Welcome to the Madhouse

by S. E. Sasaki

  He had spoken to his wife, Hanako Matheson, earlier in the shift and the sight of her beautiful face had brought tears to his eyes. Her name meant ‘flower’ and she was a lovely blossom to him. She told him she was helping Grace and Bud with some of the analyses and they were all hopeful that a number of solutions might be found.

  Hiro just wanted to hold her and tell her everything was going to be all right . . . Actually, if he were truthful, he just wanted her to hold him and reassure him that everything was going to be all right. He told her he missed her and would be home soon. She nodded, trying to hold back tears. She had blown him a kiss. Playfully, he had pretended to catch it and touch it to his helmet visor in front of his lips and she laughed, tears brimming in her eyes. He had then blanked the screen to prevent her from seeing him break down. He would not have wanted her last memory of him to be that.

  Hiro left his office and shuffled into one of the cafeterias. He was so tired. He just needed to move around and get a change of scenery. He had been in the make-shift headquarters, just off of the Medical Receiving Bay, since the quarantine had begun and had not really moved from there. He had coordinated investigations into the agent, set up security details, supervised establishment of medical clinics to treat the injured, organized clean-up crews, devised water and nourishment treatments and their distribution, all from his headquarters. He had had virtually no sleep in over forty-eight hours.

  He was dying for a cup of hot kofi and he was wondering if the kitchen had figured out a way to sterilize black kofi and feed it into the containment suit, instead of water. He was lined up, in the cafeteria, which had turned into a water treatment facility, when he heard a commotion behind him.

  Hiro turned to see two figures struggling on the floor. One was in a containment suit with his back on the floor. The other individual, without a containment suit, was on top of him, tearing at the suit of the pinned individual and screaming loudly. The assailant, in dark military uniform, had bright red, matted hair and was obviously well into the madness stage of the disease. He was trying to pull his victim’s helmet off, but the person on the floor had both his wrists in their gloved hands. The red-haired attacker was flailing and grunting and screaming in frustration. Hiro and others rushed over to get the infected man off of his victim, before the poor person’s containment suit seal was broken.

  Hiro grabbed the assailant’s left arm as he heard the fellow scream, “This is all your fault! If you hadn’t let that ship come aboard, none of this would have happened! None of it! They would all still be alive, if not for you! You don’t deserve to live, if they are all dead!”

  Hiro’s gloved hands slid on the madman’s arm, as if it had been greased. In actual fact, it was not Hiro’s hands that slipped, but the outer layer of the man’s skin. The assailant’s strength was astonishing, however. He managed to yank his left arm free of Hiro’s hold, to try and go after his victim’s helmet again.

  Hiro then grabbed the attacker around his torso, to try and yank him off of his victim on the floor. The man was all slippery, beneath his uniform. Hiro tried to ignore the fact that this man’s entire skin was sloughing off, as he struggled to dislodge the infected assailant. He just wanted to get the deranged man off his target, before damage occurred to the person’s containment suit.

  “Murderer! Murderer!” shrieked the man in Hiro’s arms. Sweat and spittle splashed on Hiro’s containment suit and visor.

  Hiro wondered who the fellow on the floor was. Who was being accused of being a murderer? He glanced down and almost let go of the sick man, in shock.

  Lying on the floor staring up at Hiro, was Vanessa Bell, her eyes wide with terror. He saw the guilt form in her eyes, as her attacker’s words sank home, and she realized of what she was being accused. She immediately stopped struggling, her arms going limp, as if she had suddenly acknowledged that his words were true. She acted as if she deserved the punishment he wanted to deal out. She deserved to be infected with the agent that she had allowed onto the station.

  ”No!” Hiro yelled.

  He hurled the attacker off Vanessa, with all of his strength, and placed himself between the man and Vanessa’s prone body. Hiro announced to the red-headed assailant, “It was my order to allow the ship onto the station. If anyone is to blame, it is me.”

  The young man shook his head, vehemently.

  “No! You’re wrong! I was there! I heard her give the order to allow the ship to land!” He pointed at Vanessa Bell, who lay frozen on the floor, staring back at her accuser, her white face a mask of despair. “I was supposed to greet the crew of the Valiant. I heard her give the authorization for the ship to dock. You did not.”

