fandomtownies | Pick Your Poison, Thursday

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Pick Your Poison, Thursday

Adrian was refamiliarizing himself with the remaining stock in the store. Pam had clearly been going over everything with a fine-toothed comb and tossing out whatever didn't meet her standards for environmental-friendliness. He could only approve, continuing her work - though rather than tossing anything, he was making two separate piles for her to check over whenever she next came in: the ones he thought should be trashed, and the stuff he thought was worthy to be kept. Still, seemed only right that the final decision be hers.

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"I've decided to stay for a while," Pam commented, glancing at the piles as she took her last step down the stairs. "But it looks like you've caught on to that."

"I figured that it wasn't a terrible practice even if you weren't," Adrian admitted. "There's a lot here that's questionable. And, hey, more room for my family's stock, so win/win for me here."

"Capitalism," Pam said. The contempt was mostly gruff, old, and resigned. "I'm thinking about planting a sweetbay magnolia tree in the garden. Something we can use that's native and kind to the soil."

Should she talk to him about the fungal creatures? It probably wouldn't hurt. They hadn't come all the way onto the island so far, but if she wanted to avoid people getting hurt...

"Capitalism," Adrian agreed with a sigh. "Which isn't actually the worst evil in my world, but definitely takes the number two spot."

And yes, please, Pam. He would really like to know about potential dangers before they came to eat him.

"I'd put it at the top. It's poisoning our planet," Pam said. She strolled up to the little piles, her eyes trailing over the products.

"So. If I am going to stay, there is something we should talk about."

Well. Because she was going to stay, and because he seemed capable.

"And the number one poison in my my world comes from a different source," Adrian said. "Which is why I'm marking it number two for mine. But what's up? Is there a problem with the quality of goods I'm delivering?"

There was a squirrel sitting at the door. Pam waved her hand at it, and it quickly fled.

"How much do you know about fungi?"

Well, this didn't seem to be about his products.

"A complicated question," he replied, eyes tracking over the visible growths on her, "considering how little we know about fungi in general. I'm assuming we're talking mushrooms, rather than yeasts or molds? If you're asking me how much I know about specific varieties of mushrooms, I'm very well-educated about mushrooms of North America, particularly in the Northeast, and Europe, less so beyond those borders. If you're asking me how much do I know about how mushrooms grow and operate, then...still a great deal, and, more importantly, I know that what I think I know can be turned on its head tomorrow with a single new discovery." He laughed softly. "And then we get to try to determine whether this new discovery changes our whole paradigm, or if it's unique to that new species - for a Kingdom that is easily 70 percent unique outliers by volume probably.

"So 'more than average'," Pam summarized. "Good."

She reached behind her ear to pluck a fruit off a growing filament. "This is ophiocordyceps lamia," she said. Holding it up, but not for him to take. (That would be dangerous.) "It was created in a lab by a man called Jason Woodrue. Woodrue is... was... obsessed with hybridizing flora and fauna, when I was his student."

She slid the mushroom into her pocket. "He's since shifted his attention to fungi, obviously."

Yeah, and Adrian had already put his hands behind his back when she held it out. One didn't go blindly grabbing at mushrooms, and, while he didn't have particular experience in this area, he figured that went extra for mushrooms literally growing off of people.

And then congratulated himself on not being too stupid to live as soon as he heard ophiocordyceps. Instead he gave Pam an ironic look. "He couldn't have chosen a safer avenue of exploration?" he asked. "Like kicking tigers in the face while wearing a raw meat suit? Where does the lamia come in? The other half of the hybrid? Or the lamia of legend?"

"It was meant to be a surveillance tool," Pam said dryly. "I think that's where it comes from."

And now she had it knocking around her body. But at least Woodrue was dead.

Yeah, Adrian had no idea the connection there, but that was an academic question at best.

"Okay," he said, "So what does it do? And are you okay?"

Look, he barely knew Pam in the slightest, but you didn't go from 'hybrid ophiocordyceps growing in a lab' to 'hybrid ophiocordyceps growing in you' without some shit going down, and the odds that shit wasn't traumatizing were...low.

Not nonexistent! But low.

Mythical. Pam's original guess had been the hybridization aspect, but since she'd found out what the lamia was for-- well, she'd looked deeper into the legend.

It wasn't important, anyway.

"I'm fine," she said briskly (not entirely true, but true enough for the moment). "I was already something else before the lamia entered my system, so I can hold it at bay." (I was one of Woodrue's original experiments.) "It infects people. It begins to grow. Eventually it takes over their nervous system, and injects a potent mix of hallucinogenics into their minds. It's a fairly painless way to go."

But it was still a way to go.

"But I recently discovered that one of Woodrue's acolytes has been experimenting with lamia spores," she said. "And unleashing the result into the environment."

