34
Motol hospital, Prague, Czech Republic
November 29
Anouma stopped by Mr Vecera’s bed sometime after ten that night, checked his chart, and the quantity of Pathenex he had left in his IV. He watched her weakly, a smile flickering on and off, as if he were confused about his state of mind. She patted him gently, nodding.
“You are still up, Mr Vecera?” she asked quietly, as most of the other patients in the hall were asleep now.
He didn’t answer, looked away from her suddenly, then closed his eyes. Anouma frowned, took out her penlight, turned his head back her way, and checked his pupils. Fixed and dilated.
“Mr Vecera?” she asked again, calling louder this time. “Mr Vecera, can you hear me?”
His eyes suddenly fixed on her, and he took a ragged breath.
“My… my granddaughter is drowning…” he gasped.
Anouma checked around herself, and he grabbed her wrist, held it tight.
“You have to help me, doctor. My granddaughter is drowning!”
She rubbed his chest roughly tilted his head, and saw he wasn’t looking at her anymore. He looked as if he was about to cry, and then his heart monitor started to whine below the bed.
“Blood pressure rising…” she said to herself. “Mr Vecera! Wake up! Wake up please!”
He suddenly threw his arms back, sat up fast in bed, and began screaming a loud, blood-curdling scream, and the other patients began to wake too, whimpering or crying out in fear. Anouma leaned into him with her shoulder, held him down on the bed.
“I need a sedative!” she yelled as the frail man fought her. “Sedatives and restraints! Now!”
Two of the nurses on the floor took off, one towards the medicine locker and the other to help Anouma. She pushed down on Vecera’s right arm with all her strength, and his body shook up and down, flailing like a fish, as they fought to keep him still.
“Mr Vecera!” Anouma called. “Mr Vecera, everything is all right! You are safe! Please calm down!”
But he didn’t hear her at all, he kept gasping, rocking up and down, back and forth, trying to break free.
“Someone save my granddaughter!” he screamed. “What’s wrong with you people? Hurry!”
The other nurse arrived with a long needle and a pair of long, blue straps. Anouma tossed one to the nurse, and began to wrap hers around Mr Vecera’s legs. The nurse did the same for his arms, but he broke free suddenly, clawed out at her, scraping at her neck. She clutched it quickly, staggering back.
Anouma checked behind her, at the second nurse. She was pushing the meds already. Mr Vecera started to falter, his motions becoming subdued, and he slowly fell into a state of muttering semiconsciousness.
“You! Take her and clean out that wound. I want you both on high doses of Pathenex now. You are off the floor until I say so. Do you understand?”
Both nurses nodded solemnly, headed out, past Dr Bastien, who was rushing down the aisle towards Anouma. Behind him paced a man in a business suit, heavy mask over half his head, arms gloved to the elbows. He wore a city badge in his breast pocket. A bureaucrat.
Bastien checked the heart monitor quickly, the pupils.
“He is altered,” Anouma said. “and I have no idea why.”
“It’s not in the spec for his condition,” Bastien said grimly.
“Dr Bastien,” the bureaucrat interrupted. “Is this Dr Anouma?”
“Not now!” Bastien barked.
“Dr Bastien, if you’re trying to interfere with state business, I don’t care how senior you are in this place, you will be—”
“I said quiet!” Bastien yelled, not turning around. He looked to Anouma, eyes dead serious.
“What else could it be?” he asked.
“Maybe the Pathenex is having a delayed reaction?” she said.
“Unlikely,” Bastien said. “Has he had any visitors? Someone that might have upset him?”
Anouma shook her head, thought.
“I do not think he has had any visitors since he arrived here. Maybe it is just… cabin fever?”
Bastien nodded, looked around the room.
“We should get him upstairs somewhere, so he doesn’t scare the others. Find Laroche and see what zone he can accommodate a new bed. I’ll—”
Then, several rows away, another patient began convulsing madly, his bed rattling.
“It’s too hot!” came a desperate voice. “Please open the windows, it’s too hot!”
Anouma and Bastien exchanged worried glances, and took off towards the woman who was shielding her face with her arms. Bastien restrained her while Anouma checked her pupils.
