Chapter 20 Summary
This is it. The midpoint of the story. This is where it all changes. Are you ready?
Hugo has been summoned to met his partner to look at a patient. It's a goat who's brained himself, and they have to figure out why. Along the way, they will run into an old adversary of theirs, and his face has now changed.
Night Howler has returned.
Wednesday afternoon: Tundra Town Central Hospital, ICU
Hugo walked into the Tundra Town Central Hospital's ICU, pausing at the nursing station, "Which room is Doctor Muskat in?" he asked the nurse sitting there as she filled out paperwork.
The ibex doe pointed down the hall, "Room 113, sir."
Hugo smiled, "Thank you, Isabella." She nodded, turning back to fill out the myriad of medical forms in front of her.
He walked down to the room, and poked his head in. The darkened room had one occupant lying nude on the bed, covered with a white sheet, a middle age Hircus goat by the look of it. Sitting in the chair on the other side of the room was his friend and fellow medical partner, Doctor Emmanuel Muskat, sorting through a file under the light of a floor lamp. Hugo smiled at the muskrat in blue scrubs, "Hello, Emmanuel. What is going on with the patient?"
Doctor Muskat looked up from his paperwork. Ah! Good, he's here. This case had him concerned, and he hoped Hugo could shed some light on it.
"Shalom, Hugo." He closed the folder, and used it to point at the goat while he stood up, "The patient is a Hircus goat, approximately 40 years of age, who was brought in the ER early this morning with severe cranial trauma and bleeding from several cuts and scrapes on his scalp. He was found in a parking garage in Tundra Town, by the parking attendant, adjacent to a support column. The attendant had heard banging noises from inside the garage, and when she went to investigate, she found him. She doesn't know what he was doing or how he got in there. Hopefully, we'll know more when the security company that monitors the garage sends us over the video footage."
He pointed to the skull, "When the resident examined him in the ER, he found clear fluid mixed in with the blood seeping from the scalp wounds, so they called me in to examine him. While they waited, they also managed to get some cranial x-rays done, and based on that, they determined he had several severe fractures across the crown. As soon as I arrived, I had them put him into surgery where I went to work with my surgical team. I cleaned up the scrapes, and based on the clear fluid leaking out, I assessed there there was at least one puncture in the meninges as well as a buildup of cranial pressure. I installed a temporary sigma shunt on top of his skull," pointing to a wad of gauze in between the horns, "so that we could bring down the pressure, as well as test the fluid for infections. All pretty standard head trauma stuff." He pulled out several pictures out of the folder, and laid on the bed next to the patient for Hugo to look at. "The reason I called you in were these," pointing at the pictures.
Hugo picked them up, and took them over to the floor light. He was looking at the exposed crown of the skull, where Emmanuel had pulled back to the fur and skin to show the fractured bone surface. The skull bone surface was crisscrossed with a crazy quilt of prior fracture scars, some even recently healed. This goat had been exposed to multiple head traumas over his lifespan. Hugo also noticed something else in the photos.
"I know this goat." He pointed at the right horn, "I can tell by the broken horn tip. I was at the Tundra Town Clinic yesterday, and I was called into consult on him. They must have discharged him after I left." Hugo explained to his fellow doctor.
"You know who he is? Good, because we've got nothing on him. No identification, and no files that the nurses could find." Emmanuel frowned, wrinkling his nose.
"I don't know his name. Amanda just called him 'the giggler'. He was sleeping at the time I saw him, so I didn't get a chance to ask him his name. She probably has his current files. I can ask her." Hugo promised him. "I didn't see this level of fracturing in his x-rays when I was looking at them with her." Hugo frowned, "Their machine doesn't have the best resolution, and a goat's skull is pretty thick anyway, so little details like this can get lost. I'm sorry, I didn't see this damage earlier."
Emmanuel assured him, "That's okay, the free clinics aren't really setup to handle severe cranial trauma anyway. That's not their purpose, and I understand that. Anything in his blood work?" he asked.
Hugo just shook his head, "They have to send out for that, since they don't have a dedicated lab." He paused for a moment, "In fact, I think they send the blood samples here for testing. It's probably up in Hematology right now." Hugo handed the photos back to Emmanuel, and grabbed a pair of gloves to put on, "We can ask them, after I get a chance to examine the patient, if you don't mind." He turned back to Emmanuel, waiting for permission.
"By all means," the muskrat gestured, smiling. The cat was always so very formal, even with his friends. Other than Hugo, only my mother still calls me Emmanuel. Everybody else, including my wife, calls me Emmi. But not the cat. Not Hugo.
