His hands dove inside, withdrawing an empty brass syringe, and a vial of thick, black fluid. The upturned metal box became his operating table, black bag slamming unceremoniously to the ground. It wasn't the insect - it was the sac of blood which the creature had engorged on. Behind his mask, he grit his teeth, and held the mosquito up to his eye. He steeled himself, kneeling down, lifting the face-down box aside, and gingerly plucked the tiny black speck from beneath it with his index finger and thumb. Vapor, colder than ice, wafted in a great cloud from the unsealed box, and he dropped it to the floor with a clatter, which echoed throughout the silent facility. He might as well have been struck in the face. Supercooled, preservative gasses mingled with the air outside the box for the first time in a long, long time. His finger found a button, pressed it, and the box's lid swung open. He pulled a rectangular metal box from the locker, studying it intently. In short order the door lay twisted at his feet. His containment cell door had been made of much sterner stuff. The lights were all functional, all of the other containment chambers still sealed.Īt last he found it, behind an unlocked door, within a locked metal locker. He followed the stinging sensation of the disease, navigating the corridors as though he'd drawn up the floorplan. Well-lit, and devoid of any other life, all the easier to navigate. He didn't know how long it took to widen it enough to pass through he didn't really register the passage of time anymore. It took a tremendous amount of doing, but he got it open a crack, wide enough to put his weight into it. His bag contained steel tools, and he did not understand how to relent. While the lights had remained functional, the electromagnetic lock had not. It had no handle, opened when his captors ordered it. He found himself standing before the door to his cell, studying it. Eventually, perhaps, he would have stopped thinking.īut that had been before that familiar, detestable presence had returned, burning at his mind. In the constant soft white light that bathed his cell, the doctor reclined himself on a comfortable mattress. And he had been content to rest in this pristine cell, away from the wretched disease, alone with his thoughts. Still, even that, too, had faded in time. The thought was as foolish as any he'd ever heard. The voice would come out of his walls and ask him questions, about what he was doing or how he was feeling, or if he had any regrets for what he'd done. Still, after that, they had still checked on him. That had ended long, long ago, when the doctors had realized that they themselves weren't free from disease. Doctors had used to come, and bring him specimens to study, to perfect his methods. It was faint, but pungent, as though the disease had been festering undisturbed in containment for so long that its miasma had built and wafted out, enough for him to taste the scant particles of tainted air. It was impossibly small, but unimaginably intense, like a needle in his eye. He felt it, the unmistakable sensation of the pestilence.
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