Episode 8: FANthrax
Part 6
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 get there,” Julilly sighed.
A short time later, they arrived at the arena and made their way inside the building. As far as they could tell, nothing looked out of the ordinary.
“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, then entering when one of the workers opened the door.
“Can I help you with something?” the man asked.
Julilly showed him her badge. “We’re here about a concert that was held in this arena on Saturday, The Moffatts concert. Were you in attendance for that?”
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 by 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 for 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 exited 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 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, growing frustrated as he walked 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.
***
On the other side of the arena, Brian and Red 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 cannons 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 arena.”
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. He stated that he was from some confetti company and he was here to check the cannons because there had been reports of some issues with them at other concerts,” 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 stared 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 examined another control room, then 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 as she looked 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. Then they all started looking around the aisles and seats, trying to find any leftover confetti.
They noticed several of the workers coughing and sneezing as they walked around. One hurried into a nearby bathroom with her hand over her mouth.
Nick blanched as he crawled across the floor. “Can we, uh, hurry this up a bit? If I see one more person hacking like they’re gonna cough up a lung, I’m seriously gonna hurl. You know, all it takes is one person, and then it’s a chain reaction.”
“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 sore on his arm. Nick swallowed hard again, his stomach churning. Yeah, they needed to get out of there soon.
Sighing, he went back to searching and suddenly stopped. He couldn’t believe his luck: on the floor in front of him was a long, thin piece of confetti. Carefully, he reached out, gently sliding the piece closer to him. His eyes widened. It was dusted with some kind of white powder.
“Hey guys, c’mere! I think I found something!!”
The three hurried over to him and looked over his 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.
***
Just outside the Toronto city limits sat a small warehouse. It was often used as a movie set, but that night, it hosted a group of people who were quite different from its usual guests.
In the far corner of the room, Dr. Rough sat stiffly on his throne-like chair. 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. Dr. Twitches covered his ears with his front paws and shook his head feverishly, almost falling off from his master’s shoulder. Dr. Rough smiled as he stroked the ferret with his left hand, trying to calm him down.
“I know, Dr. Twitches, I can barely endure it myself…” 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, makeshift stage.
“I miss you like crazy… even more than words can say… I miss you like crazy… every minute, every day… Whoo!”
Dr. Twitches squealed loudly and climbed down from his master’s shoulder to his lap, burying his face under his shirt. The sudden movement of his beloved animal disturbed Dr. Rough 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 with the amount of music he had to put up with for the sake of his latest mission, Dr. Rough stood up abruptly from his seat. Dr. Twitches squealed and fell to the floor, only to climb back up to the safety of his master’s shoulder.
Dr. Rough took a couple of steps 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 group’s main vocalist asked sheepishly.
Dr. Rough eyed the four brothers one by one. Three of them looked identical. All four had the same expectant look in their eyes. Dr. Rough was familiar with that look, the look of loyal minions seeking their master’s approval. He liked it. It made him feel more powerful and gave him an excuse to take his brutality to new levels.
Still, he didn’t enjoy the fact that this creepy quartet looked down on him from the small stage. Without saying another word, he walked slowly to the stage. He raised his hand to his right shoulder and stroked Dr. Twitches, who had been sitting calmly since the music stopped. The silky softness of the ferret’s fur under his fingertips always helped soothe Dr. Rough when he wanted to clear his mind and focus on his task.
He climbed the stairs that led to the stage and made his way towards the center. The three identical brothers backed away, leaving the lead singer of the group standing alone in the middle of the stage in front of his microphone. Clutching his guitar tightly, he stared at his master in fear.
Dr. Rough stopped a couple of feet from his minion. “Scott, was it?” he questioned quietly. The minion nodded in response, gulping almost audibly.
“I wonder why I agreed to continue the mission with you in Europe,” Dr. Rough continued through clenched teeth, “and with that sorry excuse for what you call music.” He spat out the last word and eyed the rest of the minions. “It perplexes and amuses me that you could make it outside of Canada with such intolerable music. Today’s youth must be deaf.”
He heard another audible gulp coming from the minion standing in front of him. “I can assure you, Dr. Rough, that we will be very successful in the next phase of our mission. Europe was always welcoming to us; they like our music, and I’m sure–” Scott stopped hastily when he caught the cold stare of his master.
“Move!” Dr. Rough hissed once again. Scott nodded meekly and hurried over to his brothers. Dr. Rough gave them another cold stare before starting to pace back and forth across the stage. “I have to concede that your Toronto concert went quite well. Better than I expected.” His voice echoed in the warehouse, accompanying the sound of his languid footsteps.
He didn’t notice the way his minions beamed in response to his words. He kept walking from one side of the stage to the other, scratching his goatee.
“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 Canada, just like how HimTak had forgotten about me. And they are going to pay for that. The price for treating Dr. Rough like a piece of dirt will be very high. But yes… from now on, they will remember. The world will remember me! Yes… when my chemical weapon spans the globe and people across the world are dropping dead in pools of their own blood and purple piss, they will remember Canada. They will remember Dr. Rough. They will remember how I rose from my ashes in this forgotten land.”
He stood in front of the microphone in the middle of the stage. As a lone spotlight shone down on him, his shadow loomed over the four minions standing behind him, mesmerized in fear. Dr. Rough opened his arms widely, his fists clenched.
“Death and destruction will rain down on HimTak! They’ll regret rejecting me… forgetting me… underestimating me. I will bring about their doom! And from then on, HimTak will REMEMBER MY NAME AND FEAR IT!”
His voice echoed off the walls of the warehouse as he threw back his head and laughed.
***