Merry Christmas everyone!
Thanks you to all the guest reviews I received during the last week! They're the main reason I remembered to update! It's so fun hearing that people want more of this!
Lots of dialogue in this one, I know, but the plot needs to move forwards!
Now to the fic! (￣▽￣)ゞ
Day 33
Warner was sitting by his desk. Elbows on the table. Hands knitted with the index and middle finger still out. His lips were resting against them.
His green eyes aimed on the report in front of him.
At the top in bold black letters:
Medical report of Alice [blank], January 7th XXXX
At the bottom
A signature from Doctor Veens.
He sat there and reread the lines one more time before a knock was heard against his door.
"Proceed", he called out, and straightened his posture.
Delalieu came in.
"Sir", he said and saluted.
"Lieutenant", Warner said, picking up the bundle of paper. He straightened them out by a flick of his hand and held them out towards the Lieutenant.
"Have you've read this report?", he asked.
"It's about the girl", he clarified when Delalieu just stared in confusion.
The older man took the cue to walk up to the desk and after some hesitation took the report into his hands. Scanning it with his gray eyes.
"No sir, this is my first time seeing this", he replied, handing it back to the commander.
"It's a report stating that her values are static", Warner told him. He put down the report on the table top.
He returned to his earlier pose.
He inhaled and let out a short breath.
"Do you understand what that means, Lieutenant?", he asked.
Delalieu shook his head.
"N-no, sir", he replied.
Warner stared forward.
"It means the treatment isn't working", he answered, curt.
He counted the seconds for the meaning to sink in.
"Oh…"
It took three.
"What are…"
"She didn't have lung plague", Warner answered before the question was even said.
"Doctor Veens has analyzed the bacteria from the mucus in her lungs. It turns out it's a mutated version." He looked to his lieutenant. He noticed that the older man's moustache was quivering. Like a leaf in autumn, just before it fell of.
"I assume you have enough knowledge in Biology to know what that means."
Delalieu, who had gotten paler by the moments, nodded.
"It has evolved, so it's worse now. The old v-vaccine is useless...", he said.
Warner halted him with a move of his hand.
"That's where you're wrong, Lieutenant. No one but Alice has been infected. Everyone else we scanned were immune or vaccinated. We talked about this before. But it has evolved. It would be worse for them who actually gets infected. Considering what happened ten years ago we don't want to imagine what would happen if it spread again. I will have to organize a mass scan of the civilians to make sure no one is sick", he told his Lieutenant.
"If no one is sick we have nothing to worry about since it would prove that it won't spread. That the immunity is still working", he said.
"But", he continued, and Delalieu wasn't surprised that there were bad news to this as well.
"This is still going to be a case with mutated plague. We will have to alert the whole Re establishment about this. And there's one detail we don't have accounted for."
Delalieu knew what it was before Warner said it.
"Her origin", he filled in.
Warner stared ahead, but they both knew.
"Precisely, Lieutenant."
Warner pushed out his chair at this. The wheels against the floor startling Delalieu. Warner pulled out one of his drawers and took out another bundle of documents. He put it on the desktop and closed the drawer.
He gave it a tap with his finger.
"This is a report I've written concerning our first encounter with the girl", he said.
"I never sent it, hoping that we would find her origin before that. But her sickness was never a part of my plan…"
His green eyes aimed themselves at Delalieu.
"We can not tell them that we found her sitting in my office. It would raise too many questions for us to handle." He took a pause.
"Sir, what are we going t-to tell them?", Delalieu asked.
Warner already had a prepared answer.
"We're going to tell them that we found her by the train station. Wandering the tracks I'd add to make sure her confusion is accounted for. We'll tell them you found her during one of your patrols, since you actually were by the train station that day. You brought her back to base for questioning. We placed her in the compound since she wouldn't reveal anything of detail. Two weeks later she succumbed to sickness. Our theory is that she came with a train, but she's not giving us any leads on where she actually came from because of amnesia. It's not foolproof, but it's next to."
"The soldiers, sir?", Delalieu wondered.
Warner gave a half nod.
"As long as no one thinks too deeply about how she got here the first time we should be fine. No one besides us know that she was in my office when we found her. Unless you have discussed this with anyone of course", Warner added eyeing the Lieutenant.
"N-no, sir", Delalieu assured.
Warner nodded again.
"Excellent. The only witnesses we have are the soldiers who were outside the surveillance room. But they said that she came walking, so there's nothing alarming about that."
"What do you want me to do, sir?", Delalieu asked.
"Write a report on your own featuring how you found her by the train and how you brought her in. You may add how she ran around on the base, but be clear that she didn't tell us anything that we could actually use. You may add your own hypothesis that she originates from Scandinavia."
Delalieu nodded, already thinking of what to write.
"Take my report with you", Warner added, picking it up again and handing it to him.
"We need them to synchronize in some way. Try and get to it as soon as possible."
Delalieu took it and saluted with the other hand.
"Will do, sir", he said.
Warner turned back to his desk saying:
"You are dismissed."
If you wonder why it says XXXX in the report it's because we don't know what year it is.