fix
the
problem
But after choosing between the loss of many at his own hands, blood spilled and tasted, and infecting people with disease and sickness? He had to choose the latter. He was a doctor, this wasn't what he had ever wanted to do. Michael was meant to save lives, to create and do good, no, great things. That was the sole purpose of it all. Instead, he was being forced to create sickness and death. And now, he would fix it. Right those wrongs. He was determined to pull others away from death's door. He had to. Anything was curable. Everything was curable. It just took time to find out how. Sometimes hours, days, months, years. There was always a way. He didn't have that sort of time. Every second that passed with him dealing with all of this, the more people died. Even with his own speed, there he was, doing what he could to move between notes and places.
A theory came over it being in his blood. The person that held him, the person that had some mad scheme to do all of this, had done something to him. Why have someone help you if you were looking to kill them too? Not that Michael was even sure that he could be infected. He wasn't exactly human anymore. Even diseases sustained by monsters, they weren't like this. It was different, he had seen it for himself. He had been the unknowing cause of it all, himself. The systematic cure for it, as well. With healing unlike his own, there had to be some sort of immunity that went with it.
Where one theory appeared to be true, many others would fail. Tried and true tests, attempts to correct this all, he had to push further. There needed to be more ideas, more thoughts, more directions. This antibody was like something he had never seen. Once isolated, he didn't know how to go about making it safe for all. Worse, his attempts at replicating it had failed repeatedly. Without his own speed, this entire thing may have taken him more than hours, but days or weeks to accomplish. More time he didn't have. Unable to replicate this all, he became a donor. His own blood donor, allowing himself to heal, as he fed and kept up production. The blood preserved, just in case there was an even larger ticking time clock on everything. Whether the antibody was set to die off or end with this week or sooner, he had to slow that down. He needed it for this research.
People would be tested on. Unknowing subjects without their own approval, except some, he did speak to. It didn't matter though, he would make them forget. There would be no memory of him or what he did. This wasn't for him, yet it was. He needed to save himself from this fate of being such a monster, even though he was using those that had the worst case prognosis to test his work on. If he could have used himself, he would have. But that wouldn't help anyone. He had done that before, done it at a point that caused him to create this living vampire that he was. All done by science and not the supernatural. He was a freak among freaks. Regardless of what he did, what he was doing, he needed redemption. The most difficult dish to gain on the table. The one that was always just out of reach.
Twelve lived, but he had tested it out on sixteen. These things that the news doesn't understand. Twelve lived, but four held no change? Why? He didn't understand it. He had to dig deeper, perfect it before going through and trying to find a way to distribute it. It didn't matter if he had to go to each person in the city one by one and give it to them. He would. He would, and they would never remember him and what he did to them or for them.
The week had ended and Michael was playing catch up. Reading through his own notes, his own writing, without fully remembering or recognizing what he was surrounded by. People, places, all of it just made his head hurt. But as he read his notes, as he realized that this dull fog was far from a dream or even the nightmare he recalled, it was real. The stillness in him, left him without strength, falling back into a seat. His own blue eyes couldn't handle their current path onto the paper. Instead, they were diverted elsewhere, anywhere else. The bland walls, the wood beneath his feet, the blood samples on his table. It was a strange urge that came over him, to want to cry, but couldn't. He wasn't that person, never had been. But there was an emptiness there, that would not allow it even if he were. What had he done?
The joys of YouTube long over. The pain of what was real and honest here, coming to hit him like a brick. If only it had knocked him out. He was behind. He didn't have these added abilities. He wasn't even a carrier of this antibody anymore. It had said so in the notes. It was all gone by Saturday morning. The notes had said so. There were bags marked to show that they didn't include it. Life just molded itself to take a new meaning, yet again. His own mistake. Something he had caused. Had he not already ruined enough lives this far? What sort of monster was he really? When did this ever stop?
Frantic and worried, he tossed all of his notes on the table. Spread many of them out for faster reading. Drawings, diagrams, highlighted marks being something to take notice to first. How easy was it for him to just zone in on the red ink before all else. Whether his focus needed to be on one page or on all of them, he was about to spread himself thin and he knew it. He didn't care though. This was where the clock ticked down. This was where everything was on the line and people mattered. There was a quarantine in effect. There was a curfew that was maintained. If he could just fix this, maybe that would go away. Maybe it wouldn't. But people would live and things would get better and he could finally let go of that breath he was holding.
