"Why do I have a feeling this is going to be absolutely horrifying?"
It shouldn't be funny, but it was. He guessed it was the gallows humor that seemed to be everlooming on this ship. They had worked so damn hard to get the cure and now they had other problems.
"Because I said that you needed to sit down, like we need to talk. And both of those things mean bad things. But you did need to sit down. And we do, unfortunately, need to talk about this little bear," He said as he picked it up, looked at it, really looked at it, and then put it back down. "It's bad."
She nodded and sat down across from him and looked at the bear. "You said it wasn't romantic, but it was a gift. I don't understand," She said, holding his hands in hers, tracing the lines and calluses.
He put the bear back on the table and smiled at her playing his hands like that. It wasn't even a month since they'd all gotten the cure and she'd become so open with him as a partner and open to having their relationship public. It was different. Normally, he was a float your boat kind of person, but with Rachel, it felt more serious.
"I should start from the beginning," He said as he knocked his chest with a fist and coughed for a second. "So, we left the compound and found an encampment of survivors. They were all immunes, but they were leaving to a secondary location, so we followed them. But we had to split up,"
She nodded. All of this bore true with what the Master Chief had told her earlier about there being three teams.
He kept talking. "So it was Danny and I, we were in the truck, trying to see the backstage area. And while I was on lookout, Green scoped the area and found Neils,"
"Neils? But the Vyerni?" She said, almost getting up, but ultimately settling back in her seat.
He nodded. Neils was a lot. Neils was the very thing that they were essentially fighting. It was hard to separate him from the virus. "Yeah, I know, but he is," He said, gently looking her in the eyes, "But it's important not to get stuck,"
She nodded and calmed her breath, "Continue,"
"When Danny saw Niels, he was experimenting on something," He pulled the little contraption out of the bear and showed her.
What she saw was just a normal squeaker. She'd seen these before, given out toys with them before. She understood the appeal of a toy like this. But this squeaker was filled with an orange goo that looked a little horrifying, she had to admit.
"And this was in the bear?" She asked, as she took the squeaker from him and put it onto the desk. She would have to research the compound when this conversation was over.
He nodded, "Yeah, they were supposed to give them out to kids," He said, "Obviously, but uh, Neils figured out who I was and Danny wasn't about to give that to some kid, because we're in the business of curing people, not giving 'em the virus,"
Without the squeaker in the bear, she held the actual bear in her hands, turning it over and over, like she was trying to make sense of it all. He wondered if maybe this would have been better if someone else were here like Bertrise or Doctor Milowsky.
"You okay?" He asked.
She shook her head, "My father was a Missionary. In Africa. We came with him. And my mother fell ill with Malaria. I remember someone in the village giving me a similar toy when she died," She said quietly, tears forming at the waterline of her eyes.
"I can take this to someone else," He said as he reached for the bear.
She simply grabbed tighter. "No, I can do it," Rachel told him as she looked up at him. "I can do it,"
They both heard a knock at the hatch. The door opened. They were here to collect Tex to write up debriefings. She nodded to him, "Go," She said as she put a hand on his, "I'm fine, I promise," She said in a way that definitely made him feel like she was not fine. Not fine at all.
Tex sighed and looked between his escort and Rachel. He didn't like the idea of leaving her right now. She had to find out what was in that thing, but she also shouldn't be left alone to mourn such a vengeful act as trying to murder children. She was simply looking at the bear and she didn't look up to catch his gaze.
He got up from the chair and went to the escort. They crossed the hatch and got out of the visual range of Rachel. He stopped. He looked to the escort. "I know where to go, but will you get Dr. Milowsky in that lab with her?" He asked as he looked to the lab.
The escort took a minute to think it over. But he nodded and went to the officer's quarters. He went to a compartment where computers were set up, this was not exactly the most formal affair, since for the most part, they did not have anyone to answer to. They did this for posterity more than anything and to make sure that everyone saw the same thing.
He opened the door and saw Burk, Ravit, Danny, and Wolf, along with the Captain. He sat by Danny's side and started poking at the keys on the laptop. None of them spoke. It wasn't usually like this, but a lot had happened with the immunes.
When they were done, everyone printed their stories and set the screen down on their laptop. He was the last one to do so. Everyone was individually questioned by the captain who congregated all the stories into one file. When Tom got to him, there wasn't much to talk about. All of their stories lined up, because they simply did not have anything to hide.
Dr. Milowsky came in, "So you have something new?" He asked.
Rachel laughed a little, "They sent you, so I don't have a breakdown," She told him, "But yes, I have something new that we need to try suss out,"
Dr. Milowsky reddened a little at the accusation, but still came in. He saw the orange liquid in the squeaker. "That?" He asked.
