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Nick thought he had gotten the sillies out of his system.

When he’d first gotten into his yellow Hazmat suit, he’d announced, “That’s one small step for Nick… one giant leap for Nick-kind!” and proceeded to lumber around the room, pretending he was prancing on the moon.

“Nick-kind is right,” snorted Brian with disdain, through his own Hazmat mask.

Nick had then launched into the “Imperial March” and stalked across the floor as Darth Vader, breathing loudly. “No. I am your father,” he told Brian. “Search your feelings. You know it to be true.”

Brian rolled his eyes and ignored him.

By the time they were ready to go into the infected area of the hospital, Nick thought he’d gotten used to the suit, which was actually kind of stuffy and claustrophobic. Jeanie led them into the emergency department, explaining, “Patient zero, a teenage girl, was admitted yesterday morning. Between ten a.m. and ten p.m., so were some two hundred others. All but one of the original wave of patients have died by now, but not before infecting others. We’ve isolated an entire wing to quarantine them, but the ER is still being inundated with new cases. Most of these present originally with flu-like symptoms, followed by…”

As Jeanie got into the medical mumbo-jumbo, Nick’s mind wandered. He thought of Neil Armstrong again, of walking on the moon, and then he thought of the Moonwalk. He thought of that little penguin down in Antarctica, doing the Moonwalk, and he giggled under the helmet of his suit. The intro to “Billie Jean” began to play in his mind, building gradually. He began to hum along. “Hm, hm… hm, hm… hm, hm… hm, hm…”

The tiled floor of the hospital was shiny and smooth, perfect for Moonwalking. He popped one heel up, slid his opposite foot back, and attempted a Moonwalk across the floor, right into someone who shouted, “Hey!”

Nick whirled around, already stammering an apology, and found himself face to face with a man who was as tall as he, but lankier, with a long, crooked nose and brown eyes that were currently blazing with anger behind the clear shield of his mask. His white lab coat, green scrubs, latex gloves, and stethoscope gave him away as a doctor.

“Watch where you’re going, will ya?” the doctor scolded, but his eyes had already softened. He was not, Nick decided, a hardass by nature.

“What were you doing, Nick?” asked Red, giving him the most intense “What the fuck?” look he’d ever seen her pull. He grinned sheepishly, as she went on, “Jeanie’s giving us valuable information about the virus, and you’re…?”

“Moonwalking,” Nick inserted.

“Moonwalking??” Red repeated incredulously, shaking her head. She leaned closer to him, tilting her head back so that the face shields of their helmets practically touched, and looked into his eyes. “Tell me, Nick, have you ever been officially diagnosed with ADHD?”

“Officially? No.”

Her brows lifted. “Well, then… consider yourself diagnosed.”

Nick was just about to ask her if she could write him a prescription for Ritalin then, when he heard Jeanie say, “Ah, Carter. I was just looking for you.”

He gaped at her in confusion. “Huh? I was right behind you the whole time. I swear!”

“Not you. Meet Dr. John Carter, attending physician in the ER. Dr. Carter, this is Dr. Julianne Llewellyn, CIA Agent Brian Littrell, and Agent Nick Carter. I told you they’d be coming.”

“Right,” Dr. Carter nodded. “What would you like to see first?”

“Jeanie said there was just one patient still living from the original wave,” Red spoke up at once. “Could we see her?”

“Him,” corrected Dr. Carter, “and of course. He’s in the quarantine wing; I’ll take you there.”

He led them to the elevator, which they took to the seventh floor. “Normally, this wing is where our transplant patients stay, post-op,” Dr. Carter explained as they stepped onto the floor. “The rooms are all isolation units, to protect our immunosuppressed patients from nosocomial infection. When we locked down the hospital, we transported those patients to other hospitals and converted this to our quarantine ward.”

A pair of security guards stood in front of the ward doors. They nodded to Dr. Carter as he escorted the others through. As they trooped through the ward, Nick couldn’t help but peek into the rooms they passed. Every last one of them housed patients, and none looked well. Some appeared worse than others, with black pustules on their skin, blood seeping from their orifices.

