Disclaimer: don't own the world, only this disturbing little scenario for it.
(sighs) Stupid plotbunnies.
I like the original series characters, humor, and character interaction.
And so naturally they give me this depressing little X-series what-if, which is anything but.
I could have expanded this into a full story, added detail, etc.
I didn't, partially because of lack of time and partially because I don't really want to explore this possibility any farther.
(Edited 1/06. As per my new policy, anonymous reviews get answered in my profile.)
At Maverick Hunter HQ, little thought had ever been paid to cleaning up returning Hunters. The founders of the organization had obviously had more pressing concerns at the time, and there had never really been any reason to change the situation. The reploids returning from a mission usually needed to visit the infirmary for repairs anyway and were cleaned off as part of standard treatment, and the human Hunters tended to make their own shower arrangements.
No one had ever bothered with protocols for decontamination. Why bother?
Illness was the least of the hazards any human Hunter faced on a mission. It wasn't like humans could catch the Maverick Virus, and when a Maverick that outmassed you several times over was charging you with weapons drawn and out for blood, the last thing you were worried about was catching the flu from it.
As for reploids, as long as they were clean of the Virus, there was little point. Since reploid interiors were by necessity closed systems, the common wisdom went, there wasn't much danger of pathogens entering from the outside. Even if some bacteria did find their way inside, reploid fluids were hardly hospitable to microorganisms. Besides, parts regularly had to be replaced, especially in the Hunters that saw the most combat, so there wouldn't be enough time for any life to get established. Not to mention that reploid Hunters were often sent into environments where humans could not go. What kind of bacteria could endure the plasma residue from heavy reploid-to-reploid combat, the sub-zero chill of the arctic, the toxic gases and heat of a volcano's interior, or the hard radiation and vacuum of space?
Perhaps they should have considered the answer to that question rather than dismissing it.
Perhaps they should have realized that more combat and more repairs also meant more breaches in sealed systems and more opportunities for contaminants to enter.
Perhaps when the oldest and greatest of the Hunters came into the infirmary with a malfunctioning arm, the technician should have paid more attention to replacing the clogged tube that proved to be the problem than to being star-struck at the chance to chat with the famous commander.
Perhaps the goo that had been clogging the tube should have been inspected.
Perhaps the tube shouldn't have been carelessly thrown on the pile of scrap parts in the corner and left in the open air.
Perhaps when that technician woke up the next day with a headache and sore throat, he should have had himself checked out instead of assuming he had a cold or the flu, calling in sick, and relaxing around the base.
Perhaps when he had a nasty, hacking cough the next day, and his friends, colleagues, and people who had just been to the infirmary began getting sore throats, it should have been reported.
Perhaps he should have realized something was seriously wrong before he started coughing blood.
Perhaps someone should have realized what was going on before that technician died and half the humans on the base were already sick.
Perhaps someone should have instituted a quarantine before countless Hunters had traveled in and out of the base, spreading the contagion throughout the cities of the world.
Perhaps if the details had been kept from Sigma the insane Maverick would not have thrown his head back and laughed long and loud at the delightful irony before issuing the fatal orders to his researchers that led to a new and far deadlier breed of Mavericks.
Perhaps if the world had not already been reeling from that first plague, it might have had a chance against Sigma's new minions, built on suborned production lines and designed specifically to spread not only terror and destruction but also the nastiest bioengineered pathogens Sigma's subordinates could devise, making initial survival of a Maverick attack meaningless and cementing the status of all reploids, Maverick, Hunter, or civilian, as potential deliberate or unwitting carriers of disease.
Perhaps if the humans closest to reploidkind hadn't been the hardest hit and the first to fall, the decimated survivors of the Biohazard Maverick attacks wouldn't have come to deem the name of the first reploid, their former savior, the worst curse of all.
Perhaps it wouldn't have helped.
Comments much appreciated. Criticism much needed.