Chapter 53: The Kapler Virus
The reunion between Katie and her other team members was relatively brief, at first. They were all happy to see her healed, and Gergio looked a bit relieved. Lydia seemed happy, but with a slight tinge of disappointment in the back of her thoughts. As for Lucia, though, she was happy at first, and more than once said that she was glad Katie had pulled through. However, whenever she looked up at Whiterun's thane after that, she had a look of confusion, and possibly even sadness on her face. Katie, for her part, was doing her best to ignore their reactions, sure that if they could just get back to the Bannered Mare, it would all turn out alright. First, however, she had to say something important to Captain Coorsman.
Soon, Katie had arranged a meeting with the captain in his tent, in private and away from others. He seemed very interested in what she had to say, but he also had a very grave expression on his face, as though he knew that it would be important; perhaps even difficult to accept.
She began by explaining to the captain how her fight with Marcus had gone, and what steps she'd taken to try to encourage him to surrender. Coorsman nodded as she spoke, seeming to sympathize with her on nearly every point. At last, however, Katie explained how she'd maneuvered him onto a spear, and how apparently, that had been the end of him. It was at that point that Coorsman spoke, and he, it seemed, had some information to add, which Katie hadn't been aware of.
"It was probably pure luck, then, that after you impaled him on the spear, one of your porcelain half-pitchers went over the spear as well, and remained in place, preventing him from escaping until it was too late for him."
"Really?" Katie asked in amazement, "How could that happen without it shattering?"
"Something must have slowed its descent; probably the direction you were turning in when you fell, or maybe you didn't release it until you'd already hit the ground." Coorsman suggested, "The spear was threaded through the handle of the pitcher, though. It would have needed to be pushed up over the spear head, in order for Marcus to escape, and it seems that he was too weak to manage that."
"In any case," Coorsman said, opening a large chest, which sat on one side of his tent, "When he died, there was something left behind, and I think that you ought to have it."
With those words, he tossed something that looked like a small pouch to Katie, and when she opened it up to look inside, she found dark, gray ashes inside. Respectfully, she took them, though she wasn't sure what use they would be. In just a moment, she'd put them away, thanked the captain and continued to explain herself.
"At first, I had a hard time figuring Marcus out. I wasn't sure just what his problem was, or why he wouldn't surrender. He didn't exactly have a noble cause to fight for, or anything like that. I thought, for a little while, that he might have been trying to protect his friends, but he just seemed too selfish for that. I didn't really buy that explanation."
"Over the last hour or so, though, I've been thinking about it some more, and I think there may have been a lot of factors. For one thing, like all the marauders, he'd been taught self-esteem as a life philosophy, which probably made him more likely to lean towards overconfidence. Also, I got the impression that he was used to telling other people what to do instead of doing things for himself. That tends to make people feel aloof from the world. Then, of course, there were his powers. There's no denying that his powers were very great, and they gave him the ability to easily regenerate from injuries, and to resist most kinds of normal weapons anyway. I guess it's possible that through a combination of these various things, he might have actually thought there was no chance of him losing."
"I think that's as good a guess as any we're likely to come up with, in our future analyses of this battle." Coorsman replied, "Still, I can tell that there's something else that you wanted to talk to me about; something more important than Marcus."
Katie nodded briefly, then continued, "There's one thing that Marcus said that really troubled me. He said that the older generation had passed away, and that the young had all become marauders, and I understood what he meant. He was saying that the way he'd been brought up, and the way the children of Greatwell had been brought up naturally lead people to become marauders on their own; just by stressing self esteem to the point of rejecting logic."
"Gergio has told me something of this." Coorsman noted, "So it was really the amplification of self-confidence that encouraged that behavior... It's hard to believe at first, but then again, we do tend to fail more often when we think too highly of ourselves. Perhaps that's the final piece of the puzzle. At least, I hope it is."
"The puzzle?" Katie asked, starting to feel a little confused, "What puzzle?"
