Season 1, Episode 8:
FANthrax
Part 3 of 10
Nick
thought he had gotten the sillies out of his system.
When
he’d first gotten into his yellow Hazmat suit, he’d announced, “That’s one
small step for Nick… one giant leap for Nick-kind!” and proceeded to lumber
around the room, pretending he was prancing on the moon.
“Nick-kind
is right,” snorted Brian with disdain, through his own Hazmat mask.
Nick
had then launched into the “Imperial March” and stalked across the floor as
Darth Vader, breathing loudly. “No. I am
your father,” he told Brian. “Search
your feelings. You know it to be true.”
Brian
rolled his eyes and ignored him.
By
the time they were ready to go into the infected area of the hospital, Nick
thought he’d gotten used to the suit, which was actually kind of stuffy and
claustrophobic. Jeanie led them into the
emergency department, explaining, “Patient zero, a teenage girl, was admitted
yesterday morning. Between
As
Jeanie got into the medical mumbo-jumbo, Nick’s mind wandered. He thought of Neil Armstrong again, of
walking on the moon, and then he thought of the Moonwalk. He thought of that little penguin down in
The tiled floor of the hospital was shiny and smooth, perfect for
Moonwalking. He popped one heel up, slid
his opposite foot back, and attempted a Moonwalk across the floor, right into
someone who shouted, “Hey!”
Nick
whirled around, already stammering an apology, and found himself face to face
with a man who was as tall as he, but lankier, with a long, crooked nose and
brown eyes that were currently blazing with anger behind the clear shield of
his mask. His white lab coat, green
scrubs, latex gloves, and stethoscope gave him away as a doctor.
“Watch
where you’re going, will ya?” the doctor scolded, but his eyes had already
softened. He was not, Nick decided, a
hardass by nature.
“What
were you doing, Nick?” asked Red,
giving him the most intense “What the fuck?” look he’d ever seen her pull. He grinned sheepishly, as she went on,
“Jeanie’s giving us valuable information about the virus, and you’re…?”
“Moonwalking,”
Nick inserted.
“Moonwalking??” Red repeated incredulously, shaking her
head. She leaned closer to him, tilting
her head back so that the face shields of their helmets practically touched,
and looked into his eyes. “Tell me,
Nick, have you ever been officially diagnosed with ADHD?”
“Officially? No.”
Her
brows lifted. “Well, then… consider
yourself diagnosed.”
Nick
was just about to ask her if she could write him a prescription for Ritalin
then, when he heard Jeanie say, “Ah, Carter.
I was just looking for you.”
He
gaped at her in confusion. “Huh? I was right behind you the whole time. I swear!”
“Not
you. Meet Dr. John Carter, attending
physician in the ER. Dr. Carter, this is
Dr. Julianne Llewellyn, CIA Agent Brian Littrell, and Agent Nick Carter. I told you they’d be coming.”
“Right,”
Dr. Carter nodded. “What would you like
to see first?”
“Jeanie
said there was just one patient still living from the original wave,” Red spoke
up at once. “Could we see her?”
“Him,”
corrected Dr. Carter, “and of course.
He’s in the quarantine wing; I’ll take you there.”
He
led them to the elevator, which they took to the seventh floor. “Normally, this wing is where our transplant
patients stay, post-op,” Dr. Carter explained as they stepped onto the floor. “The rooms are all isolation units, to
protect our immunosuppressed patients from nosocomial infection. When we locked down the hospital, we
transported those patients to other hospitals and converted this to our
quarantine ward.”
A
pair of security guards stood in front of the ward doors. They nodded to Dr. Carter as he escorted the
others through. As they trooped through
the ward, Nick couldn’t help but peek into the rooms they passed. Every last one of them housed patients, and
none looked well. Some appeared worse
than others, with black pustules on their skin, blood seeping from their
orifices.
“Carter?”
Nick
turned automatically, but the nurse who had poked her head out from one of the
rooms was looking at the other Carter, the one with the M.D. behind his name.
“Can
you come pronounce the patient in 5?
Coded a few minutes ago.”
“In a
minute,” Carter replied. “Let me get
these guys down to 12.”
They
only passed a couple more rooms when another nurse appeared. “Oh, Carter, there you are,” she said, and
again, Nick started. “Can I give Mrs.
