[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
They all piled into the Hummer and started towards the arena.

“Hey guys, listen to this: I spoke to Jeanie, and she said that now the virus has spread through the hospital. Dr. Carter is sick; they’re sure he’s infected. He’s been showing all the signs – coughing, vomiting, and all that. But here’s where it gets interesting…” Red started.

“I dunno, it’s pretty interesting already,” Nick said.

“Wait until you hear this, then: It seems that it’s airborne, or passed through something in the air. It could be anything. When you think about it, a concert is a surefire way to be able to infect a whole lot of people all at once, through the vents and whatever.”

Brian frowned. “That’s crazy.”

“I know, but think about it – if you’re trying to make a point and get a large number of casualties, what better way?” Red reasoned.

“So, what you’re saying is, they just blew a random cloud of this stuff in the air or something? I mean, wouldn’t the performers notice smoke coming out that’s not supposed to be there?” Nick said, doubt lacing his tone.

Red shrugged. “Dunno. I guess when you’re performing, you don’t notice those things… or more likely, it was transparent.”

There was silence for a moment.

“Well, I guess we’ll see what we can find when we there,” Julilly sighed.

A short time later, they arrived at the area, making their way inside the building. Nothing looked out of the ordinary – well, what was ordinary for an area, that was.

“Why don’t we split up into pairs and ask around, see if we can find out anything unusual about the concert?” Brian suggested, swallowing hard. He suddenly wasn’t feeling the best.

Nick went with Julilly, and Brian and Red went together. Nick and Julilly made their way towards one of the control booths, knocking on the door, making their way in when one of the workers opened the door. They showed their ID’s, their gazes scanning the booth.

“Can I help you with something?” the man asked.

“We’re here about a concert that was held in this arena on Saturday, The Moffatts concert. Were you in attendance for that?” Julilly asked.

The guy nodded. “Yeah, I was. Why?”

“Did you notice anything… different when you were there?” Nick asked, staring hard at the man. People were always intimidated with those hard stares.

The guy blinked. “No, not really. I mean, those fans are crazy, you know? I mean, grown women screaming and passing out… It was nuts.”

“Okay, so you didn’t see anything abnormal happen… maybe something that wasn’t supposed to?” Julilly questioned.

The guy frowned in concentration. “No, I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?” Nick pressed, increasing the hard stare.

“No, I don’t think so, sir. I’m sorry, but it was a one-time thing, ya know? After that, what does it matter? The fans loved it and whatever. It’s not like I was looking for anything to be wrong.”

Nick shook his head. “Wait, but isn’t that your job? You work the control booth!”

The guy groaned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I work the concessions stand. I’m just up here cause I’ve always wanted to see the control room, and one of my friends works up here, and he let me up here to, ya know… mess around.” The guy smiled, his face beaming.

Julilly stared at him a moment before turning and leaving the room. Nick shook his head in disappointment. “Live the dream, man… Live the dream.”

“You bet I will!” The guy grinned.

They made their way out and started down one of the aisles.

“Well, that was a complete waste of time,” Julilly groaned.

“But not really! Some young man is having his dream come true; what’s more precious than that?” Nick smirked.

Julilly shot him a look and started to probe up and down the aisles for anything unusual. The arena had been cleaned up since the concert, of course, so finding anything was going to be one in a million.

“This is crazy. What could we possibly find?” Nick questioned, starting to grow a bit frustrated walking up and down aisles.

“We need to see if we can find anyone else who works here, who’s not trying to fulfill a childhood fantasy and get some answers,” Julilly grumbled, bending over to look under the seats.


  


Brian and Red, on the other side of arena, were having slightly better luck.

“So you’re saying, during the show, confetti came out and sprayed across the arena?” Brian asked.

The woman nodded. “Yeah, I was one of the people who controlled two of the cannons.”

Red nodded. “I see, and altogether, how many were there?”

“Let’s see… two in each corner, so eight altogether.”

“And would you say they cover a good area?” Red asked, jotting some things down in her notepad.

“They cover a wide area, but the wind coming from the vents catches it and carries it over the whole area.”

Red and Brian looked at each other in triumph.

“And does anyone check the confetti cannons before launch?” Brian questioned.

“Now that you mention it, we did have some weird guy come about an hour before the concert started, stating he was from some confetti company and he was here to check the cannons because there had been reports of some issues with cannons at other concerts, and he needed to check to make sure they were okay,” the lady offered.

“Oh, really? And what did this guy look like?” Brian pressed.

“Kinda short, Hispanic guy… Oh, he had this…twitch; it was odd,” the woman finished, her eye twitching suddenly, and she frowned. “Apparently, it’s contagious.”

“Hmm… and have you noticed anything different with any of the workers who also worked there that night? Yourself included?” Red asked.