Hugo stepped up to the beside. He peeled back an eye lid to examine the eye, "Pupils are blown, consistent with swelling in the brain." As he pulled back to examine the rest of the skull, he glanced down at the chest and noticed something odd. He felt along the armpits of the goat and found what he was looking for. "The lymph nodes are swollen."
Emmanuel frowned, "Meningitis?"
"Maybe," Hugo allowed. "His skull is certainly been fractured enough that it might have allowed an external infection to set in. That doesn't explain all the previous fractures, though." Hugo felt along the rest of the body. Thin, so very thin. This goat was severely malnourished as well as traumatized. Maybe there was an underlying psychological reason for the injuries. "It could be schizophrenia. He's the right age and definitely shows a lack of self-care. He could be self harming in an attempt to silence the voices or control the hallucinations." Hugo pointed out.
"Self harming? By running into a concrete post?" Emmanuel twitched his ears.
"Maybe? Is the footage in yet?" Hugo asked.
"We'll ask at the nurses' station. Are you done?" He inquired.
"Almost." Hugo returned to the skull for one last check. He lift the right ear to look for discharges from the ear canal, and saw something else. "He has a tattoo on the inside of the ear. It's pretty old and faded, but it looks like it might be a prison tattoo." Hugo stepped back, and stripped off his gloves, throwing them away in the bio-hazard bin. "Some of the conservative Zoonia states still do that for their prison inmates. That might help us identify him." He explained to Emmanuel while he washed his paws.
"It's a start," Emmanuel agreed as they walked out of the room and down to the station. Emmanuel asked the nurse, "Is the footage from the parking garage in yet?"
Isabella nodded, "Yes, Doctor. I'll pull it up on the monitor." She played the clip for them, as they crowded around her workstation to watch.
The goat could be seen entering the garage by climbing over the exterior wall. He wandered around the space in a furtive manner, looking over his shoulder often, as he checked between the cars.
"Is he looking for a car to break in?" the nurse asked.
As he watched Hugo was struck by an idea as he observed the goat's body language, "No, I think he's looking for a place to hide."
"In a well lit garage?" Emmanuel was surprised at that idea.
Hugo just shrugged, turning back to watch the footage. The goat wandered around the vehicles, and stopped at what appeared to be a large black pickup truck. He examined the door carefully before suddenly drawing back and ramming the side panel with his head. After denting that door, he wandered back out to the center lane, where he then rammed the grill work on another truck with his head. Shaking himself off, he wandered along the center lane until he spotted a well lit concrete column. Drawing himself back, he appeared to give a scream and ran full tilt into the column, hitting it and collapsing on the concrete.
Emmanuel was confused, "What was he doing? Was he drunk? No, that can't be. I didn't smell any alcohol when I was treating him."
Hugo stood back, holding his jaw with his paw, "Hum… Zoom in on the pole, please." He asked Isabella. She rewound the file, and zoomed in as it played. Hugo traced the outline of the column on the screen with his claw as the goat hit it. "Oh! The column is sheathed in stainless steel sheeting, to protect the paint! That's why the patient is ramming it! He's seeing his reflection, and he thinks it's a challenger. That's probably why he rammed the trucks too. He could see himself." Hugo excitedly explained.
"What would cause that?" The nurse curiously asked. This was fascinating, if not a bit funny as well. She had morbid sense of humor.
"Schizophrenia, definitely, if he's having an hallucination fugue. Tumors can also cause dissociative vision effects, as well as drugs like magic mushrooms or LSD." Hugo explained to them, "There are any number of disorders or drugs that could cause him to become dissociated from his own self image and aggressively territorial, and… and… Oh No!" Hugo grabbed the phone, and dialed the Hematology lab.
As soon as the line was picked up, Hugo was talking, "This is Doctor Wiedii from Neurology, and we have an emergency down here in ICU. We have a patient, a male goat, that you should have received a blood sample for already, as well a cranial fluid sample. I believe this patient is the same goat that the TTFC sent in for testing yesterday morning. I want all three samples found and tested immediately for the standard battery as well as four other tests: Caseous Lymphadenitis, Meningitis, Rabies, and," Hugo paused for a moment, looking at the screen before continuing, "Night Howler bio-toxin. Do you understand me?" The voice on the other end affirmed the order, and read it back to him. "Yes, please. Right now. Doctor Muskat and I will be up there shortly. Thank you." Hugo hung up the phone.
"Night howler? He's a goat!" Emmanuel gestured at the screen, as he stood upright and faced his partner.