Alwyn another dose of morphine?”
“Go
ahead,” replied the doctor.
They
continued on, finally stopping outside room 712.
“The
patient is a twenty-two-year-old male named Terrance Phillip,” Carter briefed
them. “He was brought to the ER last
night by his mother, after vomiting blood and collapsing at home. He’s the last one alive of yesterday’s
patients. I doubt he’ll make it through
the night.”
Red
peered through the glass walls of his room.
“Is he conscious?”
“In
and out.”
“May
we go in?”
“Of
course. Just try not to upset him.”
“We’ll
keep it brief.” Red opened the
door. Jeanie and Brian followed.
Nick
hesitated, not sure he wanted to go any further, but then he remembered that
this was a mission, and K was counting on him to find out as much as he
could. If this man was the last of the
original patients infected with the virus, he might be their last chance to
discover its origins. With that thought
in mind, he entered the room and let the door close behind him.
Red
was already leaning over the patient. He
was a large man, easily filling the width of the bed. His face was half-hidden by facial hair, lots
and lots of dirty blonde hair, but the skin that was visible was ashy gray and
pocked with black pustules. Beneath the
oxygen mask that covered his mouth and nose, Nick could see blood caked in his
beard and mustache, where it had seeped from his nostrils and the corners of
his mouth. It had run from his ears,
too, and dried in his sideburns. Even at
the corners of his closed eyes, rivulets of blood trickled like tears.
If
this was what he looked like on the outside, Nick couldn’t imagine the
inside. He didn’t want to. Yet, somehow, Terrance Phillip was still
alive. Not for long, though. His wheezing breaths sounded labored, as if
they could stop at any moment. He
watched Red’s face as her eyes panned his monitors, reading the numbers. They were meaningless to Nick, but he could
tell by her grim expression that they weren’t good.
She
reached out, her gloved hand closed into a fist, and rubbed the center of the
man’s chest with her knuckles. “Mr.
Phillip?” she asked as she did this.
“Terrance?”
His
bloodshot eyes fluttered open. They
rolled towards her, sliding in and out of focus.
“I’m
Dr. Llewellyn. If you can stay awake for
me, I just want to ask you a few questions about how you got sick, so that we
can help you. Can you do that for me?”
Terrance
opened his mouth, but the only sound that escaped it was a gurgling noise, as
if there was blood clogging his throat, too.
He gave a weak nod instead.
“Great. Do you have any idea what made you sick,
Terrance?”
Terrance
shook his head slowly.
“When
did you first start experiencing symptoms?”
Terrance
took a few, rasping breaths before choking out, “Last… night.”
“And
you were at home?”
A
nod.
“Can
you think of anything you did in the last few days that might have contributed
to this? Anything out of the
ordinary? Did you go anywhere special?”
While
Terrance seemed collect his thoughts and his strength, Nick looked around. There were tubes that ran beneath the sheets,
going in and out of Terrance’s body.
Some connected to IVs, feeding drugs into his system. Others led to plastic containers that hung
from the rails of his bed, draining fluids.
One held blood. Another held a
thinner liquid the color of eggplant.
“What
is that?” he whispered to Jeanie, motioning to the container.
“Urine,”
she replied out of the corner of her mouth.
“Urine? You mean, pee? His piss is purple?”
“It’s
a symptom of the virus. It causes a
build-up of blood and heme in the urine, which turns it purple.”
“Weird,
dude…”
He
turned his attention back to the patient.
Red was still trying to get an answer out of him, but he seemed unable
to give it. Blood bubbled from his lips,
popping beneath the mask. All of a
sudden, the monitors over his bed went haywire.
His bloodshot eyes rolled backwards into his head, and his body began to
twitch before suddenly falling limp. The
hospital bed creaked beneath his dead weight.
The heart monitor whined as it flatlined.
Nick
turned to Red. “Can you bring him
back? Shock him, or something? We didn’t get anything out of him!”
She
shook her head. “He’s got blood coming
from every orifice. That’s a sign of
massive internal hemorrhage. This virus
has eaten away at his organs until there’s no function left. His insides are probably like soup.”