"The reason why so many chose to follow the current king is that he promised to do all that he could to find the true path to peace and happiness, no matter where that path lead," Coorsman explained, "and at the time, he showed every sign of being sincere about that. He's continued to appear that way, with only a few mistakes, profusely apologized for in the meantime, and the people have accepted his efforts gratefully. In fact, many of us consider him to be the best king we've ever had, mostly because he's king less often and leader more often."
"What I mean by that," Coorsman explained, "is that he very rarely interferes in the lives of the common man, and imposes no meaningless regulations on us, but every just law. His main goal seems to be to inspire people to take good actions, and he's done well, inspiring our loyalty, and teaching us the truths that have been discovered over the centuries. If nothing else, this war has taught us all a very important truth; our own inadequacy and the importance of humbling ourselves and seeking the truth through logic. I'll bring this to the king myself, and if he doesn't listen, I'll attempt to teach it to others without his help. This lesson is too important to be ignored. Marcus must have known this."
"Yes." Katie noted, "I think he did. He wasn't the reason the marauders got started; it was their mistake about what really mattered that lead to the marauders. Speaking of which, have you found the Father Ganry, who Marcus was talking about?"
Coorsman nodded, though he wasn't smiling, "He was imprisoned beneath the temple, and was half-starved and almost insensible when we got to him. He seems penitent enough, though. Once he comes to grips with what happened, I think he'll be harmless, or even helpful."
"I guess that's all I needed to hear." Katie said, forcing herself to smile again, and reaching out to shake the captain's hand, "Thank you for all your help."
However, even as Coorsman shook her hand heartily, he'd begun to laugh aloud.
"How can you say that?" Coorsman asked, looking almost as though he was about to weep for joy, "How can -you- thank -me?-"
Then, in just a moment, Coorsman had wrapped his arms around Katie's shoulders, and embraced her as tightly as he could. In seconds, he was backing off again, but Katie was still amazed and stunned, as well as more than a little pleased by what he'd just done, and it took her a few seconds before she was even ready to turn and leave.
"If you are ever in any kind of genuine need," Coorsman said just as she was about to leave the tent, "simply send word to me, and I will come to you with an army at my back. What you've done today has earned the respect of all the people of this land. Go with the blessing of the Prime Mover, my friend."
Fortunately, though the gate was still further to the south, it was only a few more miles off, and Katie and her friends had arrived at it before nightfall. Lucia had seemed unsure, at first, of whether they should enter it yet, or take some time to rest before they attempted travel to another world, but Gergio was in a hurry to move on, and Katie eventually decided the issue, when she said that she didn't want to stay there any longer than she needed to.
Soon, Lucia had opened the gate in front of them, which seemed to lead into a slightly dark building with reflective walls. They couldn't see any people in there, but there did seem to be a plant and some kind of small animal in a cage, so in just a moment, Katie stepped through first, followed by the others, and soon, they found themselves in a strange, new place.
The world that Katie and her friends had stepped into just a moment later felt different the moment that they entered it, but none of them could pinpoint why, at first. One by one, they entered through the gate and began examining the various items and pieces of furniture throughout the room beyond, in the third world. It was a very big room, too; larger than any of the tents that the AFA army had used, including the mess tent. There were strong, metal tables, desks and cabinets, all throughout the room, and on those was an assortment of chemical compounds, cages with small animals inside, and potted plants, which seemed to be in bad health for the most part. The animals were generally very sickly-looking, and the plants somewhat wilted, but it was obvious that someone, at least, had been taking care of them.
Also scattered throughout the room were many metal boxes, with glass tops and knobs along the sides. There were windows all around the room, showing that outside, it was just as much night as it had been in the world they'd just left. However, Katie soon found herself gripping the handle of her black sword for support, because for a moment, she'd felt very lightheaded.
