Grave news had arrived that day while Cass and Dr. Gautron had been in the middle of doing more tests on Milo. Dr. Flax had been at the door with a piece of paper in her hand, preparing what she was going to say to him in her mind before she had confronted him about what happened. She knocked on the metal door and patiently waited for Dr. Gautron to come by.
"Keep watch on that monitor, Cass. If it starts beeping, let me know right away." Dr. Gautron ordered. He made his way to the door and opened it for Dr. Flax.
"Ah, hello, Dr. Flax! What seems to be the trouble?" Dr. Gautron questioned, smiling and oblivious.
"Dr. Gautron, I'm afraid that your antibiotic is.. failing miserably."
"W-what do you mean?"
By now, Dr. Gautron's hopes sank down and his body tensed up again. His smile slowly started to turn into a frown, and his eyes widened in disbelief.
"Many of your patients are gravely ill. Some are already dead. I've been keeping track on who is on the verge of dying and who is already dead on this sheet. Here - take a look for yourself."
Dr. Flax handed Dr. Gautron the dreaded sheet. He took it, hands slightly trembling from utter shock and disbelief. He read it with his mouth gaping open. Then it hit him.
Del Kranzer was on the list.
'Oh god no he'd better not be dead there's got to be some way to cure him if he's still alive-'
He read carefully. Time and date, age, gender. He didn't care if he knew it already or not, he still kept reading.
Dead.
That wasn't the word he was expecting to see on the page.
It stuck out like a sore thumb on the page, in Dr. Flax's neat handwriting. He repeated the word several times in his head.
'Dead why is he dead why did he have to die how am I going to explain this to Cass I'm going to be in deep trouble I've let everyone down-'
Del was relatively healthy - aside from a bad diet from eating generally rotten food on the streets, he still looked physically healthy, at least from Dr. Gautron's point of view. He was only what, 49 years old? He wasn't nearly as old as some of the other patients that were taken in.
'I guess you can't always expect a perfectly healthy looking man to recover easily from such a cursed disease.'
Dr. Gautron turned away from Dr. Flax and gently pushed the door behind him closed. He set the paper down and slumped in his chair. He remained silent, staring at the page, until he grabbed his curly brown hair. The monitor which Milo was hooked up to started beeping, but Dr. Gautron had already blocked out all the background noises to figure out how he was going to explain this to those affected by it.
"Dr. Gautron, the machine's beeping.." Cass muttered.
"Just turn it off, Cass. We're done testing on Milo for today. I've got something very urgent to deal with. Just turn it off..." Dr. Gautron replied, not taking an eye off of the paper.
Cass inspected the machine for the POWER button and eventually found it. She turned it off and the machine started to slow and power down. Cass walked over to Dr. Gautron and stood over him, trying to see what he was staring at that was so important. She tried to grab the top of the page out to look at it, but Dr. Gautron grabbed a hold onto her wrist tightly, still not looking at her.
"What the heck? What's your deal, Gautron?" Cass retorted.
"Fine, Do you want to see it? Go right ahead." Dr. Gautron got up and left his desk. He stood at one of the counters at the other side of the room, facing the wall and pinching the bridge of his nose.
Cass picked up the sheet and read it, trying to decipher Dr. Flax's handwriting and what all this information meant. Then she came across her father's name. She kept reading and eventually found out that her father had died in the hands of Dr. Gautron.
"You know, Gautron.. I was just starting to trust you." she began, walking over towards him.
"I left my dad in your measly hands. You infected him with a dreaded disease and gave him your miracle medication in hopes that he would survive. But, nope. He's dead now. I've lost both of my parents, and one of them is thanks to you."
By now, Cass was directly beside him, staring at him in hopes that she would get some eye contact soon. Dr. Gautron was still shamefully staring at the concrete wall. Cass reached up on top of one of the cupboards and grabbed an Erlenmeyer flask. She held it tightly at the neck, her hands trembling.
"Cass. If you could just understand.. I've worked so hard for many years trying to develop something that could save the country from an epidemic that, may, in time, affect all of us." Dr. Gautron said reassuringly. He turned around and faced Cass this time.
"Now, if you would just put away the fl-"
"I don't CARE! I TRUSTED YOU!"
Cass smashed the flask off of the counter, countless pieces of glass dropping to the ground. Tears began to well up in her eyes. Her face began to turn red. The pure anger of a bull at a rodeo was fueling her thoughts. She held the broken flask up at Dr. Gautron. He put his hands up as defense and started to back up away from Cass. She made quick jabs in the air with the flask and took slow, gradual steps to Dr. Gautron.
"Cass. Put the flask down and listen to me."
Cass didn't back down. She still held the flask tightly, if not even tighter than she had held it before. Dr. Gautron was getting impatient.
"Cass, listen. I had no idea what this was going to do, alright? Just.. hear me out on this one. I worked for 5 years with Dr. Flax developing this medication in hopes that I would cure thousands, maybe even tens of thousands or millions if it was distributed properly. But, you know, not everything works out right. I'm afraid that I don't have an explanation for why your father had to die. He was perfectly healthy when we first brought him here. Just listen to me, Cass.. LISTEN TO ME!"
Now Dr. Gautron was mad. He didn't get this mad often, and if he did, he would bottle up his anger and put it away because it altered his train of thought. He rarely let out his anger on other people. Cass looked up at his eyes, but they weren't the usual warm and joyful eyes that he had. Instead, they were cold and dry looking, like the colour of the soil in February. His hand was gripped tightly on the counter ledge. Then, the door knocked again. Dr. Gautron excused himself and opened the door. It was one of the security guards.
"Dr. Gautron, it seems to me you're holding one of your patients hostage. I know you're the chief scientist here, but it's against labratory rules to be keeping patients in any circumstance. We've seen you smuggle her in on the security cameras, you know. If you don't remove her from your office by the end of the day, I'll talk to your boss and he'll have you fired." the security guard advised.
"I don't care. I'm keeping her for important reasons that you wouldn't understand." Dr. Gautron slammed the door in the guard's face. He didn't realize what he had just done because he was still boiling with rage.
Dr. Gautron was about to continue with his argument, but before he could, Milo meowed loudly, taking Cass and Dr. Gautron out of the angered trance they had been trapped in. The two looked over at Milo. The tongue was out of its collar and was holding a piece of paper that read in shaky handwriting "I CAN HELP".
