Psychofauna

Week 2: The Psi Variant

Previously: A woman with strange abilities releases a virus around the world.

○ The Great Opening: Week Two, Atlanta

What was she forgetting?

Judith's runaway fingers brushed a strand of strawberry-blonde hair away from her face. Her fingers straightened her glasses. Then they drummed across her laptop's keyboard, her stack of briefings, and her tin of apricots.

She got a look from Doug, her derpy colleague. He sat with his pretentiously straight spine to her right at their end of the long boardroom table. Thankfully she couldn't see his perma-frown beneath the masks they were all wearing. The useless masks: approximately everyone had already contracted the retrovirus.

Disturbingly, she could feel Doug's annoyance under his mask. She could also feel the stress that her boss, Bob, was hiding behind his kindly eyes and N95 at the front of the room. She could feel altogether too many things. Most of them were not her own. Except the persistent anxiety that she was forgetting something important. Today was a bad day to have neglected her Ritalin.

The cravings hit again. Judith opened her tin and slipped an apricot under her mask. Over the past week she'd craved spinach, beans, oysters, and – oddly enough – chicken liver. Across the table, Judith heard her colleague Donna crinkle her own bag of dried peas. Donna popped into her mouth when no one else was looking.

Donna, you minx, she thought.

Then Judith caught Donna's eye, and for a moment, felt Donna's embarrassment. But felt it as Donna. What. The. F.

How the hell am I supposed to stay focused on Bob's presentation? she wondered. What was it on again? She rubbed her aching forehead. Right: update on Psi. The appropriately named new variant. The presentation at the front of the room. From Bob, her boss. Judith tried to focus on Bob. Wait – wasn't there something she was forgetting?

"...studies as early as 1992 have demonstrated the presence of magnetite in the brain," presented Bob. "Now, we can't be sure this is representative yet, but here's what we have from the patient reports. People who contract the new variant are showing orders of magnitude more magnetite not only in the brain, but also across the entire nervous system. This explains two phenomena.

"Mystery one: Why do patients show heightened sensitivity to weak electromagnetic fields? These magnetite particles may be acting as magnetoreceptors, granting patients a 'new' electromagnetic sense similar to the one found in homing pigeons, mole rats, salmon, sea turtles, and – yes – doggies."

Bob changed to a slide with a Shibu Inu meme. The room laughed obligatorily, then coughed.

"Mystery two: Why do patients have such an appetite for iron-rich foods? This additional iron may be needed for the magnetite their bodies are manufacturing across the nervous system. Speaking of iron-cravings, Judith, could you pass the apricots?"

Judith's apricot-holding hand froze in its transit to her mouth.

The room laughed and coughed again.

"Kidding. I'm kidding. You're all welcome to snack." Then Bob's eyes grew stern. "Now onto a more serious note. Do I have everyone's attention?" He gazed around the room, lingering an extra moment on Judith, who put enormous effort into showing Bob that yes, she was paying very close attention, keep it up, Bob.

He changed to a slide with a yellow biohazard symbol surrounded by question marks. "Maybe you've heard the rumor. 'Artificial origin.' I'm sorry to say that we better take this idea seriously."

Artificial origin. He means to say 'bioweapon,' thought Judith. Oh, right, she then remembered, the thing I forgot to do. She glanced left and right. Then she brought her laptop from the table to her lap and opened a secure messaging app. She set messages to disappear in 8 hours.

Of course, everyone at the CDC was messaging their loved ones now. They all knew that containment would fail. Or: had already failed. They also knew that the higher-ups would recommend lockdowns for political theater. The CDC needed to show that it had tried something. But if anyone here were caught warning others of coming lockdowns, they'd be fired. Not that she cared at this point.

Judith remembered the person she'd forgotten to warn: Sandeep. Mmm Sandeep.. She'd met him at a play party last weekend, during her trip to the New York office. Oh how they'd played....

Bob continued at the front of the room: "There are two major pieces of evidence worth noting here." Bob liked twos. "One: it seems to have cropped up in major international hubs all at the same time." His laser pointer drifted over New York, London, Toyko, Shanghai, and Dubai. "Two: it's not like any variant we've ever seen. Our people are hypothesizing that it's got dozens of mutations. It spreads through surface-contact. It's at least 10x more transmissible than 2022's BA.2 – that's the preliminary estimate. One of the few things it does has in common with BA.2 and the others are the protein spikes. It's possible – and remember, I'm only saying it's possible – it's possible this thing was designed to look like just another variant to evade detection. That stays inside this room. Can I see a show of thumbs?"

Absent-mindedly, Judith gave a thumbs-up alongside the rest of the room.

Hm, she thought, How should I write to Sandeep 'There's gonna be a lockdown, GTFO' without using the word 'lockdown?'

<Hey Sandeep,> she typed. <Remember how I work at the CDC? Well now I'm telling you that you prob have abt 24hrs to leave NYC if you want to. Pls keep it to yourself and Silvia.>

Mmmm, Silvia. Sandeep's girlfriend. She pictured the two of them as she had many times since last weekend, Sandeep's scruffy black beard, his gf's perky tits. She bit her lip.

Suddenly the room started turning to her. Some looked embarrassed, some looked as aroused as Judith felt. Oh crud. She blurted out the first diversion that came to her mind. "Hey! When are we going to talk at all about how this thing is slowly making us all...oh, F it, I'll just say it: psychic. It's making us psychic." There was a silence. "You all just turned toward me because you felt something that I felt, right?"

A few faces blushed.

"Anyone else here getting synaesthesia? Catching the impulses of people nearby? Becoming confused about who you are?"

Bob cleared his throat. "Thank you, Judith. As program manager of the Psychobiology Task Force, I'm sure you'll keep us well-informed on such things during your briefing tomorrow," he said, emphasizing the final word. "We thank you for staying on top of it."

Judith met his eyes defiantly and something infinite occurred. She saw her own eyes out of Bob's eyes looking at her eyes looking at Bob's eyes looking at.... Judith shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, Bob was swaying off-balance.

Colleagues across the room started to express their concern. To her right, straight-spined Doug stood up from his chair. Meanwhile Judith hit Enter on her laptop's messaging app and then ALT-TAB-ed to a different window. The warning went out to Sandeep.