Chaiya's Characters Part 1

Dr. Clair Bailly

Dr. Bailly was born into a typical middle class New England family. She was taught to work hard and be charitable. The first of these landed her at John Hopkins medical school graduating with honors. When she worked at Yale New Haven, she made a mistake that allowed a depressed man to kill himself. She was quietly let go from Yale. She found advancement of her career impossible so settled for money. She ended up on a yaht in the pacific when the plague hit as a personal doctor to a wealthy young drug addict. She made her way to Australia and helped with evaluating perspective colonists She also screened Odessa St. James and saw what a beautiful creative genius was housed in the mind of a schizophrenic 16 year old. She fudged paper work so it looked like she was simply depressed and started treating her.

Clair has a pale complexion with dark hair kept in a severe style. She has blue eyes. She is quite cold and rigid most of the time. However she is a very good psychiatrist and the black cloud she is under is undeserved.

Odessa St. James
Odessa comes from a very wealthy Australian family who used their wealth to provide a loving warm home with all the opportunities money could buy. For years they tried to deal with Odessa's increasingly bizarre and violent behavior. The last straw was attacking a wall with a very large kitchen knife. They sent their sixteen year old to a "therapeutic school" which made some gains with her. However with the plague Odessa stopped receiving the treatments she needed and so was obviously schizophrenic when Dr. Bailly examined her. Dr. Bailly also discovered that Odessa had a brilliant mind. She had near perfect recall and was able to quickly understand and synthesize new learning. Aided by Dr. Bailly, she hid away in the less used parts of the ship until they were well underway. She spent most of the trip out of the sleep pods learning mathematics, genetics, botany and zoology. Now with a monthly dose of drugs in a upper arm implant, she is able to function alright though is odd.

She is approximately 25 years old. Her brown hair is most often self cut poorly. She isn't unhygienic but doesn't worry about her appearance at all. However her most striking feature is her brilliant blue eyes. She is still moody and talks in very short sentences. She believes that she is Gaia's chosen one but doesn't really act upon the delusion other than minor comments here and there.

Dr Richard (Rich) Tyne
As a boy Rich was quiet and easily overlooked. So it surprised everyone when he got a full scholarship to Oxford University and again when he got into the med school there. He discovered that Pathologists/ medical examiners were the real unsung heroes working quietly and unobtrusively answer the question that loved ones so needed to know: why. After his residency, he moved to the Yukon taking over from the retiring medical examiner. Due to the remote nature of the Yukon, there was many a time he was called upon to perform a necropsy (animal autopsy). So he is knowledgable about not only human anatomy and pathology but also that of mammals and birds. The remote nature and climate of the Yukon slowed the plague down even so Dr. Rich was very lucky as the local medical examiner not to have contracted the disease. It was only with great reluctance that he left his community and headed for Australia. He was quickly tasked with testing biological samples for the plague or other dangerous diseases. The pressure to make absolutely sure that no one got on the ship that had or was carrying the plague in combination with the stress of being around so many people after so many years of living in a very small community led him to seek help from Dr. Bailly. She has proscribed mild sedatives and anti-anxiety medication - like so many others working on the vetting process.

Rich is humble, quiet, and friendly. He is in his sixties and has been lucky so far to have kept all his hair even if it is snow white at this point. His face is leathery and deeply lined. His eyes are a plain non-descript brown. He dresses as far from what is expected of a doctor as night is from day. He usually wears jeans, a flannel shirt or a golf one in the summer and of course a decent pair of cowboy boots (the kind one does work in not the kind city folk wear to the bar).

Mika Aihara
Mika grew up in Japan with a tradition oriented family. She started working to get into college almost before she was potty trained. And because she didn't want to bring shame on her family especially her mother she worked very hard and never complained. In fact she always tried to be cheerful and positive. Dwelling on sad things or being upset at how things is getting stuck in quicksand. After many years of hard work, Mika got into Tokyo University but had no idea what she wanted to study - she had never prepared for what she was going to do once she got accepted. She finally decided to study sociology and anthropology. She had just graduated (with honors - can't shame mom) when the plague hit. She is now working with a team (?) of people trying to avoid and defuse conflicts within the survivors. She has spent time making sure those people who are involved in the hard decision of who must be left behind have the support they need which has brought her in contact with Dr Rich and Dr. Bailly. She also has seen Odessa lurking in the shadows muttering.

Mika looks quite young and on the short side. She wears pigtails and miniskirts and gives off this innocent child vibe which makes her work usually easier (some people just can't take her seriously). She has retained her happy nature and thinks that focusing on the loss earth has sustained is counter-productive to the survival of humanity - though she would never say it that melodramatically.