OUTBREAK: ZERO is a semi post-apocalyptic pandemic roleplay set in the fictional city of Lethford, USA. Current season: Winter, 20/21.
March 2020. The world is in pandemonium as one month ago, GHNv-20 was confirmed, five months after the beginning of norovirus season. The number of the infected are in the higher hundred thousands, and the death toll is at an estimated 250,000, with about seventy percent of the rest of the population experiencing mild to moderate illnesses connected to the S. pyogenes bacteria.
The fear of the unknown has caused mass hysteria and panic.
In an attempt to provide a semblance of safety and control, military personnel patrol the streets, even here in Lethford City, and the police force is trying to keep up with the rising street violence, assault, and theft.
Welcome to OUTBREAK: zero. Will you survive?
HAYANA
SITE OWNER + HEAD ADMINISTRATOR
Hi! I'm Haya. I'm pretty much your girl for everything! If you have any questions regarding our plot, membergroups, etc. don't hesitate to ask me. I'm also in charge of coding, graphics, anything skin related, and advertising/affiliates.
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CODING
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ADDI
ADMINISTRATOR
Hey! I'm Addi. Hit me up if you need help with anything. I'm always for plotting so don't be shy. I like coffee, booze, and working out. I'm back from a long hiatus the dead so if you need anything, best ask the others until I get back into the groove of things!
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FINNLEY
GLOBAL MODERATOR
Hi hello! My name is Finnley, or Finn, call whichever and I'll be there for you (yes like the FRIENDS theme song). I am in charge of the claims and helping with miscellaneous things. Let me know if you have any questions!
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OPEN MODERATOR POSITION
outbreak
/ˈaʊtbreɪk/ zero /ˈzɪərəʊ/
a sudden occurrence of something unwelcome, such as war or disease. number, no quantity or number; nought; the figure 0.
"A noise complaint? Really?" Lucy stared at the man on her doorstep with a mix of exasperation and disbelief; she'd been asleep from more or less the moment that she'd got in, which, on that account, hadn't been nearly long enough ago, and since she'd hardly be likely to play music at full volume or whatever other activities the fools thought she'd been playing around at while she was aiming to catch as much sleep as she could in the shortest possible time, she hadn't the faintest idea what they were all going on about. "Well, come in if you must, I suppose. Try to be quick, won't you? I want to be back at the hospital by six, and I'd quite like to have slept before I leave." Turning and striding away into the apartment, she left the door open behind her, an implied invitation to the officers to carry out whatever damn stupid inspections they thought they were going to need to do.
Snagging her ID badge from where it hung on the lanyard over the back of a kitchen chair, she tossed it onto the side atop her keys and purse; it would reduce the amount of looking around which she had to do in the morning, and with the way that things were looking just now, she was going to need to snatch every last second of sleep that she could get. Idly, she considered offering the man a coffee, but rapidly dismissed the idea; she didn't want to encourage them to hang around for any longer than they had to.
Lucy paused in her work a moment. "Can't say I have. Never really been time." Love had never featured at the top of her personal priority list, to be honest; she knew that people fell in love all the time, and that was all well and good, part of the circle of life and all that- although perhaps if they did it a bit less often, they wouldn't have a problem with overpopulation, but that was another story and one which was well above her pay grade. Anyway, she'd never really felt as if she was missing out. Some had accused her of being married to her job, and she supposed that they were right at that in that although she frequently fell out with it, she just kept on going back because she had invested too much time and money to give it up.
Even if she tried, though, she could never deny that she still loved it; it was, she suspected, what she was destined to do, which was saying something considering that she didn't believe in destiny. Whether it was a perfect marriage, she couldn't say; she'd never experienced another one, but it was at least good enough for her, and since she was the only person being materially affected, that was probably all that mattered.
"We usually go to a place around the corner." At the end of a busy shift, you could scarcely see the bar for the number of doctors, nurses, and various associated members of staff clustered around it. Talking shop. It was one of the only ways that they had to destress, talking things through with each other, and it was a very valuable exercise; particularly in her own department, they saw some horrific things and went through some traumatic experiences, and it was a kind of informal group counselling section. Someone had suggested once that they might get the hospital to buy them all a few rounds on the strength of that fact, but she didn't think anything had ever come of it, to no one's surprise.
Ground Zero. Now that was a strange situation. Since all this had begun, she hadn't really had the time to stop and think, to categorise what was happening and try to put it into some sort of proportion. She wouldn't have such time for some months to come, at the least. "It's an odd time for everyone." Withdrawing the needle, Lucy tossed it into the clinical waste bin and held up the phial of blood to the light.