However, once Katie got the chance to look around a little more, she saw that the floor was a single sheet of some kind of substance that she'd never seen before. It was hard enough to walk on, but not as hard as metal, though it was very smooth. There were only two exits from the room that they'd found themselves in, but both were metal-plated doors, with loop-shaped handles for opening and closing them, and both were on the same side of the room, just a few yards from each other. There was probably some reason for that, however. In fact, they probably lead to two different hallways beyond.
Lucia, however, was the first one who spoke after their arrival in that new world.
"I wonder if there's anyone else in this house."
"There might be." Katie thought aloud, "Still, this doesn't really look like a house. I've never seen anything like it before, to be honest."
However, that was when Gergio spoke up, and he sounded a little unsettled.
"I have. The dewemer ruins scattered throughout Tamriel. This room reminds me of them, except... I don't know. This place feels more polished, somehow. There are fewer exposed steam pipes and more lights and glass surfaces, as though it wasn't designed to be a stronghold. That might also explain why we haven't seen any steam automatons here."
Katie had only very limited experience with dwemer automatons, but she'd heard of them before, and she knew what they were. According to the old stories, automatons were creatures made completely from strong metal, and possessing enormous strength. Still, the point that interested her was that in that world, the dwemer, or something like them, might still exist. Back in Tamriel, the dwemer were almost completely extinct, and had been for centuries. Only their machines had survived, and were still operating on their own in many places; a testament to the ingenuity of that vanished race of people.
In a moment, though, Katie stepped over to one of the box-like devices, with the glass top, and began to mess around with it, turning knobs and pushing studs on the device, and wondering what it had been intended for. In only a moment, her question was answered, as the glass surface on top of it lit up like a torch, and suddenly, an image appeared right above the machine; the image of a woman in a jacket and skirt, with her blond hair done up in a bun, and with two circles of glass held in place in front of her eyes by a wire frame of some kind. She wore shoes, which seemed designed to raise her heels higher into the air than her toes, and she was smiling in the friendliest way as Katie released the knobs and buttons. In fact, for a moment, Katie actually thought that she was a real woman, until she passed one arm through her "body," and discovered that she was just an illusion, which had somehow been created by the machine.
"Welcome to your first day in Bio-Mutation Lab 14. Merely by arriving here, you've proven yourselves the best and the brightest, and your hard work and dedication will ensure a brighter and more prosperous future for our people. In the fields of biology and mutation studies, Lab 14 is on the cutting edge, and may well be the most advanced biotechnical research center in the entire known world. You wouldn't be here if you weren't the best, but don't rest on your laurels. Remember, these positions are as hard to keep as they were to acquire, and there will be others vying for them."
"Most of the lab equipment in this facility is machine-operated, including the raising of test animals." the woman continued, "All of it is so streamlined and efficient, that each of you will be able to prepare a new experiment with just three button-presses."
The woman in the illusion then began to explain experiment preparation procedures, and although Katie paid some attention to that, her friends were more interested in examining the surrounding lab equipment for clues or signs of what kinds of people worked there. Soon, though, the technical part of the illusion had ended, and the woman started to explain something else.
"We hope you'll enjoy your time here at Lab 14, and make the most of this opportunity. Remember the creed of the league of nations; 'science is the way to the future; the solution to all things.' Here, in Lab 14, the solutions will be made by you."
Then, just like that, the light under the glass turned off, and the woman disappeared. Lydia and Gergio were studying some of the desks by that point, but Katie was still more interested in the projecter, and in a few more seconds, she'd pressed another stud, and there was another image. However, that image seemed only half complete, and it was of a completely different woman; more shabbily dressed, and with a look of exhaustion on her face.
"Canalary 12th, 2321 RD. Garison succumbed today, and can't continue. That means there are only a few of us left who can still do experiments. Today, fifteen more attempts were made, and all of them failed. I'm... I'm worried. Even if we succeed tomorrow, what's going to happen? How fast can we possibly distribute an innoculant? How many of the few remaining survivors can we possibly reach in time? Even if it all works out, how many of us will be left? I... I don't want to marry Jael. I think he's a jerk, but... But what if there's no other way for our people to survive? I'm sorry. I... I shouldn't even be... I can tell I'm losing it. I've caught this thing too, or I wouldn't be talking about this kind of thing. I just hope I can hold it together for just a little longer. We have to find some way to immunize ourselves against this, before it's too late."