"Night howler, in low levels of toxicity can lead to a dissociative state, where by the mammal reverts to a more primitive behaviors, like increased fear, a desire to hide, and territorial displays. Not necessarily a full blown, fully disconnected savage event, mind you, but something much more mild. If our homeless goat here had wandered into some one's garden and ate a Night Howler Crocus, for instance, it could account for his behavior." Hugo explained to him.
"Isn't night howler use tightly controlled?" the nurse asked Hugo.
"Yes, it is for new plants. If you went to a nursery and tried to order some midnicampum holicithias bulbs today, you wouldn't be able to. But it's been a popular ornamental in Zootopian gardens for many years because of it's beneficial toxicity to marauding insects that could eat the other plants. It's also a perennial that will slowly spread underground for years, so it can be very persistent and difficult to eradicate. The flower may be well recognized, but the plant itself isn't. Without the flower, it looks like any other crocus."
Hugo continued, "Which is ironic, since the leaves are actually more toxic than the flowers. If our intrepid goat had raided a garden where the crocus was growing but not flowering, he could have consumed them completely by accident, and not even noticed any difference in taste. Goats are notoriously indifferent consumers of vegetable materials, especially when they are hungry."
Emmanuel just shook his head at that encyclopedic answer. So Hugo. Why tell a short answer when a really long will do instead? "If you're done with the seminar, Hugo, shall we go on upstairs?" Emmanuel quirk his ear at Hugo, and grinned.
Hugo looked at him with a pinched expression, clearly not finding that funny, and strode out from behind the desk and down the hall. Emmanuel just rolled his eyes. The cat is always so tachlis! He hurried to catch up.
"Hugo, wait up. I don't have your long legs." Emmanuel admonished him.
Hugo stopped, and turned to face the slower muskrat. He gave the rodent his best 'I'm mad at you' cat stare. Emmanuel just smiled at the earnest feline, "I'm sorry. You were saying?"
"Education is important, Emmanuel, even for something as esoteric as night howler. These nurses will need to know what they could be dealing with, even if it's not a common toxin." Hugo wagged his finger at his shorter compatriot, and continued down the hall at a slower pace.
"I would agree! So what's Caseous Lymphadenitis?" He had never heard of that particular disease before, and nothing made Hugo happier than a chance to educate the ignorant.
"It's a highly infectious wasting disease that affects sheep and goats, and it has no cure. It forms large pus filled cysts on the skin and internal organs, including the brain. One of the first signs of infection are inflamed lymph nodes. If he were sick with that, it could also be causing some of the behaviors we saw, although it doesn't explain the previous fractures on the skull. But I thought they should test for it anyway." Having arrived at the elevators, Hugo pushed the up arrow.
"I see." Emmanuel replied, "And the information on low level night howler? Where did you get that? I've not seen anything that anywhere in our neurology literature recently."
"Ah. No. It's not actually in the literature. When I was first called in to work on the Night Howler task force three years ago, I met a coyote there. Officer Nick Wilde had brought her in from Zootopia University, where she is a comparative religions professor, to assist in the case."
The elevator opened up, and they stepped on to it. He turned and gave Hugo a look that said, Really, a professor of religion from Zootopia's notoriously liberal University. That must have been a joy!
Hugo caught the look as he was pushing the button for the Hematology floor. He shook his head. "It's not like that. Professor Silverheels was actually pretty good, both on the biological side and the cultural side of the problem. She's a member of the Coyote Nation, and apparently they have legal dispensation to use midnicampum holicithias in their rituals. She's even taken it herself during a ceremony. She said that if it's prepared right, it can be a very transcendental experience. But she also warned us what could go wrong if it's prepared incorrectly and what it's side effects would be like. She was quite a valuable member of the task force, in my opinion." He nodded.
DING! The elevator stopped at their floor. They stepped out, and walked down the hall to the lab at the far end. Hugo held the door open for his shorter companion, and following in after the muskrat he witnessed a scene of quiet pandemonium. Mammals in white lab coats were rushing back and forth from machine to machine, talking to each other in rushed whispers.
Emmanuel cleared his throat, and every mammal in the room froze. Doctor Uguduwa, director of the Hematology lab, hurried over to meet them. She quickly gestured for them to follow her into her office. She must be really upset, Hugo realized, since she was unconsciously releasing a little bit of her civet cat musk with every step she took.
She closed the door, and motioned them to be seated in front of her desk. As she climbed into her chair, the action released more musk, which made Hugo's eyes water and caused Emmanuel to start sneezing.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" She repeated, and pulled a can of scent neutralizer out of her desk drawer and sprayed it around the room.
