by Morgan Bell
“Mrs. Thomas,” Jamie said, looking up from the tablet.
“Ms. Thomas,” she corrected.
Jamie looked at the tablet, saw marital status as married and saw preferred address by care team as “Mrs. Thomas.”
“I’m sorry,” Jamie said, and corrected the information on the tablet.
“No one respects Mrs,” she said.
“I’ve corrected that in your file, Ms. Thomas,” Jamie informed her, and sat on the small hard stool that served as both desk chair and treating physician’s stool. “I’m Dr. Baxter.”
“What is your first name?” she asked.
“Jamie,” he replied.
“Well, Jamie, I want you to know that I’m not at all pleased with the care I’ve been receiving since I started here.”
Jamie scanned her ID and insurance data. The screen informed him that she’d been a patient of Dr. Wickham’ s for five years.
“When you say ‘started here’, do you mean the facility or with Dr. Wickham?” Jamie asked.
“Both,” she retorted.
Jamie reviewed the file and found that she had said these same words at her last interim exam. He also saw that she was being treated for rage.
The monitor scrolled through the narrative of questions he was to ask. Jamie started reading them off aloud to her.
“How have you been handling conflicts in your place of work?” he read.
“Very well, thank you. I work with incompetent idiots. But I manage to remain professional, even when they don’t.”
“How have your relations with family members been since your last visit?”
“My husband is an absolute dunderhead who does not appreciate me. My daughter is married to a cretin and my mother is an ogre.”
“Have there been any incidents where you felt out of control, angry or enraged since your last visit?”
“No. I have felt justifiably perturbed by the failures of people in my personal and professional life and I have informed them of this in no uncertain terms.”
“Have you resorted to the use of profanity or insult to express your point of view at work, home or to other parties?”
“These questions are fucking stupid. Only an asshole would expect to learn anything from the questions you’re asking me. Why the hell do you waste my time?”
Jamie looked at the monitor. It recorded and transcribed the entire interview. Then it gave a summary review that showed the patient’s answers were nearly identical to her last visit. The software diagnostic analysis was, “Patient’s condition unchanged. Continue Pharmaceutical and Behavioral Management.”
A printed fiber scrip slid from the printer. Jamie signed it and handed it to Ms. Thomas.
“Your next appointment is in six weeks,” he told her.
“You could be a little more courteous Jamie. It never hurts to say ‘Thank you,’” she snapped, snatching the scrip from his hand.
He did not say anything. The pill was working.
Jamie saw another seven patients, all being treated for rage. He found, as he had working in the general care clinic, that if he didn’t think about it, he could get through the entire appointment without listening to himself asking the questions the monitor scrolled up for him to read. There had been a time when the questions were asked by the doctor, exercising their own judgment, pursuing their own clinical perceptions of the patient’s presentation. But the 2021 HSA study showed that doctors performed better when forced to follow an algorithm of questions. By the time they did the 2024 study it was determined that the software was more objective at interpreting data and developing clinical profiles and establishing diagnosis. The doctor was still required to read the questions, even though the software recorded all the data and did most of the work. Primarily because software couldn’t have a license to practice medicine and, due to the federal exemption regulation, it also couldn’t be sued.
Looking over the last seven cases, Jamie did, out of idle curiosity, evaluate one pattern that the software seemed to be ignoring. The patients were saying the same thing they had said for more than seven visits. In some cases the pattern went back over twenty visits. Were the patients gaming the software?
A buzzer sounded, letting Jamie know he was exceeding his pre-consult preparation time allocations. He got up and went to the door and said, “Next.”
In the reception area there were more than forty patients waiting. The room was noisy with the sounds of loud conversations, phone calls and furious text messaging. People were commenting on their family, their work, the economy and sports. They were doing so loudly, and without, it seemed to Jamie, listening to anything anyone around them was saying. As this was his experience of people in general, it did not seem unusual. He raised his voice and yelled over the general din, “NEXT!”
A woman in her mid-forties stood up and snapped, “It’s about time!”
“Harriet McCormack?” Jamie asked.
“Mrs. McCormack, if you please.”
“Mrs. McCormack,” Jamie corrected himself. This was the eighth time he had had to correct information in the database and each time it was the way the patient was to be addressed.
A loud buzzer sounded in Jamie’s room and a red flash notice went across his screen. “Intake Tech Data Not Completed.”