Right. The taking out of the eyes bit. Look, the lamia were extinct and it was hard to remember the myths compared to what he'd been raised knowing and--never mind. Not important.

Very not important, considering.

"Merciful Forest," he said, staring at Pam in horror, "that's...that's...can it propagate in the body?" he asked. "It must. The spread."

Wow did he miss the Adrian of ten minutes ago.

"How much did he release?" Even if he didn't drop it into a population zone, odds were good that the spores would just go dormant until a suitable host...was it simply humans, or was it all mammals, or was it warm-blooded, or...? Could creatures be carriers even if they couldn't, themselves, be infected?

Pam would just elide past the part where when she'd started, spreading it had been the point. "On the one hand, I discovered it doesn't spread as fast as you would expect. Her spores hadn't travelled far past the original source. So I destroyed her facilities and hoped for the best."

And left her eternally imprisoned in a plant, but again, we were just going to skip past some of the unimportant details here.

"On the other, whatever she did to the lamia changed it. Infected humans became... feral. Creatures of fungus and instinct. I thought I got them all, but I was attacked by something resembling one just outside the island last week." She studied Adrian. "It could have been an incident," she said. "Or they could be following me. Which is why I'm staying put, for the moment."

"...Your plan is to act as a lightning rod to bring feral mushroom infectees here?" Adrian asked, accepting the correction with a brief nod. "To the island?"

You know, where people were?

"If they tracked me to the island, they're already here," Pam said mildly. "I'm preventing them from following me elsewhere, with more civilians, and fewer people able to defend themselves."

Adrian was tempted to point out that she could always go somewhere less populated as well, but for all he knew, that could be signing her death warrant.

"Well then," he said, letting out an explosive sigh. "Boy am I going to have a lot to tell my forest when I get home. My mycorrhizal networks are nowhere as thick or widespread as some of my sisters', but they're enough to serve as information carriers - though the spread no further than the boundaries of my grove. What's next?"

She could. And in the process, she'd drag the fungus creatures straight through more populated areas, increasing the risk that they'd spread. Ideally, she'd have stayed put in the first place, but she was dealing with the situation she had, not the one she hoped for.

"I figure out how many of these there still are," Pam said, "And come up with a way to get rid of them once and for all."

She picked up a bath bomb from the discard pile. "So far, they don't seem to want to cross the causeway, which helps," she said. "With any luck, they're not branching out from the empty fields nearby. I also managed to take a sample--" --or tore one to pieces, po-tay-to po-tah-to-- "--so I'm trying to get the lab upstairs up and running. If I know more about the chemical composition of this particular flavor of lamia, that might help."

Mmm, their reluctance to cross the Causeway did put a damper on plan 'use it to go somewhere else not through Baltimore'.

"If there's a way to safely take a sample, I'd like one," Adrian said. "I might be able to discover something with magic, but even if I can't, it will be useful to let my grove know exactly what they need to be on their guard for."

He inhaled, then let it slowly out. "What do you need?"

"I can get you an isolated sample, that's not a problem," Pam promised.

What? She had chunks of sample in garbage bags upstairs.

She put down the bath bomb and looked at him. "Look, I appreciate this is, for the most part, not your problem," she said. "Anything you can do to help me figure out a way to destroy not just these creatures, but this particular strain of lamia is helpful. But I've told you this out of personal courtesy. I'd prefer it if you didn't get hurt because of my presence here."

It was part her currently somewhat positive disposition towards humanity as a whole, and part her permanent sympathy towards people who actually seemed to care.

Adrian shook his head. "I appreciate the professional courtesy," he said. "And I understand you not wanting to have to worry about someone else's safety while you handle this problem. But what you're talking about is a danger to everything I've sworn oaths to protect and nurture. I will be happy to figure out whatever I can from what you give me, but I would be a sorry excuse for a witch if I sat this out because it was dangerous."

He wished his hat were closer so he could put it firmly on to underscore his statement, but it was all the way over there and having to go and get it didn't really work with the moment. Ah well.

"I do promise, however, to not be a reckless fool about things," he added. Not unlike a liar.

But that's why he had Boston. His cat would keep him in check. Mostly.

Was there actual amusement in the way she looked at him? Perhaps.

"I make no such promises," Pam said dryly. (She did know herself.) "But thank you. I'll bring you the sample by the end of the day."

After she disposed of everything in this pile.

Adrian had spent far too much of his life with women being amused at him to be overly fussed.

"Oh - that pile," he said instead, since it seemed their heavy conversation had come to an end. "Did you have plans for it? I'm assuming you're going to throw it all away, but there was one woman who was interested in taking it home instead? I said that was entirely a you decision."

Pam's attention yanked away from the pile. "Absolutely not," she said. "Some of these are full of microplastics. I'm going to destroy them, so they can't do any harm to the environment."

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