Nick
felt his stomach turn. “Thanks for the
visual there, Jewel.” Beneath his
helmet, Brian’s face looked rather green, as well.
“Sorry,”
said Red. “But he’s gone.”
“Another
casualty,” sighed Jeanie. She exchanged
glances with Red, then shifted her eyes to Brian and Nick. “We’re working around the clock to find an
antidote here. But we need you to figure
out where this started, where it all came from.
Until we know the origin, we may not be able to discover the cure.”
Nick
looked at Brian, who nodded. “We’ll find
it, Dr. Boulet. You’ve got the best of
both agencies on the case now… oh, and Nick.”
“Hey!”
sputtered Nick. “Fuck you!”
“Just
kidding, Carter,” Brian chuckled. “I
figured someone had to lighten the tension in here.”
“Have
a little respect, Littrell, geesh!”
“Like
you should talk, Carter.”
Dr.
Carter suddenly strode in. “Did someone
say my name?”
Nick
groaned. “And this is why I insist on
being called Double-0 Carter.”
“Or
just 008,” Red put in.
Nick
glared at her. “Did K pay you to say
that? Shut up.”
To
further his annoyance, The Rok laughed.
± ± ±
Rolling
her eyes at the neverending bickering between Rok and Nick, Red knew only she
could get their attention back on the mission. She made a mental note to inform Agent K not
to send Nick on any mission that involved the CIA again. Not unless it was absolutely necessary, a
matter of life and death. There was too
much testosterone that she had to handle when these two completely different
agents were under the same roof.
“Let’s
get out of here,” she said, as nurses came inside to collect the body of
Terrance Phillip. Thankfully, the others
followed suit. No one really wanted to
stare at the damaged form of a victim.
“So
Terrance Phillip was one of the first patients to be admitted with symptoms?”
Red asked, once they were out of the room and into the corridor.
Dr.
Carter nodded. “We didn’t really know
what was wrong with him up until the other victims showed up with the same
complaints: flu-like symptoms, shortness
of breath, blood in the sputum or vomit…”
“… Purple
pee,” Nick inserted, making a face.
“Man, this is the most wicked virus I’ve ever heard of.”
Dr.
Carter eyed Nick for a second and gave a brief nod before continuing. “I have to say, we’ve never encountered such
a disease before, but I believe all of them were exposed to the same virus at
some point in the last few days. But we took
a history on all the casualties, and none of them share any resemblance. They don’t go to the same school or job; they
don’t live in the same neighborhood, nor attend the same social activities. We feel like we’re trapped. Don’t even know where to start to search for
the virus.”
“I
got an idea,” Nick spoke up again.
Brian
let out an exasperated sigh. “Do you
even care about what the doctor’s been saying? At all? Have you heard even one sentence he said?”
“Yes,
I was listening, though, thanks to Red here, I have just been diagnosed with a
severe case of ADHD-”
“For
which you need an immediate treatment-”
“-and
I’m about to offer up some ideas if you could just hold your temper for a
second.”
Red
gave an apologetic look at a baffled Dr. Carter and Jeanie. She was damn sure they had never had
encountered such a pair of agents, bickering like an old married couple, and
she had to admit that she was getting quite embarrassed at how both of them
were behaving. She had to step in. Again.
“I’m
pretty sure we all know what’s been going on with these victims,” she piped up,
loud enough to allay their bickering, in hopes of also capturing their
attention. “What we need to know now is
how and from where it spread. We need to
focus on the actual place where the virus was encountered the first time.”
“What’s
there to focus on?” Nick chimed. “If the
victims can’t be interrogated, and we don’t know of any source where they might
have been exposed to the virus, we need to go to their homes, talk to their
families and neighbors and friends, and look for any kind of evidence. We might as well start with this guy.”
Dr.
Carter cleared his throat to speak. “I
believe Mr. Carter here is right about investigating Mr. Phillip’s house. I don’t know what you might come up with, but
you can talk to his mother and get more information about the last things he
did before getting sick. It may lead you
to another clue, if all else fails.”
Red nodded
slowly. “Yeah, I think that could help.”
