Yay! Part 5. This is officially my longest story yet. That's not saying much though. Anyway, on the last chapter: Relena visited L2 and Duo remembered when he was kicked off the Program.
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Chapter 5: Help and Hate
5:30 A.M.
Duo woke to the smell of bacon and eggs. He inhaled and sighed happily at the smell. He sat up and stretched. He yawned as he walked into the kitchen. Wufei was standing at the stove flipping eggs. When Duo walked in Wufei said, "I don't know how like your eggs, so I just took a guess."
"Any way is fine," Duo said. "Any news today?"
"Only three deaths over-night," Wufei replied.
"That's better," Duo said.
"Yeah, but fourteen more are sick," Wufei said.
"Damn," Duo swore, putting his face in his hands.
Wufei put two eggs on a plate for Duo, and two more on a plate for himself. He scraped the bacon into a bowl and set everything down on the table. "Eat," Wufei said. "You're going to need it. We're going to the hospital today."
"Yay," Duo said sarcastically.
"My sentiments exactly," Wufei said.
They ate the rest of their food in silence.
Duo stared out the window of the car while his fingers drummed on the dashboard. Wufei was grinding his teeth every time one of Duo's fingers hit it. Finally he had enough. "Why don't we listen to the radio?" he asked.
The opening tunes of a song started and Duo instantly recognized the song.
Sometimes I really want to be alone
But that's one state I'm never in
Because I know that I've got millions upon millions
Of tiny one-celled organisms on my skin
Duo fingers started drumming to the beat and Wufei reached over and grabbed Duo's hand. Duo looked over at Wufei with a confused look on his face and Wufei said, "Please stop."
When the song ended the DJ came on and said, "I think that's the perfect song for the events happening all over L2. If you haven't been listening or paying attention to anything going on outside your house, there is a deadly plague sweeping through L2. A Preventers agent sent to figure out this thing said that they have the virus under control. Yeah fuckin' right. You have this under control as much as Medieval Europe had the Bubonic Plague under control."
"He's absolutely correct," Duo said.
Wufei suddenly sang, "PISCES! Try to avoid any Virgos or Leos with the Ebola virus."
Duo smile. "Wow, Wufei," he said. "How'd you know that song?"
Wufei blushed. "One of my partners after you left really liked Weird Al. He played it all the time. That's a part to one of the songs I actually like. It fits the situation well."
Duo shrugged. He agreed wholeheartedly. The hospital came into view. They saw quarantine tents outside. There were too many patients to fit inside the hospital. This was even after the fact that patients were dropping like flies.
They pulled into an empty parking spot and jogged over a DECON tent. After a few minutes they walked out in orange Racal suits. They walked into the hospital. A voice yelled, "Duo! Wufei!"
They turned and saw Quatre running towards them. "Hey, Quatre," Duo said.
"Are you back in the Preventers, Duo?" he asked.
"Temporarily," Duo said dryly.
Quatre looked confused for a second but let the topic drop. "Anyway," he said, "I have some bad news."
"What's that?" Duo asked.
"It's news that people generally don't want to hear. You know, the opposite of good news," Quatre replied. ;p
"What's the bad news?" Duo asked with a sigh.
"Someone got off L2," Quatre replied.
"WHAT!?" Duo yelled. Then he said in a quieter voice, "How the hell did he get off and where did he go."
"He stole a shuttle and somehow got to L3," Quatre replied.
"Shit," Wufei moaned. "Is he infected?"
"When he sent the message he looked like he had it."
"Shit," Duo said.
"What's with all the swearing?" Trowa asked walking over to them.
"I just told them about the guy that got past the quarantine," Quatre replied.
"Yeah. About that," Trowa said.
"What?" Wufei asked.
"Some people in L3 are now infected. A quarantine has been issued there," Trowa said.
Duo sighed and then walked around to look at the patients. Several times he felt as though he was going to vomit, but he held it as he was trained to do. Several patients had gone onto third spacing and already had pox marks on their skin.
Suddenly Duo stopped. He had a thought. He found Wufei and asked him, "Why aren't we infected?"
"What do you mean?" Wufei asked.
"If this thing is so contagious then we should have gotten it in the classroom," Duo replied.
Neither had an answer.
Prometheus grinned when he heard the news of the man that escaped L2. It was spreading fast. He heard a knock on the door and drew his gun. He walked over and peered through the peephole. "Ah, G," he said through the door.
He opened the door and permitted G in. The first thing G said was, "Why?"
"Why what, G?" Prometheus countered.
"Why did you release the D-653?" G asked.
"I have my reasons, G, and you don't need to know them," Prometheus answered.
"No," G said. "You will tell me."
"Fine, I'll tell you, but only if you answer one of my questions first," Prometheus said.
"What do you want to know?" G asked.
"Why are Duo Maxwell and Wufei Chang not infected?" he asked.
G grinned. "They have been vaccinated."
"How?" Prometheus asked. "Not even I know how to make a vaccine or a cure."
"D-653," G said. "D for Duo. Duo's blood holds both vaccine and cure. All the Gundam pilots were vaccinated."
"I guess it's my turn to answer your question," Prometheus said. "Population control."
"What?" G asked, clearly confused.
"There are simply too many people," Prometheus said. "Do you know how many people there are on the earth and colonies?"
"No," G said.
"Neither do I," Prometheus said, and then laughed.
G turned around and started to walk away. Prometheus stopped him, asking, "How many people know about Duo's blood?"
"Just me," G answered.
"Good," Prometheus said, and then shot G.
G's last thought was, "Why did I tell him about Duo's blood? Idiot." 10:00 A.M. L2 Memorial Hospital
Duo sighed and sat down. "We've been working on this for five- well four days and a couple of hours, and we still haven't figured anything out," he complained.
