Selection Pressures 3/4

ANALYZING…
FILE TYPE: Status Report
PERIOD: Colony Era
SPEAKERS: Song, C. [ID: CSNG], Wells, M. [ID: MWEL]
TOPIC: Contagion Research
SUMMARY: A recording of Dr. Clarissa Song and her technical assistant, Molly Wells, discussing novel contagion research.
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[CSNG]: This is… Dr. Clarissa Song, beginning status report. My eyelids feel like sandpaper. Limbs are heavy. Heart is heavy.

[CSNG]: This morning, we split one set of rations between us. Algae tea. Paste, the cheese flavor…

[MWEL]: I like the honey oat one. Tastes more like breakfast should, you know?

[CSNG]: I… I have with me Molly Wells, my tech assistant.

[MWEL]: Not to interrupt, but could I take a look at the newest contagion analysis?

[CSNG]: Ah, sure, if you can make sense of it.

[MWEL]: This rate of neomorphic mutation is…

[CSNG]: Impossible? Yeah, that's what I thought. But every analysis gives the same result.

[CSNG]: What's more, two centrifuges are offline after leaking superheated gas. There was nothing inside that could've caused such a strong exothermic reaction. Just the contagion samples.

[MWEL]: Must be a maintenance oversight. I'll request a crew to—

[CSNG]: Ah, beat you to it, kiddo. Already checked the logs; everything was perfectly normal before those samples went in.

[MWEL]: So… what? Our tiny volume of samples spontaneously combusted?

[CSNG]: They did today. A week ago, we had software errors every time we tried to run analysis. A week before that, samples congealing into non-Newtonian fluids. Every result is impossible and impossible to replicate.

[MWEL]: Can't replicate anything, can't form a coherent theory—we're no closer than we were at the start! At this rate, it'll take a miracle.

[CSNG]: Well, I'm short on those. I hope nobody believed the propaganda on our way here. Colonizing an exoplanet was never gonna be easy, but Tau Ceti…

[CSNG]: Maybe it's more than we can handle. Maybe it doesn't want us here.

[MWEL]: You sound like Darius.

[CSNG]: Well, before the admins took him offline.

[MWEL]: Let's go for a walk.

[CSNG]: You think I'm going crazy.

[MWEL]: I think you've been staring at that screen all night. Let's stretch those legs. I have coffee back in my room.

[CSNG]: You're kidding. Who did you murder for coffee rations?

[MWEL]: Nobody important. Come on. Maybe Tau Ceti doesn't want you here, but I do.

[CSNG]: Molly…

[MWEL]: What? Why are you looking at me like that?

[CSNG]: Your nose. It's bleeding.

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TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [X]