"Known her long?" Quite frankly, Lucy didn't particularly care; she had reached that stage of exhaustion at which the vast majority of her body's processes were operating entirely autonomously of her brain, and that apparently included the small talk function, for which she was profoundly thankful. Glancing down at her watch, she checked the seal between needle and syringe, pronounced herself satisfied and gently ran a finger along the course of the vein from which she intended to take the blood. "Must be good to have someone else to talk to. Stops you going insane." She hadn't shared a flat in a very long time; when she'd first arrived in the city, she had taken a flat on her own because she had known no one, with the vague intention of finding someone to occupy the other bedroom once she'd established herself in the place and had the chance to find someone whom she felt she might get along with, and, more importantly, who would be able to get along with her- but it had never happened, somehow, and she suspected that she was rather too old these days to start making those kinds of changes to her style of living.
Things were looking as good as they were going to get, and she didn't want to leave the tourniquet in place for too long; apart from the fact that it was generally contraindicated, there were plenty of other patients whom she could be seeing, and the sooner the better. But Lucy couldn't deny it was a relief to be doing something as routine and undemanding as a blood draw, even if the circumstances under which she was doing it were a long way from being normal. "You'll feel a sharp scratch," she murmured as she pushed the needle through the skin and into the vessel. Got it first time. Perhaps it was like riding a bicycle; something that you couldn't forget, even if you went years without having to do it.
"I've been here..." She pursed her lips as she thought, watching the syringe filling under her fingers. "Twenty years plus. Twenty five... thirty... I lose track." The days all seemed to blend together, somehow. "How about you, you a native?"
Taking out a sterile package containing a syringe and another containing a needle, she set the two of them down at her patient's elbow and turned away briefly to pull on a new pair of latex gloves. Already, the box was verging on needing replacement, but Lucy didn't doubt that the stocks in storage were low enough to warrant fresh deliveries- which wouldn't be a problem in normal times, but at the moment, she knew from bitter experience that it would take hours of wrangling on the phone to someone or other before even the vague promise of a new supply could be extracted, and with how things were, she didn't have that amount of time to spend on anything at all, much less something that wasn't directly concerned with patient care.
Of course, it wasn't her job to begin with, but distinctions such as that had long since gone out of the window.
"Yes, well, join the club." There were few things that Lucy would have liked more than to get some answers. The questions were myriad and multiplying; she didn't particularly care what she got answers to- anything would be better than nothing, after all. How they'd got here was a good one; perhaps not nearly so important as what the hell they were heading towards, she would grant, but... any port in a storm. "This is how a system works, Mr Etter. I do my bit, other people do theirs, they don't interfere with me and I don't interfere with them, which is why I'm taking this blood and the lab techs will be analysing it. Doesn't work so well the other way round." Taking the man's wrist, she manoeuvred his arm into a properly extended position, fastened the tourniquet around his upper arm, spent a moment in checking her work, and then went back to the workstation, tearing open the sterile packaging.
"Every day," she murmured wryly as she fitted the needle to the syringe. "Privilege of rank." Those at the top of any metaphorical totem pole had in common with those at the bottom the fact that any task which could not be fitted neatly into the job descriptions of those in between would most likely fall into their laps.
Lucy nodded briskly, closing the curtain behind her and crossing the cubicle to the set of drawers which stood at the side of the bed. "Pleasure." It wasn't, not really; usually, she tried to give every patient the time necessary to ensure that they felt she was actually paying attention to them and not simply rushing through one after another, working her way to the end of the list in the shortest possible time- but these days, she didn't have the time necessary to do that sort of thing. It wasn't a question of working her way to the end of the list, because there seemed to be no end in sight other than the end of the shift, and even that was a moving value more often than not. It was just a question of staying on top of things, not letting the pot boil over, trying to keep her whole department from tipping over the edge of that cliff from which there was no way back. Get any further behind, she knew, and they might not catch up the difference in time to... well, she didn't know what, but there was no question that many lives would hang in the balance.
"Sorry, no idea. Depends on the lab." Certainly, Lucy didn't have the time to spend peering down a microscope, looking for the tell-tale little blobs... or whatever they were; it had been a long time indeed since she'd covered that sort of content, and the microscopes were probably completely different these days in any case. You probably didn't have to look down them, you just slotted in the slide and the thing beeped or flashed or sent you a bloody email to tell you the results. Her hands were busy as she spoke, tugging open the top drawer and extracting the few things necessary for the procedure she was going to undertake. "Mistakes are as common as they are anywhere where too few people are trying to do too much work in too little time... But if you're with the police, you'll know all about that." This system was a long way from being perfect, and Lucy wasn't about to pretend otherwise. They did the best that they could under the circumstances, but that would never be enough.
"You've had this done before, of course. Same process. Roll your sleeve up, please. You right handed?"
The hospital was in a state of barely controlled chaos, but that had come to be more or less the usual over the past few months, and by now, Lucy was well used to it; so used to it, in fact, that it didn't even inspire in her the sentiments of vague frustration which she had spent much of the initial few weeks in trying to control. She had risen to her present position by demonstrating not only her medical capabilities, which she didn't think she was being arrogant in judging as being considerable, but also her management skills, and she had, during the years which she had spent working in this hospital, taken great pride in being able to keep the emergency room running as smoothly as it was possible for any such department to function; naturally it wasn't perfect, because that was the very nature of the work that they did, but she'd always been determined that it was going to be as close as she could make it.
