The Pandemic

Chapter I The Spread

She never knew Luxembourg would be this quiet, it was a calming quiet, yes scary, but peaceful nonetheless. The freezing November breeze in Luxembourg was something Lucinda  would need to get used to, a drastic change from the very wet Portland she was accustomed to. She was pleased at the proximity to France she could definitely stop by and explore a bit on her downtime. Making a note to stop in Metz and get some background from the military hospital, Hôpital D'instruction Des Armées Legouest, maybe something could come in use from that being nearby. She began unpacking her things in the University dorm she was staying in. She had received help from the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, thankfully she had someone who spoke native english so she wouldn't be struggling with her rusty German.  
   
Ilse Voigt was a simple girl, quiet and absolutely smart. She had an amazing time understanding things, which were kind of difficult to explain with her being deaf. Ilse had long black silky hair, deep dark blue almost grey eyes and an amazing smile. She was a sad soul, but was able to cope through forms of art. She grew up with abusive alcoholic parents and currently lived with her mother's ex best friend, Rehm. Rhem Babineaux had short deep blue hair, it was wavy and dark at the roots, simple straight across bob cut right above her shoulders and framed her round face with soft wavy curls. Rhem had Schizophrenia so taking care of a deaf child should pose as a challenge, but it doesn't. If anything it helps her cope, keeping her hopes up and giving Ilse the best life she could give any child.
    Lucinda arrived at the Babineaux household, Rehm opened the door with a  huge grin, "Oh, you are Lucinida? Right" Her broken English was somewhat realeaving from the heavy German she was expecting from the petite girl. Lucinda nodded with a "Ja" ensuring Ms. Babineaux that if she was more comfortable with speaking german Lucinda could manage. "Du sprache Deutsch?" (Do you speak German?) Ms. Babineaux asked the clearly nervous but very involved scientist. "genug, um meinen Punkt zu vermitteln." (enough to converse) Lucinda smiled even though very uncomfortable with this new quandary. "Frau. Babineaux, ich habe eine Fragen zu Ilse." (Ms. Babineaux, can I ask questions about Ilse?) Dr. Honse started some small talk. "ich kann es versuchen." (i'll try) Ms. Babineaux snickered, "Ich weiß nicht viel über sie, sie lebt in ihrem eigenen kleinen Universum." (i don't know her that well, she lives in her own world) Lucinda nodded, excited to begin work, her fiery locks a sporadic mess compared to her crisp clean brand new lab coat, and professional clothing.
    The questions started simple with subtle things like Ilse's personality, likes/dislikes, dreams, and stuff such as how this could've been contracted. The disease started a few weeks ago. Lucinda learned that Ilse is a very obedient calm girl, she was sweet and loves attention, she was a writer and loved photography. She writes poems and short stories about anything and everything, her favorite being about her past. See, Ilse wasn't born deaf, she was beat up by her father and had severe brain damage, she lost all hearing in her right ear and still has some in her left, but she prefers to communicate through sign language because she is fully able to express herself. Ilse can read lips and talk as if she had never been deaf, after losing her hearing at the age of 5, she had learned to talk with her handicap, although she hated the word handicap she preferred to call it her impairment, to her it sounded better so Lucinda decided that it's perfect for the situation. Ilse was currently relaxing in her bed all hooked up on machines, her family couldn't afford a hospital and refused to go to the doctor, so the government had to step in before her condition got out of hand. They set her up with materials to keep her from contaminating anyone, or anything, which was difficult because she had the plague and it has highly contagious. Lucinda sat beside Ilse in a suit that resembles a hazmat suit, it had all the proper layering and protection but something still felt off to Lucinda.
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Her experimenting had been going well, she was learning new things that could be plausible causes to the infection. 1) the amount of mold growing in this small Germanic house was extremely high, but that shouldn't cause this kind of epidemic. Maybe it was 2) the high proximity to lead, since it was an old historical house, the walls are plastered with lead paint and windows, this could cause lead poisoning but shouldn't lead to a plague like illness. And last but not least, what Lucinda thought could be the cause, was 3) the small bacterial like species growing inside the air vents. These little rascals were everywhere, clogging up Ilse's lungs and possibly making their way to her heart and causing severe damage. Strangely enough, after testing that bacteria, this wouldn't be a cause to this disease, maybe a possible poisoning, but this was a plague case. Of course Lucinda knew how the plague started, fleas infected with Xenopsylla cheopis poisoning rats and then spreading it rapidly through regions, but the level of fleas in luxembourg at this time of year was slim. Did the bacteria have some form of bacteria similar to Xenopsylla cheopis? Maybe.
Dr. Honse decided to take samples from the house ,with permission from Rhem of course, she brought them along with her to her new, small, and different lab then what she was used to. She placed the samples she gathered into the glass Petri dishes rather than the gross evidence bags they were in prior. Finally, she was able to remove her terribly uncomfortable suit and wear something more to her liking, her lab coat and sweatpants, thankfully Irvine wasn't there to tell her off "Dr. this isn't professional, you can't wear that." She mimicked to herself, the thought of him bringing some faint color to her face, a beautiful pink dusting her cheeks and the top of her ears.

