Chapter Text
Katon-Ur only hears that the Sylipsids are in the area after almost his entire team has been exposed to them. The Sylipsids are not a warlike species, and almost certainly mean no harm, but they almost all carry what is called 'burning sickness' in the Old Urgotian. Without the proper inoculation, most mammalian life is susceptible to the disease, and of course the brave, fragile humans of this world are no exception.
Mandy, as he must remind himself to know her, wakes him with a frantic telephone call, seeking his knowledge on extraterrestrial matters. The moment Katon-Ur hears the species name, he knows what has happened, and explains as much to her. Fortunately, he has reason to believe that the traditional Urgotian remedy will work on humans, and gives her the information to find its chemical composition in SDN database, among the Urgotian information he had provided upon his arrival.
Even with that knowledge, Katon-Ur will definitely be able to synthesize it more quickly than a human laboratory, even a good one, like that of SDN. Of course, finding the acceptable ingredients on Earth will be difficult. Mandy tells him to do whatever he needs to, as fast as possible. "I'm most worried about Robert," she says, and Katon-Ur goes cold all over. Not Robert! He's so vulnerable without powers, and so very small...
"Keep him cool," Katon-Ur says.
"Medical is keeping everyone stable," she says, "we're just afraid they'll get too exhausted before we can figure out how to actually fix it." The frustration in her voice makes him want to make love to her, even if they are no longer romantic partners.
"I will prepare as quickly as possible," he says, and then disconnects from the call and pulls his uniform on, mind racing to possible substitutions. Fortunately, he still has some real Urgotian bitterroot, the plant with the same name on Earth won't do at all.
He regrets having to wake some of the botanists, market stall owners, and park rangers he consults in various time zones, but there is no time to waste. Every time he is sure of a plant, insect, fungus, or polymer, Katon-Ur shoves it into his mouth. Many of them do not taste pleasant, but none of that matters. He can feel it as the chemical balance gets closer and closer to correct. At long last, he can eat the bitterroot, cringing at the taste, and shivering at the strange feeling it sends through his whole body.
* * *
Chad doesn't want to admit that he's worried about Bitchbert over there, but he is. All of them feel like fried shit, nobody can even keep water down and Chad has never been so thirsty in his fucking life, but Robert is actually like, out of it. Apparently everyone is running a fever except for him, because a fever is nothing to the fire and the flame, but Robert's glassy eyes and disjointed answers to questions are really starting to freak them all out.
"Hey," Alice croaks, snapping her fingers in front of Robert's eyes. At least he blinks, fuck. "You know where you are right now?"
"...Dakota?" Robert mumbles, a shock of hair sticking straight up from the top of his head and making him look exactly like the giant, messy dork he is, and it would be funny if his brain wasn't cooking in his skull like a coddled egg.
"Goddammit, Bob-Bob, if you die from an alien handshake and Visi's lack of boundaries, I will dig your ass up and kill you again," Chad snaps.
Visi is too busy throwing up to say anything, but she glares at him over her vomit bag. It really is all her fault Robert is infected, and she knows it. Sneaking up to his cubicle on her break to mess with him, like an asshole. Thank fuck that this shit is transmitted by physical contact, so she didn't give it to the whole floor. And that Beef was with Chase at the time, because apparently dogs can get this shit, too, and Chad does not need his heart broken at eleven a.m. on a Monday.
"You're all pretty and mean," Robert tells him, with accusing, glassy-eyed sincerity, "you'll only break my heart."
Alice giggles, even though her eyes are still worried. "If everybody lives and he doesn't have any brain damage, this is gonna be funny as shit. Wish my phone wasn't in quarantine." At this point, everyone's everything is in quarantine. The medics are pretty sure it can't give anyone anything, but 'pretty sure' is not 'completely certain.'
Waterboy pukes again, and sniffles. "I really--very much, want to, to get to that part."
Chad groans, because he feels the same unbearable nausea, and he might not really be able to get a fever, but he fucking hurts, all over. Like, from the beds of his toenails to the roots of his hair. The roots of his teeth, shit. Ugh. "There is like, a plan, right?" he asks, hating how raspy his voice sounds.
"Oh, right," Alice says, "you were puking really hard when Ms. Blazer told us." She dry heaves, makes a miserable little noise, and then continues. "She says Phenomaman is making some kinda alien medicine that should work just fine on humans."
"Should work? Fuck."
* * *
It feels like an eternity before Katon-Ur is finally ready to return to the Torrance SDN office, but it can't be more than an hour and a half. Still, that can make all the difference to a creature as small and fragile as a nonpowered human. Like Robert. All three of Katon-Ur's hearts feel tight with anxiety as he bursts into the medical wing.
The physicians warned him about the quarantine, but he has already explained that he was immunized against burning sickness as a child, and is carrying the Z-Team's treatment. "Robert Robertson is not yet permanently damaged, is he?" Katon-Ur begs. "I am not too late?"
"Not yet," an apparently-female (Katon-Ur is sometimes wrong) doctor says, putting her tiny hand on his arm in a gesture of kindness, despite her flat, almost harsh voice. "It's been hard going to keep his brain from frying like an egg, but he'll be all right if we break the fever within the next six to eight hours, I'd say."
"Thank you, Dr. Aischmann," Katon-Ur says, reading it from her name-tag, and follows her down a corridor and into an anteroom.
It's almost... homelike, really, because it essentially functions as an airlock. The doctor puts a protective gown over her clothing, and dons gloves and a mask as well. She looks expectantly at Katon-Ur, and he pauses, unsure. He is going to need to remove a great deal of his clothing, which humans will accept when necessary for medical treatment, but will surely prefer that he delay that for as long as possible, but should he waste even a moment on clothes at a time like this? Well.
The doctor has said that Robert is stable, so Katon-Ur only removes his cape, but does not don the protective gear. He can see Dr. Aischmann's eyes on him, and he suddenly realizes that she must be looking for some kind of container, that humans must not make home remedies in the Urgotian way.
Inside the isolation room, there are eight sickbeds, and the whole place reeks of human illness and misery, so badly that it makes him want to cry for his poor, precious team. They all try so hard, and they are so fragile!
"Yo!" Dr. Aischmann calls, more softly than Katon-Ur would have thought she was capable of, "How are we holding up?"
"Not so sure that Bob-Bob is oriented to place and time and the other things, doc," Flambae says, and oh no, his voice sounds terrible!
"Well, lemme check that," Dr. Aischmann says, and Katon-Ur follows her over to Robert's bedside.