Hi there!
So here's a short chapter, I'm slacking with this since school is taking too much time ~ (and the fact that I keep writing chapters that are due far into the future, but don't tell anyone that!)
The humor is back in this chapter, and I'm treating you with an innocent Kenji shenanigan ^^
Now to the fic! (￣▽￣)ゞ
Day 30
They had put him in quarantine. Quarantine.
Sprung from Italy when the Italians demanded that the ships stayed out of harbor for forty days in case someone bore the plague. Quarantine from the Italian word for forty.
It was a word he thought would never be uttered in his sector. Of course it would always be possible for sicknesses to erupt within the compound. Stomach viruses or the flu could be hard to deal with during hot periods of the year. But sector 45 had a much too high hygienic standard for anything like that to ever happen. No one young and healthy had been sick with anything remotely dangerous since the establishment of the new living areas.
So how could it be that he, a trained, and perfectly healthy young man, had been locked into a room with two airlocks that sprayed the visitors with bacteria killers every time they went in and out?
Because one little girl, that should be even healthier than him, had coughed blood at him. She had become sick during the span of a week. A week.
He had been informed now that they feared that the case was lung plague. The sickness that ended up taking more than ten percent of the earth's population ten years ago. They hadn't had the resources to find a cure fast enough and so many people had fallen victim. It had been worse in the poorer countries. And it had been one of the promises the Re establishment had given. And one of the few they managed to keep up.
Today almost everyone in the reestablishment were either immune from the first time around, or they were vaccinated.
So how could she be sick?
How could she, someone born around the conclusion of the epidemic, suddenly be sick?
Well he knew why-
Crack
The tip of his pencil snapped against the page. The black tip flying across the table top. The tiny collapse left a black mark and fragments of graphite on his report.
The report on why sector 45 had had to use quarantine measurements in the treatment of himself and this one girl.
He wasn't allowed a computer. If he proved to have been infected the computer's fan could apparently be a perfect farm for the bacteria. Not that he minded writing by hand. It required a sort of concentration that couldn't be provided by a keyboard.
He pushed out his chair and scanned his meek excuse for a desk for a pencil sharpener. He didn't find one. He even looked underneath to see that it hadn't fallen down.
They forgot to equip him with a pencil sharpener.
And the only other writing utensil he had was a ballpoint. He was not going to write a report in ballpoint.
He crossed his arms. Took a deep breath.
Then, after letting it out, muttered:
"God damn it..."
"Tell me she's well enough to communicate with", he told his Lieutenant.
They were talking through a telephone with a window in between them. A window that removed any hope of complete privacy for the commander, and gave his subordinates something to play dare with. In the span of less than 48 hours he had seen Kishimoto's black hair dodge away when he turned his head to look at the window. He had ordered a curtain of some kind, but the medics didn't seem to want to comply.
"Sir, she's s-still having a t-tube in her throat. We wouldn't be able to t-talk to her…", Delalieu meekly reminded.
Warner stifled a groan.
"Is she conscious?", he asked instead. Putting his weight against the white wall beside him. All the walls were white. Everything was white in there.
Delalieu seemed to gather up his memories. Then he shrugged, blowing out some air that made his mustache ruffle.
"She's in and out, sir. They're g-giving her antibiotics and painkillers. She sleeps through most of it", the Lieutenant explained.
Warner was just about to ask what the painkillers were for, but then he remembered those ravage coughs she had endured.
"And when she isn't?", he asked.
Delalieu made a face.
"Blinking at the ceiling…", he replied.
"Have they found a reason for the blood?", Warner asked.
To his surprise Delalieu lightened up as if he actually had some good news for once.
"The doctors believe it's just f-friction in the lungs from the coughing", Delalieu explained. Nodding as he went.
"It happened to plague victims ten years back, too. They're going to treat it the same way."
Warner didn't tell Delalieu that that hypothesis was very implausible since the amount of blood was nowhere close to be from mere friction. It was that the man seemed so happy over the fact that something was going towards the girl getting better.
He made a mental note to ask the doctor if this was their actual hypothesis or if they were just trying to make the old man feel better.
"Excellent", he said instead.
"Continue overseeing her progress, and continue providing me with copies of all the medical logbooks and results. Including my own", Warner ordered out, straightening from the wall.
"Myself will continue to organize that the family and her classmates are scanned for any sign of infection. We don't want this to spread. But considering that most of the population is vaccinated it probably won't give anything alarming."
Delalieu nodded.
"Anything else I c-can be of service of, sir?", he asked.
Warner didn't hesitate.
"Get me a pencil sharpener", he said. And when he saw the tiny frown of confusion he added,"And some more pencils. I should have an unopened package in my desk drawer."
Delalieu saluted
"Will d-do, sir."
Warner nodded, and then they both hung up the phone.
I'm sorry if I offended anyone that likes ballpoint pens! But one does simply not write a report in ballpoint...!