Invisible Death

Sounds Like a Plan

"Is it really you? Did you come to save me from the aliens?"

The girl was running a high fever, her eyes sunken on her face, her lips cracked and swollen. Her physical condition was deteriorating fast and black spots were showing on her fingers and toes. Her crotch and armpits were covered in nasty, obviously painful buboes.

Angela Fontenelle approached the bed with an instrument tray, laid it on a side table and pulled a fine-needled syringe from the kidney bowl. While Adam held the kid's shoulders, the Avian doctor and Elise Prodana spread her legs and proceeded to aspirate a bubo for yet another culture. Samihah Shah would have her hands full, but as for Angela and Elise, there was little more they could do. All the antibiotics were proving useless; the effect of garamicyn was already waning.

"Please, Adam, don't let them do that to me! It hurts! They're aliens!" The girl fought to free herself from Adam's grasp and tried to kick the doctors away. "They're here to drain my spinal fluid! Remember? I know about the spinal fluid-drinking aliens! They're back!"

"Calm down, Catherine. They are not aliens."

"They are, too! They are, too! Look at her!" And she pointed to Angela, misshapen and bent, clad in an ill-fitting hazmat suit. The look on the doctor's face was drawn and somber. She was loath to inflict any more pain to the girl, but the cultures were absolutely necessary to determine the progression of the bacteria and its relation to the antibiotics in use. The Avian called a nurse to help hold the girl. Catherine was so frightened, so full of adrenaline, anesthetics wouldn't work, unless given in massive dosage.

The girl screamed as the needle pierced the bubo and the milky content was drawn into the syringe. It was placed in a secure container. "I'm taking it to Samihah, Adam. The cultures are ready for you."

"I don't want to croak... Am I gonna croak?" Catherine was half sitting up on the bed.

"Not if I can help it."

&&&

Samihah Shah's small and improvised office next to St. Kats lab was packed full, with the Iranian microbiologist sitting behind the desk, Angela and Adam on chairs in front and Mason and Rebecca on the two seat couch to the right. The perfume of coffee, brewed Turk-style was heavy in the air.

Blowing into her mug, Angela looked at Adam. Somber, tired and worn, he had not looked directly at anybody since his arrival, just at her and just once, for a long moment. Then they both had averted their eyes, knowing that if they didn't break eye contact, they would both break down and be left incapable of functioning. And, what else was new? They were needed. Another crisis was exploding on their faces. They had work to do.

"I've examined every culture. The bacillus was genetically modified, creating a highly adaptable, highly selective, almost 'intelligent' variation." Adam opened charts on Samihah's desk. "Every time you attack it with a new antibiotic, it changes its genetic structure to elude and escape the medication."

"The dead Breedlove Foundation's research!" exclaimed Mason.

"Exactly."

"That was the experiments the babies were being submitted there, when I rescued them." Angela's eyes were big as saucers.

"First, let me make myself very clear: I've never approved, condoned or was even informed of that line of work. The new Breedlove Foundation was privately owned and conducted its research apart from Genomex." Mason stood up and walked to the desk to look at the charts. "We had nothing to do with it. When you were captured, Dr. Fontenelle, I was called because you were such a unique feral and because Mutant X was clearly involved in the breaking and entering. The Foundation owner wanted to be on my good side, so he called me and offered to place you under GSA's custody."