Jamie hit the system notice key and checked for the error. The report indicated that the data tech had not completed the intake. Absent data: pulse, blood pressure, height, weight, respiration rate, blood oxygenation.
Jamie gritted his teeth. This had only happened a few times. When it did, it was usually because the medical data techs were doing their shift switch. The pill was still working. He’d not torn the monitor from the wall.
“Pardon me,” he said to the patient.
“I don’t know that I will,” she retorted, and got out her panel.
Jamie was fairly sure she was posting unfavorable feedback. There was nothing he could do. Jamie went to the intake bay and found it was unstaffed. “Hello?” he said.
No one answered. Jamie knew if there was a staffing delay due to a shift change there was nothing he could do. The data techs were union and they couldn’t be reported, even for gross dereliction of duty, if the gap was due to a shift change. Jamie looked at the clock. The shift changes shouldn’t happen for another hour. “Hello?” he said again.
“Go away,” a voice responded.
Jamie realized it was coming from the data techs’ break room. He went to the door. It was locked.
“Hello?” he repeated.
“Fuck off,” the voice said.
“Are you the data tech on duty?” he asked.
“What’s it to you?”
“I’m one of the doctors on duty.”
There was a silence and then he heard, “Fuck off!”
Jamie considered his situation. He had no authority over the data techs and clearly this one knew it. He also had a room full of patients to process and without the data tech he couldn’t treat them. His choices were report the data tech negligent and fill out a lot of reports, attend three meetings and risk getting an adverse report on his file, or report the data tech sick and unresponsive. He found a monitor and reported that the data tech was sick and unresponsive, condition: unspecified, location: inaccessible in the data tech break room. An emergency response unit and a data tech union steward would be along in a while.
Jamie looked around the room for the vital unit. He found it was powered down and password protected. He knew it would be a bad idea to take the data on his own. But being behind on treating patients was equally bad as offenses went. Jamie walked back to his exam room to find Mrs. McCormack still texting away furiously.
“We are going to have to do this old school,” he said to her, and took her wrist in his hand.
She said nothing.
Jamie waited several seconds. He dropped her wrist and looked at her.
“My son thinks I’m crazy. He and his wife are trying to have me committed,” she complaine
d.
Jamie checked her other wrist. “I’ll be back,” he said.
“People are unappreciative of what they’ve got in their lives. I know they don’t appreciate me,” she responded, then returned to texting.
Jamie knocked on Dr. Locum’s exam room door. There was no answer. He knocked again. Still no answer. He walked in and found Dr. Locum standing handing a scrip to a patient.
“Just take this down to pharmacy and they will fill your scrip,” he said.
“I’m always shocked at the sort of nonsense people get up to,” the patient said, snatching the scrip from Dr. Locum’s hand and then left.
“Dr. Locum?” Jamie said.
“Next!” Dr. Locum called out.
Another patient shuffled into his office. Dr. Locum scanned the patient’s ID and insurance and then pressed a button. A scrip appeared and he signed it. “Just take this down to pharmacy and they will fill your scrip,” he said.
Jamie went over to Dr. Locum and reached out for Dr. Locum’s wrist. Like Mrs. McCormack’s it was cold and he felt no pulse.
“Patients never appreciate the education, skill and judgment involved in being a doctor,” Dr. Locum complained. Then he called out, “Next!”
Jamie backed away from Dr. Locum. None of this made sense. He didn’t have a lot of experience in the old school techniques, but he knew you should feel a pulse. There was the sound of an alarm. At first he thought it was the abandoned patient alarm being set off by Mrs. McCormack. But he saw people in black uniforms rushing into the clinic. He went over to ask them what was happening.
“Get down!” one of the men bellowed.
Jamie dropped to the floor. He heard the eruption of gunfire tear through the air above his head. He rolled over to see what had happened. One of the people in uniform stepped forward and struck him in the face with the butt of their rifle. Jamie lost consciousness.
CHAPTER 3
DATE AND LOCATION CLASSIFIED 2066
Darkness gave way to gray swirls, red pain and then vague white light. Jamie realized his eyes were open and he was staring at a flat white surface with a bay of lights. His brain was rolling and he could not say if he was lying down, standing up or looking at the floor. A masked figure in a white suit and gloves hovered over him. A light was flashed in his eyes.
“What is your name?”
“Jamie Baxter,” he said. His mouth was dry and his lips were gummy and slow to respond.
“Where do you work?”