She looked at the thing with a grimace, "Yes. It's apparently a Neils pet project. We have to find out what's in this compound," She told him. She popped the top off the squeaker and poured some of it into a petri dish. "Would you like first glance?" She asked him as she held up, almost as if she were toasting someone.
He said nothing and she took it over to the microscope to inspect the goo closer. There was nothing too interesting about it under the scope. It was a relatively normal gel, definitely had coloring agent in it, but also she noticed some tiny specks that she couldn't see details of with the zoom she could through the petri dish.
She labeled it, put a cover on it and moved it aside, before getting a slide and smearing some of the gel on it. With a slide, she could get a closer look. And there it was. It was the virus. The Red Flu. How he was able to get it out of himself or out of other people, she wasn't exactly sure, but this was horrifying, she thought. They were infecting children with this. This goo was highly concentrated with the stuff. This wasn't just natural replication, this was forced. He was finding ways to make it more potent.
She backed away from the microscope and put her hand over her mouth, trying to keep it together.
"Dr. Scott?"
She shook her head. She didn't want him coming over. He would try to make it better and it would just make it worse for her. She kept doing her deep breathing. It was supposed to work in situations like this. It was supposed to work.
It wasn't working.
"Dr. Scott?"
"Dr. Scott?"
"Someone, get the captain!"
The last thing that she remembered was backing away from the microscope. She remembered Dr. Milowsky trying to come over. She remembered not wanting him to come over. And then there was nothing.
"Rachel?"
There was a light shining in her eyes and she flinched. She heard sighs of relief. She looked out to the crowd of faces. Tom, Milowsky. And Tex. She threw her arms around Tex and breathed in his scent. She was safe. No one was dying here today. Everyone was safe.
Tex put her back down and let her breathe for another moment.
She looked at everyone with an embarrassed smile, "I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me, it won't happen again," She couldn't guarantee that. No one could, but she could very well damn try. Rachel smiled. "I think I'd like a little time alone Dr. Milowsky," She said.
Tom and Milowsky looked to Tex, who nodded. "I'll be here for a little while,"
Assured, they both left the lab and went to do other things. Tex sat on a chair, out of the way, looking in on the containment lab. She brushed her hair out of her face and put the lab coat out of the way.
When she started charting and everything, he knew she was feeling better but he wanted to make sure. When an hour passed and she was still going, it was time that she learned the thing that he had learned on the helicopter. "We have the president," He told her, looking in.
"What?" She asked.
"We have a president. And we have the president,"
He couldn't believe it himself. The president of the United States. They had him aboard and he was not happy. That much was for damn sure. He heard the yelling from the wardroom himself. This would not be an easy alliance.
She stopped what she was doing for a second. A new president. They had a president. And given what everyone was told about the mission, who had known about, what they thought of her, it might be hard to look that person in the eye. It had been a hard fought journey for the project to secure the primordial.
It would probably be a while before she even got to meet this president. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. The others would be better at convincing someone of the importance of this research, especially Tom. He was an excellent communicator, persuasive. He had found loyalty in people that was buried far underneath. She believed him. She knew he could do it, if anyone could.
"Don't you need to go?" Rachel asked him. "I'm sure that you weren't just available for this little rendezvous,"
He shrugged, "Nothing is more important than you, princess," He said, putting his hand up on the plastic.
She put her hand there on his and wondered how lucky and rare it was to have someone whose only goal was to make you happy. And that truly seemed like Tex's thing. He had a mission to do, but he was here for her. And nothing would take him away from that when he was called.
"You should go," She said. "But I need to speak to the Captain," She told him.
He nodded and did as she asked. It was about ten minutes before Tom came into the containment lab.
"Where's Neils?" She asked him, holding the teddy bear, with gloved hands. She wasn't sure that Tom should be this close without protective gear, but since she was the one holding it, it probably wouldn't contaminate anything else.
"Recovering in the medical bay. He'll be in a medically induced coma for at least twenty-four hours,"
Right right, that all made sense. Tex had told her about the gunshot wound Neils sustained when the firefight happened. After Neils made him. He started shouting. All of that made sense. But there were some things that didn't make sense.
"How did he get to America? How did he find his way to the immunes?"
The Captain shrugged. "Don't know yet. That's something I'll ask the president."
"Who you believe is one of them?" She asked. That definitely didn't bode well for her. These people were destroying her cure. And even if he did believe her before about the primordial strain, now it was entirely going to be a different story. So either way, she was going to be alienated by a new president. That was going to be fun.
"He seems to think so," Tom countered. "But we're going to try and change that," He promised her. He gently caressed her arm and smiled. "I know, this is a new world, but I'm trying to make it a better one," He said.