Still, as she had always maintained, there was no point in complaining or in wishing for things that you couldn't have; you had to work with what you did have and make the best of it that you could.
Even with such a philosophy, though, it was a frustrating time to be working. All that she could really afford to do was firefighting; rushing around from one patient to the next, giving them the best that she could, keeping them from slipping over the edge into the dark abyss, and then moving onto the next. It was not the job that she had trained for, but she did what she had to do in order to preserve lives wherever possible. When it wasn't possible... well, those were the cases that were keeping her up at night, on the rare occasions that she wasn't up anyway.
Possibly the last thing that she needed was to be taking blood samples, a job which she would normally leave to a nurse in any case, but these were strange times and they all had to do what they could. Pushing back the curtain, the blonde offered a nod to the man waiting on the other side. "Mr Etter?" she asked, her voice muffled by mask and visor.
Sleep was not something which Lucy had been getting a great deal of lately. Of course she hadn't complained, because no one else at the hospital had been either, and besides, one had to set some kind of an example. All the same, though, there came a point at which continuing was not only inadvisable- it had been inadvisable for several hours before she'd so much as thought of sitting down for a moment- but downright dangerous, and when she had found herself swaying on her feet, she recognised that the time had come to get her head down- and to do so properly, not just grab half an hour on a chair in a corner somewhere. That method, she felt, had taken her as far as it was likely to for that night.
She didn't really remember the short journey home, nor did she remember falling onto her bed. She certainly didn't remember undressing, but she rapidly deduced, once she'd gathered her thoughts enough to be coherent, that that was because she hadn't. With the prevailing state of affairs therefore established to her satisfaction, she got to her feet and made her way to the front door to determine exactly why the LCPD thought they needed to pay her a call at... what time was it, anyway?
"Yes?" she demanded curtly, pulling the door open. "Can I help you?"
Harsh, stubborn, and no-nonsense, Lucy is a woman who sets out to be taken seriously and achieves it more often than not. Coming from a working class background, she has worked hard to get to where she is today, and she isn't about to let anyone take it away from her; though she is a conscientious worker who holds herself to higher standards than she does anyone else around her, she nevertheless has high expectations of those around her, and is not shy about expressing her disappointment when those expectations are not met. Some would describe her as being bull-headed and it's certainly true that she knows what she wants out of life and is determined to get it come hell or high water, but she is not totally closed off to suggestions from those that she trusts, although her trust and respect are hard to earn. What she respects in others is confidence and competence, above all else, and she makes a habit of pushing and challenging those around her, especially those that she works with, to be the best that they can be and to assert themselves. Though she has little tolerance for fools and idiots, she has a wealth of patience for anyone who is genuinely trying.
[attr="class","ozapptitle"]BIOGRAPHY
Born to two factory workers in the back streets of Edinburgh, Lucy grew up in a state of what was not poverty only because her mother refused tor refer to it as such; certainly, however, it was a time of great hardship, and it was lucky that she was an only child, for she knew even as young as she was that her parents could never have supported another. It was clear from an early age, however, that Lucy was not quite cut from the same cloth as her family; she knew her own mind right from the start and displayed a stubborn streak which drove her mother to distraction at times. Nevertheless, it served her well in later life; when she started school, she flatly refused to allow her background or her situation to influence her, and she gave her absolute best to each and every task with which she was faced. An aptitude for the sciences quickly became apparent, and by the time that she made it to secondary school, she was well ahead in these areas, albeit decidedly behind in subjects such as English since she 'just didn't see the point'.
With a small but dedicated group of friends- small since it was limited by the number of people who could put up with her for long periods of time-, Lucy made it through school, being highly regarded by her teachers, and when it came to the time for her to move on, she didn't even consider the factory jobs which most of her classmates were heading for; the school's headmistress had earmarked her early on as a special case and put a lot of effort into persuading her to apply for university courses. Wanting to see more of the world than the back streets in which she'd spent her life up to that point, she rejected the various British universities that were suggested to her and instead worked incredibly hard to raise the money to take herself to the United States, where she studied right through to a medical degree at Stanford. Having been accustomed to difficult circumstances and working under pressure, it became apparent that emergency medicine was a discipline which suited her well, and so Lucy devoted herself to it, going to work in a big hospital in New York.
It was a place that suited her well, especially being well placed for the city's various amenities (and particularly bars), but she had to leave hurriedly nevertheless after only a few years there, following an unfortunate situation arising from a relationship with one of the senior doctors. Naturally, it was entirely his fault- at least as she told the story, on the rare occasions that she did so- but to stay would have been too awkward for both, and so Lucy made the move to the Lethford emergency room, where she has remained ever since, working her way up through dedication and determination to hold the senior position of a staff physician. Caught on the back foot by the virus along with her colleagues, she has been working more or less non-stop since the outbreak in the city, doing all that she can to deal with the emergency cases who pile up in what she will always think of as her hospital.