“Hello?” Anouma called directly into her face. “Hello, can you hear me?”
“It’s so hot! Help me! Help me please!”
Anouma looked to Bastien, who strained against the wild movements.
“What’s going on here?” squeaked the bureaucrat, backing away from them. “Dr Bastien, I need to know what’s going on!”
“A new infection,” he growled.
“We need more sedatives!” Anouma shouted across the room. “Bring as many as you can carry!”
The woman was sweating heavily, jerking this way and that, trying to get free. Bastien risked a hand on her forehead, neck.
“She’s not feverish. She’s hallucinating. What could cause this?”
“I don’t know,” Anouma said, searching her memory. “sometimes Battinger’s B causes sleepwalking, but—”
“This isn’t Battinger’s. God help us, I hope it’s not airborne.”
The bureaucrat took off, scrambling out of the room.
“We need to start everyone on aggressive Pathenex routines,” Anouma said, checking around. “We must slow it down if we can.”
Bastien swore angrily.
“We’ll run out before we cover the room once over! Dammit, we should have partitioned the floor better!”
Another nurse arrived with a handful of heavy needles, quickly pushed the sedative into the woman’s IV. Bastien kept her down until she was safely subdued, when he heard the gasp of another patient, a few beds over, starting to become aware of a waking nightmare. He looked to the nurse, Anouma.
“Sedate anyone that shows even the slightest signs,” he said. “Mark the time and repeat the dosage every hour. I want this controlled until we know what we’re dealing with.”
The nurse nodded and took off, but Anouma was interrupted by her pager beeping. She checked it, her face dropping.
“Adjobi…” she gasped. Bastien grabbed the needles from her, nodded.
“Go,” he said sternly. “We’ve got this for now.”
She smiled behind her mask, then ran fast, through the room, to the front stairwell, and up to Adjobi’s floor. She tore down the hall till she came to his room, skidded around the corner and stopped cold, eyes wide at the sight of the Healer looming over her brother. At the sound of her, the Healer swung around, bloodied machete at the ready, prepared to strike.
“What’s going on?” she gasped.
The Healer put his weapon away, staggered a bit. She saw blood on the back of his cloak; he tipped to the right as he stood. He held out a vial in a trembling hand, and shoved Adjobi’s head back against the pillow savagely.
“What is this?” he snarled. “It is not your vector!”
Adjobi shook, terrified, darted pleading eyes between the Healer and Anouma.
“I… I don’t know… I thought it—”
“This is a third-generation infection!” the Healer boomed. “You said this man infected you, and you lied!”
Anouma started forward.
“Please, maybe Adjobi just—”
“Give me one good reason why I should not kill you right now,” he seethed, ignoring Anouma entirely.
“I… I assumed he was the one,” said Adjobi, a bit of life coming back into him as he pleaded. “We… we’d shared needles, and…”
Anouma gasped, stepping away from her brother, shocked.
“Adjobi, no…”
“I’m sorry, Fanta. I don’t know what I was thinking, I just…”
The Healer unrolled his blue pouch, pulled out a needle and tested it. Flawless. He grabbed Adjobi’s arm with his thick bloodstained glove, and turned the veins outward.
“No!” shouted Anouma, and covered the arm, weeping.
“There’s another,” Adjobi said urgently. “There’s another. I didn’t think of it before, but there’s another.”
The Healer looked at the needle, then seemed to fight with himself, and pulled away, letting Anouma fall on the bed. Adjobi pulled up, sitting in stunned silence. The Healer took another step back and gripped the syringe tightly.
“I have no more time for games,” he said to them, and the syringe dropped to the floor out of weak fingers. He paced forward, Adjobi and Anouma both cowering on the far side of the bed.
“You will give me the name now,” he said gravely. “Or I will burn you alive.”
They stared at him in shock, at the coldness in his voice, and Adjobi nodded. He searched about the bed, then started nodding again, feeling up and down his sheets, the wires attached to his arms swinging up and down like spiny wings on a spry bird.
He found a small scrap of paper and, with trembling hands, held it out for the Healer.
On it was another name, another address. The Healer slipped it into a pocket, and with his vision blurring slightly, shook his head.
“When you see me next,” he said darkly, “it will be your time to die.”