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(Single Entrance)
Jul. 2nd, 2008 08:13 pmHe clicked on the speaker system and said, “Thank you, Sharon, that’s all for today. I have good news for you, it’s been thirty-one days; tomorrow is the last one, okay?”
The nude woman sitting on the bed nodded up at the camera and took two sleeping pills before lying down on the bed. It was a specially designed room, spartan and without anything that the subjects could cut themselves on. The bed was plastic, the sheets and covers chenille, and the walls themselves were padded with enough rubber foam to satisfy a mental institution.
Project Lead Jeffery Larkos observed her through the monitors for a few minutes, watching as her heartbeat and respirations slowed down, and then clapped the technician on the shoulder and went back to his office down the hall. He looked at all the medical journals on his desk and sighed tiredly, instead going over to the couch to sleep.
Finally, he thought, step three could proceed, and they would see if it was all worth it. After the Seattle incident, he had been given the research and testing laboratory, analyzing the properties of various viruses and their ability to penetrate the human skin. Everything came down to tomorrow.
---
“Sharon, you’re up already, I see,” he said, taking a seat in the monitor room.
“I couldn’t wait, Doctor – after all, today is the last day, and my husband and kids are outside, I hear, and…”
“Calm down, please, Sharon – this will only take a minute, and then we’ll be done.” He smiled back and motioned for her to stand still as the cameras and scanners examined her from every angle, checking for cuts and microcuts. Finding none, he says. “There’s a cylinder near the door. Wait until I give the signal, and then press the end with the arrow gently against your left arm, okay?”
“Whatever you say, Doc,” she said, doing a pirouette. Jeffrey took a deep breath, and then told the technician to activate stage one.
“Ebola sample A-2 diffusing into the room, Doctor.”
“If this doesn’t work, Dan, we’re dead,” Jeffrey remarked, eyes glued to the monitors. The newest weaponized version of airborne Ebola was noted for its 90% mortality rate and almost instant nature. Whoever had made it had removed the usual five to ten day incubation period, and made it almost universally lethal. This lab was designed to find out how readily it would diffuse through human skin.
“And…we’re at one minute, and negative contam.”
“Begin stage two.” Jeffrey said, and then pressed the speaker button. “Sharon, go ahead.”
Inside the room, Sharon put the canister to her arm gently, and it clicked, an extremely tiny needle puncturing her flesh, not even making enough of a hole to draw blood.
“Stage two commencing,” Jeffrey said tersely, and then returned to the monitor.
It wasn’t thirty seconds before it started. A deepening of the red at her lips, and then a blush into her cheeks…and then, all at once, cuts appearing on her body as her skin broke down. Her eyes, nose, mouth, ears…all her orifices were leaking blood, and she had only time to moan before collapsing on the floor.
“Test subject forty. Failure due to single entrance.”
In his head, he added, God help us.
The nude woman sitting on the bed nodded up at the camera and took two sleeping pills before lying down on the bed. It was a specially designed room, spartan and without anything that the subjects could cut themselves on. The bed was plastic, the sheets and covers chenille, and the walls themselves were padded with enough rubber foam to satisfy a mental institution.
Project Lead Jeffery Larkos observed her through the monitors for a few minutes, watching as her heartbeat and respirations slowed down, and then clapped the technician on the shoulder and went back to his office down the hall. He looked at all the medical journals on his desk and sighed tiredly, instead going over to the couch to sleep.
Finally, he thought, step three could proceed, and they would see if it was all worth it. After the Seattle incident, he had been given the research and testing laboratory, analyzing the properties of various viruses and their ability to penetrate the human skin. Everything came down to tomorrow.
---
“Sharon, you’re up already, I see,” he said, taking a seat in the monitor room.
“I couldn’t wait, Doctor – after all, today is the last day, and my husband and kids are outside, I hear, and…”
“Calm down, please, Sharon – this will only take a minute, and then we’ll be done.” He smiled back and motioned for her to stand still as the cameras and scanners examined her from every angle, checking for cuts and microcuts. Finding none, he says. “There’s a cylinder near the door. Wait until I give the signal, and then press the end with the arrow gently against your left arm, okay?”
“Whatever you say, Doc,” she said, doing a pirouette. Jeffrey took a deep breath, and then told the technician to activate stage one.
“Ebola sample A-2 diffusing into the room, Doctor.”
“If this doesn’t work, Dan, we’re dead,” Jeffrey remarked, eyes glued to the monitors. The newest weaponized version of airborne Ebola was noted for its 90% mortality rate and almost instant nature. Whoever had made it had removed the usual five to ten day incubation period, and made it almost universally lethal. This lab was designed to find out how readily it would diffuse through human skin.
“And…we’re at one minute, and negative contam.”
“Begin stage two.” Jeffrey said, and then pressed the speaker button. “Sharon, go ahead.”
Inside the room, Sharon put the canister to her arm gently, and it clicked, an extremely tiny needle puncturing her flesh, not even making enough of a hole to draw blood.
“Stage two commencing,” Jeffrey said tersely, and then returned to the monitor.
It wasn’t thirty seconds before it started. A deepening of the red at her lips, and then a blush into her cheeks…and then, all at once, cuts appearing on her body as her skin broke down. Her eyes, nose, mouth, ears…all her orifices were leaking blood, and she had only time to moan before collapsing on the floor.
“Test subject forty. Failure due to single entrance.”
In his head, he added, God help us.