She eyed Brian, who was standing next to
her, looking clearly bewildered at the fact that Nick had come up with a
solution… a rational one, at that. Red
laughed inwardly. It looked like the CIA
agent was battling with himself and his prejudices towards Nick. That was why Nick was one of the best in the
agency: he wasn’t only about mischief
and great looks; he was a Double-0 agent because of his talents, his quick
thinking and his ability to handle even the toughest missions with ease... well,
most of the time.
“Great
Carters think alike,” Nick replied with all his cockiness, as he threw a
playful fist to Rok’s shoulder. “How do
you like that, CIA? Ha.”
Through
his clenched teeth, Brian spoke before turning around to get out of the
hospital. “Shut up, 008. I’m driving.”
The ride
to Terrance Phillip’s house went pretty smoothly, much to Red’s surprise. They found the right street without any
hassle at all, and Red was actually thankful that the rented Hummer had a GPS
and that Brian was driving.
It
wasn’t that hard to locate the house, since it had been put under quarantine. The police, under orders from the health
department, had sealed the windows and doors with large sheets of plastic and
surrounded the property with barricade tape and keep-out signs.
Brian
parked the Hummer next to a couple of police cars and ambulances, trying to
ignore the stares they received from the officers.
“Who
will even take three agents in Hazmat suits getting out of a bright yellow
Hummer seriously anyway?” he muttered under his breath, as they all got out of
the Hummer and made their way towards the entrance.
“I
find your lack of faith disturbing, young Jedi,” said a very bad impersonation
of Darth Vader.
Brian
didn’t need to turn around to see the smirk on the face of the blonde agent. Instead, he continued walking towards the tent
that was set up for the officers and the medics in front of the house.
“We’re
supposed to meet another agent who’s been assigned on to investigate the
situation,” Red spoke up, following Brian closely. Nick was right behind them, still doing the
worst impersonation of Darth Vader ever.
A pretty
brunette approached them with a broad smile the minute they walked in.
“The
Force is strong with this one,” Nick spoke in his Darth Vader’s voice behind
Brian. “Niiice…”
Brian
scoffed. “She’s way out of your league, 008.”
Nick
let out a soft laugh, which came out as a loud Darth Vader breath through the
mask. “Don’t underestimate the Force,
young Jedi.”
“Hello. We’ve been expecting you,” the woman said, in
a firm voice. “I’m Agent Julilly Kirk,
CSIS.” She shook Brian’s and Red’s hands
through their suits.
“It’s
nice to meet you, Agent Kirk. I’m Dr. Julianne
Llewellyn, head of the medical department at HimTak, and this is Brian Littrell
from CIA. And this is-“
“Carter…
Nick Carter,” Nick jumped in, taking Agent Kirk’s hand and trying to bring it
to his lips to kiss, as much as the Hazmat suit allowed. He only succeeded in knocking her knuckles
against the visor of his helmet. “Always
a pleasure to work with the local government,” he continued quickly in his most
charming voice, offering a suave wink to make up for his blunder.
“Pleasure
working with the government? Give me a
break!” Brian let out a loud scoff which
sounded more like a grunt through his helmet.
Agent
Kirk gave a brief laugh and managed to turn her hand in Nick’s palm to shake. “Nice to meet you too, Agent Carter. The pleasure is all mine to work with such
qualified agents on a case like this.” She looked at Red and Brian as she
spoke, but then her gaze landed back on Nick for a briefly longer time. “And charming, I might add.”
“Blame
the Canadian agents if they fail to notice such a jewel,” replied Nick. He wiggled his eyebrows seductively.
“Excuse
me?!” Red spoke from her corner, hearing Nick call the Canadian agent “Jewel.” Now this was new.
“I
wouldn’t blame them for being less forward and desperate, as a matter of fact,”
Julilly Kirk said, laughing.
Nick folded
his hands on his chest with a feigned, wounded look on his face. “Straight through my heart! You shot me.
I just can’t believe it…”
“Ohh…”
crowed Brian in amusement.
Julilly
rolled her eyes. “Not as bad as you’ve
done with God knows how many other women.”
“I
wouldn’t judge a book by its cover, if I were you.”
“Um,
can we go investigate the house now?” Red tried to cut in, eying Brian, who had
already given up on making any progress before the flirting ended between the
two agents and was walking toward the medics to collect some information
himself.
