Authors: Jasper Scott
Jilly frowned, realizing now just how useless the signed statement she'd extracted from the doctor was.
“Doctor Coragail, please stay with our patients while I check these samples for any anomalies.”
The younger doctor nodded while Handell left the room. He offered his patients a shaky smile. “May I offer you any refreshments while we wait? It could be a while.”
Jilly returned his smile. “Please.”
The doctor stood from his stool and strode eagerly from the room.
Ferrel turned to Jilly with a frown. “You know he went to call security.”
“And get us some refreshments.”
“Jilly
.
.
.
”
She raised her eyebrows, waiting for him to continue.
“We need to get out of here. That other doctor wants to put us in isolation, under 24-hour observation.”
“I know.”
“We need to get out. Now.”
“Not yet. We need their help.”
Ferrel shook his head. “Don't you get it? It's not about that anymore. We're not patients, we're prisoners. All they care about now is getting to the bottom of this mystery, they won't care how they do it.”
“Ferrel. How does a
hospital
hold a pair of super-strong, super-fast, mind-reading patients prisoner? They don't have the facilities for it. And before they can improvise a solution, we'll have the answers we need, either straight from their mouths, or from their unspoken thoughts.”
Ferrel frowned, and she could read in his thoughts that he wasn't happy about the situation, but she had convinced him. He would stay put.
For now.
* * *
As Doctor Handell gazed at the holographic magnification of Jilly's blood, he absently scratched at the carpet of silver stubble growing on his cheek. The computer had already recognized and labeled the usual elements: the bioconcave discs that were red blood cells, the smaller, disc-shaped platelets, and the large, irregularly shaped white blood cells
.
.
.
.
And something else that he couldn't quite identify. At first he thought something was wrong with the holographic microscope, and he had to check the computer's settings to make sure it wasn't some type of overlay. But all the settings on the computer were normal. The same could not be said for the blood sample. Floating through the blood plasma, amidst the red blood cells, platelets, and white blood cells, was an unfamiliar structure
—
perfectly spherical, with dozens of spindles radiating out from it in all directions. They were more numerous than the white blood cells by a factor of 10, and at least 5 times their size, making them the largest microbe in the blood sample. They were too large to be viral, or even bacerial. They seemed more like parasites, but unlike any he'd ever seen. Curiously, the white blood cells seemed to be leaving them alone, and according to the computer, the blood sample didn't have an unusually high concentration of white blood cells. Meaning that Jilly's immune system hadn't identified them as foreign bodies
—
they were somehow masquerading as a legitimate presence. But whatever the spherical spindle shapes were, not even the computer had recognized and labeled them, meaning that its catalog of a few billion different microbes had come up short. This was something new, never encountered before, and it illicited no immune response, meaning that if it were dangerous, it would be incredibly hard to fight.
Turning to the computer's input panel with a heavy frown, Doctor Handell began to run a series of diagnostics on the spindly spheres. Something wasn't right about them. For one thing, they were far too regular in shape. He wrote a command to check the composition of the spheres, and to compare them to each other, checking for any variability. The results came back a moment later and the doctor sat blinking at them in shock. As far as he knew, the technology hadn't yet been developed to do what was staring him in the face. The spindly spheres were completely inorganic, made up of various alloys, and emitting faint electromagnetic radiation.
They were machines. Tiny, microscopic machines. A nano virus.
Still not believing what the computer was telling him, he switched to a magnification of Ferrel's blood and ran the same diagnostics. He found the same strange spindly spheres, with the same composition, emitting the same type of radiation in Ferrel's blood, but they were even more numerous than they had been in Jilly's sample. Hadn't Jilly said his eyes had changed colors first? The machines were multiplying. It was definitely a nano virus. But why had it been created, and what would it do to the host?
Doctor Handell already had some idea of what it did: inhuman strength and speed, red eyes
.
.
.
and who knew what else. But in order to do any of that, the machines would have to make fundamental changes to the host's organic structure. They weren't benign: they were following a set of instructions, adhering to someone's agenda
—
but whose? The Union's? The Sentinels'? The imperator's?
The doctor shook his head and rubbed his tired eyes. Those questions could wait. First, he needed to take some more samples. He was particularly interested in performing a biopsy on their muscles and bones. If he was right, and he had to be right (human bones would have shattered before punching a hole in a castcrete wall), he would see dramatic structural changes on a cellular level. Feeling at once afraid and giddy with anticipation of what he'd find, the doctor pushed his chair back from the holographic microscope and left the lab. He would be back to analyze more samples soon.
When he reached examination room 166, where he had left his patients, he found a pair of armed guards outside the door and had to present his ID to get in. He shut the door behind him, and turned to regard his patients with a grim smile. Ferrel and Jilly were sitting on the examination table, sipping bottles of Fizzy Tricola. Doctor Coragail was seated in front of the L-shaped counter, but now he spun around on his stool with a half-eaten chocobar in his hand.
“I have some interesting news for you,” Doctor Handell said.
Jilly raised her eyebrows, but said nothing. Ferrel was noisily slurping the remains of his Tricola through a straw and gave no sign that he'd heard.