She worked through that night and early into the morning before locking up the lab and returning to her dorm to shower and get maybe a few hours of sleep, if she could stop thinking of what caused this stupid mixture of strange diseases.
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Early the next morning she woke up with a handful of semi-serious ideas, could the disease be something other than what it seems, could she be over looking this. Could this all be a facade the government is using to hide information? Could Ilse have figured out the meaning of life, or the cure for cancer? Could this all be set up by Irvine to get rid of Lucinda  once and for all? Making herself sick with worry she decided to throw on some jeans and head to the nearest coffee shop and grab a cup of something, and maybe an early breakfast. Grabbing her laptop bag and her lab notes as she headed out the door and slipping on her shoes she made the short walk to the metro to look for directions to the cafe ,she decided somewhere she could spend all day to get her notes and facts straight would be ideal.
    After ordering her straight black coffee and a few potato pancakes ,and recieving a few strange looks, Lucinda made her way to the back of the shop and took a seat near a window. Opening her bag and placing her stuff all along the table she noticed that she forgot a pen, rolling her eyes she proceeded to get up and ask a staff member if she could buy one off of them, she knew a cafe wouldn't sell pens but someone might have a spare they are willing to trade for a few euros. Sure enough she was able to be gifted one by a nice older lady enjoying the morning paper, after bidding her thanks she sat down and began her research.
    The small cafe was clearly family run, the pictures on the wall, the sweet smell of bread, the homey feel, everything was perfect, beautiful and meaningful. Seeing all the heirlooms and cuckoo clocks scattered about in a sporadic way made her feel homesick, missing her small clean house back home, her lab room, her boss. Smiling at the butterflies the thought of him gave her, she was really in love with that man.
   
She decided to watch a documentary on rabies which helped her to a deeper understanding on the topic.  she only realized the time when an administrator from the college called and asked her if she was ok because she had been out-of-office all morning, "hello Mr. Eriksson, this case I've been working on has taken so much of my time." Lucinda  apologized, Mr. Eriksson laughed "oh Dr. Honse, don't apologize, I was just checking in on you to make sure you know that it's almost 6 pm and you've been out since what? 5 am?". Lucinda  agreed and conversed with the kind old Mr. Eriksson, he was a former Chemistry professor turned administrator for the college Lucinda  was staying at, he was a friend of Irvine's father and a Sponsor for Lucinda 's laboratory back in Oregon. If it weren't for him she probably wouldn't have a job.

Lucinda  had a rough childhood, it wasn't all roses and tulips, it was more expired bread and broken light bulbs. As a child Lucinda  lived off her parents happiness, yes their situation was bad but that didn't stop them from living their lives to the fullest. Lucinda 's father was a cashier at a local bakery and her mother was a waitress for a small french restaurant right out of town. Lucinda  always loved science but she never wanted to do it as a career until her mother was diagnosed with alzheimer's at the age of 39, Lucinda  had never seen such a downfall in her mother's health since her miscarriage, and that's what changed her mind. She had never done so much research on anything in her entire life, heading to the library everyday to read anything and everything that happened to do with alzheimer's, she was determined to cure it. Sadly 7 years later, when Lucinda  was only 19, her mother passed. She was depressed, not only for her mothers death, but that she wasn't able to find a cure in time. Almost a year later her father took his own life because he couldn't live without his wife any longer. It's so sad to see young people give up, people who have their whole lives ahead of them, and that's why Lucinda  became an epidemiologist, she hated seeing people suffer, she hated seeing diseases that she couldn't cure. She was going to help Ilse, even if it endangered her own life.

She made her way back to the Campus dorm to retire for the night. She sat in her bed and reread all of her notes making annotations on things that needed to be elaborated on and things that made absolutely no sense whatsoever. After highlighting and underlining the absolute life out of those notes she rolled over and turned off the lamp before heading to bed.