Season 1, Episode 8:
FANthrax
Part 6 of 10
They
all piled into the Hummer and started towards the arena.
“Hey
guys, listen to this: I spoke to Jeanie,
and she said that now the virus has spread through the hospital. Dr. Carter is sick; they’re sure he’s
infected. He’s been showing all the
signs – coughing, vomiting, and all that.
But here’s where it gets interesting…” Red started.
“I
dunno, it’s pretty interesting already,” Nick said.
“Wait
until you hear this, then: It seems that
it’s airborne, or passed through something in the air. It could be anything. When you think about it, a concert is a
surefire way to be able to infect a whole lot of people all at once, through
the vents and whatever.”
Brian
frowned. “That’s crazy.”
“I
know, but think about it – if you’re trying to make a point and get a large
number of casualties, what better way?” Red reasoned.
“So,
what you’re saying is, they just blew a random cloud of this stuff in the air
or something? I mean, wouldn’t the
performers notice smoke coming out that’s not supposed to be there?” Nick said,
doubt lacing his tone.
Red
shrugged. “Dunno. I guess when you’re performing, you don’t
notice those things… or more likely, it was transparent.”
There
was silence for a moment.
“Well,
I guess we’ll see what we can find when we there,” Julilly sighed.
A
short time later, they arrived at the area, making their way inside the
building. Nothing looked out of the
ordinary – well, what was ordinary for an area, that was.
“Why
don’t we split up into pairs and ask around, see if we can find out anything unusual
about the concert?” Brian suggested, swallowing hard. He suddenly wasn’t feeling the best.
Nick
went with Julilly, and Brian and Red went together. Nick and Julilly made their way towards one of
the control booths, knocking on the door, making their way in when one of the
workers opened the door. They showed their
ID’s, their gazes scanning the booth.
“Can
I help you with something?” the man asked.
“We’re
here about a concert that was held in this arena on Saturday, The Moffatts
concert. Were you in attendance for
that?” Julilly asked.
The
guy nodded. “Yeah, I was. Why?”
“Did
you notice anything… different when you were there?” Nick asked, staring hard
at the man. People were always
intimidated with those hard stares.
The
guy blinked. “No, not really. I mean, those fans are crazy, you know? I mean, grown women screaming and passing
out… It was nuts.”
“Okay,
so you didn’t see anything abnormal happen… maybe something that wasn’t
supposed to?” Julilly questioned.
The
guy frowned in concentration. “No, I
don’t think so.”
“You
don’t think so?” Nick pressed, increasing the hard stare.
“No,
I don’t think so, sir. I’m sorry, but it
was a one-time thing, ya know? After
that, what does it matter? The fans
loved it and whatever. It’s not like I
was looking for anything to be wrong.”
Nick
shook his head. “Wait, but isn’t that
your job? You work the control booth!”
The
guy groaned. “I don’t know what you’re
talking about. I work the concessions
stand. I’m just up here cause I’ve
always wanted to see the control room, and one of my friends works up here, and
he let me up here to, ya know… mess around.”
The guy smiled, his face beaming.
Julilly
stared at him a moment before turning and leaving the room. Nick shook his head in disappointment. “Live the dream, man… Live the dream.”
“You
bet I will!” The guy grinned.
They
made their way out and started down one of the aisles.
“Well,
that was a complete waste of time,” Julilly groaned.
“But
not really! Some young man is having his
dream come true; what’s more precious than that?” Nick smirked.
Julilly
shot him a look and started to probe up and down the aisles for anything
unusual. The arena had been cleaned up
since the concert, of course, so finding anything was going to be one in a
million.
“This
is crazy. What could we possibly find?”
Nick questioned, starting to grow a bit frustrated walking up and down aisles.
“We
need to see if we can find anyone else who works here, who’s not trying to
fulfill a childhood fantasy and get some answers,” Julilly grumbled, bending
over to look under the seats.
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Brian
and Red, on the other side of arena, were having slightly better luck.
“So
you’re saying, during the show, confetti came out and sprayed across the
arena?” Brian asked.
The
woman nodded. “Yeah, I was one of the
people who controlled two of the cannons.”
Red
nodded. “I see, and altogether, how many
were there?”
“Let’s
see… two in each corner, so eight altogether.”
“And
would you say they cover a good area?” Red asked, jotting some things down in
her notepad.
“They
cover a wide area, but the wind coming from the vents catches it and carries it
over the whole area.”
Red
and Brian looked at each other in triumph.
“And
does anyone check the confetti cannons before launch?” Brian questioned.