Hugo grabbed two tissues off her desk and hand one to Emmanuel while he used the other to wipe his eyes. He waved his paw at her, "It's quiet alright, Asheni, it's alright. I take it you found something? Night howler, perhaps?"
She nodded vigorously, "Oh, yes, we did. It's chemical reaction markers are in both the blood sample and the cranial fluid sample from today. But that's not what I'm worried about." She shook her head, "No, night-howler has a perfectly good treatment now, one that is more than 95% effective, and as long as the patient has plenty of water during the treatment, they should make a full recovery. No." She was typing on her keyboard. "No, what has me and my entire team concerned is this!" She turned her monitor around to face them.
Hugo and Emmanuel stared at the screen. Emmanuel asked her, "What is it?"
She sat back in her seat, "I don't know. Nobody on my team has ever seen anything like it."
Hugo slipped out of his seat so that he could take a closer look at the microscope picture on her monitor. It was a picture of mammal blood at high magnification, the red blood cells about the size of a dime on the screen. Scattered around the picture were also blue stained lymphocytes, probably T or B cells, from their size relative to the red blood cells. And in the center of the photo was an anomaly.
It was blue stained like the lymphocytes, but with regular triangular, almost teardrop shaped, lobes coming off the main body. The lobes were too regular in size to be psuedopods. It was too large to be a bacteria cell, and he had never heard of a bacterial colony of this size with radial organization.
"What size are we looking at here?" He asked her.
"It's about 20 micrometers tip to tip." She explained to Hugo.
"Is it mobile? Any visible flagella or cilia?" Hugo traced the outline of the cell with his claw.
"Nope. Here, let me pull up another picture." She hit a key, and the screen changed to another photo, this one with three of these lobed objects in among the red blood cells. One of them even appeared to be laying flat, looking for all the world like a six sided starfish.
"Hum… Too large to be a virus, too small to be a multi-cellular parasite… It might be a cancer cell, except for the organization." Hugo observed.
Asheni had gone quiet. Emmanuel spoke up first, "Talk to us, Asheni. What's got you so concerned? What are Hugo and I missing here?"
She took a breath before answering, "The examples you see before you came from today's blood sample. They are not evident anywhere in yesterday's sample."
"You mean that they appeared in our patient's bloodstream inside 24 hours?" Emmanuel was taken aback by the speed of their appearance.
She nodded.
Hugo leaned around the monitor, "Have you asked Immunology what they think?"
She shook her head, "As soon as we found the first one, we fired off a query to them. They've never seen anything like it either. They're reaching out to research departments across the Commonwealth to see if anyone can shed some light on this thing." She gestured out at the lab, "They're going to take a sample from us to run it through the S.E.M. in just a few minutes."
"Any visible immune response?" Hugo was struggle to come to terms with the level of fear the civet cat was radiating.
"No, not really. The other lymphocytes seem to be ignoring it. We do have one photo of a macrophage investigating one, but after a few seconds time, it goes back to ignoring the starfish, just like all the others." She gestured at the screen.
Starfish. Emmanuel and Hugo traded a look. Now it has a name.
"And this wasn't in his system yesterday? No night howler in his system?" Emmanuel asked her one again, just to be sure.
She took a deep breath, before looking up at the muskrat and locking her gaze with his, "We didn't find any starfish in yesterday's sample, so far. That's what everybody is running around looking for right now. But we did find night howler reaction markers, but at a much, much lower level; maybe ten, twelve percent of his levels from today, depending on the sample." Emmanuel sat back, his face reflecting absolute shock.
CLICK! Hugo realized it sooner than his partner, who didn't deal with the neurological diseases as much as he did. He spoke first, "It's a payload delivery system. A microbial based, time delayed, night-howler delivery system. With no external evidence of infection until they 'hatch' and flood the target system with bio-toxin. It could have been delivered as an aerosol, inhaled by the victim, and after it settled in his lungs it took less 24 hours to move into the blood stream, where by it eventually flooded his brain with night-howler." Hugo's muzzle was set and his eyes grim.
"Oh, come on, Hugo. That's pure science fiction conjecture, if not outright comic book fantasy. You're going directly from correlation to causation in one breath! It's too damn small for that, and no mammal or group of mammals that we know of is capable of this kind of micro biotech. Beside which, the ZPD shut down Bellwether's operation 3 year ago. She's DEAD! Her organization is imprisoned, splintered, and scattered to the winds with hunter/killer teams on their tails for all we know!" Emmanuel indignantly replied. What's got Hugo so rattled that he'd fire off a crackpot theory like that? He's always concrete in his thinking!