“Carter?”

Nick turned automatically, but the nurse who had poked her head out from one of the rooms was looking at the other Carter, the one with the M.D. behind his name.

“Can you come pronounce the patient in 5? Coded a few minutes ago.”

“In a minute,” Carter replied. “Let me get these guys down to 12.”

They only passed a couple more rooms when another nurse appeared. “Oh, Carter, there you are,” she said, and again, Nick started. “Can I give Mrs. Alwyn another dose of morphine?”

“Go ahead,” replied the doctor.

They continued on, finally stopping outside room 712.

“The patient is a twenty-two-year-old male named Terrance Phillip,” Carter briefed them. “He was brought to the ER last night by his mother, after vomiting blood and collapsing at home. He’s the last one alive of yesterday’s patients. I doubt he’ll make it through the night.”

Red peered through the glass walls of his room. “Is he conscious?”

“In and out.”

“May we go in?”

“Of course. Just try not to upset him.”

“We’ll keep it brief.” Red opened the door. Jeanie and Brian followed.

Nick hesitated, not sure he wanted to go any further, but then he remembered that this was a mission, and K was counting on him to find out as much as he could. If this man was the last of the original patients infected with the virus, he might be their last chance to discover its origins. With that thought in mind, he entered the room and let the door close behind him.

Red was already leaning over the patient. He was a large man, easily filling the width of the bed. His face was half-hidden by facial hair, lots and lots of dirty blonde hair, but the skin that was visible was ashy gray and pocked with black pustules. Beneath the oxygen mask that covered his mouth and nose, Nick could see blood caked in his beard and mustache, where it had seeped from his nostrils and the corners of his mouth. It had run from his ears, too, and dried in his sideburns. Even at the corners of his closed eyes, rivulets of blood trickled like tears.

If this was what he looked like on the outside, Nick couldn’t imagine the inside. He didn’t want to. Yet, somehow, Terrance Phillip was still alive. Not for long, though. His wheezing breaths sounded labored, as if they could stop at any moment. He watched Red’s face as her eyes panned his monitors, reading the numbers. They were meaningless to Nick, but he could tell by her grim expression that they weren’t good.

She reached out, her gloved hand closed into a fist, and rubbed the center of the man’s chest with her knuckles. “Mr. Phillip?” she asked as she did this. “Terrance?”

His bloodshot eyes fluttered open. They rolled towards her, sliding in and out of focus.

“I’m Dr. Llewellyn. If you can stay awake for me, I just want to ask you a few questions about how you got sick, so that we can help you. Can you do that for me?”

Terrance opened his mouth, but the only sound that escaped it was a gurgling noise, as if there was blood clogging his throat, too. He gave a weak nod instead.

“Great. Do you have any idea what made you sick, Terrance?”

Terrance shook his head slowly.

“When did you first start experiencing symptoms?”

Terrance took a few, rasping breaths before choking out, “Last… night.”

“And you were at home?”

A nod.

“Can you think of anything you did in the last few days that might have contributed to this? Anything out of the ordinary? Did you go anywhere special?”

While Terrance seemed collect his thoughts and his strength, Nick looked around. There were tubes that ran beneath the sheets, going in and out of Terrance’s body. Some connected to IVs, feeding drugs into his system. Others led to plastic containers that hung from the rails of his bed, draining fluids. One held blood. Another held a thinner liquid the color of eggplant.

“What is that?” he whispered to Jeanie, motioning to the container.

“Urine,” she replied out of the corner of her mouth.

“Urine? You mean, pee? His piss is purple?”

“It’s a symptom of the virus. It causes a build-up of blood and heme in the urine, which turns it purple.”

“Weird, dude…”

He turned his attention back to the patient. Red was still trying to get an answer out of him, but he seemed unable to give it. Blood bubbled from his lips, popping beneath the mask. All of a sudden, the monitors over his bed went haywire. His bloodshot eyes rolled backwards into his head, and his body began to twitch before suddenly falling limp. The hospital bed creaked beneath his dead weight. The heart monitor whined as it flatlined.