The doctor went on, “You're both infected with a nano virus.”
Ferrel abruptly stopped slurping. “What?” he asked.
“What?” doctor Coragail echoed. “That's not possible. Nano machines haven't been approved for human use. There are too many problems with them. For a start, they begin to break down in the bloodstream, and eventually form life-threatening bloodclots.”
Doctor Handell met his gaze evenly. “Not these ones. These ones are self-replicating, and likely self-repairing, too. I doubt they'd ever break down under normal circumstances. Moreover
—
” He turned to face Jilly, who was staring wide-eyed at him. “And this is just a theory at present
—
I think they are making lasting changes to your physiology.” He pointed to her eyes.
“
Lasting
changes?” Ferrel asked, a faint tremor in his voice. “You can reverse them, right?”
The doctor shook his head. “I don't know yet. I need to take tissue samples for analysis to see what the nano virus has done before I can tell how we might fix it.”
Just then the door opened, and a short, chubby woman with dark brown hair stepped in, wearing a dark blue suit. Doctor Handell began turning to face the woman, his brow furrowing as he did so. He'd assumed that the guards had been posted to keep unauthorized personnel out of the examination room, and at this point that meant just about anyone
.
.
.
.
Handell's furrowed brow lifted in surprise as he recognized who was standing in the doorway. “Madam director, what brings you to the ER?”
Fesha Lesteran turned to him with a broad grin stretched across her chubby features. “I hope I'm not too late
.
.
.
.
” she said, trailing off as her eyes drifted to the hole in the wall.
Chapter 29
“T
oo late for what?” Ferrel asked, trying to read her thoughts as she studied the hole in the wall. Her mind seemed curiously blank to him. He couldn't read so much as a stray impression, let alone a complete thought. Her mind was as unreadable as Lystra Deswin's had been. He decided to try something else. If he couldn't read her thoughts, maybe he could send some. Maybe telepathy only worked one way with some people. He tried:
Who are you?
Her gaze slowly turned from the hole in the wall to meet his eyes, and for a long, uncomfortable moment she said nothing, but merely gazed unblinkingly at him, as if to say:
I heard that.
Eventually she looked away, and nodded to Dr. Coragail.
The short woman closed the door behind her with a
click
. “To see what has Doctor Coragail so terrified that he would request an armed guard to be posted outside this room.”
The doctor in question turned to her with a blank look.
“I hope your patients haven't punched any more holes in walls,” she said.
Coragail's brow lifted suddenly. “How did you
.
.
.
” he trailed off; his lips were still moving, but no sound was coming out.
Fesha Lesteran shook her head. “Nevermind, the question was rhetorical. Gentlemen, this is a matter for the utmost discretion.” Turning to Jilly and Ferrel, she said, “Please excuse us for a moment.” She opened the door and gestured to the hallway beyond. “Doctors? If you please.”
The doctors exchanged glances with each other; Handell's glance was accusing, and Coragail's was confused. Fesha cleared her throat and gestured again to the hallway. “It will only take a moment.”
They stepped quietly into the hall and waited for the director to join them and explain herself. Join them she did, but explanations were not on her mind.
“Is there somewhere we can talk privately?” she asked.
Dr. Handell nodded and led the way to a boxy office a few doors down, on the opposite side of the gleaming, white corridor. She shut the door behind them and locked it. Then she turned to the two doctors with a broad grin painted across her chubby face.
“What's going on
.
.
.
?” Doctor Handell trailed off when he saw the director place a finger to her lips. He began searching the room for a security camera, or some other listening device which would explain why she was calling for silence. Meanwhile, the director started toward him, still grinning from ear to ear. She stopped in front of him and held out her hand.
The senior doctor frowned at her hand and said, “I know who you are, and you know who I am, so let's skip the formalities.”
“But we have not been
properly
introduced. My name is Fesha Lesteran, and you are
.
.
.
?”
Doctor Handell's brow furrowed deeply along the permanent wrinkle lines etched into his high forehead.
Fesha
Lesteran? Not Madam Director Lesteran? Were they on a first name basis now? Despite his confusion, Handell accepted the handshake and said, “Talin Handell.”
The director nodded smilingly, and after an uncomfortably long handshake that left his hand cold and tingling, she released his hand and repeated the gesture with Doctor Coragail. Handell shook his hand vigorously, trying to get the feeling back, and when that failed, he began massaging it instead.
By the time Coragail had stopped shaking hands with the director, his hand was tingling, too.
The director turned to the elder doctor quickly. He was staring distractedly at his hand. “Doctor,” she said, her tone commanding his attention. His head came up, and his gaze met hers, but his eyes looked glassy and unfocused. She knew she didn't have much time. “Your patients are incredibly dangerous. The regent himself has requested that we isolate them as much as possible until they can be taken to a proper containment center.”
“Are they contagious?”
“Yes. You will both need to be tested for signs of the virus, but first: how would you recommend we isolate the patients for transport to the containment center?”
“Well
.
.
.
we could
—
” Doctor Handell sank to his knees, and he looked baffled. His head lolled to his chest, and he began groaning softly, as if trying to say something.