Asheni's phone rang. She picked up, and listened for a moment, "Damn, thank you. That was fast work." She put her phone back, and swung her monitor back. "Somebody really light a fire under Immunology. They just finished the first micrograph, and sent it over to me." She opened her email and froze, looking at the screen in pure shock. The two other doctors jumped to their feet and rushed around her desk to look.
What they saw could only be described as a miniature midnicampum holicithias flower, twenty micrometers across, frozen in black and white.
Hugo let out a sigh, and looked over at Emmanuel, "Still think I'm jumping to conclusions, Doctor Muskat? That isn't science fiction." He pointed at the picture, "That is some scientist mammal showing off!" He traced the outlines, "Look, six petals, 3 three stamen, and a pistil in the middle. Those structures aren't even necessary for a payload delivery system. It's a signature, written in proteins, screaming 'Look at what I can do!'" Hugo waved his paws in the air in disgust.
Emmanuel chewed on his finger while staring at the picture. He quickly turned back to point that finger at Hugo. "Hugo, the ICU team still thinks they're dealing with a trauma case, not a bio-hazard case." he reminded his fellow doctor.
"Mierda!" Hugo yelled as he chastised himself, I had been so wrapped in arguing the point with Emmanuel that I forgot where I was! Imbécil!
"Go!" He gestured to Emmanuel, "I'll call down!" Emmanuel waddled out of the room as fast as his short little muskrat legs would take him.
Grabbing the desk phone, Hugo called down to the ICU nurses station. "ICU, this is Head Nurse Isabella Monte, how may help you?" The ibex greeted him.
"Isabella, this is Doctor Wiedii! Is the patient awake?" Hugo quickly asked her.
"No, but the ZPD officer is trying to wake him. He said something about getting a statement about a garage incident from him. I told him that the patient was sleeping, but he insisted. He's in there now." Isabella explained to the clearly excited doctor.
"NO, NO, NO! Get him out of there, and get that patient locked down, now! The patient cracked his head on that concrete column while in a night-howler fueled fugue state! He's gone fully SAVAGE!" Hugo nearly yelled at her.
"Yes, Doctor!" She disconnected from him. Hugo stared at the phone receiver in momentary disbelief, before he quickly dialed the security front desk. They should still have their riot shields, left over from the species riots three years ago, he hoped.
"Hello, Security Central, this is Director Rargyra, how may I help you?" A calm bovine voice rumbled out of the phone receiver.
"Director Rargyra, this is Doctor Wiedii, and I am issuing an immediate SAVAGE ONE alert. We have a male goat patient unconscious in ICU in the midst of a previously undiagnosed full savage state, and there is a ZPD officer in his room currently trying to wake him. We need your team down there with their riot shields to contain the patient if and when he wakes up. I also need a ZS-1 tranquilizer rifle loaded with enough juice to knock out an enraged goat!"
"Got it, Doc. We are moving!" The director assured him, and hung up.
He turned back to the civet cat, "Asheni, I'm sorry, but I had to use phone." She just stared, wide eye, at him as he dashed from the room.
Detective Clawhauser shut the patient's door behind him. He turned to look at the goat laying there, peaceful and quiet. He smiled, and put on his best mammal greeting smile. Walking quietly over to the bedside, he leaned over and whispered to the goat, "I'm sorry to bother you, Mr. Goat, but my boss insisted. You're in a bunch of trouble, Mr. Goat. Not with me, no, not me. You see, that truck door you dented with your head is on a truck that belongs to a very important person in Tundra Town. He's a polar bear by the name of Raymond, and he works for a very powerful mammal by the name of Mr. Big. Raymond isn't happy with his dented door, so he's complained to his cousin, Captain Snarlov of the Tundra Town Police Department. But since Captain Snarlov doesn't want to appear like he's doing favors for Mr. Big, he passed the problem on my Boss, Chief Bogo. Who passed it on to me. And here I am, talking to a sleeping goat. What a wonderful day. I hate Tundra Town. Which isn't your fault, Mr. Goat. If you want to live here, that's okay with me. It's just too cold for my fur."
Clawhauser stood up and pulled out his phone, "I just need to take a photo of you, Mr. Goat, for our files. The rest of the questions can wait until you wake up, okay?" The detective leaned over the goat, and tapped his camera icon. A quick bright flash in the room, and he had his picture. He turned around, and went to sit in the chair to wait.