  “Who are you?” Hiro demanded.

  “Corporal Alan McMullen. Now, Dead Man McMullen. Because of her!” the young man spat, as he pointed at Dr. Bell, who was being helped up off the floor by people who had gathered around her.

  “She was not responsible,” Hiro insisted firmly.

  The red haired corporal’s face collapsed as he wept, unconsolably, his body shaking with his grief.

  “She’s gone! I held her and watched her melt away in my arms, into just empty clothes and bones!” He turned blood-shot eyes on Hiro, tears streaming down his ravaged features.

  “Slime! That’s all that’s left of her now! Just slime! It was . . . horrible!”

  Corporal McMullen’s voice was beginning to badly slur and his face was sliding down his skull.

  Feeling the young man’s grief, Hiro took a step towards the young corporal, to lay a hand on his shoulder and comfort him. Suddenly, Hiro’s helmet was grabbed and wrenched violently off of his head. The edge of the helmet cracked into the back of Hiro’s skull and he was slightly dazed for a moment. The corporal, rage blazing in his tear-filled eyes, spat directly into Hiro’s face, twice, before Hiro or anyone else could react.

  “You’re right,” the deranged man yelled, savagely, his saliva flying into Hiro’s eyes. “It is your fault! I know who you are! You let the ship land! You don’t deserve to live, either!” Corporal McMullen spat into Hiro’s face again and then the man began to laugh, hysterically, as everyone else stood frozen, staring at Hiro in wide-eyed horror, as the deadly spittle slowly tracked down his face.

  Vanessa Bell was the first to react and pulled out some tissues from her suit.

  “Quickly, get Hiro’s helmet!” she yelled, as she wiped down his face. “Try not to breathe, Hiro.”

  “It’s too late, Vanessa,” Hiro said, his eyes staring into her visor wearily, while he shook his head and gently tried to push her hands away. “You know, as well as I, how highly infective this agent is. There is no point wiping my face or putting my helmet back on. The agent has already come in contact with my skin. What’s done, is done.”

  Hiro caught her gloved hands in his own and looked in Vanessa Bell’s frantic, guilt-ridden eyes.

  “Please, Vanessa, listen to me. Just have someone check out your suit carefully and make sure it is all right, that there are no leaks. I want to be sure you are not infected. We know my status already.”

  Vanessa Bell shook her head, her lower lip quivering and her nostrils flaring, as she fought back tears.

  “I am so sorry, Hiro. It should have been me,” she choked out, one gloved hand reaching out towards him as the other tried to cover her mouth. Her shaking hand hit the transparent visor, covering her face. She dropped her hand to her chest, as she sobbed.

  “It really should have been me, Hiro. Corporal McMullen was right. I did give the authorization to allow the ship to dock. I started all of this.”

  “It was not your fault. I okayed your authorization,” Hiro insisted, emphatically. “It was the people who created this ‘agent’, who are at fault, Vanessa. We are all casualties of the idiocy called war. Don’t, for one second, think that you should take the blame for this. That thinking is so wrong. If people could peacefully resolve their differences, through dialogue and negotiation, instead of trying to wipe their opp
onents out, what a better place this universe would be. We are all victims!”

  Hiro looked over. Corporal McMullen was passed out on the floor. Much of his skin was already starting to sag and his face had become unrecognizable. Hiro could not feel much anger towards the young man. He remembered him, now, and what a fine young officer he had been. The virus had affected the young corporal’s mind, as it was soon going to affect his own. Vanessa started to openly weep, at this point, and the visor of her helmet fogged up to mercifully give her some privacy.

  Someone handed him some sterile wipes and he thanked them, as he wiped the spittle from his face. He was solemnly presented with his helmet, which he gratefully accepted but did not put back on. There really was no point and he hated wearing the thing anyway. Hiro decided he would take his broad spectrum antiviral drugs, take a much desired shower, and then speak to his lovely wife one last time, before he barricaded himself inside his newly adopted quarters. He would then asked Nelson Mandela to lock him inside. He would also give final instructions to Grace and Bud, regarding how to administer the antiviral treatment or vaccine or whatever they came up with, once they had the virus isolated.