“Now
that you mention it, we did have some weird guy come about an hour before the
concert started, stating he was from some confetti company and he was here to
check the cannons because there had been reports of some issues with cannons at
other concerts, and he needed to check to make sure they were okay,” the lady
offered.
“Oh,
really? And what did this guy look
like?” Brian pressed.
“Kinda
short, Hispanic guy… Oh, he had
this…twitch; it was odd,” the woman finished, her eye twitching suddenly, and
she frowned. “Apparently, it’s contagious.”
“Hmm…
and have you noticed anything different with any of the workers who also worked
there that night? Yourself included?”
Red asked.
“Yeah…
actually, a lot of people have complained of not feeling too good. Sounds like the flu, coughing and vomiting. I’m okay; I’ve had a bit of a headache lately
and body aches, but I’ve been exercising, so I’m sure it’s nothing.” She looked them over uncertainly. Their suits screamed out to her that maybe
something was wrong. "Or should I,
uh... get checked out, or...?"
Red
cleared her throat. "It… may be a
good idea to stop by your doctor’s; it's always good to have a routine check-up
anyway."
The
woman looked at her.
"Prevention
is the best medicine... No, really, it
is," Red added at the woman’s look of skepticism. "And who knows – if it ends up being
more than just a simple cold, they can help you out right then and there."
Brian
was eager to bail; his head was pounding, and Red’s meager attempts at dodging
the woman’s questions were making him nervous.
He hated to downplay what seemed to be a very serious outbreak, but they
didn’t want to cause a panic either. “Well,
thank you for your time, ma’am,” he said abruptly, ending the exchange.
He
and Red made their way away from out of another one of the control rooms and
started towards Nick and Julilly.
“Well,
that was interesting. I think we may
have found how they spread it, but I’m not quite sure how they’d do it through
the confetti, though. Then again, there
are the vents, but she didn’t mention anything about… hey, you okay?” Red
asked, looking over at Brian, who appeared to be sweating.
He
nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. These suits are hot, ya know?”
Red
nodded absently. “In any case, it’s here,
I’m sure. If not the vents, the confetti
somehow.”
They
reached Nick and Julilly and told them what they’d found out, and they all
started looking around the aisles and seats, trying to see if they could find
any of the leftover confetti.
They
did notice several of the workers walking around, coughing and sneezing, and
even one hurrying to the bathroom, her hand over her mouth.
“Can
we, uh, hurry this up a bit? I feel like,
any minute now, I’m seriously gonna hurl in this suit if I see one more person
hacking like they’re gonna throw up a lung.
You know, all it takes is one person, and then it’s a chain reaction.” Nick blanched, slowly crawling along the
floor.
“Just
hang in there, Nick; we’ve gotta find something we can take back for testing,”
Red said. She sounded far away, since
she, too, was bent over, facing away from Nick.
“Yeah,
yeah,” he mumbled, his gaze wandering to a worker who appeared to have some kind
of oozing patch on his arm. That must be
what was called an ulcer. Nick swallowed
hard again, his mouth going dry, his stomach churning. Yeah, they needed to get out of there, and
soon.
Sighing,
he went back to looking and then stilled. He couldn’t believe his luck: there was a long, thin piece of confetti. Carefully, he reached out, gently sliding the
piece closer to him, his eyes widening; it was dusted with some kind of white
powder.
“Hey
guys, c’mere, I think I found something!!”
The
three hurried over, looking over Nick’s shoulder.
“Look,
a piece of confetti, and it’s got some white powdery shit on it.”
“Great
job, Nick! Let’s bag that baby up and
bring it in for testing.” Red grinned.
Nick
extracted a plastic baggie and a pair of tweezers. “Nick finds the proverbial needle in a
haystack, making the whole trip worthwhile in just a matter of seconds. His sharp skills and keen eye for discovery
have brought the group one step closer to success!”
“Hey,
Sherlock Holmes, pick up the damn confetti, and let’s get the hell outta here,
sheesh,” Julilly groaned.
“You’re
just upset that you didn’t find it.” Nick smirked, sticking his tongue out. He slipped the confetti into the bag and
zipped it up.
As
they thanked the workers and made their way out, Red looked over at the others,
her expression grim. “This whole place
needs to be quarantined,” she said in a low voice. “Some of those workers are surely infected
with the same thing Terrance Phillip died from, and if they leave, it’s just
going to spread more.”
Julilly
agreed at once. “Call Boulet back and
have her send a team from CIDPC out to quarantine the
venue. We need to get this sample back
to the lab and confirm that it contains the virus. By the looks of some of those people… I’m
sure this is it.”
