A/N: Thanks to all who have shown interest in this fic so far! I was worried about how it'd work out (and I'm sure someone's probably asking the same thing), but we'll be exploring it in the sci-fi sense. =) Hello to Perry and that dear anon. It's very motivating to hear, and I hope to answer some more of your questions here. The premise for this story came about when watching the movie Déjà Vu with Denzel Washington, in the scene where he's in front of this theater-sized screen watching this video from the past for the first time. It got me wondering what if the one person you'd finally like to give your whole heart to exists only on a video screen? and thought it was interesting. O_o
Some things that could prove confusing... This chapter starts off in Rachel's POV, and the story actually takes place in two different timelines; one in the past (Rachel), the other in the present (Quinn). They are both in their late 20s in their respective times (hi, President Raggy ;), so no elderly Faberry as of now, unfortunately, hehe. Feel free to send any other questions, thoughts, or comments you may have. Happy summer! =)
Chapter 3
...
Reassortment.
That was the word they used to explain it. A high-frequency exchange of genes that caused the segmented genome of the influenza virus to mix with segments of the Hantavirus, giving birth to the worst possible love-child in the history of viral-dom.
Originally termed the Hantaswine strain - because they had hoped it would be contained within the initially susceptible rodent and swine populations - it became known to people of science as the Seaborg virus; named after the man who discovered plutonium, the deadliest element and component of the last atomic bomb. Everyone was thinking it would be a nuclear war that would finally send the earth back into an ice age. Little did they know that it was the smallest of organisms that could wipe the atmosphere clean as it spread through the air like a massive residual nuclear cloud, with itself as the lone winner.
She could see it though. The moment she read that top-secret advisory from the World Health Organization of a small outbreak in Southeast Asia, she already feared what was to come. It had been contained, but it would only take a densely ambitious fool to mess with their current efforts in producing a vaccine to change the viral genome and spread it even faster to the human population. One infected person in New York City was a walking 10-foot viral cloud. Spread that to a good enough number of pedestrians that walk through the airport and you'd have a global medical emergency. There is no acquired immunity. Half the people who get it would die.
As the chief scientist of Lima Labs, she wouldn't let that happen. She had to be very careful.
And that was precisely the reason why she was going through the trouble of recording her own research onto video journals that were encoded into microchips with Kurt's help, and trusted only to him, as the director of Lima Labs communications systems, to keep somewhere unknown to her. Just in case.
No one would ever know besides the two of them.
"Doc! Results are in!"
Make that three.
She quickly logged out of her account, silently wishing that she could just tell it to shut off without having to click around like a maniac. She swung out of her chair and smoothed her lab coat before reaching out to receive the folder from the newest member of their super secret plan to not take over the world.
Blaine Anderson, PhD was over-earnest and overeager. And she always had a problem with all the gel he'd put in his hair because it sometimes reflected light onto her computer screen every time he peered over on visits. To others it probably wouldn't be an issue, but she admitted her OCD gave her the weakness of perfectionism. Every time she missed a word because of Blaine's gel reflections, she'd feel the need to start reading the paragraph all over again - after shooing him away first, of course.
But he always came back.
With that big fat smile on his face.
He was quite smart and good at what he did, however, which was what irritated her the most. It wasn't long after he started at Lima that he became head of Cryonics. It felt slightly threatening to her because it took her a few years to get to where she was. He did mean well though, so it also made her feel bad the most. Maybe that's why she was letting him in on it. Maybe it was the fact that he would always make it a point to bring her her latte, exactly how she liked it, and helped out in her department when he wasn't even her secretary or assistant. Fishy.
She rummaged through the documents, glancing back and forth between them and Anderson. That smile again.
Did he like her?
He was a little too neat for her taste. She resumed scanning the laboratory values and conclusive reports. They were signed by him.
Was he sucking up to her because he wanted to take over as chief scientist?
She had to admit, he was quite efficient with the work. It soothed her OCD. The genomic profile... She focused on it, her eyes widening. It was perfect.
