than most. I work 4 days on and three off one day is for personal care and shopping always on Wednesday and always before ten am don’t want to miss the good stuff at the shops. I’m not complaining just tired, and going to be late for work if I don’t get moving. I grab my hoodie and Millie’s leash the sound of that gets her attention. Hi girl ready for a walk? Her honey eyes meet mine and she harumps as her tail does its best to bring down the table with an enthusiastic thwack thwack thwack, ha ha ok lets go get those ducks… with my keys I lock the door and we head down the five flights of stairs to the street. She snuffles at the door before I open it, and makes a bee line to the tired tree across from the building, she does her thing and we continue around the block making the requisite stops and picking up a coffee for me and a stale bagel for her, the day is cold so our walk to the pier is brisk but there are ducks for Millie to chase, and chase she does after she has made sure the all of the ducks were gone we turn for home. Millie what do you think maybe tonight we go to the park? It’ll be warmer there and you might see a squirrel? Millie looks back one more time to the pier, as we head home. The walk back up to my place is welcome and we are both grateful for the heat. Millie jumps back on to the bed and watches me as I grab my cloths and head to the shower, the steam clears my head and I wash the sleep from my body I stay under the water as long as I can but the first sign of cooler water and I slam the shower off and finish getting ready for the day. Dressed and caffeinated after making sure Millie had what she needed for the day I lock up mask up and turn on the security system I take the stairs two at a time. Heading to the train I see Simon, Hi Si how was your weekend? Si looks at me brightly, Hey Kai it was good, we made it out to the Island to see my parents and Lea really enjoyed the new ferry, its a ton faster than the train, you should join us some time. Simon is one of my friends who works in the Medi Department he is a first response tracer so he gets more travel allotment than most, and he’s been after many of us to join him on trips he’s a generous guy I haven’t had a chance to see my parents in a year I really should take him up on it. We get to the train and Lea and Logan join us we switch to Bluetooth so we can talk easily on the train. “Hey Lea, Si said you liked the new ferry how was the trip this weekend? “ It was great, too short, but the weather was great and we made it to the beach twice for a run, Logan have you been to Sunken Meadow?” “Not in years, do they still have the boardwalk bird tours?” “Not this weekend with the high wind but yes, I think the same guy has been doing it since forever do you remember him Kai.” “Not the guy with the crazy hair and knee boots?” “That’s him, hey this is it.” The train slowed to a stop and they disengaged as they got off the train. See you Kai, don’t forget dinner at the pavilion Wednesday bring your pup we got a great spot. I waved as they all scattered towards their buildings and sat back down. Two more stops for me as I felt the train descend further in to midtown my ears popping as the interior lights changed to UV briefly. I left the train scanning my wrist at the buildings entrance the door turned blue than green, and I headed to DECON and my second shower of the day, and change in to my scrubs cap, mask and lab coat. The floor is buzzing and a nurse rushes by with a cart. Nodding Dr. in my direction as I head in to the CRISPER lab. At 24 I’m a fully fledged Dr. a CRISPER “programmer” and doing it all as quietly as I can because time is not on our side. The world is a dangerous fractured place, I close my eyes and remember the smell of sun warmed grass as I walk in to the cold metallic lab meeting room for the daily briefing, from Director Oakley. Good morning everyone, Oakley said as he adjusted his tie. it is going to be a busy day as the shipment from Texas just arrived and we need to sequence that ASAP we are in BSL-4 in those labs we also have samples from Paris and Vancouver and will keep those in the inert BSL-4 containment until we can sequence them. Please join your department head and go over the tasks for today. I stand up as my team joins me and I go over our tasks, we were to move in to the staging area and get into our pod because once the Texas variants were sequenced we needed to get to work. We were settled in to the pod and debriefed over the integrated com system by the team who brought the Austin, San Antonio, and Amarillo variants. These variants had spread quickly and was like all of the COV it is very plastic, the new mutations had the expected fever, chills, cough and shortness of breath as well as fatigue sore throat loss of taste and smell but it also seems to have a hemorrhagic component. It was time to sequence and hope they were all one variant and not three separate viruses. “Ok teams A-deen, Austin Dva, San Antonio Pyat, Amarillo Tre, and Chye you are on comparisons. Support staff can be looped in as needed but please pass it through Parker.” The teams split off and I walked over to Parker I’m glad we were able to get the samples do we know what the rates are? She looked at her notes lips pressed together briefly before she says Measles, CFR (Case Fatality Rate) is 50% So we are looking at potentially one of the most transmissible diseases with a 50% death rate after infection what is the age breakdown? She looks a me With no co-morbidity 50% with 90% no age differential found. I swallowed hard and said Wow, these variants aren’t becoming less virulent this goes against trend, are we seeing any other outbreaks? Something bacterial? Parker checks her notes, and shakes her head “I will check with the team that brought in the samples to see if they have any info on bacterial infections going concurrently in these locations.” And off she went. I looked around making sure everyone was sorted, and headed to my workstation, I woke up the mainframe and my computer so I could see the sequencing on this variant/s in real time and run comparisons with Chye so that we can start to code for a vaccine and antivirals to try and get ahead of this wave.

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