“Yeah… actually, a lot of people have complained of not feeling too good. Sounds like the flu, coughing and vomiting. I’m okay; I’ve had a bit of a headache lately and body aches, but I’ve been exercising, so I’m sure it’s nothing.” She looked them over uncertainly. Their suits screamed out to her that maybe something was wrong. "Or should I, uh... get checked out, or...?"

Red cleared her throat. "It… may be a good idea to stop by your doctor’s; it's always good to have a routine check-up anyway."

The woman looked at her.

"Prevention is the best medicine... No, really, it is," Red added at the woman’s look of skepticism. "And who knows – if it ends up being more than just a simple cold, they can help you out right then and there."

Brian was eager to bail; his head was pounding, and Red’s meager attempts at dodging the woman’s questions were making him nervous. He hated to downplay what seemed to be a very serious outbreak, but they didn’t want to cause a panic either. “Well, thank you for your time, ma’am,” he said abruptly, ending the exchange.

He and Red made their way away from out of another one of the control rooms and started towards Nick and Julilly.

“Well, that was interesting. I think we may have found how they spread it, but I’m not quite sure how they’d do it through the confetti, though. Then again, there are the vents, but she didn’t mention anything about… hey, you okay?” Red asked, looking over at Brian, who appeared to be sweating.

He nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. These suits are hot, ya know?”

Red nodded absently. “In any case, it’s here, I’m sure. If not the vents, the confetti somehow.”

They reached Nick and Julilly and told them what they’d found out, and they all started looking around the aisles and seats, trying to see if they could find any of the leftover confetti.

They did notice several of the workers walking around, coughing and sneezing, and even one hurrying to the bathroom, her hand over her mouth.

“Can we, uh, hurry this up a bit? I feel like, any minute now, I’m seriously gonna hurl in this suit if I see one more person hacking like they’re gonna throw up a lung. You know, all it takes is one person, and then it’s a chain reaction.” Nick blanched, slowly crawling along the floor.

“Just hang in there, Nick; we’ve gotta find something we can take back for testing,” Red said. She sounded far away, since she, too, was bent over, facing away from Nick.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled, his gaze wandering to a worker who appeared to have some kind of oozing patch on his arm. That must be what was called an ulcer. Nick swallowed hard again, his mouth going dry, his stomach churning. Yeah, they needed to get out of there, and soon.

Sighing, he went back to looking and then stilled. He couldn’t believe his luck: there was a long, thin piece of confetti. Carefully, he reached out, gently sliding the piece closer to him, his eyes widening; it was dusted with some kind of white powder.

“Hey guys, c’mere, I think I found something!!”

The three hurried over, looking over Nick’s shoulder.

“Look, a piece of confetti, and it’s got some white powdery shit on it.”

“Great job, Nick! Let’s bag that baby up and bring it in for testing.” Red grinned.

Nick extracted a plastic baggie and a pair of tweezers. “Nick finds the proverbial needle in a haystack, making the whole trip worthwhile in just a matter of seconds. His sharp skills and keen eye for discovery have brought the group one step closer to success!”

“Hey, Sherlock Holmes, pick up the damn confetti, and let’s get the hell outta here, sheesh,” Julilly groaned.

“You’re just upset that you didn’t find it.” Nick smirked, sticking his tongue out. He slipped the confetti into the bag and zipped it up.

As they thanked the workers and made their way out, Red looked over at the others, her expression grim. “This whole place needs to be quarantined,” she said in a low voice. “Some of those workers are surely infected with the same thing Terrance Phillip died from, and if they leave, it’s just going to spread more.”

Julilly agreed at once. “Call Boulet back and have her send a team from CIDPC out to quarantine the venue. We need to get this sample back to the lab and confirm that it contains the virus. By the looks of some of those people… I’m sure this is it.”

Listening to them talk, Brian suddenly felt queasy. He stifled a cough. Now was not the time to speak up, just as it was not the time to be falling ill. His team needed him. But as he walked away, he cast an uneasy look back at the Air Canada Centre, thinking of all the sick people, unknowingly trapped inside.


  


In the darkness of the night, a slightly small warehouse that was often used as a movie set, located just outside the city limits of Toronto, was hosting a small group of people who were quite different than its regular guests. The stillness of the night and the rustling sounds of the wild animals around the deserted area gave nothing away, yet inside the obsolete building, it was a different case.

In the far corner of the room, a short, Hispanic man sat oddly still on his chair, a chair which looked more like a throne and definitely out of place. In contrast with his stillness, his left eye kept twitching, as he carefully watched his companions on the other side of the warehouse.

“I used to call you my girl… I used to call you my friend...”