It was a perfect disaster.
"Dr. Anderson!" she snapped.
"Yes, ma'am?" he jolted to attention, swallowing the smile off his face.
She closed the folder and looked him in eye. "Has anyone else seen these reports?"
"No one. Except me."
She inhaled deeply and gazed off in the distance. "You should have told me—"
"I'm sorry, ma'am. I thought I'd just bring in the daily results since it was on my way and—"
She whirled abruptly and planted the folder on her desk, and stood there in silence.
He continued, "And I saw them, and… I thought I'd keep it private. Considering the situation. I'm sorry, Dr. Berry."
He really did mean well. She took out the genomic profile and turned to him.
"And you did the right thing. If this gets in the wrong hands…"
"I understand, Doc," he nodded with a whisper. He stuffed his hands in his coat pockets in an awkward fashion, his face grave.
She began to consider him as more like a puppy.
"Well then. Let's get to work, Blaine."
"Sorry?" he looked up, startled.
She grabbed the papers and began walking towards the chemistry lab. She was going to have to trust him with all of the research now, she had no other choice. If he ended up doing something off on his own, things could go wrong. She was the chief scientist because she was the best at what she did. And if he was second best, then working with him would just strengthen their operation. And who knows? Maybe she'd learn a little something from the head of Cryonics.
"We're going to create the perfect vaccine," she answered.
For Rachel Berry had just discovered the viral strain that could save - or end - mankind.
...
She didn't know when she started filming things. Growing up, she wanted to be in front of the camera, not behind it. She wanted to be a star. Now it seems like all she wanted to do was look up at them. They were beautiful when one took the time to appreciate what was around their world.
And come to think of it, she had always grown up appreciating beautiful things as well. The blonde had always been beautiful to her.
It must have been when her chorale group went on these missions to bring song and cheer to the sick. They had visited this one medical center in a very poor area and she had helped with the video recording of a little documentary they were planning to make for their efforts in outreach. The white walls were dirty with age and the paint was breaking off. The indigenous sick were crammed onto fading plastic chairs, crowding the hallways. Children were coughing and playing on the floor in oversized hand-me-down t-shirts with their skinny arms poking out of the sleeves. Walking through the gauntlet of carelessly contained germs, she'd felt like she was on a mission to get sick herself.
And yet when she replayed the video of when they sang in the ward, amidst the old and frail, she could see the light in their eyes as they grinned; mouths with just a few spare teeth left, but cheeks crinkled in glee. They were so joyful in such a mess. They could still see the beautiful where she saw none. And she wanted to feel that too. She wanted to do more. And along the way, she would catch the beauty of the little things on her video camera.
That was probably why she was still there, standing on the sidewalk of what used to be one of the busiest intersections in the city. She would love watching the thousands of people that passed by outside her old lunch stop where she would grab her daily vegan noodles before heading off to the library to do more research. She was there just a month ago, contemplating the spread of an experiment gone wrong.
Today, the intersection was empty. Two balloons, pink and purple tied together at their ends like a helical dumbbell, drifted past her on the sidewalk with a cold wind, memories of the gentle energy of life and good judgement leaving with it.
She was the only one left there. This world was dying. And now that the blonde was gone, so was her world.
She looked up at the evening sky as she had promised, and she saw them.
There is still the universe.
She still had the camera and the stars were still beautiful.
...
It had spread quickly, just as she had seen, though not where she had first thought it would occur. Somehow, the twisted version of the vaccine they had tried so hard to forge had unleashed itself in Europe, an influenza-hemorrhagic-like illness outbreak in urban areas of Greece. It had mutated to a deadlier, faster form, setting off a chain reaction; London to Madrid to Paris, sweeping through the Middle East and Asia before finally coming home. The prodigal unwanted son. And no one could stop him from bringing the Red Death.
The only barrier was a biological suit with a well-fitted gas mask, and no one had 7 billion of those ready to hand out. No one could even tell if the virus was wafting in the air around them. It was like carbon monoxide; colorless, odorless, and tasteless - but without a detector that could beep in the night.