She nodded and looked at the floor for a moment and then looked back up. "I never got around to thanking you for coming to help," She said. "I'm sorry that I scared everyone like that. Like I said, won't happen again."
"We all fall down sometimes. It's why we're a team," He told her. "But I got to get back to work. Mike's going to go in with the President shortly and we've got to be able to see what's going on,"
She nodded. "Well, good hunting,"
It was set in motion that all members of the out team would go in shifts for presidential guard duty. Burk and Danny had both had shifts while the President was in the wardroom, with full knowledge that the president was being watched. Tex however, got the shift after that. He got to stand at the door of the president's current lodgings. It was a spare officer's quarters with nothing of any interest in it. It had been thoroughly cleaned and the door was locked once the President was in the cabin.
Tex couldn't hear any words coming from inside the cabin for a long time. And when there were sounds, it seemed like they were mainly grunts. He was trying very hard to keep something at bay, but Tex was not sure what. And since he didn't come out. He didn't talk to the president.
There were some other noises, something that maybe suggested he should check on the president, but he was also an unknown and the mission was not to open the door unless he explicitly asked for the door to be open. And even then, there were limited options of places that the president could go in the moment. He wasn't a prisoner, but he didn't have free movement around the place until they could fully trust him. That Tex got.
He heard a knock on the door and it was the President. "I need to use the bathroom," He said.
Tex opened the door and let him through and then followed him as he pointed the directions out to the male head, a navy bathroom. The president stepped into the bathroom alone. "I need to take a leak," He said.
That Tex understood and stood at the side of the door and waited.
It was a few minutes later when the captain rolled down the P-Way, asking how long the man had been in there, "I don't know a couple of minutes," He replied. "He said he had to take a leak, but maybe it was the other thing, I don't know. He's the president of the United States, what are you going to do?" He asked.
Tom started banging on the door and shouting for the president. He didn't know if he would have done that. It seemed like a dangerous move to be shouting. Tex looked around and there was no one around though, so maybe Tom was fine, banging and shouting through the door. But it still felt wild and desperate.
He began doing it louder and louder, just for a few moments, till he realized he wasn't going to get any words out of the bathroom. He broke down the door.
The scene was unreal.
The president of the United States on the floor, with both of his wrists cut. Tex wasn't even really sure how you did that in a navy bathroom. But where there is a will, there is a way, he guessed.
"Get Rachel and Doc Rios!" Tom shouted and Tex ran. Doc Rios was closer. And he would get the first steps done, but he went to go get Rachel too. Pulling her away from her work might be a welcome distraction.
They ended up taking him back to Rachel's lab where he wouldn't be seen by anybody. She also had a bunch of medical equipment in her lab that made it a good choice and Doc Rios brought more when more was needed. The good thing about this ship is that medical equipment moving around did not arouse much suspicion, she thought.
Doc Rios did a majority of the work on one side and she worked on the other, making sure in tandem to close him up before he lost any more blood. The Captain had found him at the right time, and it only took a few more minutes to get him to the lab. But this was a battle for time and more hands definitely counted in the fight.
Making sure that they kept the stitches tight, while the blood bags gave him the blood he needed. It was an arduous process, because the placement was so small, but they managed to do it. She wiped the sweat off her brow and looked to the captain, "Well, he's stable," She told him and pushed it up off the ground. "He'll probably be unconscious for a couple of hours. But he should come to, eventually,"
"Well, thank you both. But I'm gonna want some time alone with him," Tom told them.
"Yes, Sir," Doc Rios said.
And there wasn't really an option after that. She threw her gloves into the biohazard trash and went back to her cabin for the next couple of hours. Tex was there and she smiled. "This is the most we've gotten to be together since Norfolk," She said with a smile, "It seems likes it's been ages since we just got to be together, with no other agenda," She said and she went in and gave him a kiss.
"It's been less than two weeks," He said, "But I just needed to let you know that stuff that isn't the virus filled teddy bear is going awry. It seems that those immune people really don't like that we got away with their president,"
She sighed, "Course there is," She sat on the bed next to him, "Do you have to go?"
He shook his head, "Not for a little while," He said and then he laid down and slung her in close to him. She laid there, content with the situation, and fell asleep.
She was awoken by a knock at the door, and startled awake. She looked over, no Tex. That was okay. She hadn't intended on falling asleep anyway, but with the panic attack in the lab and then making sure a president didn't die, well it had been a long day.
She arose and opened the door, "We're debriefing the president on everything," Tom said.