That recording, at least, had drawn everyone's attention. Katie had started to feel a lump forming in her throat as she realized the implications of what she'd just heard. It was possible that their situation just then was even worse than it had ever been before, because apparently, that world was infected by some kind of disease; a disease so desperate, that most of the area's population had probably been killed or incapacitated by it. For a few moments, Katie wondered what would happen if she and her friends caught a plague as virulent as that. Would they even be able to return home, or would they have to die alone, on a half-dead world like that one, just to keep from spreading the sickness across their own homeworld?
Then, however, an even more terrifying thought occurred to Katie. What if they'd caught the illness already? They'd already handled a lot of things since they'd arrived, and apparently, that very room had been used to do research on the illness, searching for a cure.
For just a moment, Katie turned to look at Lucia and asked her a question, even though she wasn't sure whether the resulting information would matter to any of them.
"Where's the nearest gate?"
Lucia began to glow again briefly, as she activated her amulet, but soon, the glow had faded, and she spoke slowly, apparently understanding just how grave things were.
"There's a room or hallway beyond that door." Lucia explained, pointing to the doorway furthest away from them, "About three yards down it is a gate that leads to another world, but I don't think it would be a good idea to..."
"I know. I know." Katie replied, waving the advice off, "We can't leave; at least not yet; not as long as there's a chance we might have that sickness."
Gergio was rubbing his eyes by that point, and starting to look genuinely distressed, even humbled by the situation that they were in, but Lydia had already snapped to attention.
"What do you need me to do?" Lydia asked, clearly hoping that she'd be able to help, and apparently not as worried as either of them were.
"Well..." Katie remarked, thinking carefully about what needed to be done, "I know a few cure recipes. I'll mix a few of those together, and see if it helps. Of course, if I'm going to know whether it helps or not, I need more information about what the disease is. Sure, it makes people sick, but in what way? Do they become lightheaded? Do they lose their memory or experience joint pain? I need to know more, so for now, I think the most you can do to help me is to fiddle with that illusion machine some more, and see what other information it has. The other machines may have other information in them too, so that might be worth checking as well."
Lydia got to work on the device at once, watching one illusion after another and listening carefully for any mention of the plague, or of anything else that might shed light on their situation, but as Katie set to work, mixing several different varieties of cure potions, she noticed that Gergio had gotten within a few feet of her, and was speaking to her just loudly enough to be heard.
"I don't know if you've figured this out yet or not," Gergio said a bit despondently, "but if those illusions were telling the truth, then this lab used to be a big deal; a serious and much-needed means of searching for the cure to this thing they were cursed with. There's no way there wouldn't be people working at night in a place like this."
Katie immediately understood what Gergio meant. Lucia or Lydia might have thought that it was normal for a laboratory to be empty that late at night, and in some cases, it might have been, but not when the lab was involved in a desperate search for the cure to a plague that had wiped out countless people. That kind of work was too important. The lab wouldn't just have shut down for the night. Yet, there was no one there. The place was utterly deserted.
"Furthermore, the other woman said there were only a few of them left in here." Gergio continued in just another moment, "Now, there aren't any. If they didn't all die from the plague... If they succeeded in finding a cure, you'd expect that some people would be working here. Suppose, for example, that everyone in this lab died from the plague, but another lab on the other side of the world found a cure. Don't you think they would have sent some of their scientists here to make use of these valuable facilities? No, the more I look at this problem, the less it's adding up to survivors. I think the people of this world tried to solve the problem of a very special illness, and failed completely. I think they all died, and I think that unless we can accomplish something that all the people of this world combined couldn't, we're going to die too."