A sudden stir disturbed the man’s stillness, diverting his attention for a second. His eyes darted towards his right shoulder. A rather small, but very intelligent-looking ferret was covering his ears and shaking his head feverishly, almost falling off from his master’s shoulder. The man let out a small smile, stroking the ferret with his left hand, trying to calm him down.

“I know, Dr. Twitches, I can barely endure it as well…” He sighed slowly, as he turned his attention back to the corner of the warehouse, where four of his minions – four brothers, in fact – were practicing on a small, carelessly-built stage.

“I miss you like crazy... even more than words can say… I miss you like crazy… every minute, every day… Whoo!”

The ferret, who was known as Dr. Twitches, squealed loudly and climbed his way down from his master’s shoulder to his lap, burying his face under his shirt. The sudden movement of his beloved animal disturbed the man immensely; he hated it when his attention was constantly divided by outside effects.

“I miss you, miss you, miss you… Whoo, I miss you like crazy…”

Irritated and very fed up with the crap amount of music he had to put up with for the sake of his latest mission, the man stood up from his seat abruptly. Dr. Twitches squealed and fell down to the floor, only to climb back up to the safety of his master’s shoulder.

The short, Hispanic man took a couple of steps forward towards the light, making himself visible to his minions. The music came to a halt the second his appearance was clear to the others.

“Did you like it, Dr. Rough?” the main vocalist of the group asked sheepishly.

Dr. Rough eyed the four brothers one by one, only stopping for two seconds on each one’s face. Three of the brothers looked horrendously identical. All four of the brothers had the same expectant look in their eyes, hoping to be approved as the sort of well-serving minions that their master deserved. Dr. Rough was familiar with that look of expectancy; it made him feel more in control and aware of his power, and it gave him enough excuse to take his brutality beyond measures.

Still, he didn’t enjoy the fact that these four creepy-looking brothers of some sort of music group looked down on him from the small stage. Without saying another word, he walked slowly to the stage, pondering his next set of plans at the same time. He slowly raised his hand to his right shoulder, where Dr. Twitches was now calmly sitting, since the music had stopped, and stroked him. It always helped him when he wanted to clear his mind and focus on his task.

He climbed the small stairs that led to the stage slowly and made his way towards the center, noticing one of them stepping out of his way hurriedly. The lead singer of the group was still standing in the middle of the stage, in front of his microphone, clutching his guitar tightly, staring at his master with utter fear.

“Scott, was it?” Dr. Rough questioned quietly, as he stopped a couple of inches from his minion. The minion nodded in response, gulping almost audibly.

“I wonder why I agreed to continue the mission with you in Europe,” Dr. Rough continued through clenched teeth, “and with that sorry crap of yours that you call music.” He spat out the last word and eyed the rest of the minions, the horrendously identical brothers. “There are not many things that amuse me in this world, but one remains to be how you could make it outside of Canada with such intolerable music. Today’s youth must be deaf.”

He heard another audible gulp coming from the minion standing in front of him. “I can assure you, Dr. Rough, we will be very successful in the upcoming part of our mission. Europe was always welcoming to us; they like our music, and I’m sure-” Scott stopped hastily when he caught the cold stare of his master.

“Move,” Dr. Rough hissed once again. Scott nodded meekly and hurried over to his brothers as quickly as a human could do. Dr. Rough gave them another cold stare, before starting to pace back and forth on the stage.

“I have to concede that your Toronto concert went quite well. Better than I expected.” His voice echoed in the warehouse, accompanying the sound of his languid footsteps. He didn’t notice the beaming faces of his fellow minions in response to his words. He kept walking from one side of the stage to the other, his eyes moving forward and beyond the warehouse he was in, scratching his goatee slowly at the same time.

“The FANthrax virus works brilliantly. There are more casualties than I expected in the first place, and the effects are horrid enough to distract everyone from working properly on any antidote… yet. Everyone forgets Canada, just like how HimTak had forgotten about me. Brutally, without the blink of an eye. Without seeing what they were missing. And they are going to pay for that. The price for dissing Dr. Rough like a piece of dirt will be very high. But yes… from now on, the US will remember; the WORLD will remember me. Yes… when my chemical weapon spans the globe, when everyone is vomiting blood and peeing purple, dying uncontrollably, they will remember Canada. They will remember how I rose from my ashes in this forgotten land.”

He stood right in the middle of the stage, in front of the microphone. The stage light was upon him, enlightening his rather small figure frighteningly, his shadow falling on the four minions standing behind him, mesmerized in fear. Dr. Rough opened his arms widely, his fists clenched. His voice echoed through the warehouse, now even more, with the help of microphone.

“And as for HimTak… I’ll be their worst nightmare. I’ll be their doom. They will remember me. They will know how they brought their own end to themselves. And from then on, HimTak will REMEMBER MY NAME AND FEAR IT FOREVER! BWAHAHAHA!”


  