Random facts that Michael did know. He is a living vampire. What that fully meant, he was still figuring that out. Life was a mess. No kidding, look out the window. Curfew was at 7 and he still had a lot of people to visit. Not that he didn't deserve to lose a lot more for this, there it was. There had been enough worry, panic, over knowing people that were sick. The hospitals were flooded enough. There were so many to take care of. He wanted to help where he could, but at the same time, this was the best use of his skills. Moments to go about triage, to catch onto the count of the infected after wiping the minds of those that caught sight of him. It never took much. Just some eye contact. He had never expected to use this ability so much. He never expected to do anything like this in his life.
Looking at one of the vaccines, he tried to use it along with the antibody. Maybe there was a correlation. Something about the way it worked, versus how those infected were having issues. Start from the bottom here. Transmitted by mosquito, never from person to person. Possibly caused from the strange weather patterns and earthquakes. Flavivirus. RNA virus. Positive. Acute viral. Once the mosquito passing the virus, developing the disease is 5-20%. Susceptibility needs to be determined, as far as health prior. Incubation normally takes 3-6 days. Once in the blood, the virus wait to be attacked. During the breakdown, it stops it. The white blood cell is infected but thinks its healthy and goes back to the lymph nodes and the virus replicates itself. It then gets into the blood stream and goes to the liver. More cells die and are infected. Killing off the Kupffer cells, infection just keeps spreading and damaging hepatocytes. Damage to the liver leads to jaundice. With all of the replicating and liver damage comes the flu-like symptoms. Invasion should only take 2-5 days with the abrupt onset of these symptoms. Faget's sign should be noted. A new mosquito can bite the patient and transmit to other hosts.
After the invasion, and the fever falls, this is where the clock ticks down. The patient will either actually get better or go right into remission. Intoxication period lasts 3-9 days and is how I've chosen people for subjects. Fatty degeneration, with jaundice, black vomit, and protein in the urine. Liver damage resulting in bleeding, the black vomit, and protein due to kidneys. Survival is still plausible here, and can recover without long-term effects. There were different co-morbidities with those that were tested. Subjects were from varying backgrounds, ages, and everything else that could be thought of. But what was he missing? What was the issue that he was overlooking? Was it the antibody himself? Was it his means of using it? He needed to know that it would really work and who to use it on before he went and tried finding another means of replicating it all.
Whatever that was to be done, it had to be done fast. While everything had been preserved, he now had to set into play everything that he had. Some of the first bags were already failing, as the blood seemed to have just what he believed. That ticking clock on it. The natural force of the cells to die off as new are created. A life cycle of its own. If only he had more time to study it, to see if there was anything that could be done for it. But he didn't care right now. He needed to find a faster way to replicate it, to make more, to distribute it all as soon as possible. With the government pulled into this, with the military all around, there was only so much to be done. Eye contact with them wasn't difficult and sliding past their own defenses, even less so. But once there was more than one in any area, that could be cause for concern. Each person had to be spoken to, when things were looked at in a disbelieving light. And Michael was not looking to be shot.
Only one person he knew to help, but she was going through enough and he had tried a few times. Gained some ideas and perspective. Thoughts and direction. At the same time, she annoyed him to no end. The incessant need to argue, but he really couldn't say or so much there. She had found ways to max out even his own ability to care to. But he wasn't entirely sure she could help, at least with this. It raised too many red flags. If something happened, he didn't want anyone else implicated. He didn't want anyone else in the sort of trouble he would be in.
Everything needed to be packed away. He needed to make it all look like it was their own equipment. That just meant he was going to have to get a good look at said equipment and possibly steal some bar codes to scan. This had to be done right, no room for mistakes. It had to be perfect. He could pass as a regular physician, he was a doctor, after all. But he needed badges and access. People to realize who he was. This was going to take too much time and he hated it. If only he could move faster, get beyond their systems and protocols. Even if he had some sort of team to move through all of this. But he didn't know enough people. Regardless of their safety, he just didn't know anyone. More than that, he couldn't just trust anyone. Jem was pushing his limits on that, but she understood the line of work. She understood the words and didn't need it to be explained other than what he had been doing. Leaving everything to continue on its own, he grabbed hold of his coat. Sliding it over his arms and pulling it over his shoulders, he groaned. Today was going to be one of those days.