And so they died. Wretched fevers and flu-like symptoms. Sharp, gutting pains in the stomach as if someone was knifing your insides in front of you. Kidney failure leading to swelling in the body's cavities until you spill blood and lose your breath forever. Edgar Allen Poe's fiction come to life, with a cough or sneeze to begin its kiss of death. And it only took hours. A pandemic of epic proportions.
Her instincts had always been good. She hated that sometimes. She hated knowing too much.
Not enough, she thought. There was still no vaccine.
They were not able to properly disseminate the one that was working on their test subjects. The military had intervened too early. World War III had erupted, they said. It was outrageous, there was no world left to go to war with. They should be out trying to save the remaining population. Instead, what was left of human power was outside trying to blow up anything that would go near the lab "with the weapon and the cure".
They put the word "weapon" first.
They were going to destroy everything she had worked for. Everything she had promised. Everything that could make it right again.
She had to do something. There had to be more than this.
She unhooked her video camera from her computer. She needed to go through with her plan.
...
"Kurt!"
He spun around from his desk of displays and buttons and gadgets, his cheeks red and his eyes swollen, but not from the sickness. His tears were clear.
"New York City is gone, Rachel," he whispered.
She lowered her head. "We're going to have to go through with it," she announced quietly.
He heaved a sigh. "Are you sure?"
She looked at him in silent resilience.
He continued, "There are still space shuttles left. We can go up there. Start over."
"We don't have enough time. We need earth stuff to finish this, you know that—"
"We can come back to earth later, Rachel - when this is all sorted out!"
"When will that be, Kurt?" she cried. "I mean, look around outside! If their masks protect them from Seaborg, soon enough the bombs will get them. And by that time they might destroy all the materials we need."
He stilled, and she knew she was right. And she knew he'd never argue with her when she went on one of her passionate rampages. One, she was Rachel Berry and she was usually right. Two, she had always been the leader and the MVP. Three, she was Rachel Berry.
They used to bicker extravagantly in their younger days, competing with one another, but as he grew older, he understood the calm in silence. He also understood her. He had been in the same chorale group. And he too went from in front of the camera - to fashion, to PR - to finally ending up in communications because he realized he wanted people to stay in touch through the distances of life. They'd been through almost everything together, and this last project would be no exception. And that's why she loved him like a brother.
"When this is done, I want you to go ahead," she directed, unfolding a microchip from her palm and meeting his gaze. "I will follow, Kurt."
He looked at the chip in her hand. The backup plan.
"You know, we were so busy trying to figure out whether or not we could, we didn't spend enough time thinking about if we should," he posited.
She watched him take the chip and turn back to his computers.
"It's not our fault," she replied, standing beside him as he connected the chip and opened the files. Their research filtered through the displays.
"Then the rest of the world seems pretty awful…" he muttered, as a 3D image of the viral genome spun around, taunting them on one of the screens.
"No."
He looked up at her, and her eyes glistened.
"The world is still beautiful, Kurt. You remember all those disaster films we'd go see? In every one of them, the good always outnumbered the bad. And even if they don't, there is always one. And they always win. Even in the news, you see people running to help in those times when you think everything has gone to shit - forgive my language - but the point is… that's why we're doing this. Even if it's just us, there's still a chance for everyone else."
"Rachel, that sounds valiant and all that jazz, but my computers work with percentages and odds ratios and… Our odds don't look that beautiful right now. More like a… black hole of zero," he reported. "And you don't like black holes. They eat stars."
She blinked and stared at him numbly. "I will walk away now, Kurt Hummel."
"No no nooo! Rachel, wait!" he pulled her back. She crossed her arms and grumbled with poise.
He smiled. "I'm sorry. Doc, please. Okay. So you're saying that… the hope of mankind rests with us little people."
"Yes," she turned back to the displays. "Just think of us as the hobbits in Tolkien's stories. As Gandalf said, 'All our hopes now lie with two little hobbits, somewhere in the wilderness.'"