Nick turned to Red. “Can you bring him back? Shock him, or something? We didn’t get anything out of him!”

She shook her head. “He’s got blood coming from every orifice. That’s a sign of massive internal hemorrhage. This virus has eaten away at his organs until there’s no function left. His insides are probably like soup.”

Nick felt his stomach turn. “Thanks for the visual there, Jewel.” Beneath his helmet, Brian’s face looked rather green, as well.

“Sorry,” said Red. “But he’s gone.”

“Another casualty,” sighed Jeanie. She exchanged glances with Red, then shifted her eyes to Brian and Nick. “We’re working around the clock to find an antidote here. But we need you to figure out where this started, where it all came from. Until we know the origin, we may not be able to discover the cure.”

Nick looked at Brian, who nodded. “We’ll find it, Dr. Boulet. You’ve got the best of both agencies on the case now… oh, and Nick.”

“Hey!” sputtered Nick. “Fuck you!”

“Just kidding, Carter,” Brian chuckled. “I figured someone had to lighten the tension in here.”

“Have a little respect, Littrell, geesh!”

“Like you should talk, Carter.”

Dr. Carter suddenly strode in. “Did someone say my name?”

Nick groaned. “And this is why I insist on being called Double-0 Carter.”

“Or just 008,” Red put in.

Nick glared at her. “Did K pay you to say that? Shut up.”

To further his annoyance, The Rok laughed.


  


Rolling her eyes at the neverending bickering between Rok and Nick, Red knew only she could get their attention back on the mission. She made a mental note to inform Agent K not to send Nick on any mission that involved the CIA again. Not unless it was absolutely necessary, a matter of life and death. There was too much testosterone that she had to handle when these two completely different agents were under the same roof.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said, as nurses came inside to collect the body of Terrance Phillip. Thankfully, the others followed suit. No one really wanted to stare at the damaged form of a victim.

“So Terrance Phillip was one of the first patients to be admitted with symptoms?” Red asked, once they were out of the room and into the corridor.

Dr. Carter nodded. “We didn’t really know what was wrong with him up until the other victims showed up with the same complaints: flu-like symptoms, shortness of breath, blood in the sputum or vomit…”

“… Purple pee,” Nick inserted, making a face. “Man, this is the most wicked virus I’ve ever heard of.”

Dr. Carter eyed Nick for a second and gave a brief nod before continuing. “I have to say, we’ve never encountered such a disease before, but I believe all of them were exposed to the same virus at some point in the last few days. But we took a history on all the casualties, and none of them share any resemblance. They don’t go to the same school or job; they don’t live in the same neighborhood, nor attend the same social activities. We feel like we’re trapped. Don’t even know where to start to search for the virus.”

“I got an idea,” Nick spoke up again.

Brian let out an exasperated sigh. “Do you even care about what the doctor’s been saying? At all? Have you heard even one sentence he said?”

“Yes, I was listening, though, thanks to Red here, I have just been diagnosed with a severe case of ADHD-”

“For which you need an immediate treatment-”

“-and I’m about to offer up some ideas if you could just hold your temper for a second.”

Red gave an apologetic look at a baffled Dr. Carter and Jeanie. She was damn sure they had never had encountered such a pair of agents, bickering like an old married couple, and she had to admit that she was getting quite embarrassed at how both of them were behaving. She had to step in. Again.

“I’m pretty sure we all know what’s been going on with these victims,” she piped up, loud enough to allay their bickering, in hopes of also capturing their attention. “What we need to know now is how and from where it spread. We need to focus on the actual place where the virus was encountered the first time.”

“What’s there to focus on?” Nick chimed. “If the victims can’t be interrogated, and we don’t know of any source where they might have been exposed to the virus, we need to go to their homes, talk to their families and neighbors and friends, and look for any kind of evidence. We might as well start with this guy.”

Dr. Carter cleared his throat to speak. “I believe Mr. Carter here is right about investigating Mr. Phillip’s house. I don’t know what you might come up with, but you can talk to his mother and get more information about the last things he did before getting sick. It may lead you to another clue, if all else fails.”

