T-minus 20 days to DEADLINE.
May. 11th, 2011 06:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seanan_mcguireDenver, Colorado. July 2nd, 2014.
Janice Barton knocked twice on the door to Dr. Wells's office before opening it and stepping inside, expression drawn. "Do you think you can see three more patients today?" she asked, without preamble.
"What?" Dr. Wells looked up from his paperwork, fingers clenching involuntarily on his pen. "I've already seen nine patients so far! I've barely finished filing the insurance information for Mrs. Bridge. How am I supposed to see three more before we close?"
"Because if you'll agree to see three more, I can probably convince the other nineteen to come back tomorrow," Janice replied. For the first time, Dr. Wells realized how harried his normally composed administrative assistant looked. Her nails were chipped. Somehow, that seemed like the biggest danger sign of all. A man-made virus was on the loose, Marburg Amberlee was doing...something...and Janice had allowed her manicure to fray.
"I'll see the three most in need of attention, and then I have to close for the night," he said, putting down his pen as he stood. "If I don't get some sleep, I won't be of any use to anyone."
"Thank you," said Janice, and withdrew.
She was gone by the time he emerged from his office, retreating to wherever it was she went when she was tired of dealing with the madhouse of the waiting room. On the days when it was a madhouse, anyway. This was definitely one of those days. The gathered patients set up a clamor as soon as he appeared, all of them waving for his attention, some of them even shouting. Dr. Wells stopped, looking at the crowd, and wondered if the other doctors involved in the Marburg Amberlee tests were having the same experience.
He was deeply afraid that they were.
The trouble wasn't the patients themselves; they looked as hale and healthy as ever, which explained how they were able to yell quite so loudly for his attention. Their cancers were gone, or under control, constantly besieged by their defensive Marburg Amberlee infections. It was the people they had brought to the office with them that presented the truly alarming problem. Husbands and wives, parents and children, they sat next to their previously ill relatives with glazed eyes, taking shallow, pained-sounding breaths. Some of them were bleeding from the nose or tear ducts—just a trickle, nothing life-threatening, but that little trickle was enough to terrify Dr. Wells, making his bowels feel loose and his stomach crawl.
They were manifesting the early signs of a Marburg Amberlee infection, during the brief phase where the body's immune system attempted to treat the helper virus as an invasion. That was the one stage of infection that could be truly harmful; when Marburg Amberlee was hit, it hit back, and it was more interested in defeating the opposition than it was in preserving the host. These people were infected, all of them.
And that simply wasn't possible. Marburg Amberlee wasn't transmittable through casual contact. Pointing almost at random, he said, "You, you, and you. I can see you before we close. Everyone else, I'm very sorry, but you're going to have to come back tomorrow."
Groans and shouts of protest spread through the room. "My baby's sick!" shouted one woman. A year before, she'd been dying of lung cancer. Now she was glaring at him like he was the devil incarnate. "What are you going to do about it?"
"I'm going to see you tomorrow," said Dr. Wells firmly, and waved for the chosen three to step through the door between the reception area and the examination rooms. He retreated with relief, the feeling of dread growing stronger.
He honestly had no idea what he was going to do.
***
Rumors of an outbreak of hemorrhagic fever in and around the Colorado Cancer Research Center have, as yet, been unsubstantiated. The head doctor, Daniel Wells, is unavailable for comment at this time.
When will you Rise?
Janice Barton knocked twice on the door to Dr. Wells's office before opening it and stepping inside, expression drawn. "Do you think you can see three more patients today?" she asked, without preamble.
"What?" Dr. Wells looked up from his paperwork, fingers clenching involuntarily on his pen. "I've already seen nine patients so far! I've barely finished filing the insurance information for Mrs. Bridge. How am I supposed to see three more before we close?"
"Because if you'll agree to see three more, I can probably convince the other nineteen to come back tomorrow," Janice replied. For the first time, Dr. Wells realized how harried his normally composed administrative assistant looked. Her nails were chipped. Somehow, that seemed like the biggest danger sign of all. A man-made virus was on the loose, Marburg Amberlee was doing...something...and Janice had allowed her manicure to fray.
"I'll see the three most in need of attention, and then I have to close for the night," he said, putting down his pen as he stood. "If I don't get some sleep, I won't be of any use to anyone."
"Thank you," said Janice, and withdrew.