"We don't have a Gandalf."
"Yes, but we do have the cure."
He sat pensive for a moment before glancing up at her. "Then I want to be Frodo. I don't find Sam attractive."
"So you're saying that… you find yourself attractive?"
"Of course."
...
She watched the night sky and waited for a shooting star.
It would mean Kurt and the rest of them were off into space; the last remaining shuttles in NASA's escape earth mission, for brighter futures in the galaxy. She knew there were no nearby planets that would support human life yet, but it would be safer up there. For now.
She shivered underneath layers of clothing insulated in her bio-suit. Her temperature readings were off the charts in the negative direction. Something was happening in the atmosphere and it was unprecedented. Ozone holes were tearing throughout the stratosphere. All the chemicals and gases expended in the recent warfare and launching of space rockets from the various space agencies around the world were proving too much at once. Another reason to leave earth.
It was too fast to even fathom though. Did the virus have anything to do with it? She knew it was there, scattering with the winds she saw carrying dust and dead leaves off the withering trees, the flapping she felt against the folds of her bio-suit.
Thinking about it made her sad and panicked at the same time. She would never be able to breathe fresh air any more. She would walk around in a mask as long as she was on earth. For the first time in her life, she understood how a fish possibly felt in a fishbowl. Yet another reason to leave.
As her thoughts flurried with the wind, she realized she had all these reasons to be sitting alongside everyone on those NASA shuttles - so why was she still hanging around like a fish in a fishbowl?
Well, first off, the only way out for that fish would be to jump out of that bowl. And she had no intention of unzipping herself from her suit to say hello to Seaborg. She still had things to do.
She wondered why her pretty little blue betta decided to jump out of his bowl. She had left him food and fresh water, mixing in the dechlorinator chemical thing the guys at the pet store said to mix in whenever changing his water, and even cleaned out his designer rocks that he seemed to love. They complimented his color.
He was such a pretty fish, Paco. They would spend quality time together in front of the mirror everyday; him, fanning out his gills and fighting his reflection for exercise, and her, practicing her facial expressions while singing. Even though she had left performing arts school, she still loved to sing - and she was told she looked liked she was in pain every time she did, so she worked daily to look more angelic.
Then one day it all changed for Paco. She came back from a 2-day retreat in medical school to find an empty bowl. After thinking frantically about who could have taken her fish-friend, she finally accepted that he might possibly have jumped. She couldn't see anything on the floor at first. Then, she peered down at a dark piece of wood. Except it wasn't a piece of wood. To her horror, it was Paco; no longer pretty and blue, but dark brown and dried out like a curved piece of treebark. And she had almost stepped on him on her way in! It was the worst thing imaginable.
Poor Paco. She would always ask herself why?
She was asking herself again.
Then she realized she had one reason to stay. Just one.
It was the same reason she figured why her Dads' puppy, Bud, stayed. They had rescued him from the shelter when she was graduating high school (because they said they'd be lonely with their baby girl off to college and everything, tears, yes - they still came to visit every month), but because they were both out at work most of the time, poor Bud would be relegated to the laundry room. Every time she'd come home to visit, they would hear him start to bark as they pulled up into the driveway. He could smell them, and he grew to love her too, remembering her voice and her pet nickname for him when she'd visit him in the laundry room. He would ram his little head into her legs as she bent down to pet him, his stubby tail darting around happily.
She felt so sorry for him that her Dads finally agreed to give him to her Aunt Sally who owned a farm in Pennsylvania. There, he could run around with her aunt's other dogs. He'd have friends and freedom, and they'd still get to visit him on the way to New York. Unfortunately, Bud didn't seem to want the good life.
A few weeks later, Aunt Sally called telling them that Bud would try to run off the boundaries of the farm so they had to put an electric dog collar on him. Rachel was horrified. Even with the collar, they told her Bud would still try to escape, shocking himself so many times that it was too cruel. All because he just wanted to go home. To them. He'd rather wait all day in the laundry room to see them, than be anywhere else.