Julilly
turned around to Red and offered an apologetic look for neglecting the other
agents. “I’m sorry, Dr. Llewellyn, but
before going inside the house, the medics want to brief you and Agent Littrell on
the virus and the victims. You can also
check out their records; I just went through them, and I believe they contain
some important intelligence about the victim.”
Shrugging
and actually seeing a point in Julilly’s words, Red turned around to examine
the files that were stuffed on the desk near her. Any more information she could take in before
investigating the house itself would be a bonus.
“… jewel
like you.”
“Huh?”
Red was snapped from her world a few
minutes later by someone calling her name, only to realize it was Nick, calling
Julilly by her nickname.
Shaking
her head in irritation, she turned her attention back to the files.
So according
to his mother, the Terrance Phillip guy had seemed totally normal up until the
previous night, when he’d been in his room, busy with… scrapbooking? Red let out a soft laugh; it was quite odd for
a man to have a scrapbook. And then his
mother had heard him collapse upstairs and come up, only to find her son lying
in his own vomit, full of… blood.
“…
such a jewel like you would love a ride in my Hummer.”
Red
was startled once again when she heard her name.
“Look,
not that I don’t appreciate the offer,” she heard Julilly saying, “but you
gotta try harder than that.”
“I
like to be challenged.” Nick leaned
forward. “Makes me appreciate the jewel
even more.”
Red slapped
the papers down on the desk in frustration. “This is getting too annoying,” she muttered. She wasn’t sure which one was more nauseating:
a victim dying in a pool of his own
bloody vomit, or Nick and a Canadian agent flirting shamelessly – in Hazmat
suits.
With her
years of experience as a doctor, she could pick the latter in a heartbeat.
“So
I’ve learned that the victim’s mother is still in the house, basically refusing
to leave.” Brian was back, dragging her
attention away.
Red
sighed with relief. “You have no idea
how happy I am to see you.” She pointed at
Nick and Julilly. “I’ve been really
getting sick of this.”
Brian
cackled, only to be met with Red’s stern look. “I never understood how Nick could impress any
girl with his flirting, but I bet this time, he really won’t get his way.”
“As
much as I don’t like him flirting during a mission,” Red muttered and eyed the
CIA agent, “I have to quote, ‘Don’t underestimate the Force, young Jedi.’”
With
that, she turned around to walk towards Terrance Phillip’s house.
± ± ±
The
four slowly made their way up to the house. Brian knocked, and they all waited. Suddenly, the door swung open, and a woman
stood before them.
“Hello,
ma’am. My name is Agent Littrell; I’m
with the CIA. We’re here on behalf of
the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and we’d like to ask you some
questions about your son, if you have a moment,” Brian said softly, flashing
his badge.
“I
already spoke to the police. What’s left
to be said?” the woman asked, wiping at her eyes with a tissue.
“We
know, ma’am, and we don’t mean to bother you…
We just have some follow-up questions for you. It’ll only take a few moments.” Julilly smiled sympathetically.
The
woman turned, making her way inside, and the four followed her, Nick closing
the door behind them. Terrance Phillip’s
mother ushered them into her living room, and they all sat down.
“What
is it that you want to know?” Mrs. Phillip asked, eyeing them skeptically.
“Well,
we know you said that your son Terrance didn’t seem different; you noticed no
changes. Did he mention places he was
going? Or maybe some new people he was
hanging out with?” Brian questioned.
She
shook her head. “No, like I said,
everything was fine. I mean, he ate
earlier, just some cereal – he loved Fruity Pebbles –
and
then he went out for a bit, and he came home from the store with some new
things for his scrapbooking – oh, you know, he just loved to scrapbook. One year, he made this really nice one for me
for my b-birthday, and n-now…”
Nick
suppressed a smirk, imagining the big guy they’d seen in the hospital, with
long, ZZ Top hair and a heavy metal beard, eating Fruity Pebbles and
scrapbooking. Never judge a book by its
cover, he supposed. If he’d learned
anything from the business of espionage, it should be that. Trying to focus back in on the conversation,
he turned a sympathetic eye towards the kid’s mother.
“We’re
very sorry for your loss, ma’am. We know
how hard this must be for you,” Julilly said softly. The other three nodded in agreement.