He looked in her cabin. It had become cozier with some of Tex's things strewn about. And that she thought was literally, he had overshirts on the back of her chair and some of his shoes on the floor. They hadn't been very subtle, but Tex did still have stuff in the stateroom with Danny.
She reddened and then cleared her throat, "I assume you want the bear,"
He shook his head, "I want you there, to talk about the bear. Given your reaction to what was in it. I think you make a good emotional anchor for him. And we need as many of those as we can get,"
She nodded. "Well, umm, I'll need about a half hour, just to make sure I'm ready,"
"I have to get the rest of the team ready anyway. I just wanted you to know. I want you to be there. You have an emotional connection, but you're also our scientist and a way to combat some of the inaccuracies he's been told."
He left her to her own devices. She closed the cabin door, changed her top, put on her shoes, and quickly left the cabin and headed to the lab, where she put the bear together, squeaker in a bag, so it wouldn't blow out everywhere and put that in another bag. She prepared what she was going to say very quickly, went over it a few times, and when she felt good, went to the conference room, they were all gathering in. She was the first one there.
Slattery and Garnett were the next ones. They took seats beside her. And then Tom and the President showed up. Immediately Slattery and Garnett were on their feet. She politely got up, but it took a little more time and she felt more embarrassed than ever. It was an awkward feeling when everyone else knew what to do with such ease. The president nodded and they were all allowed to sit down.
The first thing on the agenda was the Ramseys. That meant talking about the submarine which had been quite the bone of contention on previous days.
"The problem with the sub is the sound matting. Last I heard, the divers were trying to fix it, but I don't know how much progress they were making. In all likelihood, we'll be in New Orleans way ahead of them," The president informed them.
Everyone took a little note of this, but Slattery went next. "And the immunes infrastructure, how organized are they? How many do you think there are in America?"
"Oh thousands. Tens of thousands. Maybe more,"
She kept the groan to herself, but that many immunes meant they were a lot more dangerous to the cure now, especially since she was having so much trouble making some sort of powder to drop the vaccine. Everyone deserves a chance to live, not just those with the special markers.
"And their propaganda campaign against us? How far has that gotten?" Garnett asked.
"As far as I know the HAM radio broadcast you played me was just the beginning. I think it was in response to your taking me."
"What else can you tell us about how they communicate?" Mike asked.
"I know they were working on a network- some way of connecting with other chapters, but I hadn't heard the details and I'm not sure how it was accomplished. And I don't know how they were getting Sean's messages through from Europe. I assumed that the missionaries were flying them over,"
Mike took an uneasy pause. "We're going to need to see that flash drive, Mr. President."
And the president happily turned it over. A red flash drive, that given Mike's uneasiness about talking about it, meant that he thought it might be a hard sell. But no, he had just given it over easily. Once Mike pocketed it, there was a strange kind of twisting on his face. Like he wasn't sure if giving it up was the right choice. But once it was away, it was okay. He kept breathing and looked to the rest of them.
It was finally her turn. She took her bright red bag off the floor and looked over to the president. She opened it while giving her speech, "Ramsey's men were handing these out to the non-immunes. There's a mechanism that releases the virus to infect people," She gave him the bear, but kept the squeaker wrapped in plastic with her.
Her voice was straight but it also inflected the horror that she thought this was. It didn't tremble, but it wasn't boring either. She wanted to really let him know how she thought this way, but he was the President and this would have to do.
"They were giving…" He looked at the bear, and then back up to her, "To children?"
"Mm-hm," It was the only response to this horrible and tragic thing that they had done. She thought back to her panic attack in the lab and wondered. But Tom was right. This was an anchor point into the man, to keep him firmly on their side.
"We captured one of their scientists, Neils Sorenson. But what we don't know is if anyone else in their camp is trained to replicate this idea?" Tom asked the president. "If you saw anything or heard anything?"
"No, I'm sorry, I have no idea. I wish that I could help,"
Tom simply smiled at the man, "I think we've got enough for now," He said and everyone slowly trickled out of the room, save Tom and the President.
As she took the bag and started to head toward the door, she heard the president say, "Dr. Scott, can you stay for just a moment,"
She turned around and looked at him, "Of course. How can I help?" She asked him.
He chuckled. "It's more of what I can do to help," He said, with a deprecating smile. "I wanted to apologize on behalf of the American people and the American government that more of us didn't believe you. What you've managed to do, well it's more than we could have asked for,"
She bowed her silently and almost wanted to cry. It had been a hell of time fighting for the project for the Primordial, but she was able to do it, if only to diversify the interests of the government on the subject at that time. Many people did not believe in her, but many people did. And now, here was someone saying, thank you we were wrong.
She shook her head. "There's no apology necessary Mr. President." And then she left.