The facade has a series of proboscises which reach out far past the facade. With there bright colors and lavish forms, they entice people to touch them and then collect their leftover microbial culture far later use within.
OUTBREAK
In 2010, the H1NI virus – the dreaded ‘swine flu’ – was discovered in a small group of patients at King-Harbor Medical Center. Initially, the doctors treated these patients as they would any others with H1N1; plenty of rest, fluids and a short hospital stay for observation. However, after five days in the hospital it soon became apparent that these patients were not recovering as would be expected. They were all losing fluids as their bouts of vomiting became increasingly regular and violent. After getting back the patients’ blood work, the doctors soon discovered that the particular strain of influenza they were treating was in fact a mutation of the original influenza virus. Given the severity of the symptoms, the doctors assumed that this strain must be much more serious than those previous. They immediately moved the patients from their rooms to a quarantined section of the ICU. The orderlies made quick work of sanitizing the contaminated patient rooms. The entire medical staff did everything they could for the patients, but they kept on creeping ever closer to death. The doctors called all the surrounding hospitals to warn them of this new mutation and to urge them to immediately quarantine any patients with similar symptoms. UCLA, USC, Good Samaritan, White Memorial, LACH – all said they had seen no cases of this virus and vowed to prepare themselves if they did. The doctors began to think perhaps they had caught this deadly virus at the source. However, to their horror, when they called over to Cedars-Sinai Hospital, the doctors there said rather nonchalantly that they had seen patients four days ago with that particular strain. Surprisingly though, they also reported that those patients had already been released and had fully recovered. Somewhat baffled and upset by this news, the doctors returned to the ICU to reexamine the data. What could be causing this? Why were these patients all at the verge of death while the patients at Cedars had recovered so quickly? As they poured through the patients’ charts, the linking factor soon jumped out – these patients were all working as scientific researchers at a nearby biotech company. The doctors quickly put on their masks and ran into the quarantine to talk with the patients about their work. In weak voices the patients described long hours, and no time for social lives. They complained of the endless hours spent washing and sanitizing, in order to keep their work from becoming contaminated. They had all been spending 18 hours a day for years trapped in this perfectly clean laboratory space. With this – the doctors began to wonder if the problem was not the virus, but the patients. Is it possible that they had spent so much time in a clean room that they had accidentally suppressed their immune systems to the point of collapse? Within 36 hours, the last of the patients had died.
DISCOVERY
Emily was a bit of a mystery to most people. She was cold and distant. When she was a young woman her parents were in a car wreck that immediately killed her mother and eventually killed her father who had contracted a staff infection in the hospital. She never really recovered. With her inheritance she bought a house and enrolled in school. Between her raw intelligence and her drive to keep her mind off the loss, Emily managed to graduate at the top of her class and land a high-paying job with a bioengineering firm in Los Angeles. For years she buried herself in the work – rarely taking even the smallest moments to talk with he coworkers. After many years however – and perhaps unavoidably due to the massive amount of time spent together in the clean rooms - she found herself letting her guard down and making friends with a few or her coworkers. This group became inseparable – taking lunch breaks together and pulling strings to get on the same project teams. But sadly, these friendships would soon come to a bitter end. When Emily returned from a weeklong mandatory vacation (of course spent alone in her apartment), she walked right into a company wide meeting already in progress. As she entered, all eyes were on her. Glassy eyed, her team leader watched her take her seat and then slowly informed her that there had been “an accident…of sorts.” In what seemed like hours he explained how her friends had all gone to the hospital directly from work and then slowly faded away. He told her that she should see a doctor as soon as possible. He told her that because of her job, her body might not be able to fend of disease. Emily left and never went back.