Red nodded slowly. “Yeah, I think that could help.” She eyed Brian, who was standing next to her, looking clearly bewildered at the fact that Nick had come up with a solution… a rational one, at that. Red laughed inwardly. It looked like the CIA agent was battling with himself and his prejudices towards Nick. That was why Nick was one of the best in the agency: he wasn’t only about mischief and great looks; he was a Double-0 agent because of his talents, his quick thinking and his ability to handle even the toughest missions with ease... well, most of the time.

“Great Carters think alike,” Nick replied with all his cockiness, as he threw a playful fist to Rok’s shoulder. “How do you like that, CIA? Ha.”

Through his clenched teeth, Brian spoke before turning around to get out of the hospital. “Shut up, 008. I’m driving.”

The ride to Terrance Phillip’s house went pretty smoothly, much to Red’s surprise. They found the right street without any hassle at all, and Red was actually thankful that the rented Hummer had a GPS and that Brian was driving.

It wasn’t that hard to locate the house, since it had been put under quarantine. The police, under orders from the health department, had sealed the windows and doors with large sheets of plastic and surrounded the property with barricade tape and keep-out signs.

Brian parked the Hummer next to a couple of police cars and ambulances, trying to ignore the stares they received from the officers.

“Who will even take three agents in Hazmat suits getting out of a bright yellow Hummer seriously anyway?” he muttered under his breath, as they all got out of the Hummer and made their way towards the entrance.

“I find your lack of faith disturbing, young Jedi,” said a very bad impersonation of Darth Vader.

Brian didn’t need to turn around to see the smirk on the face of the blonde agent. Instead, he continued walking towards the tent that was set up for the officers and the medics in front of the house.

“We’re supposed to meet another agent who’s been assigned on to investigate the situation,” Red spoke up, following Brian closely. Nick was right behind them, still doing the worst impersonation of Darth Vader ever.

A pretty brunette approached them with a broad smile the minute they walked in.

“The Force is strong with this one,” Nick spoke in his Darth Vader’s voice behind Brian. “Niiice…”

Brian scoffed. “She’s way out of your league, 008.”

Nick let out a soft laugh, which came out as a loud Darth Vader breath through the mask. “Don’t underestimate the Force, young Jedi.”

“Hello. We’ve been expecting you,” the woman said, in a firm voice. “I’m Agent Julilly Kirk, CSIS.” She shook Brian’s and Red’s hands through their suits.

“It’s nice to meet you, Agent Kirk. I’m Dr. Julianne Llewellyn, head of the medical department at HimTak, and this is Brian Littrell from CIA. And this is-“

“Carter… Nick Carter,” Nick jumped in, taking Agent Kirk’s hand and trying to bring it to his lips to kiss, as much as the Hazmat suit allowed. He only succeeded in knocking her knuckles against the visor of his helmet. “Always a pleasure to work with the local government,” he continued quickly in his most charming voice, offering a suave wink to make up for his blunder.

“Pleasure working with the government? Give me a break!” Brian let out a loud scoff which sounded more like a grunt through his helmet.

Agent Kirk gave a brief laugh and managed to turn her hand in Nick’s palm to shake. “Nice to meet you too, Agent Carter. The pleasure is all mine to work with such qualified agents on a case like this.” She looked at Red and Brian as she spoke, but then her gaze landed back on Nick for a briefly longer time. “And charming, I might add.”

“Blame the Canadian agents if they fail to notice such a jewel,” replied Nick. He wiggled his eyebrows seductively.

“Excuse me?!” Red spoke from her corner, hearing Nick call the Canadian agent “Jewel.” Now this was new.

“I wouldn’t blame them for being less forward and desperate, as a matter of fact,” Julilly Kirk said, laughing.

Nick folded his hands on his chest with a feigned, wounded look on his face. “Straight through my heart! You shot me. I just can’t believe it…”

“Ohh…” crowed Brian in amusement.

Julilly rolled her eyes. “Not as bad as you’ve done with God knows how many other women.”

“I wouldn’t judge a book by its cover, if I were you.”

