lather fin

Shelbs looks ecstatic but she doesn't speak to me.  She just looks at me and I see Cass in a chair with the lather bar imprints on her. She's not scared and I get the sunblock out of my tote bag. I tell Shelbs to put this moisturizer on the affected area ever three times during the day. This isn't the Shelby I know though, this is someone else. Someone i can't even explain. She's quiet. It's odd, and I wonder why. I ask her a question and she just nods her head gently. No words, nothing. I leave both of them and decide to continue to find survivors who aren't lathes. My idea is to stay close to the side streets. Avoiding any traffic that is oncoming. The side streets are beautiful and i remember the life I had in the farm town growing up. Such peace and tranquillity. I could stay here for hours, but the final deadline is at 10 tonight. That gives me three hours to finish what I started, and that is to save the human race, or at least New York if I can. Then the idea is decided by a purely conscious thought. But, it won't work...it's too intense. There are too many affected and I can't save them all, so I wander the streets looking for the lathers, or peelers is the new name I created for these entities. It hasn't gone national yet, since most of the marketing division decided to test a large scale are first and then go from there. Europe and Asia are the next areas, but after I am done this story I can live my normal life again. There are no reporters with cameras, they have all been paid off substantially. No one in the streets yet, but once the lather kicks in and the drug in it begins to accumulate, lathes would be everywhere. I'm afraid to even get to that point where you don't know who your working for anymore. Am I freelance now? Is there more behind the lathes? I need a scientist, a sociologist, a botanist and someone who has accessed to weapons on at an easy access. I go to the nearest university and figure that if I need these sources, it would be the best place to start searching. The campus is too far to walk to and I find a motorcycle crashed upright into a Tiffany jewellery store just a mile away. The key is still in the ignition and I am lucky it is. So i get on the motorcycle and the engine turns. I'm off to the university.

The campus seems untouched by the lather. They must have decoded my message from my last report. The columns had the answer, a word search answer for alarm. The code was there. I found the scientist, the botanist and the sociologist but most students were anti-NRA. I didn't even know if these lathes had any soul left in them, but they wouldn't attack me, so I figured I didn't need the guns anyways.

We took a private room in the school dorm and I briefed everyone on the situation. The scientist and botanist worked together and then finally I could talk to a sociologist. I had my own issues from what was happening to my family and I figured a man like this could be of assistance. Chad knew a bit about Freud and studies, but he truly loved talking about statistics, so i went with it. I told him the number of products sold and how on average would have actually succumbed to the latheing process.

“It grows from the cells that reproduce, usually the X or Y chromosome, but it's mutated into something irregular, bringing a knew gene I don't, or can't even have a word for it.”

He was right, we're screwed. The Botanist appeared with vials and vials of plantlife, saying that this is the ignition for the anti lather. The Scientist appears too with a faster acitng vial of similar plantlife, but it works faster. This all seems too surreal for me, but I let the knowledge surpass my criticism.

I leave the university with vials of this new antidote and I feel pretty well off having these antidotes with me. I stop in front of the hotel, er, lab that was housing my daughter and wife. Shelbs is comatose on the couch, too much alcohol and cocaine. And then my daughter is there, twitching, I'm afraid. So, I take a vial and she drinks it and it takes about 30 minutes to react. I sit in the room and just stare, stare at the walls, the ceiling, the floor. I just be. I fall asleep on the floor and when I wake up Cass is cured. No more blotches or dry skin.

I'm on the street and handing out vials of those nearby. Those who are at stage 2-3, they have the better chance of surviving the epidemic with the vials. There's people crawling on the floor, trying to prop themselves up on anything that can be used as a stool or table. LabTech has already reached level 5 for these lathes. Nothing could really save them now. Something that could help them rid the pain themselves would be okay. But we're not ready for that.

I hand out about 20 antidote and by splicing the mitochondria it will save upwards of 90-100 lives. All I can afford today until the rest of the antidote is made. The Scientist and Botanist are working very delicately on the work. And sociologist is admiring the numbers and where the most population occurs via distribution of the lather console. The team works perfectly.

Everything is working as planned and the survivors are healing quickly. Everything the epidemic is now over. There is no need for antidote, so we just let the university discover the periodic tables for what the lather is made from etc.

There hasn't been an outbreak in over a year for lather and we are grateful for that. The only problem is, that some of the early manufacturers have lather in their warehouses somewhere.

Me and my family are together and we are in a fancy restaurant downtown and I leave to go to the washroom. I do my thing and press the soap out and wash my hands. I look over at the soap dispenser and I almost faint. Labtech Lavender lather, from before the outbreak, and now I'm the only one infected. I am now a lathe. I am now a product of consumerism and the helms of the big threes grasp. My fingers fall off.

END