Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine.
Chapter 8
Ten hours. Ten hours of fear and uncertainty. Ten hours of watching their child suffer. Neither Neo nor Trinity had slept, despite being exhausted. They each sat by Nysa's bed, on opposite sides. Sat in silence mostly, until they'd hear a slight murmur or notice her stir, then they would whisper soothing invocations, encouraging her to wake and speak, tell them she was all better.
Cates had called in a woman named Maya to consult with. She was known for her abilities as a midwife, had helped Zee deliver Lysander in fact, but was often consulted in cases involving children as well. She had a special way with them, a certain touch that put them quickly at ease. No baby had ever cried in her arms, even the most colicky would calm when in her embrace. It was as though she simply understood children, how they functioned, what their seemingly mysterious symptoms may actually point to. Because she was used to her patients being unable to speak, she had developed alternative ways of communicating with them as well as an acute eye for unusual developments. While Cates worked all night to find some cause for Nysa's illness, and to no avail, Maya supplied a diagnosis in a matter of minutes.
She went over the symptoms with the med. tech. And began to examine the child on her own, listening to her breathing, testing her reflexes, looking for scars or blemishes. "Ah," she said knowingly, looking down at the girl's naked shoulder. "There." She pointed to a small mark, a tiny pinprick rimmed with crimson flesh.
"What is that?" Trinity inquired.
"I don't know how I missed that," Cates said barely audibly.
"You weren't looking close enough."
"What is it?" she asked again.
"A needle mark."
"From a shot? One of the shots you gave her?" Cates had given her several injections over the last few hours, ones to ease her stomach, to help her rest when her sleep became fitful, to bring down the fever that developed suddenly not two hours ago. But none of them were administered to her shoulder.
"No."
"Then where did it come from?" Neo asked suspiciously.
Maya placed the girl back down on her pillow and pulled the sheets up to cover her tiny body. "Have you heard of Hepatitis?"
"Hepatitis? That disease doesn't exist here. It's from the Old World." Cates shrugged off her comment casually.
"Her symptoms suggest…"
"Her symptoms suggest," interrupted Cates, "any number of things, not the least of which is ordinary influenza."
"If you believe that's all it is then why did you call me?"
"I don't understand," Neo stated. "Someone injected her with something? With a disease that doesn't exist?"
"Over the years there have been many medical experts who have worked on understanding the diseases of the Old World so as to be prepared should they somehow recur."
"The Plague Project," Cates commented. "They research mostly in the archives though, it's all theoretical."
"Yes, but through their research they have found the causes of many ailments. Several years ago they isolated a viral strain found in some children that led to an illness very similar to a form of Hepatitis. It was extremely uncommon and all those who were diagnosed remained isolated until it passed through their systems."
"How do you know about this? I've never been told about it," Cates said, shocked that some midwife would know more about his work than him.
"There's no reason you should know. It happened nearly fifty years ago, long before you started practicing, and there hasn't been another case since."
"You haven't been practicing for fifty years either."
"No, I haven't. But six months ago one of the viral specimens disappeared from their archived stock. They contacted me because I often work with children and they wanted me to be able to recognize it should it somehow get out."
"But they didn't inform chief medical personnel? That's crazy."
Neo shifted uncomfortably. "Someone stole it, the virus?"
"Of course not," Cates answered. "Things turn up missing all the time. It happens. Techs will misplace something, break a bottle or dish. There's no reason to believe this was part of any sort of plot."
"Except of course for the fact that the child was injected with it."
"If that is even what it is."
"Let's say it is," Trinity offered. "What do we do? You can treat it, right?"
Maya responded before Cates had a chance. "It will work its way out of her system on its own. She needs to be observed and treated for potential liver failure though, that's what's causing her illness. But she should be fine, provided Cates trusts the diagnosis enough to actually begin proper treatment."
Cates frowned and grumbled something inaudible before retreating to another room. Maya looked at the stricken parents who seemed to be in a state of shock. They both were silent, gazes shifting from one another to their sleeping daughter, back again. It seemed as though they were trying to work it out among themselves, what had occurred, how.
"You're the One," Maya finally said breaking long minutes of silence. Neo looked up at her and nodded his head. "Someone wanted to hurt you, or so it would seem. That'd be my guess anyway. After all, what reason could there be for bringing harm to a child but that?"
Trinity threw a protective arm around his shoulders, an attempt to shield him from the awful truth, his daughter was poisoned because of him, because someone wanted to hurt him, send him a message. Stop the new initiative to increase rescues? Throw more support towards it? Concentrate on the problems occurring inside the Matrix? Work to ensure the city was strong enough to defend itself against future attacks? Who was it, which side of which issue? Trinity had been right, things were changing, a new resistance was forming, and they were caught right in the middle of it.
He worked to quell the onslaught of questions and thoughts racing through his mind, tried to concentrate on just one. "Who," he started, looking towards Trinity as though she might have the answer. "Who would do this?"