Julie, Seekers' Junior Scientist
TLDR - For those who want just the important information!
Fresh out of college, Julie lands a gig at a high-tech firm that sends her to Kentucky after she shows promise, under a new research project with a parent company. Not long after her arrival, the Knox virus breaks out causing mass chaos. Julie just barely escapes into the wilderness. Doing her best to survive on her own she is finally greeted with a wandering horde attracted from the noise of her generator, and just as all hope is lost, she is saved by a group called the Seekers who just so happen to be a group of fellow Scientists, Historians and Archeologists. Just like all groups tend to do, a fight breaks out causing her friend that saved her life in her rescue; to and a few others to be banished, but she still keeps in contact with him. Thanks to that kept connection he is able to pass word that introduces her and her fellow scientists to a new infection caused by Fungi. In the midst of the research the Seekers get hit with a wandering horde, and in the escape, Julie gets bitten. Hurt and scared, she hides at her friend’s hideout, which they finder her sometime later, still alive and uninfected, and in need of answers they go to the Network, and with a hard choice, she chooses to give her life in hope for finding a cure while using her body. And After a LONG time, they finally find one!
Full story - For those lore driven!
Fresh out of college, Julie was ecstatic to hear Batonic Earthly Association Clinical Inc. had chosen to take her under their wing and let her get her feet wet by offering a PAID year internship. And also guaranteed a two-year apprenticeship after her internship was up if she was hired. Things looked promising for they were a firm that also specialized in what she took in college, Biology, and mor specifically Botany. Which she just so happened to be a near prodigy in that school being a straight ‘A’ student, with quite a few scholarships and even a published article which got the Firms attention in the first place, which was about the importance of medicinal homeopathic plant knowledge and how old time remedies may compete with top dog pharmaceuticals.
She didn’t seem to fit in at first, being so young and on a smaller team of fellow scientists who all seemed to have much higher degrees and in multiple fields. But after a month or so of cold shoulders, and lots of hard work, they started to open up by the promise she was showing. So they even started showing her more in-depth views and reports that they were in charge of giving her quite a plethora of exciting opportunities to offer help.
That first hear flew by fast, and with her getting close to a few of those more respectable co-workers, who also had a few friends in high places, they offered quite the recommendations for her and she was hired! She was tasked to the same team she was working with and sent out to Kentucky to assist in research in (Disease from plants, disease from organic tissue, or the evolution of diseases) and this hosting firm was also a lot bigger than her firm, even having a fully sustainable building of energy, dorms, and even had a Gardening team that experimented in the manipulation of organic food growth that made stuff like vegetables grow faster than normal that supplied SAFE food. If anything went wrong, they had a team that worked with fungi in composting and decomposition of leftover food and scraps, then used to reintroduce nutrients in the soil for the gardening team!
However, there was an incident that made the junior scientists get secure to the facility. Something like a hand full of guys went out and caused trouble for the city, and got in trouble, making use all get secured to the building and inner-yard for a while, which wasn’t big deal, she never really went out, the city was too big for her. However, after a week or two, they had people getting sick. and removed from staff into a secured floor to contain whatever was getting spread though some of the staff. They even had like half of the teams switch to trying to synthesize a stalemate in whatever this illness was. To slow it down to try and study whatever this disease was.
Soon though there were two secured floored then three then four. We were worried, with military and security running in an out, apparently the outside world was in even worse shape, and some Pandemic was going on, so we started getting PPE to help stave off accidental passing of any pathogens. But…. That was not enough, it all happened so fast, the floors were quickly getting over-ran and these…. People? With incredible violence, possibly from paranoia and fever caused by this disease started attacking. The whole facility was suddenly in a mass panic, she had to take a chance and run she remembered there was a small, secluded bunker off in the woods in a nearby town, her colleagues talked about, she had to make it… it would be better than staying here in this death trap. So, she donned her equipment, grabbed what little supplied she could in the chaos, and out of a hidden emergency door she went.
Survival being the only thing on her mind she stayed on her own, avoiding any big hordes od the dead heads; she just existed with no contact, no friends, no family, out in the middle of nowhere that she was unfamiliar with. Living of what little she learned from the Gardening team and basic botany knowledge to keep the ever present bite of hunger. That wasn’t all either a new creature has arrived, with the dead, these humanoid animals. She always kept her distance, but they all seemed… alive, not a single dead was one of these creatures so she couldn’t study what it was.
Then came the wandering hordes… an ungodly mass of dead, and fast ones too. They swarmed anything that made noise, her generator was no exception, which was left running while she was unaware of the sea of violent dead surrounded her home. The banging on the wooden planks, the groan of the walls bowing from the weight from the sheer amount of dead that was surrounding her, the snarling of the dead. The sounds of the planks getting ripped off the mass of hands outstretching though the windows seeking her flesh. She was helpless, surrounded, doomed, there was no way out of this mess for her and her small assortment of knifes, or pipes. She had to come to terms with her fate and then, the sound of whizzing… of… Bullets? Accompanied by the splattering sounds of congealed liquids, it lasted for a good 5 minutes, that seemed to last a lifetime of horror and terror. The deafening sound of silence, and ringing of her ears, she sat in the corner waiting for her turn. Only the military could have that kind of firepower, and she abandoned her duty.
It was not the military; it was a small group who called themselves The Seekers. It all moved so fast, she was pulled out of her proverbial wreckage and put in the back of a vehicle, being bombarded by questions, even a body examination. Eventually after something warm to eat, and something warm to drink, they came to a stop at a makeshift compound with quite the group running around, and white coats? Fellow Scientists! Finally, something to look forward to! It just so happened one of them noticed that her face gained color after seeing their scientist team running around and she was introduced.
Soon she was fitting in and helping out, eventually getting asked if she wanted to join them and join their research team in preserving knowledge and researching a cure. As all groups there are always quarrels scuffles and fights that break out in high tension. The one who saved her and pulled her out of her old base, was banished and kicked out of the group. Which might have been for the best.
After a while, and a few secret meetings with her Ex- Seeker friend about another group who goes by ‘The Network’ found a new infection, caused by Fungi, which also seems to cause more mass wondering hordes. Which leads to the Seekers base getting swarmed, and after being in this war with the dead for so long, munitions were short, and they were over run, people scattered trying to regroup and in the midst of the chaos she gets bitten. Wounded, bleeding and scared, she makes a mad dash to her friend’s base close by that he frequents often, maybe she will get lucky.
A week or so passes, before The Ex-Seeker makes it to their hideout to do their weekly briefing, and they find her, pale, cold shivering in a corner, covered in blood. After a frantic conversation, she is somehow still alive, after a week of being bitten. How is that a thing? The only place they can find more answers is with the Network, which they eventually made it to, slowly but surely at least, they made it to the Networks base. With the word getting passed that Julie is immune, she has a choice to make… to live , or give her body for the greater good and cure these diseases.
Children
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