“Do
you think it may be possible for us to see his room?” Brian asked.
“Well,
I suppose. Just don’t… don’t move
anything. I’d like to keep everything
the way it was.”
“We’ll
try not to, ma’am. We just want to look
for any evidence, any clues as to where he might have contracted this virus,”
Red explained.
Mrs.
Phillip led them upstairs and pointed out her son’s door. They all managed to squeeze into the small bedroom,
which was, surprisingly, lined with posters of the Moffatts.
“He
just loved the Moffatts; he’d play those songs over and over and over…” Mrs.
Phillip sniffed, as she retreated to leave them to their investigation.
Another
surprise! A metal dude who liked
boybands? Well, there was no accounting
for taste, Nick thought. He looked
around, noticing a few comic books here and there. His eyes widened when he saw a rare Spiderman he’d been trying to collect
for months. Maybe the mom wouldn’t
notice if he… He reached out, until
Brian smacked his hand.
“Stop
it!”
“I
was just gonna look at it!”
“We’re
supposed to be looking for clues. You’re
gonna get us thrown out! Show some damn
respect!”
“It’s
worth nothing to him when he’s dead,” Nick muttered under his breath, but moved
away from the comic books to probe another corner of the room.
After
a brief search, in which they found nothing remarkable, they thanked Terrance’s
mother and left. They made their way to
the hotel at last. After they got
settled, they congregated in Nick‘s room, to debrief, go over what they‘d found,
and discuss some possible causes.
“So
what do you all think?” Red asked.
“I
don’t know. It’s all so weird,” Julilly
sighed. “Nothing to go on that would
give us any hints as to what caused this.”
She ran a hand through her hair in frustration. Nick watched.
Her hair was short, but it was shiny, and he bet it was soft, too. He imagined running his own fingers through
it.
Julilly
suddenly turned and caught him looking at her.
He offered a sheepish grin, giving her a small wink.
She
blinked. “You got something in your eye
there, Carter?”
Nick
felt himself redden. He swiped at his
eye. “Nope, I’m good now,” he muttered,
looking away. When he glanced back at
Julilly out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw her smirk.
“I don’t
know, maybe it’s geared towards one type of person or people, ya know? Like…I dunno, maybe just young people – a lot
of the victims seemed to be young – or… or people…” Brian started.
“With
no taste in music? I mean, c’mon, the
Moffatts?” Nick reasoned.
“Nick…”
Red warned.
“The
dude kept a scrapbook, for crying out loud!”
“You’re
an idiot,” Brian muttered.
“You’re an idiot!” Nick exploded. “What kind of virus only targets young
people? Aren’t young people usually the
ones who survive these things?”
“Why
don’t you tell us, Sherlock, if you’ve got all the answers?” Brian retorted
sarcastically. He sat back on the couch
and crossed his arms over his chest, gazing coolly up at Nick with raised brows,
as if waiting for answers. Nick rolled
his eyes.
“That
is a good point,” said Red thoughtfully.
“Usually it’s the very young, the very old, and the infirm who have the
most casualties in an epidemic. But
Brian’s right too – according to Jeanie’s notes, a lot of the original victims
were young – teenagers and early twenty-somethings. It goes against the norm. That has to be significant.”
Nick
got up, his mind spinning with this information, trying to churn it into
answers. All he had now were
questions. He wandered around the room,
lost in thought, while the others sat in silence, apparently deep inside their
own minds as well. Then he caught sight
of Julilly again and was temporarily distracted. He tried to act nonchalant as he sat down next
to her, brushing up against her.
“Whoa
there, partner… ever heard of personal space?” Julilly said, giving him a
nudge. “All kinds of room on that side
of the couch, too.”
Starting
to wonder if Agent Julilly Kirk was a lesbian, Nick scooted. Yet, he noticed her eyes follow him as he
did. Mystified, he glanced over at her
again, but she was now looking at Brian.
“Anyway…
it’s too early to tell, but there’s gotta be some reason it happened to him, to
all those kids. What made them different
from their next door neighbors, or the people across the street?” Julilly
questioned.
“One
word: scrapbook. I’m just sayin’,” Nick stated, holding his
hands up in surrender.
They
all groaned.
± ± ±