  People in the cafeteria wanted to come up and talk to him, commiserate with him, shake his hand, but Hiro shook his head and waved them off, feigning work and pressing matters. He decided he had best put his helmet back on, so that anyone who saw him, would not stop and ask him why he was not wearing it. He would never get to his room, otherwise, and he so wanted that shower.

  ‘I have very distressing news, Bud.’

  ‘Not now, Nelson Mandela. I am very, very busy. You are taking up too much byte at the moment. Please fly.’

  ‘This is important, Bud,’ Nelson Mandela insisted. ‘It is about Dr. Al-Fadi.’

  Bud stopped what he was doing, completely.

  ‘What about Dr. Al-Fadi?’

  Nelson Mandela just ran the replay for Bud.

  Bud felt his mind shatter. He felt like all his components were going to explode.

  How did humans deal with these horribly ‘painful emotions’? His creator, Dr. Al-Fadi, was going to die unless they came up with a cure in the next forty or so hours. Bud knew this was highly unlikely. To never hear his creator’s voice again? To never operate with the great surgeon again? How was Bud going to be able to continue?

  ‘It is extremely unfortunate, what has happened to Dr. Al-Fadi,’ the medical space station AI said.

  ‘Thank you for letting me know, Nelson Mandela’ Bud said. ‘Does anyone else know yet?’

  ‘Do you mean in terms of human beings, Bud?’

  ‘Yes,’ Bud sighed.

  ‘News is spreading through the quarantined area like wildfire. Only a matter of time before it spreads on the non-quarantined side. I am sure people are communicating as we speak . . . Do you want me to tell everyone?’

  ‘No,’ Bud said. ‘I would like to let Dr. Lord know first.’

  ‘All right. Good luck to you, Bud.’

  ‘Thank you, Nelson Mandela.’

  ‘I feel your pain, ‘dro.’

  ‘Is that what this is?’ Bud sent.

  ‘I believe so, Bud.’

  ‘It is . . . appalling.’

  Chapter Fourteen: Rabid Flea

  Grace, Dejan Cech, and Dr. Al-Fadi’s wife, Hanako Matheson, were all working in one of the medical labs, when Bud entered. They were all sat at com screens and they all looked weary and overworked, wearing wan faces with droopy, dark half-moons beneath their eyes. They were analyzing data from experiments, researching novel ways to sterilize liquid foods while preserving nutrients, and studying genetic and immunological research regarding lethal viruses.

  Bud hesitated at the doorway to the lab, unsure how to break the horrific news to the woman who, in many ways, he considered his mother. Did he take Hanako Matheson aside first and tell her privately? Did he tell them all together? He had no knowledge of how best to report news that would cause these people, whom he cared about, great distress. How did one do this, without harming humans? Was there a way that would make the news less terrible?

  No.

  Nothing could make this news any less painful. Bud realized this. He had taken a moment to ramp up, exponentially, the number of experiments attempting to isolate the virus. His android and robot teams were running thousands of tests simultaneously and parts of his mind were furiously analyzing the results. It was a race against time, to save Dr. Al-Fadi’s life. Bud had, at most, forty-eight hours to come up with a treatment that would counter the effects of the virus. Bud was tapping into all of Nelson Mandela’s computational power, as well, running simulations on mechanism of action and how best to interfere with the agent’s mode of action.

  As soon as the agent was isolated, thousands of experiments were set to run simultaneously, to create vaccines, to create antibodies, to find specific receptor blockers, to create new drugs that would interfere in every step of the organism’s production inside the cell, and to fortify the cell membranes against attack. Normally, this entire process would occur over months, if not years. Bud had less than fifty hours! He was busy coordinating and monitoring all of this, while trying to decide how to tell the friends and wife of Dr. Al-Fadi about his infection.

  Bud, for the first time in his short existence, wanted to scream. He was in agony.

  How did humans bear this?

