✅ Project SETI Trilogy

Chapter One - Part VIII: Close Call

          "Gabe...?"

          The still-sleeping doctor inhaled sharply through his nose at the sound of Nova's voice. He seemed to wake up for a second, but then he relaxed again.

          "Hey," Nova urged again. "Gabe."

          "Mmm..." Gabriel groaned and woke up a little more. He took an earplug out and squinted through one eye at the edge of the closed curtain across the room to gauge the time. It was still dark – the first blue traces of morning had just begun to show in the sky, which lent just enough light for him to see Nova's silhouette. He sat on the other side of the bed, and Gabriel noticed that he seemed a little tense and anxious, just from the way he was holding himself. "Hey, baby."

          "I'm sorry, I know it's early—" he cringed and wrapped his arms tightly around his torso, as if he was trying to stop something from falling out of him—but he was simply bracing for the unbridled hacking that followed.

          Gabriel shot upright, immediately alert and awake. He urgently set his plugs down and touched the lamp near the bedside, so the previously-dark room had some light. "Hey, hey. Don't be sorry."

          "I don't feel right," Nova said after he'd recovered.

          "In what way?" Gabriel shifted to sit up and gently picked up Nova's wrist so he could palpate his radial pulse. He rubbed gently to-and-fro on his back as he counted the beats, and could feel right away that his pulse was quite elevated.

          "I keep coughing like that," he explained. He sounded increasingly breathless and tripped over his words somewhat as a result. "And there's random sharp pains, like... everywhere, if I breathe too deep..."

          Gabriel frowned when he gestured to his general torso area. From a thirty second measurement, he estimated that his pulse was around one-hundred twenty beats per minute, and, in combination with what he'd just witnessed and heard in Nova's own words, he was quite concerned.

          "Would you let me take a closer look?"

          Nova went to agree, but he gasped and started to cough instead. He offered a quick nod instead and held himself through the fit. It seemed to help the pain, if only a little bit.

          Gabriel hastily dressed himself in a fresh set of scrubs and began to lead him downstairs. And even though the second basement really wasn't that far away, Nova found himself winded by the time they got there. He promptly sat down on the table central to the room and let Gabriel assist with removing the random shirt he'd found lying around his bedroom.

          "How 'bout I do an anterior exam, so you can have a bit of a lie-down for a sec," Gabriel said as he tapped the surface of the table. "You seem tired."

          "Yeah... going down the stairs took a lot out of me, I guess." Nova offered his hand when Gabriel returned with a pulse ox, and he placed it on his index finger. It was an older one, with a tiny screen on it that displayed pulse rate and oxygen saturation.

          "When did this start?" Gabriel tapped the screen and was careful not to sound accusatory. He held his wrist and made sure the pulse ox was getting an accurate read, and it was—his heart hammered along in the 128 - 135 BPM range.

          "It was like that—" he stopped to cringe again, but this time managed to stifle the coughing fit, "when I woke up."

          Gabriel winced at his pained expression, and he frowned when the oxygen saturation number suddenly blinked to life and revealed it was at 91%. "Okay... I'm gonna listen now. I won't ask you to breathe deep unless I really need you to," he stopped to massage his chest briefly. "I know it hurts."