"Do you think Eron knew we'd end up here?" Katie asked, Gergio's words confusing her a little, but the dragonborn was shaking his head a moment later.
"I'm not trying to pin the blame for this. I'm just saying we need to be ready to face the worst case scenario." Gergio said with a sigh, "I don't like it any more than you do. I don't want to die either, but at least I don't feel like my life's been wasted, and for what it's worth, I hope you don't either. We still have our differences, but I respect you now, Katie."
Then the dragonborn moved to another of the illusion machines across the room, and started trying to glean some information himself. For some reason, though, as bad as things looked, Katie actually felt a little like smiling at that moment.
As it turned out, each of the illusion machines contained quite a number of recordings; hundreds if not thousands, and it took Lydia some time to figure out how to recognize when a recording was irrelevant, and move on to the next one. However, quite a number of the recordings pertained to the use of the lab equipment, and apparently, many were about what was referred to as "the Kapler virus." It was the most virulent and disastrous plague ever seen, but it was over an hour before Lydia had found any descriptions of it symptoms, and by that point, Katie had managed to get some of the equipment working, and discovered that there were vast stores of chemical compounds available to them with the push of a few buttons. Most of it, in fact, activated her magic bottle, which meant they could be used as alchemy ingredients, and she spent a few minutes memorizing the ingredients and their effects by taking notes, until the recording about the Kapler virus came on, and she immediately snapped to attention.
"Engineered by anarchist Jans Kapler, the Kapler virus claimed the lives of he and his entire organization, and has since spread to the surrounding nations, and is threatening all human life within them as well, possibly even further out. Symptoms begin with a slight lightheadedness, but are fairly difficult to notice at first. Indeed, this lack of obvious symptoms is one reason why the virus is so difficult to isolate or quarantine. Primarily, symptoms involve lightheadedness, minor headaches and slight congestion, similar to an allergic reaction. In the process, the person infected will begin to suffer a loss of reasoning ability and intermittent memory loss, until the virus begins to take hold, leading to severe migrains and near total irrationality. In the final stages of infection, the patient becomes too tired to express themselves, or even to perceive the world around them, and it's only at that point that victims of the virus suffer death, and their bodies decay much faster than normal afterwards. The virus spreads by embedding itself in moisture and water, where it multiplies, remaining potent even if the water dries. However, it can't remain in airborne moisture, as its presence causes the moisture to descend. Any contact with any person infected, or with any surface directly touched by such a person carries some risk of contracting the Kapler virus."
Katie still wasn't satisfied, however, and as the recording ended, she shook her head.
"No. Lydia, I need you to keep looking. See if they had some test for figuring out whether somebody has the virus. I've got some things I could try in terms of a cure, but until there's some way to be sure whether or not a cure worked, there's no point in trying any of them."
Lydia didn't seem to fully understand what Katie meant, but she kept working at her task far into the night until, as dawn was beginning to break, she began to suffer the effects of spending so long awake, and lost consciousness.
Lydia didn't wake up until almost ten o'clock the next morning, and she felt pretty disoriented at first. So much so, in fact, that she didn't even notice that Katie was moving around at the other side of the room, mixing the contents of various bottles and jars. Indeed, she seemed to be doing so rather silently, all things considered, and both Lucia and Gergio were asleep by that point as well, with thick cloth rolled out underneath them, to keep them off the floor. Lydia's joints ached just a bit from her own rest on the hard surface.
Soon, however, the housecarl had stretched her legs, and turned one of the dials on the machine that she'd been studying the night before. From her past experience, she knew that that dial would keep the machine from speaking too loudly when its images appeared, so there would be less of a chance of her waking the others. However, she was forced back to reality a moment later. Just as the first image; of a distraught man, began to appear over the projecter, Katie had stepped around to the other side of it, looking confused, and in just a moment, the dragonslayer spoke to Lydia in clear concern.
"Lydia... Why are you still obeying my orders?"
Lydia was starting to feel confused herself, though she tried to answer the question.