Listening
to them talk, Brian suddenly felt queasy.
He stifled a cough. Now was not
the time to speak up, just as it was not the time to be falling ill. His team needed him. But as he walked away, he cast an uneasy look
back at the Air Canada Centre, thinking of all the sick people, unknowingly
trapped inside.
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In
the darkness of the night, a slightly small warehouse that was often used as a
movie set, located just outside the city limits of
In
the far corner of the room, a short, Hispanic man sat oddly still on his chair,
a chair which looked more like a throne and definitely out of place. In contrast with his stillness, his left eye
kept twitching, as he carefully watched his companions on the other side of the
warehouse.
“I used to call you my girl… I used to call you my friend...”
A
sudden stir disturbed the man’s stillness, diverting his attention for a
second. His eyes darted towards his
right shoulder. A rather small, but very
intelligent-looking ferret was covering his ears and shaking his head
feverishly, almost falling off from his master’s shoulder. The man let out a small smile, stroking the
ferret with his left hand, trying to calm him down.
“I
know, Dr. Twitches, I can barely endure it as well…” He sighed slowly, as he turned his attention
back to the corner of the warehouse, where four of his minions – four brothers,
in fact – were practicing on a small, carelessly-built stage.
“I miss you like crazy... even
more than words can say… I miss you like
crazy… every minute, every day… Whoo!”
The
ferret, who was known as Dr. Twitches, squealed loudly and climbed his way down
from his master’s shoulder to his lap, burying his face under his shirt. The sudden movement of his beloved animal
disturbed the man immensely; he hated it when his attention was constantly
divided by outside effects.
“I miss you, miss you, miss
you… Whoo, I miss you like crazy…”
Irritated
and very fed up with the crap amount of music he had to put up with for the
sake of his latest mission, the man stood up from his seat abruptly. Dr. Twitches squealed and fell down to the
floor, only to climb back up to the safety of his master’s shoulder.
The
short, Hispanic man took a couple of steps forward towards the light, making
himself visible to his minions. The
music came to a halt the second his appearance was clear to the others.
“Did
you like it, Dr. Rough?” the main vocalist of the group asked sheepishly.
Dr.
Rough eyed the four brothers one by one, only stopping for two seconds on each
one’s face. Three of the brothers looked
horrendously identical. All four of the
brothers had the same expectant look in their eyes, hoping to be approved as
the sort of well-serving minions that their master deserved. Dr. Rough was familiar with that look of
expectancy; it made him feel more in control and aware of his power, and it
gave him enough excuse to take his brutality beyond measures.
Still,
he didn’t enjoy the fact that these four creepy-looking brothers of some sort
of music group looked down on him from the small stage. Without saying another word, he walked slowly
to the stage, pondering his next set of plans at the same time. He slowly raised his hand to his right
shoulder, where Dr. Twitches was now calmly sitting, since the music had stopped,
and stroked him. It always helped him
when he wanted to clear his mind and focus on his task.
He
climbed the small stairs that led to the stage slowly and made his way towards
the center, noticing one of them stepping out of his way hurriedly. The lead singer of the group was still
standing in the middle of the stage, in front of his microphone, clutching his
guitar tightly, staring at his master with utter fear.
“Scott,
was it?” Dr. Rough questioned quietly, as he stopped a couple of inches from
his minion. The minion nodded in
response, gulping almost audibly.
“I
wonder why I agreed to continue the mission with you in
He
heard another audible gulp coming from the minion standing in front of him. “I can assure you, Dr. Rough, we will be very
successful in the upcoming part of our mission.
“Move,”
Dr. Rough hissed once again. Scott nodded
meekly and hurried over to his brothers as quickly as a human could do. Dr. Rough gave them another cold stare, before
starting to pace back and forth on the stage.
“I
have to concede that your
“The FANthrax
virus works brilliantly. There are more
casualties than I expected in the first place, and the effects are horrid
enough to distract everyone from working properly on any antidote… yet. Everyone forgets
He
stood right in the middle of the stage, in front of the microphone. The stage light was upon him, enlightening his
rather small figure frighteningly, his shadow falling
on the four minions standing behind him, mesmerized in fear. Dr. Rough opened his arms widely, his fists clenched.
His voice echoed through the warehouse,
now even more, with the help of microphone.
“And
as for HimTak… I’ll be their worst nightmare. I’ll be their doom. They will remember me. They will know how they brought their own end
to themselves. And from then on, HimTak
will REMEMBER MY NAME AND FEAR IT FOREVER! BWAHAHAHA!”
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