*** CMO Office * SB Unity ***
Rangi had found the phial.
It was exactly where Cortez had said it would be, deep in a
side pocket, stashed away in the locker. She had lifted it
out with a pair of long handled forceps, and placed it
carefully into a padded case for its own protection and
taken straight to one of the labs. for inspection.
The result was amazing.
Perhaps in the past others had felt the same thrill, for
thats exactly what it was like when Doctor Andrews,looking
up from the microscope said simply:
"You're right."
Rangi had checked the blood sample herself and not trusting
in what she saw had asked Andrews to check it too.
It was soon established as being human blood and not that of
Major Cortez but the thrilling part came from what else the
examination showed.
Science was called and soon a flurry of activity filled the
medlabs.
A young doctor was sent hot-foot back to the isolation room
where Cortez had just begun his long awaited dinner.
The doctor, dressed head to toe in protective clothing and
accompanied by two armed guards similarly dressed, explained
that he needed to take a blood sample.
Cortez, with an emphasised sigh, laid aside his knife and
fork and waited for the force field to be deactivated.
The doctor approached him nervously and only when a guard
aimed his phaser at the Majors head, did he proceed with his
work as quickly as he could.
The Force Field was reset, the doctor sped back to the lab
and Cortez returned to his dinner.
Rangi was waiting for the sample and quickly began a test.
Andrews and a couple of others stood around her as she
peered into the microscope adjusting this and that and when,
after tense moments of waiting, she leaned back and said :
"Nothing." in a tone that implied that that was 'the' best
result anyone could ever have hoped for, her happiness was
infectious.
Happiness though didnt stretch as far as the isolation room,
for Cortez was soon informed that an hourly blood sample was
needed for comparison testing and for the rest of the
evening and throughout the night, he was disturbed by the
same now eager doctor and his little medkit.
By breakfast time the "Nothing" was greeted with smiles of
satisfaction and Rangi had contacted Shane to advise him
that Cortez could be freed from isolation and give an update
on her findings, when two things happened almost
simultaneously.
Firstly was a call from the Science lab.followed by another
from security in section 5 of the outer ring.
It had originally been assumed that the condition was
transmitted by direct contact but when Georgia Pegg was
found dead in her room and the first of the fifteen people
who subsequently developed it did so in an adjoining room,
airborne contact became a stronger possibility.
Of those fifteen, three had died and another twentytwo had
the symptoms.
But now the outcome was not the same as for the original
victims for now death did not come peacefully but instead
they exhibited actions that Cortez had witnessed on Aeran
III. They became violent in an extreme, attempting and
succeeding at first in breaking out of the rooms to which
they were confined.
They were crazed, unstoppable, violent people whose every
vestage of human behaviour disappeared.
Section five was an area given over to religious groups
where shrines and chapels of mutiple faiths could be found.
In one such place a priest, gone there to pray for peace and
healing to fall upon the planet below, had narrowly escaped
unharmed and sat in shock in the hospital unable to say
what he had witnessed although there was little need, for
the visual feed from the sensors showed all too clearly what
had happened there to some of the gathered congregation.
"There are Demons" he said over and over "Demons.."
The internal sensors had picked up something else though
which was to lead to the naming of the condition in laymens
terms. Later it would have an official name ofcourse.
The thin blue lines that had appeared so clearly on the
bodies were now able to leave them, so proving that direct
person to person contact was not essential to transmit the
condition.
The sensor displays showed thin 'wire' like things oozing
from a body and moving by some method unknown across a floor
and under a door.
Sections 4 to 18 were being evacuated with Sections 4 , 5 6
and 7 already populated by victims.
One third of Unitys outer ring was contaminated and by the
afternoon the name would be on everyones lips....... Wire
Demons.
*** End Log ***
Commander Rangi Summers
Med Adv 1st Task Force
CMO SB UNity