After a few minutes, there was a knock at the door. Clawhauser looked up at the door. Oh, it's the pretty Ibex nurse from the front station. What does she need?
He walked up and open the door, "Yes?" he asked her.
"You need to leave, now!" She whispered to him.
"Leave? Why? I just got here." He was confused.
"Did you wake him?" She tried to peer into the room.
"No, I let him sleep. What's wrong with waking him?" Hugo wanted to know.
"Doctor Wiedii just called, and said that he's in a night howler induced savage state! You can't wake him!" The ibex nurse insisted.
"Savage? He doesn't look savage. He looks peaceful." Clawhauser pointed back at the patient.
"No, You don't understand! You have to leave!" She stomped her foot. Damn it! Male cops were always so obtuse when she tried to give them directions. Why couldn't she have gotten a female police officer instead? They were always so much more reasonable.
"Listen. My boss, Chief Bogo of the ZPD, told me that I had to stay here until the patient wakes up." He put his paw on her shoulder, trying to be as friendly and as calming as possible, "I know Doctor Wiedii, and he knows me. When he gets back down here, I can talk to him, and he can talk to Chief Bogo. I'm sure that we can get this all sorted out, and in the mean time we'll just let the poor goat sleep, okay?" Clawhauser nodded at her.
"BAAAAAAAAA!"
The goat awoke to the sound of buzzing. He couldn't understand what the sound was. His head hurt enough without having to listen to that sound.
***flies*** . ***buzzing***
They weren't biting flies. That is good. Just annoying. He could sleep still. He was so tired.
***BRIGHT!*** . ***LIGHT!***
A bright light flashed through his eyelids. What was it? He kept his eyelids closed in case the light came again. He sniffed the air.
***CAT!*** . ***PREDATOR!*** . ***EAT!*** . ***SELF!***
He could smell the predator, a male cat. He was close, very close. No, now he is moving away. His ears could hear the cat walking away. No, he would stay right here, and hide from the cat.
***still*** . ***quiet*** . ***hide*** . ***safe***
He heard a sound on wood. The cat's claws scrabbled on the floor, scratching as he moved. The cat was moving away from him. That was good. Another sound, and more buzzing. So much buzzing.
***Flies***
He sniffed again. A new scent mingled in the air, mixed in with the scent of the predator. A female! A doe's scent! Their voices are raised! The cat is threatening her!
***PREDATOR!*** . ***EAT!*** . ***DOE!***
His eyes snapped open at the sound of her hoof striking the ground.
***DEFEND!*** . ***DOE!***
He sat up in bed, and he turned to look at the cat and the doe. The cat was putting his paw on her shoulder, and his jaws were close to her head. Too close. It's the killing strike!
***DEFEND!*** . ***DOE!*** . ***NOW!***
He slid off the bed, but something grabbed his head. He felt behind his head. A long tail was attached to his head. A leech! He grabbed the tail and yanked.
***PAIN!***
That hurt! But the pain just fueled his rage! No cat would threaten his doe and live! He screamed his defiance!
"BAAAAAAAAA!"
He ran around the bed. The cat heard him, and pushed the doe down as he turned to face him. The cat had struck his doe! He will die!
***KILL!*** . ***CAT!*** . ***NOW!***
He slammed, head down, at full speed into the chest of the large blue predator, knocking the cat back across the floor. Pain exploded behind the goat's eyes, and he staggered, gripping the doorway to hold himself upright.
***PAIN!***
He shook his head, trying to clear his vision. He sniffed. He could smell her! She was still here! His ear swiveled on the side of his skull, listening to the sound of her hooves scramble to gain purchase on the slick floor. She was trying to run! No! She would be his!
***CLAIM!*** . ***DOE!***
He stood erect, tilted his head back, and screamed triumphantly!
"BBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
[Thumpth…] A short cylinder with pink feather wadding at the end suddenly appeared on the side of the goat's neck.
***FLY!*** . ***BITE!***
He pawed at the cylinder, but it wouldn't come out.
"Blllleeeeaaaatttt….."
***COLD!*** . ***BURN!*** . ***tired*** . ***hurt***
***sleeeeeeppppp***
The goat collapsed in a heap in the middle of the door to his room.
Hugo ran out of the Immunology lab at full speed, but rather than take the elevators like Emmanuel surely did, he opted for the stair well. He punched through the emergency door, and avoiding the oversized stairs altogether, he launched himself up and over the railing. Without letting go of the railing, he swung himself back down and around, aiming at the railing on the lower floor just across and down from him. He sailed over the 50 foot drop of the central stairwell, and landed on the next lower railing with a bang. Turning quickly, he launched himself for the next lower railing.