She was gone by the time he emerged from his office, retreating to wherever it was she went when she was tired of dealing with the madhouse of the waiting room. On the days when it was a madhouse, anyway. This was definitely one of those days. The gathered patients set up a clamor as soon as he appeared, all of them waving for his attention, some of them even shouting. Dr. Wells stopped, looking at the crowd, and wondered if the other doctors involved in the Marburg Amberlee tests were having the same experience.
He was deeply afraid that they were.
The trouble wasn't the patients themselves; they looked as hale and healthy as ever, which explained how they were able to yell quite so loudly for his attention. Their cancers were gone, or under control, constantly besieged by their defensive Marburg Amberlee infections. It was the people they had brought to the office with them that presented the truly alarming problem. Husbands and wives, parents and children, they sat next to their previously ill relatives with glazed eyes, taking shallow, pained-sounding breaths. Some of them were bleeding from the nose or tear ducts—just a trickle, nothing life-threatening, but that little trickle was enough to terrify Dr. Wells, making his bowels feel loose and his stomach crawl.
They were manifesting the early signs of a Marburg Amberlee infection, during the brief phase where the body's immune system attempted to treat the helper virus as an invasion. That was the one stage of infection that could be truly harmful; when Marburg Amberlee was hit, it hit back, and it was more interested in defeating the opposition than it was in preserving the host. These people were infected, all of them.
And that simply wasn't possible. Marburg Amberlee wasn't transmittable through casual contact. Pointing almost at random, he said, "You, you, and you. I can see you before we close. Everyone else, I'm very sorry, but you're going to have to come back tomorrow."
Groans and shouts of protest spread through the room. "My baby's sick!" shouted one woman. A year before, she'd been dying of lung cancer. Now she was glaring at him like he was the devil incarnate. "What are you going to do about it?"
"I'm going to see you tomorrow," said Dr. Wells firmly, and waved for the chosen three to step through the door between the reception area and the examination rooms. He retreated with relief, the feeling of dread growing stronger.
He honestly had no idea what he was going to do.
***
Rumors of an outbreak of hemorrhagic fever in and around the Colorado Cancer Research Center have, as yet, been unsubstantiated. The head doctor, Daniel Wells, is unavailable for comment at this time.
When will you Rise?
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 01:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 03:05 am (UTC)I must say, Seanan, these vignettes are making me more and more excited for Deadline. May explain why I re-read Feed over the weekend, as well.
*is planning to buy two copies plus a new copy of Feed when Deadline comes out*
no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 06:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 02:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 03:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 02:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 02:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 02:48 am (UTC)And yes, the "normal is hell and gone because the assistan's manicure is chipped" is a powerful image.
Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 06:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 06:25 am (UTC)Hmm. Since it obviously is transmitted, there must be a mistake in that assumption. And it hasn't even met the Kellis virus (which seems similarly jealous of other infections) once installed in the host) yet. Oh my...
no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 02:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 04:13 pm (UTC)But my reference to casual contact was about Marburg Amberlee before the two meet, that since there are a lot of cases of infection the virus is obviously being transmitted, therefore the assumption (by the doctor) that it was being transmitted by casual contact was incorrect. Of course, for married partners the contact may have been far from 'casual', and between them and their children things like kissing may have passed it on (as it can for HSV1 when a parent with a "cold sore" kisses a child), but unless the place is a hotbed of orgies how did it get to so many families? Perhaps it's more easily transmitted than he thinks...
no subject
Date: 2011-05-17 01:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 08:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 09:57 am (UTC)Bedbugs with 'superbug' germ found (Boston.com)
no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 12:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 06:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 06:34 pm (UTC)BTW you said something about having to post some stories late due to your next convention - meant to tell you that there is a way to have things post at a pre-determined time. I don't know how to do it but I've seen Jim Hines make reference to doing it. Not sure the idea is worth researching but thought I'd mention it.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 02:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 06:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 03:50 pm (UTC)Marburg-Amberlee, while being Ebola, is a blunted Ebola which in general doesn't kill. If Alpha-RC007 had instead fused with a more lethal strain of filovirus, or possibly something equally lethal like rabies, things would be so much worse.
Of course, who is to say that hasn't happened at all? Would we know?
no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 07:01 pm (UTC)thanks;)
no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 09:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 10:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-17 03:10 am (UTC)What a terrible situation.