The memory of Bud always made her cry. Bud was loyal to them until the end.
And that was her reason. Rachel Berry was more like a puppy than a fish.
She had promised, and she would be loyal to it.
And she realized she had already said it. She still had things to do.
Just then, a flash of light shot across the sky. It didn't matter if it was Kurt's rocket or not, or even if it really was a shooting star. The universe had made its move. It was her turn now.
She walked back towards the labs.
And she found that it was in her office, surrounded by thick, air-tight glass - her fishbowl-laundry room, that she found a touch of safety and freedom. She could step out of her bio-suit and take off her mask.
She put on her lab coat, smoothing it down and fixing her hair - one could never be too ready, even at the end of times. She took her video camera and attached it to her computer.
She pressed record.
She took a deep breath.
"This is Dr. Rachel Berry and I need your help," she stated gravely. After a beat, "If you are watching this and have not yet found a solution to the Seaborg virus, my lab has a cure. Unfortunately, there are those out there who want to use the research for destruction and greed. That is why we have gone through the effort to disseminate our knowledge in this way."
She took a microchip from her desk and presented it to the camera.
"I, along with a small team that I have trusted with this research, have recorded our findings onto videos such as the one you are currently viewing, and encoded them into these microchips. I have divided them into 6 video logs. 2 are included into this one. The rest we have scattered in different places on earth in titanium boxes that should protect them for a good long while. Each found video log will have directions to the location of another."
She placed the chip down and took another breath. She looked up at the camera, really trying to see through to whoever might find it. She thought of the blonde, the only one she wanted to see more than anything right then. She remembered something she told her once.
Words are so lovely sometimes, we forget that it's in the silence between them where we learn to see the world and each other. Like the spaces between seconds. That's where I'll think of you.
If she stood there in silence, would she come back to her? She searched the black space of the lens. She missed the girl's alto voice and the scrunch in her forehead. Maybe she was still somewhere out there. The spaces between seconds.
It was insane. This plan was insane.
Well. Everyone thought she had always been insane anyway. Can't let them down now.
She continued, "You might be asking yourself if I am telling the truth, or if this is just a load of bull. But I'm asking you… if you're still looking for a cure, then what have you got to lose?"
...
"Holy… shit."
She heard Mike's utterance and looked towards the Professor and Tina. Their faces were agape. A horde of spectacled heads turned towards their trio in front of the main workstation with a silent question. It seemed like an eternity where the only sound was her own heart's thudding that it frightened her enough to want everything to stop, but the only stop button was on the controller in her hand so she pressed it in reflex.
Tina was the first to move, glancing at her before exchanging looks with the Professor. "I mean…" she fumbled. "How— how do we know that this…"
The Professor gazed out towards the video screen. "We don't." He took a deep breath and looked up at Quinn, almost as if he was reading her mind. "But we can't stop now just because of the unknown."
She nodded as if she understood, but everything was still a blur. She tried her hardest not to look at the face on the screen.
"Captain, let's continue playing. Let's find out if this trail exists so we can figure out our next step," he said.
She couldn't escape it. She nodded again, this time with a "Yes, sir."
So she pressed play once more and history came to life. It wasn't black or white, or clunky or rusted. It was brown hair and brown eyes and a lovely shattered voice, and it was as real and vivid as her, if not more. It told her her own life was still playing and that it was her who had to catch up to it all.
And she realized, when they were giving her the instructions to rewind, fast forward, pause, and play, her fingers were alive and moving and taking action because she had the controller in her hands. She could.
She still had the controller in her hands and the stars were still beautiful.
And when they finished, as the video faded and the display turned into the glass window of the observation deck, Quinn could see the distant luminous bodies of the universe through the transparent image of Rachel Berry's brown eyes; infinite, vast, incandescent, and beautiful. But she couldn't shake one thought off her mind.
The universe was nothing compared to her eyes.