This is fun! I haven't done this in years, not since I was a kit!
Climbing was one of the few games that he was better at than his brother growing up. He had his father's flexibility and balance, but his brother didn't. He could chase the flying lizards through the trees, and catch them before they escaped. Sometimes, to do that, he had to descend a tree very rapidly, leaping downwards from branch to branch. It was great fun, and made his father proud to watch him, but his mother would always fret and worry that he would fall to his death.
In a matter of seconds, Hugo had descended 50 feet, 5 stories from the Hematology lab. He pounded out the emergency door, adrenaline surging through his system, and ran on all fours down the ground level hall towards the ICU. He passed two slower security guards running down the hall, a rhino and a hippo, carrying their riot shields. Good. He hoped they wouldn't be needed.
He slowed as he neared the nurses station, standing back up on his rear legs. Director Rargyra was there already, along with a wolf subordinate who was holding the ZS-1 rifle. They were talking in calm voices to the nurses, so everything seem to be okay. Maybe he had panicked and overreacted. But, it was better to be safe than sorry. He did need to talk to them, and make some changes for the patient in terms of security.
"BAAAAAAAAA!" The cry echoed down the hall.
Hugo didn't waste a moment as he snatched the rifle from the wolf's paws and swung around the nurse station just in time to see the ZPD officer push Isabella to safety before he himself was struck full in the chest by their patient. The yellow cat flew across the hall, and landed against the far wall in a crumpled heap. The goat staggered back into the doorway, grabbing the door frame.
Isabella was scrambling on the tile floor, trying to get away. She was also blocking his shot. Maldito sea! Get out of the way, Isabella! Luckily she looked up and saw him, and immediately dropped to the floor. His shot now clear, Hugo brought the rifle up just as the goat started to scream, and from a distance of 20 feet, fired the dart right into the goat's carotid artery.
It was sad, really, Hugo realized, as the goat collapsed to the floor. That bleat had been so forlorn. The poor goat truly didn't understand what had just happened to him.
"OFFICER CLAWHAUSER! FREEZE! KEEP YOUR PAWS AT YOUR SIDE AND AWAY FROM YOUR CHEST!" Emmanuel yelled at Clawhauser as he hurried up the hall toward him, his surgeon's voice cutting through the cheetah's confusion.
"Wha?" Clawhauser lay on his side against the hallway wall. He had been moving his paws toward his sternum, but froze when the surgeon had screamed at him.
Hugo turned and handed the tranq rifle and his phone to Director Rargyra, and rushed over to Emmanuel. He looked over first at Clawhauser, and holding out his paw without touching the officer, he said in a soothing voice, "It's okay, Benjamin. You just lay there, and we'll take of you. Are you in any pain?"
"uh… huh… It hurts to breath, Dr Wiedii, owww..." Clawhauser responded, struggling to draw in breath.
"Well, yeah, you just took a very angry goat to the chest. I expect you might have some cracked ribs. Did you wear your vest?" Hugo gently asked him.
"Always," Clawhauser managed to gasp out.
"Alright, we are going to take care of you in just a minute, okay. You just stay right there." Hugo directed Officer Clawhauser.
He turned back to Emmanuel, who was examining the goat laying in the door way without touching him. "What do you think?" Hugo asked his partner, as he held his paw up to prevent any of the other staff from approaching them.
"He's leaking cranial fluid and blood out of his skull and onto the floor." Emmanuel looked over at Officer Clawhauser and pointed, "His shirt is soaked with it too. I'm going to call it." Emmanuel grimly stated.
Hugo nodded, "I agree. Do it." He stood back.
Emmanuel raised his voice again as he turned toward the crowded nursing station, "Alright! I am declaring this entire wing a Level Four Biohazard Area. Director Rargyra, lock it down!" He pointed at the large takin.
"Yes, Sir!" Rargyra barked, grabbing his key ring from his side and strode quickly over to the security station. Sticking his master key into the alarm panel, he turned it on, lighting up the buttons. He selected the button for option four and pushed it. Banging sounds echoed through out the floor as fire doors up and down the halls released and swung shut. The HVAC's sounds changed as the system switched from general service to full isolation. The next thing he did was pick up the red alert phone so that he could issue an alert to all the relevant government agencies.
