Gatsby followed Teddy’s gaze and motioned for the blue-suits to stop.
They came to a stop in the middle of the hall.
Teddy stared at the tattoos on the back of the people’s hands. “What’s on their hands?”
“What do you mean?” the doctor asked.
“What do you think I mean?” Teddy pointed at the back of his left hand. “What do those dots mean?”
“Ah,” Gatsby said, finally understanding. “Those are scannable datamatrix codes—rather harmless. They’re used for inventory and data retention should the imbedded RFID chips become damage during our testing.”
“Inventory…” Teddy’s stomach churned. “You’re a fucking Nazi.”
Gatsby appeared genuinely surprised by the outburst. “You don’t understand… It is imperative that we are able to readily identity and track these individuals at all costs.”
“Why?” Teddy asked.
“Because they are what we’re up against, Mister Sanders,” the doctor said as he approached the glass and waved a hand towards the people inside. “They are the biggest danger we face.”
Teddy stared at their hapless faces. “A bunch of innocent people?” He stared at the people behind the glass. They looked frightened, tired, and uneasy, but nothing sinister. “They don’t even look sick.”
“No, they don’t and they never will,” the doctor said. “At face value, they appear completely healthy, but the reality is that they’re all very sick and very dangerous.”
Teddy turned his attention towards the doctor.
“The quarantine centers are laughable. The people who take the blood samples and make a quarantine determination are inexperienced doctors, unqualified technicians, or even soldiers in many cases. Once they see the presence of antibodies and no manifestation of symptoms, they mark the person as healthy—they’re so eager to ship out healthy bodies to the camps,” the doctor explained.
“You’re talking in circles,” Teddy said with annoyance. “I thought you said that antibodies were a good thing.”
“The presence of antibodies in the blood is one thing, but the presence of the H7N9 pathogen is another,” Gatsby said with a smug smile. “I double-check the camp’s results and quarantine the patients who have abnormalities. I am the only reason our camp is going strong—I only allow trains to come in from quarantine centers who take the time to draw blood such as yours did in Tucson.”
“Quarantine them for what?” Teddy asked, annoyed. The pompous asshole of a doctor was starting to get on his nerves and it took most of his fast draining self-control to stop himself from punching the good doctor in the nose.
“I suspect that they’re all asymptomatic carriers of the virus,” Gatsby explained. “They shed virus and can transmit the disease, but not at the same rate as symptomatic individuals, which creates an invisible reservoir for the virus. Inside them, the virus continues to drift and change into new mutations. Just one asymptomatic carrier is enough to take down an entire camp as we have seen time and time again since this pandemic started.”
Teddy was taken aback.
He could’ve easily been stuck in that room if that doctor prick decided that he didn’t like something in his blood.
“Who are you to second guess other doctors?” Teddy asked scornfully.
The doctor looked down at him with a smile.
“I’ve been in the field of infectious disease for over twenty years,” Gatsby explained.
“That doesn’t mean shit to me. You just want some people to experiment on,” Teddy said. “They’re not infectious. You’re a goddamn liar.”
“A liar—no. It’s just that sometimes the truth isn’t pleasant to hear,” the doctor said calmly. “Asymptomatic carriers are the reason most of the quarantine centers are failing. You can’t isolate purely based on symptoms with the existence of these carriers. Many quarantine centers forgo blood tests and rely on rapid field tests based off of the original H7N9 pathogen, but those are becoming antiquated by the emergence of new strains.”
“Your fear tactics aren’t going to work on me,” Teddy snarled. “I think you’re full of shit.”
The doctor turned and stared at him. “I’m not trying to frighten you… I’m trying to illustrate just how badly we need someone like you. I thought that if you knew what we were up against, then maybe you’d be more willing to work with us rather than view us as some sort of adversary.”
“Go to hell,” Teddy sneered angrily. “I couldn’t care less if your whole miserable system fell apart.”
Gatsby sighed and motioned for the blue-suits to resume.
They continued down the hall once again.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” the doctor said as he followed behind. “I need your blood—not your understanding. I just find that a compliant patient makes for an easier procedure.”
Teddy kept quiet—he didn’t feel like arguing with the man. He stared at the faces behind the glass as the blue-suits rolled him down the hall.
Seated on one of the cots, he spotted a man.
The man, no, a boy rather, sat alone with his face cupped in his hands. His purple hair was starting to revert to its original shade of brown at the roots and his skin was a dull, pasty shade of white. Just like the others, his left hand bore a tattooed datamatrix code.
Teddy’s heart stopped when recognition struck him.
“Ein!” he exclaimed loudly, briefly breaking through his mental haze.
Ein lowered his hands and looked towards the voice with tired eyes. His expression lit-up as soon as he saw Teddy.
Then, the bed was pushed past the window and there was a concrete wall between them.
“No! Stop!” Teddy pleaded as he tried to force his numb body to sit up. “Get him out of there!”
“Who?” the doctor asked.
“The kid with the purple hair!” Teddy shouted. “He’s not sick! Get him out of that room!”
Teddy managed to lift his head and shoulders up off of the bed about five inches, but was quickly pinned down again as one of the blue-suits pressed a hand against his chest.