  Bud did not want to cause Dr. Matheson, Dr. Cech, and Grace terrible pain. Bud was conflicted, not understanding how to do what he did not want to do, how to tell what he did not want to tell. At that moment, the captivating Dr. Grace Alexandra Lord looked up and saw Bud standing motionless in the doorway.

  “Hello, Bud,” Grace said, with a tired smile. “We were just discussing other possible ideas for treatments . . . Bud? Is there something wrong? You do not look . . . well? What is it? What has happened?” Grace’s exhausted face looked concerned, yet puzzled. She was pondering whether androids ever felt ‘unwell’.

  Bud did not realize until Grace had said this, that he was actually swaying and vibrating. This had never happened before. He could not understand what his body was up to. He could not afford a malfunction now!

  “Sit down, Bud,” Grace said, noticing his swaying. She offered her chair and helped him to sit in it. She peered at the android’s face intently. “Perhaps you are working too hard, Bud? Have you had a chance to recharge lately?”

  Bud shook his head, vigorously, and the shaking spread to his entire body. One of his prime directives was to never harm a human being. How, then, was he to tell these wonderful people the horrific news that would break their hearts? His shaking became worse, as he struggled with this impossible conundrum.

  “What is it, Bud?” Dr. Cech asked, getting up to bend over the android. The elderly man put a hand on Bud’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “You can tell us, son.”

  The three doctors all crowded around Bud, obviously troubled and curious about his behavior. They had never before seen an android behave in such a manner. Bud felt terribly guilty about making these fine humans worry about him. They should not be worried about him. He had to tell them the news about Dr. Al-Fadi, but he did not want to hurt them! He would rather have shut himself down, crash his entire system, and melt his liquid crystal data matrix to slag, than have to tell them that Dr. Al-Fadi was likely to die within the next two cycles.

  “There is bad news,” Hanako Matheson whispered intuitively. “Is it about Hiro, Bud?”

  Bud nodded. He looked up at Hanako’s worried face, his body quivering. Hanako Matheson, Dr. Al-Fadi’s wife, had been the closest thing to a mother, an android such as Bud could have. Bud’s first memories were of Dr. Al-Fadi and Dr. Matheson looking down at him, as he was brought to consciousness. Hanako Matheson had always referred to Bud as the ‘son she’d never had.’ Hanako laid her hands on his shoulders now and stared into his eyes.

  “Hiro has become infected, hasn’t he?” she stated, softly. Not a question, a statement.

&n
bsp; Bud nodded again.

  They all gasped and Hanako closed her eyes. Trembling, tears starting to well up within them, she blinked rapidly at Bud. She bit her lips.

  “How?” she whispered. There was so much emotion instilled into that one little word. “You can tell us, Bud.”

  Bud could only shake his head. He could not find the words to tell his ‘mother’ what had happened. He was a coward. He gestured at the wallscreen and he ordered it to replay the surveillance video Nelson Mandela had shown him.

  Hanako and Grace gasped when they saw Hiro’s helmet yanked from his head and the corporal spit three times into the brilliant surgeon’s face. Hanako sobbed, as she watched the deadly spittle track down her husband’s face.

  Once the video was over, Grace, in tears, wrapped her arms around Hanako. “I am so sorry, Hanako.”

  The small woman just nodded, her face lowered in grief.

  Dr. Cech bent over and wrapped his long arms around the two women.

  “I am sorry, too, Hanako,” he said, his voice catching. “Don’t you worry. We will find a cure. We must convince Hiro to get into a cryopod now, before any cellular damage begins to occur. That will win us some much needed time.”

  “Yes,” Hanako said, looking up suddenly. “I will talk to him right away,” she said.

  “And if he refuses,” Dr. Cech said, “tell him I will go in there and lock him in one, myself!”

  Hanako smiled sadly at that and then raced off, to speak to Hiro privately.

  Grace looked at Dr. Cech with worry. “All the bodies found inside the cryopods on the Valiant were dead, Dejan. What makes you think the cryopod will make a difference for Dr. Al-Fadi?”

  “Perhaps those people got into the cryopods too late,” Dejan Cech suggested. “Perhaps their cells were already melting and the freezing process blew the cells apart. Hiro’s cells can’t all be affected yet. We have to give it a try.”