“Um, can we go investigate the house now?” Red tried to cut in, eying Brian, who had already given up on making any progress before the flirting ended between the two agents and was walking toward the medics to collect some information himself.

Julilly turned around to Red and offered an apologetic look for neglecting the other agents. “I’m sorry, Dr. Llewellyn, but before going inside the house, the medics want to brief you and Agent Littrell on the virus and the victims. You can also check out their records; I just went through them, and I believe they contain some important intelligence about the victim.”

Shrugging and actually seeing a point in Julilly’s words, Red turned around to examine the files that were stuffed on the desk near her. Any more information she could take in before investigating the house itself would be a bonus.

“… jewel like you.”

“Huh?” Red was snapped from her world a few minutes later by someone calling her name, only to realize it was Nick, calling Julilly by her nickname.

Shaking her head in irritation, she turned her attention back to the files.

So according to his mother, the Terrance Phillip guy had seemed totally normal up until the previous night, when he’d been in his room, busy with… scrapbooking? Red let out a soft laugh; it was quite odd for a man to have a scrapbook. And then his mother had heard him collapse upstairs and come up, only to find her son lying in his own vomit, full of… blood.

“… such a jewel like you would love a ride in my Hummer.”

Red was startled once again when she heard her name.

“Look, not that I don’t appreciate the offer,” she heard Julilly saying, “but you gotta try harder than that.”

“I like to be challenged.” Nick leaned forward. “Makes me appreciate the jewel even more.”

Red slapped the papers down on the desk in frustration. “This is getting too annoying,” she muttered. She wasn’t sure which one was more nauseating: a victim dying in a pool of his own bloody vomit, or Nick and a Canadian agent flirting shamelessly – in Hazmat suits.

With her years of experience as a doctor, she could pick the latter in a heartbeat.

“So I’ve learned that the victim’s mother is still in the house, basically refusing to leave.” Brian was back, dragging her attention away.

Red sighed with relief. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you.” She pointed at Nick and Julilly. “I’ve been really getting sick of this.”

Brian cackled, only to be met with Red’s stern look. “I never understood how Nick could impress any girl with his flirting, but I bet this time, he really won’t get his way.”

“As much as I don’t like him flirting during a mission,” Red muttered and eyed the CIA agent, “I have to quote, ‘Don’t underestimate the Force, young Jedi.’”

With that, she turned around to walk towards Terrance Phillip’s house.


  


The four slowly made their way up to the house. Brian knocked, and they all waited. Suddenly, the door swung open, and a woman stood before them.

“Hello, ma’am. My name is Agent Littrell; I’m with the CIA. We’re here on behalf of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and we’d like to ask you some questions about your son, if you have a moment,” Brian said softly, flashing his badge.

“I already spoke to the police. What’s left to be said?” the woman asked, wiping at her eyes with a tissue.

“We know, ma’am, and we don’t mean to bother you… We just have some follow-up questions for you. It’ll only take a few moments.” Julilly smiled sympathetically.

The woman turned, making her way inside, and the four followed her, Nick closing the door behind them. Terrance Phillip’s mother ushered them into her living room, and they all sat down.

“What is it that you want to know?” Mrs. Phillip asked, eyeing them skeptically.

“Well, we know you said that your son Terrance didn’t seem different; you noticed no changes. Did he mention places he was going? Or maybe some new people he was hanging out with?” Brian questioned.

She shook her head. “No, like I said, everything was fine. I mean, he ate earlier, just some cereal – he loved Fruity Pebbles –
and then he went out for a bit, and he came home from the store with some new things for his scrapbooking – oh, you know, he just loved to scrapbook. One year, he made this really nice one for me for my b-birthday, and n-now…”

Nick suppressed a smirk, imagining the big guy they’d seen in the hospital, with long, ZZ Top hair and a heavy metal beard, eating Fruity Pebbles and scrapbooking. Never judge a book by its cover, he supposed. If he’d learned anything from the business of espionage, it should be that. Trying to focus back in on the conversation, he turned a sympathetic eye towards the kid’s mother.