“Stay down!” the blue-suit ordered, his voice was barely decipherable through his respirator.
“Restrain him,” the doctor said. “If he refuses to be a compliant patient then we will treat him accordingly.”
The blue-suits stopped pushing and secured Teddy’s wrists and ankles to the bed with ambulatory restraints.
The man holding the MP5 pointed his weapon at him.
“Get him out of that room!” Teddy yelled again as he struggled weakly against the restraints. “He’s not sick!”
The blue-suits finished restraining him and stepped back as they wheezed through their respirators, exhausted.
Teddy stopped resisting—he had no more strength and his demands had fallen on deaf ears.
They continued onward once again.
Teddy’s head lolled from side-to-side as he stared up at the ceiling. He knew that resisting, at least for the time being would be quite useless. At least I know where he is, he thought. I’ll get you out of there, kid—somehow.
They wheeled him down another corridor, through a set of double-doors, and into a partitioned room overlooked by a glassed-in nursing station.
The blue-suits rolled Teddy into one of the open partitions and walked away.
The armed blue-suit stayed behind and stood next to the doctor with his weapon pointed towards Teddy.
Gatsby motioned at the nursing station. “I need fifteen milliliters.”
Two male nurses wearing scrubs emerged out of the station and carefully inserted a needle into the port that was still taped to Teddy’s forearm.
“Make a fist,” one of the nurses ordered.
Teddy ignored the nurse and glared at the doctor.
The nurse jabbed until he found a vein, but Teddy didn’t flinch.
“You’re a goddamn vampire,” Teddy told the doctor with disgust.
The doctor raised his brows an
d adjusted his glasses. “Give him the propofol infusion,” he told the nurses. “I don’t need his impertinent attitude.”
One the nurses nodded and retrieved a waiting syringe out of the station.
“You’ll get more than my attitude if I ever get the chance,” Teddy warned.
“I find that doubtful,” Gatsby said with little interest. “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, your survival is dependent on your usefulness to me.” He paused and flashed a thin smile. “That lieutenant is irrelevant—my work holds more value than his fiefdom.”
After they finished drawling two vials of blood, they injected Teddy with the propofol.
Teddy fell silent as a wave of lightheadedness struck him and his ears started to ring.
Gatsby watched.
Several seconds passed and Teddy’s symptoms worsened.
His vision became blurry.
He closed his eyes, briefly.
They didn’t open again.
CHAPTER 15
DECEMBER 18th
7:11 PM
When Teddy awoke he found himself in yet another unfamiliar room.
The room had simple, bare white walls and two rows of plastic chairs that were bolted to the floor. A simple clock hung on the wall and the second hand ticked away dutifully.
Teddy was thankful for the clock because it finally gave him some semblance of time: eleven past seven. Morning or evening, he didn’t know, but at least he had some sort of reference point.
The room reminded him of a waiting room.
Judging by the clock on the wall, he had been waiting for over three hours.
Teddy had no idea who or what he was waiting for, but he had a pretty reasonable estimation that it would be the one person he dreaded seeing the most.
We’ll talk again, the lieutenant had told him.
Sometime while he was out, he had been moved out of his hospital bed and placed in a wheelchair. The ambulatory restraints were gone, but the freedom didn’t matter since he was still recovering from the medication they had injected into his system.
Even as the propofol cocktail wore off, Teddy’s legs felt like jelly and he felt dog-tired.
Underneath the clock there was a single door.
Teddy’s weary gaze shifted from the clock towards the door. If he was confident that his body wouldn’t let him down, he would’ve already attempted to get out of the chair and make a run for it.
The temptation to run was probably the reason they had an armed officer standing next to him with his hand resting on the butt of a holstered pistol.
The officer, a skinny young kid who looked like he had just stepped out of high school, had not said a word to him.
Teddy sluggishly turned his head and looked over at the officer. “Do they give you hazard pay to hold sick folks at gunpoint or is this just for fun?”
The officer swallowed hard and purposefully kept his eyes fixated on the door ahead. His grip tightened around the pistol as his hand started trembling.
Teddy gave a tsk and turned his attention back towards the door. “Pathetic—just like the rest of them.”
“Shut up or I’ll have you swinging,” the officer said in a muted voice.
“Oh… I wasn’t aware that they had built a wheelchair ramp for the gallows,” Teddy said.
The officer looked down at him, scowled, and reached a hand up to slap him.
“Careful…” Teddy warned. “Don’t you know who wants to see me and how important I am? If you lay a hand on me, Hock won’t be too pleased… You might be the one swinging.”
The officer froze at the very mention of the name. He flushed, lowered his hand, and went back to staring at the door with a wide-eyed, vacant expression.
Several more minutes passed in silence.
Eventually, a rough voice came through the officer’s radio: bring him out.
Teddy felt an odd mixture of relief, fear and apprehension. While he was happy to get away from the doctor, he knew that nothing good was waiting for him outside the room.
Roger was dead and Ein was still locked away inside.
The officer pushed the wheelchair through the door and out into a narrow hallway. Old, faded signage showing directions to the boiler room, watershed, and the central supply storage room were bolted to the wall.
