"No antidote?" X shouted as he dropped down by Elle. What was going to happen to her if there wasn't an antidote? He couldn't loose her! He reached out, frantically rubbing her ice cold hands for a moment before turning back to the comm. "Zara, please! There's got to be something!"
"Calm down. It says something about survival rates. It must not be uniformly lethal." Zara said as she paged through the information. "Give me a minute. Someone must have came up with some sort of treatment somewhere."
"Hurry! Please, Zara." X whispered the last as he continued to rub his partner's hands. What was he going to do if she died?
Aileen swayed, and only the death grip she had on the back of one of the sofas kept the poor woman on her feet as what Zara just said sank in. No antidote. "How long?" she said when she was finally able to speak. "How long do they have?" She was sure that it wouldn't be long enough for her to make it to Earth, and to Kay's side, though.
"Here, dear. Why don't you sit down. I'm sure my niece will find something." Zoe said as he came to Aileen's side and wrapped an arm around her to steady her as she led her to a chair and glared at a cousin until he got the idea and moved so the poor girl could set. "Zara, would it help to call the hospital?"
"Not really. This is from their databanks." Zara said as she scrolled through the information. What idiot had decided that poking all of this in on famous cases using this poison, before the information about how to treat it? Were they hoping that the delay would give the victims time to die so that they could have an up close encounter with a famous case? "I am having words with whoever did this section. Wait, here we are, treatment. It's okay! There are a couple of treatments you can try."
"Treatment?" How in the world was he going to manage to treat this many humans. X looked around the room in a panic before looking back at Elle, If it would save Little Ears, though, he would do anything. "Zara, please! Whatever it is, I'm willing to try!"
"Let me see." Zara said as she looked over the treatments, trying to figure out what to suggest to her cousin. Why didn't these things offer potential survival rates too. "This might work." She said after a minute. "It uses Earth ingredients, and it's listed as promising."
"Promising is good." X said. "It's very good. What do I do?"
"It looks simple, thank goodness. Zara told him. "You mix calcium, Vitamin C, and then tan... Geesh, what is this one?"
"Let me see." Aileen finally spoke as she looked up and waved Zara over for her. After a minute she sighed. She had been afraid that it would be something harder than that. "Tea. It's tea, the regular kind, not the herbals."
"X, did you hear that?"
"Tea, right. Finally, I can get some use out of those worms." X said. "Worms, get some water boiling! We need tea, and a lot of it, fast!"
"Tea? What do you need THAT for?"
"Besides, we don't have any."
"What do you mean we don't have any?" X demanded.
"We threw it all out."
"Zed said we had to straighten up all of the cupboards before we could get more coffee.
"And who drinks that stuff, anyway?"
"Poisoning victims, that's who, and we happen to have a ton of them on our hands at the moment." X said. "At least start boiling the water." He was going to have to make a run to the store. Suddenly, he paused as something occurred to him. Leaving meant leaving his partner alone with the worms. What if something happened? "Zara, are you sure that these humans can't be moved? Little Ears is not going to be happy if she finds out I left her with four worms to play nursemaid."
"I'm sure. And even if they could be moved, you wouldn't want to know how much pain it would cause them. There's really no tea at all in the place?"
"If you knew these worms, you wouldn't ask that. I'm going to ask Zed to take away their coffee for a month, that is if this doesn't kill him." X reached out and snagged the nearest worm. "I've got to go to the store. The four of you stay here, and look after the agents. And no coffee breaks!"
"What? You're leaving us alone?"
"But what if whoever poisoned them comes back!"
"No! Take us with you!"
"Someone has to take care of them! Do you think they look like they can defend themselves?" X demanded. "Just watch them, and I'll be back as fast as I can. I thought that they were your friends, especially Agent Jay." He added, when he noticed the worms still shaking. "Do you want him to die?"
The four looked at each other before finally nodding.
"Okay, we'll stay."
"Good, just watch them and try to make them comfortable. And don't eat the ice cream! That has calcium, right? We'll need it later." X ordered before heading for the SUV. "Zara, what about the vitamin C?"
""Orange juice, or oranges." Aileen said. "Is there some way that we can watch what's going on at headquarters while you're gone?" She didn't think she could stand it, not being able to at least see Kay, even if there wasn't anything that she could do to help him.
"There might be a way if you can tell the worms what to do." X said.
"I'm sure I can. That monitor bank looks a lot like the hospital switchboard, and they draft whoever makes the mistake of wandering past rather than calling for a temp when the receptionist is out sick. Just hurry, X."
"Hey." Edie caught Zara's arm and tugged her into the hall as Aileen got out her own comm to call the worms. "Listen, my partner's close to Agent Kay, as in close enough that if he asked her to marry him, she would be on Earth in an instant. I need to know this. Does whatever you were looking at say how much of a chance the agents have?"
"It depends on how fast X can get that mixture brewed up." Zara said. "Four hours, and they're going to start loosing body parts due to the compromised circulation. Six hours, and we're going to start seeing fatalities."