"It's the job I was assigned in Whiterun, by Jarl Balgruuf, who..."
"No, that's the reason why you're my housecarl." Katie explained quickly, but still softly, "What I'm asking is why you decided to stay in this position for so long. You could have quit your service to the guards of Whiterun at any point. I mean, you must have known how much danger it would put you in, and you could have lived a peaceful, fulfilling life at any time..."
Lydia almost laughed at those words, replying, "Katie, I could never live my life like that. Not unless..."
However, Lydia couldn't finish her sentence, and in a moment, she was looking away from her friend again. Katie seemed to realize just what that meant, because in a moment, she'd asked the one question that cut right to the heart of the matter.
"Lydia, haven't you ever wanted to live in peace, or raise a family?"
Lydia felt like she'd just been hit by one of Marcus' lightning bolts, and her eyes immediately shot back towards Katie's face. Her friend was looking genuinely concerned, and yet, she was asking questions that went right to the core of who Lydia had become over the years, as though, like Gergio, she was trying to dig into her mind. With Gergio, however, the intrusion had been, at best, callous; not caring and friendly, like Katie. The dragonslayer had proven herself trustworthy and good on many occasions, and her examination didn't have any of the sense of invasiveness that Gergio's had.
"I suppose all girls want that, when they're young." Lydia thought aloud, but Katie was shaking her head just a moment later.
"A while ago, you told me you wanted to be able to protect me, and I didn't understand why, but I think I do now. You're not really as cold to people as you seem, Lydia. Suppose, right now, that you found a magic lamp with a Djinn inside, and it offered to grant your every wish. Would you still be a member of the guard?"
Unlike Gergio, Katie was putting things delicately, and not revealing most of what she seemed to know, and it was that, more than anything, that encouraged Lydia to respond to her honestly.
"No." she said, "I'd rather not have to go through any of this. I'd rather let someone else protect people and live my own life in peace. But Katie, you know that won't happen."
Katie was shaking her head again, however.
"You don't know what might happen in a week or two. A lot can happen in just a day. Think about it. Ancano threatened the world and became one of the most powerful wizards I've ever seen, was fought and killed, the Eye of Magnus was destroyed, the star gems discovered, the college regained much of its lost power, gained a new leader, a surrogate leader, and one of its mightiest members left to learn from the Psijics. Any of those events would have been worth a page in the history books, and they all happened in one day. Why not an end to the madness of Tamriel?"
"I'll tell you why not." Lydia said, however, looking livid, "Tamriel has been a continent of madness since before I was born. Indeed, since before the days of Tiber Septim the first. Sure, people trade secrets, factions gain and lose power and prominance, and nations begin and end, but one thing has remained the same; there is no place in Tamriel where decent people can live in peace without someone to protect them. The madness always reaches them somehow. Trust me, Katie. People like you and me will always be needed to protect the innocent. We can't escape from that fate."
To that, Katie had no reply, though it brought a sad look to the dragonslayer's face. Soon, both of them were working at their respective tasks again, with the discussion seeming to hang like a cloud over both of their heads, even once the others were awake and working as well.
Author's Notes; Katie and her friends are now in other worlds, which aren't present in Skyrim.
Something else emerges here that's the same, between Katie and Lydia. Each of them, under the right circumstances, would rather be living a life of peace. This also divides both of them starkly from the dragonborn, but more on that in later chapters.
Also, Katie is finally acknowledging that Lydia's act of following her into Eron's "test," was not in any way part of her duty, and strongly changes their relationship. Lydia can't hide behind the excuse that she's following orders anymore. She jumped into danger for another reason. However, Katie is being more gentle about this than Gergio was, by quite a lot. Still, I think Katie is rapidly becoming the kind of person who refuses to just accept deception, and is always looking for the truth.
Also, Jans Kapler's name was inspired by an actual WWII war criminal named Herbert Kappler, who was in charge of Rome during its occupation by the axis. When I heard it, it just sounded like a good name for a terrorist who uses biological weapons.