Emmanuel turned to face the nursing station. Good. They were already hopping, putting on masks and gloves. He pointed at them, "Shut the doors for every patient in this section! They're stuck there until either I or Doctor Wiedii cancel the alert." He pointed at a room midway between him and the nurses. "I want that room cleared and set up as a decontamination staging area. Nobody is to approach the patients until they have been decontaminated." He drew in a deep breath, and settled himself down a bit, "Mammals, we may be dealing with a variant of Night Howler bio-toxin that is potentially delivered by microbial means. We don't know it's exact transmissiblity, so I am going to assume it's aerosol. I want you all to respond accordingly." He turned to look Rargyra, "You're former military, you know the drill."
"Yes, sir." He assured the doctor, "You want us to start setting up bio-seals?" he asked as he was putting on a mask.
"Yes, please." Emmanuel ordered.
Meanwhile, Hugo had ducked into a supply closet. Grabbing a nursing cart, he loaded it up with disinfectant, and wheeled it back out and over to Clawhauser's feet. He immediately started putting on a mask, gloves, and goggles. Once he was done with that, he prepared the same for Emmanuel.
Emmanuel turned to back to the injured cheetah. He held out his paws, and allowed Hugo to prep him. He knelt down by the injured cat and explained, "Officer Clawhauser, we need to get your uniform and necktie off of you. Since they are currently soaked with goat blood and cranial fluid, I'm just going to call them a complete loss and cut them off you. Sorry." He held out his paw to Hugo, "I need rescue shears and a bucket." Hugo gave him the shears, and set an empty plastic waste bin next to the muskrat.
Leaving Clawhauser's uniform buttoned, Emmanuel quickly cut a large circle out of the front of the officer's blouse, severing the tie at the neck. He placed the disk of cloth carefully into the trash can, and turned back to his patient. He pointed for Hugo, "It soaked through to the vest. Give me a surgical pad and tape." Hugo tore open a package, and handed it to him. Emmanuel quickly taped the pad over the vest, sealing in the fluids. Holding the vest straps away from Clawhauser's body, Emmanuel quickly cut through them as well, and peeled the vest away, placing it in the trash can as well. Clawhauser gasped as his chest was released from the constriction.
Emmanuel nodded to Hugo, "Get him decontaminated, quickly. I'll seal up the goat." Emmanuel rocked to his feet and stood back. Hooking his paws under Clawhauser's armpits, Hugo lifted the larger cheetah and started dragging him down the hall. Clawhauser's scream of pain at being moved was cut short as he mercifully blacked out.
Hugo quickly dragged his patient into the decontamination area and slipped the poor cheetah into the shower. He slapped the shower controls on, and preceded to hose himself and his patient down thoroughly, completely soaking their clothes and hopefully washing any bio-contaminates away.
He turned off the water, and turned to the two masked nurses who had come into the room with an ambulance stretcher. He pointed to the soaked cheetah, "Tell the floor resident that he has cracked ribs and possibly a cracked sternum as well. I didn't see any blood, so I don't think there are any punctures, but he will need to be x-rayed all the same. We'll check him for concussion once he wakes back up."
"Yes, Doctor," They replied, and wheeled the stretcher up to the shower.
Hugo stepped aside to let them work and quickly stripped off his wet clothes. Leaving them on the floor, he quickly towel dried but didn't used the blowers. He walked out of the bathroom, and grabbed a set of scrubs and booties off the bed that had been laid there by the staff. Dressing quickly, he walked back out to the hall while donning a new mask.
Emmanuel looked like he had finished up with the goat and sterilized the area. He currently was directing two large nurses in isolation suits who were trying to pick up the unconscious mammal as he lay through the door. Good. That gave Hugo a few minutes. He walked over to the nurses station where his phone had been helpfully laid by the security staff. He asked the ibex nurse behind the desk, "Has Immunology and Hematology been alerted?"
"Yes, Doctor Wiedii. Do you need to speak to them?" Isabella offered. She had recovered from her shock quickly, and was back to work.
"Yes, definitely, once Doctor Muskat is also finished decontaminating." He nodded to her. Turning away, he looked at his phone. Mierda! There was no way he could be back in time to pick up Judy. He's going to have to ask Fennick to keep her for longer, and probably get her some dinner. Oh, Fennick is going to be annoyed with him for forcing the little fox to babysit for him, that was for sure. No matter.
Red and blue lights started flashing through the windows, attracting his attention. Hugo looked up. The ZPD had arrived in response to Director Rargyra's alerts. Great, now he was going to have to deal with Bogo and Wilde at the same time.
He quickly entered a bland message telling the fox what happened without possibly alarming him, and ask him to please feed Judy, because he didn't think he was going to be able to leave the ICU any time soon.