“We’re very sorry for your loss, ma’am. We know how hard this must be for you,” Julilly said softly. The other three nodded in agreement.

“Do you think it may be possible for us to see his room?” Brian asked.

“Well, I suppose. Just don’t… don’t move anything. I’d like to keep everything the way it was.”

“We’ll try not to, ma’am. We just want to look for any evidence, any clues as to where he might have contracted this virus,” Red explained.

Mrs. Phillip led them upstairs and pointed out her son’s door. They all managed to squeeze into the small bedroom, which was, surprisingly, lined with posters of the Moffatts.

“He just loved the Moffatts; he’d play those songs over and over and over…” Mrs. Phillip sniffed, as she retreated to leave them to their investigation.

Another surprise! A metal dude who liked boybands? Well, there was no accounting for taste, Nick thought. He looked around, noticing a few comic books here and there. His eyes widened when he saw a rare Spiderman he’d been trying to collect for months. Maybe the mom wouldn’t notice if he… He reached out, until Brian smacked his hand.

“Stop it!”

“I was just gonna look at it!”

“We’re supposed to be looking for clues. You’re gonna get us thrown out! Show some damn respect!”

“It’s worth nothing to him when he’s dead,” Nick muttered under his breath, but moved away from the comic books to probe another corner of the room.

After a brief search, in which they found nothing remarkable, they thanked Terrance’s mother and left. They made their way to the hotel at last. After they got settled, they congregated in Nick‘s room, to debrief, go over what they‘d found, and discuss some possible causes.

“So what do you all think?” Red asked.

“I don’t know. It’s all so weird,” Julilly sighed. “Nothing to go on that would give us any hints as to what caused this.” She ran a hand through her hair in frustration. Nick watched. Her hair was short, but it was shiny, and he bet it was soft, too. He imagined running his own fingers through it.

Julilly suddenly turned and caught him looking at her. He offered a sheepish grin, giving her a small wink.

She blinked. “You got something in your eye there, Carter?”

Nick felt himself redden. He swiped at his eye. “Nope, I’m good now,” he muttered, looking away. When he glanced back at Julilly out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw her smirk.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s geared towards one type of person or people, ya know? Like…I dunno, maybe just young people – a lot of the victims seemed to be young – or… or people…” Brian started.

“With no taste in music? I mean, c’mon, the Moffatts?” Nick reasoned.

“Nick…” Red warned.

“The dude kept a scrapbook, for crying out loud!”

“You’re an idiot,” Brian muttered.

“You’re an idiot!” Nick exploded. “What kind of virus only targets young people? Aren’t young people usually the ones who survive these things?”

“Why don’t you tell us, Sherlock, if you’ve got all the answers?” Brian retorted sarcastically. He sat back on the couch and crossed his arms over his chest, gazing coolly up at Nick with raised brows, as if waiting for answers. Nick rolled his eyes.

“That is a good point,” said Red thoughtfully. “Usually it’s the very young, the very old, and the infirm who have the most casualties in an epidemic. But Brian’s right too – according to Jeanie’s notes, a lot of the original victims were young – teenagers and early twenty-somethings. It goes against the norm. That has to be significant.”

Nick got up, his mind spinning with this information, trying to churn it into answers. All he had now were questions. He wandered around the room, lost in thought, while the others sat in silence, apparently deep inside their own minds as well. Then he caught sight of Julilly again and was temporarily distracted. He tried to act nonchalant as he sat down next to her, brushing up against her.

“Whoa there, partner… ever heard of personal space?” Julilly said, giving him a nudge. “All kinds of room on that side of the couch, too.”

Starting to wonder if Agent Julilly Kirk was a lesbian, Nick scooted. Yet, he noticed her eyes follow him as he did. Mystified, he glanced over at her again, but she was now looking at Brian.

“Anyway… it’s too early to tell, but there’s gotta be some reason it happened to him, to all those kids. What made them different from their next door neighbors, or the people across the street?” Julilly questioned.

“One word: scrapbook. I’m just sayin’,” Nick stated, holding his hands up in surrender.

They all groaned.

  