When the plague came, we lost most of our doctors before we realized that the plague had a dark sense of humor. No, really! Wear a bio-hazard suit and it went after you twice as hard, three times as hard, calling in all the neighbor pathogens until it got you. The scent of alcohol sanitizers brought it running (the only way they figured that one out was by seeing that winos were dying in the same percentiles as people who were obsessive about washing their hands). In the end, we just...lived with death. We lost other people who refused to see the doctor for simple things like appendicitis, for fear of catching the plague. They may have been half-right, but it isn't a good way to go, either. Our doctors began to camouflage themselves a little more. Home visits were very popular. Boiling water and harsh soap replaced antibacterial foam. Midwives were absolutely, definitely the safest option, even though they still meant that many more women died in childbirth. The plague complications rate in the hospital was higher. So you can see that we were still holding a grudge when we found out that the plague had been engineered that way, as a "survival of the fittest" improvement.


Inspiration: Still photo of a person in a biohazard suit from Season 1, Episode 1 of "Helix."
Story potential: High.
Notes: I didn't think this was all that interesting until I realized it would have to be written from the PoV of a young doctor who has been working in this environment for most of his/her life. Then it became more interesting.

Bringing out the dead was a weary task, but the gene-scanners had done a quick read of her and told her that she was one of the few blessed by an unquestioned immunity and incapable of carrying the disease back to home. The newly enacted law for the plague specified that she could not be kicked out of her university or fired from her job for performing this valuable public service, and so she had gone from being a devoted music student and a much-less-than-devoted bookkeeper for a small restaurant to being one who walked down the narrow streets, where cars zipped by overhead, playing the message requesting people to bring out their dead. It was projected loud enough that the people in the cars could hear it--

Inspiration: "Messiah Ward" - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Story Potential: High.
Notes: I find the genetic ability to catch or not catch a disease interesting, and this is a good setting that could go some interesting places. Why do certain people have this gene? Artificial intervention? Nature? What will this do to their society? What place will the heroine find?