Between the strange signage and the exposed pipes and ductwork along the ceiling, Teddy figured that whatever the place used to be it was never intended to be a hospital.
Navigating the maze on his own would prove difficult.
Teddy remained silent and tried to create a rudimentary mental map of the location since he’d have to return for Ein. It was no use—the corridors and vanilla walls of the rooms blended together in his mind.
At the end of hallway, they arrived at an elevator that had a bunch of mop buckets stacked next to it.
The silver doors slid open as soon as they got close.
The officer rolled Teddy inside and then pressed his ID badge against a reader. The reader looked sloppily attached next to the buttons—almost as an afterthought.
The doors slid shut and the lift ascended.
Teddy glanced at his reflection and had to quickly avert his gaze. He looked as if he had aged ten years over the course of the last few months.
When the lift came to a stop and the doors slid open, Teddy found himself inside a lobby reminiscent of an old office building.
The rectangular lobby had an abandoned reception desk in the center along with two unmanned metal detectors covered with cobwebs. Darkened office suites were on each side and a row of tinted glass sliding doors took up the entirety of the wall across from the elevator. Just half of the overhead lights were on, but the vast majority were burnt out. Dust covered everything and fluttered out of the vents, and did little to improve the building’s barrenness.
Teddy craned his neck over his shoulder and saw that the elevator he came out of was part of a group of four others. The single lift appeared to be the only one that functioned.
Above the lifts, there was a faded United States Border Patrol emblem with ‘Midwestern Regional Detention Division’ embossed underneath in tarnished brass letters.
A few yards ahead of Teddy, just past the empty reception desk and in front of the entrance doors, Lt. Hock stood leaning against one of the entryway’s marble pillars with his arms crossed over his chest. A military dress cap with a patent leather peak shrouded the upper portion of his face in shadow. He stared down at the ground and appeared deep in thought.
The fact that the lieutenant looked troubled wasn’t lost on Teddy.
Hock wore a snow-dusted peacoat and jack boots, but the meticulous attention to detail just wasn’t there—his boots were caked with grime and his insignias were notably absent from his lapels.
Behind the lieutenant stood a black man who wore a tan overcoat and jeans. His head was lowered and covered underneath an orange knit skullcap. The top part of his left arm had a red band wrapped around it.
It took Teddy a few moments before he realized that the man wearing the armband was Perry.
Perry’s gut was gone and his face had sunken in. It looked as if he had dropped at least twenty pounds since Teddy last saw him.
The officer stopped the wheelchair a few feet away from the lieutenant.
Teddy turned his attention back towards Hock.
“Not much to look at, is it?” Hock asked as Teddy was brought closer. His voice echoed off of the walls and reverberated down the empty halls. “This building was part of the original immigration detention camp—nothing more. I’ve heard the rumors, but people tend to have overactive imaginations when it comes to things that they know nothing about.”
Teddy kept silent.
“Once things settle down, I’m going to convert the old offices upstairs,” the lieutenant continued. “I’m moving my men out of those cramped military dormitories and into their own suites.”
Teddy said nothing.
“That doesn’t sound appea
ling to you?” the lieutenant asked.
“That sounds just fucking peachy except for the part about the secret lab,” Teddy countered.
“It’s a basement,” the lieutenant casually dismissed him. “That doctor believes that a few renovations has turned a derelict basement into a modern laboratory… Once we’re settled in, I’m moving his whole operation to the old dormitories.”
“I’m sure he’ll object.”
“I’m sure he will, but I don’t take orders from men like him,” Hock said indignantly. He glanced over at Teddy for the first time and appeared alarmed by his appearance. “Christ, son… What did he do to you?”
“You already know what he did to me,” Teddy replied flatly as he stared up at the lieutenant.
“I don’t.”
“Bullshit.”
Hock studied him in silence for a moment. “Believe it or not, I’m not as callous as you might think. I’ve made a conscious decision not to get myself involved in his work… I tolerate him because circumstances force me to do so—that’s all.”
“Yet your soldiers and trains bring him the bodies he needs for his little sadistic experiments,” Teddy said. “There’s a difference between tolerance and enabling.”
“That’s just another circumstance forced on me… It was a compromise. In order to get my initial troop numbers up, I was forced to agree to work at a camp that participated in the government’s on-going vaccination research program.” Hock reached up and rubbed the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. “I know—it’s a bullshit explanation, but bullshit compromises become second nature when you’re in the military.”
Teddy kept silent and watched him.
Hock sighed and raised the peak of his cap. He stared down at Teddy with tired eyes. “When I was deployed in Iraq so many years ago, we had a group of militants that had taken refuge in a small village outside of Kirkuk. I’m not sure how many there were… It was probably close to one-hundred, but they really gave us hell. A decision was made by the brass to use a series of GBU-43s to eliminate the enemy threat…”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Teddy asked with some annoyance.
“It was a bullshit compromise,” he answered. “In order to kill one-hundred militants, close to two-thousand innocent villagers were considered collateral damage and were deemed to be an acceptable loss.”
H7N9: The Complete Series [Books 1-3] Page 49