Title: Plague
Author: D.C. Logan
Warnings: teaser
The paper landed on his desk on a Tuesday morning, and buried itself in the assorted letters and correspondence that covered the rest of his desk until the following Saturday afternoon, when he came in to systematically sort through the clutter and uncover all the important stuff he'd lost.
His was a government position—that was medical lingo for high profile, low pay, and first on the shit list whenever the pooch got screwed.
He read his lost letter with growing fear. His sphincter factor was operating overtime on this one, and he hoped his heart medication was at the right dosage. Apparently people were getting sick on L2, and instead of slowly getting better they were dying, and they were doing it in horrible ways and in large numbers. Screaming at his secretary to make the travel arrangements as he frantically shoved paperwork into his bag, he mentally prepared himself for the ordeal that lay ahead.
It couldn't be much worse. He'd arrived on the Sunday redeye shuttle, expecting to meet his contact at the shuttleport. But no one had arrived to take him to the hotel, and his call to the local Disease Control Center rang empty at the other line. Not a good sign at all. He'd called the local hospital who'd told him to call the police. Neither had been helpful. The only good news was, with everyone leaving the colony in a panic, a rental car wasn't hard to obtain.
He drove to the DCC. He'd been there once before as a young intern on colony rotation. Except that the walls were a different color, it hadn't changed much since then. Working weekends were the norm in his line of work, but the number of people at the center surprised him. Yet another bad sign. A man with a three-day growth of beard on his face and sweat patches under both arms walked past him with his head buried in a clipboard. Then stopped and spun around and walked back to face him. "My God, That IS you under that horrible excuse for a shirt isn't it?"
"It's nice to see you too Kip. It's been a while. So, enough with the niceties, just how screwed are we this time?"
"Coming out of both ends Mat. C'mon, I'll take you down myself and show you what we've got on this beastie so far..."
The head epidemiologists on the case sat in varying degrees of mental decay around the conference room table. Mat knew this was a governmental facility based solely on the coffee. It had definitely been provided by the lowest bidder and it probably doubled as cleaning solvent in the labs. He braced himself and downed another cup of the congealing stuff. At least it was real—he needed the caffeine hit right now. Why had he quit smoking again? Oh yeah, that's right, so Helene wouldn't leave him.
"So, what we've got so far looks like a nasty variant on a Type K virus, previously undocumented. We haven't a clue what the reservoir is or where it crossed over, but it's endemic in the poorer quarters, and the mortality rate is running about 80 percent in the compromised portion of the population. If you're too young, too old, malnourished, sick, or have a suppressed autoimmune system you're going to die from this if you get it. It's an arbovirus, airbourne, hemmoragic, and really nasty customer."
End Teaser
(:./dc/teaser4)