"Duo, it's only been that long," Quatre said. "You can't really expect something to happen that quickly."
"Well Quatre, at the rate people are dying, I think we need something to happen as soon as possible," Duo said.
Heero walked into the room and Quatre gasped. "Heero! Why aren't you wearing a Haz-mat suit?"
"J e-mailed me," Heero answered. "He said we are completely immune to this virus."
"How?" Duo asked.
"One of the shots the doctors gave us was a vaccine to it," Heero said.
"Do's he have any more of the vaccine?" Duo asked hopefully.
"No," Heero answered. "As soon as we got the shots G threw them out. Only he knew the formula."
"Has anyone tried to contact him?" Duo asked.
"Yeah, but so far they haven't been able to reach him."
"Damn," Duo said sinking into the chair.
"So, we can take these off?" Quatre asked.
"Yes," Heero said. 12:15 P.M. Preventers BL-4 L2 Branch
Duo, Wufei, Quatre, Trowa and Heero all walked into the BL-4 room without putting on space suits. They saw Une standing in the center of the room and froze. She had her glasses on, which was not a good sign. "Dr. Maxwell," she said in an icy tone. "The Vice Foreign Minister told me that you assaulted her this morning."
"What?!" Duo exclaimed.
"No. That's not possible," Heero said.
"Explain," Une said.
"If it was any time before ten in the morning I was with Relena, so Duo would not have been able to do it then," Heero said. "I it was after that time, I was with Duo and he never left."
"So the Vice Foreign Minister is lying to me?" Une asked.
"Yes," all five said at the same time.
"Okay then, I'll talk to her about that. Now," she said, "why aren't you wearing space suits."
"We're completely immune," Trowa said.
"Can we-?"
"Use our blood to make more vaccines?" Heero finished. "No. I've already asked J."
"Shit," Une growled. "Anyway, you shouldn't be in here without suits, it's much too dangerous."
"We like to walk on the wild side," Duo said with a grin.
Une sighed and stepped into the DECON shower. Quatre turned to Duo said, "I can't believe Relena would do something like that."
"Just because she's a pacifist doesn't mean she's incapable of being a bitch," Duo replied.
A scientist walked up and said to Duo, "Dr. Maxwell, we're discussing when smallpox first appeared and we can't seem to reach an agreement. What's you're opinion?"
Duo looked over at the other scientists and saw that they were looking at him expectantly. He sighed and said, "I wouldn't know. Nobody knows when smallpox first appeared. Now, if you want to know where...well I still wouldn't know. Documents point to it first appearing in ancient China, but a pharaoh in ancient Egypt may have died of it. Scientists have wanted to test it, but the museum won't let them do it.
"The first vaccines were given in China. They dried scabs from people that had gotten smallpox and then crushed them into powder. After that they sniffed in the powder. They got mildly sick but recovered and were then immune to smallpox.
"Edward Jennings was the person to discover the vaccine that most people know of today. He noticed that milkmaids would get a sickness that looked remarkably like smallpox, but it was definitely not as deadly. It was called cowpox. He took a huge risk and inoculated his son with fluid from a cowpox blister. Later he inoculated his son with smallpox. His son didn't develop any symptoms."
A scientist held up his hand. "What about Ebola?" he asked. "Can you give us some info about that?"
"Did any of you actually study virology or microbiology!? Ebola was first documented in Zaire in 1976 A.D. It had a mortality rate of 88 percent. At the same time Ebola was also sweeping through Sudan, another African nation. This one had a mortality rate of 51 percent. Another was discovered in 1989 A.D. in Washington D.C. It only affected monkeys, but aerosol transmission was documented. Did that answer all your questions?"
"Yes, but..." one of them replied.
"Good!" Duo interrupted. "Let's get back to work then."
The scientists shuffled away dejectedly. Duo sighed with relief. He turned to Wufei. "Where did you find these guys?" he asked.
"They were the best we could get," Wufei said and shrugged.
"Then Wu-man, you've got to look other places," Duo replied using Wufei's hated nickname.
Wufei sighed, but silently agreed. It was very bad to have specialists in this area that didn't even know the history of two of the most deadly viruses ever. He really would have to look for better people. 2:37 L2 Winner BL-4 Labs
Quatre sat down at his desk outside the lab. Next to the desk was a window looking into the lab. Next to that was his own personal door to the BL-4 labs. This was the door that Trowa walked in from. "Anything new?" Quatre asked.
Trowa shook his head. "Nothing yet," he said.
Quatre banged his head down on the desk. "What the fuck are we supposed to do?" he mumbled.
Trowa was mildly surprised at Quatre swearing. He was about to say something when the phone rang. Quatre hit the speaker without looking up. "What is it?" he asked.
"Mr. Winner, we just got a report from the hospital. Five more people are dead. L3 is reporting twenty-five infected and three dead," the secretary said.
Quatre raised his head and then smacked it on the table again. "Stop that Quatre," Trowa said.
"Do the Preventers know?" Quatre asked the secretary.
"That's where the information came from," she replied.
"Thanks," Quatre said and then he switched of the speaker.
He turned to Trowa and frowned. "We haven't learned anything knew about this thing and it's spreading through two colonies," he said. "What can we possibly do?"
Trowa hugged Quatre close and murmured, "I don't know." 11:58 Preventers BL-4 L2 Branch
Duo sat at his desk, sifting through notes. His eyes drooped and his head tilted down. He caught himself before he could doze off though. Wufei had walked in when he did this and said to him, "You should go home and get some rest."
"No," Duo replied. "I need to
Did you like how I cut that off? Cool, huh? ;p
Weird Al's Germs and Your Horoscope for Today
Like the Airplane reference?
Third spacing is bleeding between the skin