Genesis (ONC2022)

Day seven : Part One

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Emilia had barely slept last night. She had tossed and turned, anxious for the day to come. She had been so elated when she had seen Alex awake. Her entire being had craved his presence but she had to cave in when the good doctor Rudolph and his team had swarmed in to take over.

They were probably poking and prodding at him trying to determine whether his slight recovery was a result of their medicine.

She highly doubted it though. Their 'cure' was making him sick and she needed to find a way to make them see that. For now, she needed to figure out how he was awake. If the infection was eating away at his red blood cells then that would affect the level of oxygen he was getting. Practically speaking, he should still be on a ventilator.

Shaking these thoughts from her head, she decided to only think positive thoughts.

But first, she needed a blood sample from him, another one to confirm her findings. When that was done, she would have to present them to the over confident Doctor Rudolph as well as the Board of Directors.

With a deep sigh, she stood from her desk just as there was a knock at the door.

She wondered who it could be. Maybe it was Misty. However, Emilia did not expect to find the face that stood behind her door.

"Doctor Bossing?" She blurted out in surprise as she regarded the man with new profound curiosity.

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6 hours earlier

Although Doctor Eli Bossing was a night owl, he still didn't miss out on the opportunity to catch a little shut eye every few hours during his night shift.

That being said, the call that came during those ungodly hours of the morning just as he was resting his eyes was something he found annoying.

"What?" He grumbled as he answered the phone, never once opening his eyes to see the caller ID.

"Eli, it's Vance." The voice at the end of the line said.

It was one of his colleagues from Med school. Vance Freeman was a medical practitioner and Eli's best friend. Despite that, neither of them ever had any time for a little catch-up. If Vance was calling, it was work related and nothing else.

This thought made Eli sit up straight and rub the sleep from his eyes.

"Hey, Vance. How are you?" He asked, more awake than he had been before.

"I'm good. Same old same old. How about you? Still working on your miracle drug?" Vance asked.

Eli guessed that his friend had tried to jest but from his tone, he detected no humor.

"Yeah, we're still testing it out. I'm hoping we see some positive results soon." Eli replied. "But what about you? To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Well, about that..." The man seemed hesitant and this bothered Eli. "I got a patient last night who had a nasty wound on his ankle that was badly infected. Kid's a junior report or something for CNN. He claimed a monkey attacked him and ate his friends."

"What? That's ridiculous." Eli said with a scoff. "But why tell me?"

"According to him, he and his buddies were investigating that animal rehabilitation place. What's it called?"

"Simmons Foundation for endangered species rescue and wildlife rehabilitation home?" Eli immediately cut in.

"Yeah that's the place. I take it you heard what happened there recently?" Vance went on.

His heart was racing at the mere mention of the place. He felt a sudden sense of foreboding.

"Yes, it was all over the news." Eli replied.

"I'm not sure if any of it is related but I'll send you the blood works as soon as we are done testing the kid to determine his infection. It may be a false alarm but, Eli, on the off chance that it has something to do with your drug..." Vance replied.

"I totally understand. I'll take a look at your blood works. You can email them to me." Eli said.

"Sure, Eli. If there's any other development with the patient I'll update you." Vance promised. "I should warn you though, the blood work... it was weird."

"What do you mean by weird?" Eli asked, his interest suddenly piqued.

He could hear the uncertainty in his colleague's voice.

"It's uh... You know what, just look at the blood works." Vance replied after a moment of eerie silence.

With that the call ended abruptly, leaving him staring at his cell in confusion.

With a shrug, he clicked on his mail icon. Just as promised, Vance had sent him a file attachment alone with a simple 'for your consideration' note.

After downloading the attachment, Eli proceeded to open it.

He spent the next five minutes staring at his screen, trying to figure out what he was looking at.

No, that is wrong. He knew exactly what he was looking at. He just didn't know why he was seeing it in this particular blood work.

He had seen it before when they were developing the drug. Their test 'monkey' had shown this particular oddity. Of course when he had shown the results to his partner, Daniel had assured him it was nothing. The next time he had taken a look at that particular sample it didn't have any oddity.

He had concluded that it was just a mild reaction to the drug that had popped up.

Except it hadn't been random.

That strange black fungi like oddity had somehow found its way to a human host. It was very worrying. he needed to talk to someone. Part of him wanted to talk to Daniel but he wasn't sure if he could trust his partner anymore. Especially now that he was actually considering the fact that he had tempered with the evidence. He needed to consult a third party. Someone who would be impartial to the whole project and he knew just the right person.