From debowd01@mchip00.med.nyu.eduTue Jan 9 20:14:04 1996 Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 18:10:32 -0500 From: daniel debowy Reply to: b5-speculation@blob.best.net To: b5-speculation@blob.best.net Subject: it was all susan's dream Ivanova wakes up in a padded room ... doctors in white coats and psi-corps badges take notes and shake their heads. "Delusional. Just like her mother. If only we hadn't allowed Sophie to leave the institution ..." "We thought she was cured. How were we to know that she would attempt to kill President Kosh?" "Or even worse, that her psychosis was a gain of function serotonin receptor ... whoever let that slip down in genotyping was a fool. Fully expressive, fully dominant, fully penetrant ... and latent ..." "What I find amazing, gentlemen, is that Susan has exactly the same construct as her mother ... this idea of the Shadow-Vorlon Duality ... an entirely alien race, forever using lesser races as pawns for incomprehensible reasons ... where does a low level computer repairwoman get such ideas???" "Don't forget that she also mixed Greys, Streibs, Centauri, and Pak'Mara into her delusion as well ... these have all been 'seen' and intimately described by the mentally ill for decades, even years before the Streiber case first gave the NIMH authority to set up a Psy-Corps." "Yeah, at least she or her mother didn't set a bomb in the Capitol during the State of the Union ... Streiber, Carter, Wong and the Roswell 9 managed to blow out half the government ..." "Well, President Gingrich DID look like an alien ... and Streiber ended up helping the scientific community a great deal ... the NIH had its funding doubled, NIMH set up the Corps ... without these Psy-Cases to study, we'd only know half as much about the human mind as we do now. And so many have been helped by having their imbalances repaired ... we just didn't give Sophie enough drugs ..." At the mention of drugs, Ivanova starts raving again. The doctors shake their heads again. "We'll be able to help her soon. It looks as if we have our hardest psychosis yet, doctors. Chalk her down for retyping. Open up a P13 folder and start assigning people from psy-analysis to take her story down ... and DON'T let her see your badges this time!!!! I don't want anybody else sent down to the infirmary this week." "So, Doctor Alexander, what do we have next on the roster?" "Let's see, Bester has a patient down the hall with a drinking problem who broke out of one of our facilities, claiming he was on Mars ... then there's Talia Winters, the one who thinks she's a doctor here ... then there's the one who keeps prescribing drugs for us, Franklin ... or the p12 who thinks SHE's an alien who has taken human form." "We should introduce her to President Kosh, since they seem to have so much in common." "She claims to talk to him frequently, actually." "Hmmm ... perhaps we should have Susan talk to this patient later on this week, when we've got her on some more drug therapy. What's her name?" "Well, her 'earther name' is Helen Sheridan, but she prefers to call herself Delenn." "Interesting ... interesting ... didn't we have a Sheridan here once?" "No, I think that was Sinclair ... someone call genotyping and check that ..." The doctors walk down the hall, continuing to discuss the Sinclair case. "You ever think that one of these psys might help us meet real aliens, Dr. Alexander?" "Dr. Gray, any intelligent race would certainly stay away from humanity until we clean up house ... they aren't going to specifically contact the deranged ... wherever they are, it's the direct polar opposite of this five-mile long madhouse. For now, we're all alone." "Or if you believe Susan, all alone in the night." "God, the things that live inside these people's heads. It's frightening." Suddenly, we see things from Susan's POV. Several Shadow creatures, led by a glowing butterfly, walk down the hall where the Psy-Corps doctors were a second ago. She screams, and curls up in a ball. The back of her hand has a pentagonal medicine patch which she starts talking into as if it were a com-link. As the scene fades to black, we see that her hospital gown has a psy-corp emblem (the same as psi-corps) with her name under it, as well as the name of the hospital ... Babylon Facility, Ward 5. Hope you like this ending ... I needed a study break. Daniel J. Debowy, B.S. NYU School of Medicine, MD/PhD 2002(?) "The wonder of life is surpassed only by the wonderful people who live in it"