“Hersteadtech Health Care Campus.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a doctor.”
“What department?”
“Normally, general care. I was sent to cover third floor. Dr. Wickham was out.”
“Do you have any problems in your work place with your colleagues?”
“No.”
“Do you have, or have you had, any incidents with your coworkers?”
“No.”
“Did you call in a health emergency for a data tech?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“The data tech stopped performing intakes and locked themselves in the break room.”
“And that was a health emergency?”
“I could not identify the cause of the event.”
“Have you sent any messages in the last twenty-four hours?”
“Messages?”
There was a pause. “Did you send text, emails, flashes or other digital communications outside of your normal work duties?”
“No?”
“Did you receive any?”
“Yes.”
“From whom?”
“My ex-wife and sister.”
There was a silence. Jamie heard a popping noise, like the seal being broken on a sterile packed syringe. Then he felt a warm sensation in the veins of his arm and neck. Then there was again darkness.
Blue, gray and white came into slow focus. The blue and gray were shapes that resolved to letters and numbers and Jamie climbed out of the darkness. ‘Quarantine Bay 54’ was spelled out in four meter high blue letters against a gray background on the white walls. Jamie looked around in silence. He was alone in the bay, restrained with an IV in his right wrist and, by the vague feeling he had from the waist down, a catheter had been inserted in his penis. Sudden movement or protest were not only ill advised, but potentially intensely painful and, given his circumstances, something he would be made to regret.
Jamie remained quiet for nearly twenty minutes before anyone came to check on him. The person who came in was in a dark uniform, like the one he’d seen at the clinic. The person was clearly military and had an erect posture.
“Dr. Baxter.”
“Call me Jamie.”
“Jamie, I’m Commander Halle Preston. I was the one who brought you here.”
“You were the one that hit me with the gun?”
“Yes. Nothing personal.”
Jamie thought about that. He remembered looking up and seeing the soldier in all black with the mask and helmet. Had there been anything in the eyes to suggest anger, disgust, or rage? He couldn’t remember.
“Okay.”
“You’ve been exposed. Initially we thought you were exposed when you were transferred to the third floor. But, after retrieving your messages we found you were exposed over a year ago.”
“Exposed to what?”
“The Kensington virus. It’s a data to human transmission.”
“Can that happen?” He asked.
“You’ve heard of zoonosis?”
“Of course. I’m a doctor. Zoonosis is animal to human transmission of diseases. The general view is it is a back and forth transfer that occurs through a common vector or proximity. Mosquitoes or respiratory droplet projections. There is a recombination of the virus that encodes it in a way that the host and later the recipient has no or limited immunity to.”
“Yes, well we are categorizing the Kensington virus as a technosis. Data to human.”
“Data encoding a virus and protein covering?” Jamie asked dubiously.
“No. It’s a different sort of virus. Assuming you survive we will talk more.”
“Assuming I survive?”
“You had ongoing exposure. But you were in the presence of a lethal level of the Kensington virus when our containment team arrived at floor three.”
“What happened to the other doctors?”
“Dr. Wickham was found at home, dead. Dr. Locum was dead and the entire data tech team for the floor was dead.”
“Dead?”
“We will talk more when your Quarantine is completed,” she said, and pressed a small valve on the side of his IV. Jamie’s veins burned and his world once again went dark.
Jamie woke up to an itching sensation across his face and neck. He saw a bag slung low at the far corner of the bed to which he was strapped. There was a line running from his left arm to the bag. Blood was filling the bag.
“Good morning,” a person in a white sterile suit said.
“Is it?” Jamie asked. He felt his throat burn when he talked.
“It’s always good to be alive.” The person replied and turned a valve that stopped the flow of blood to the bag.
“Is …it morning?” he managed to ask.
“Yes. It is morning,” they answered. Then they disconnected the tube from his left arm, heat sealed the bag and placed it in a container that they took with them.
Jamie looked down the length of his body and saw that his limbs had atrophied. He saw multiple marks on his left arm. He assumed they were stab sites where the data techs had done draws on him and missed the vein.
“Congratulations,” a soldier in a black uniform said, walking into the room.
Jamie just looked at Halle Preston and said nothing.
“You’re alive, and surprisingly enough, it seems you’re immune to the Kensington virus,” she said.
“Good?”
“It makes you one of five people to have survived it. And
the only one to have survived it this long.”
“Home?”
“No, not just yet. We are going to need your help first. But you can go home soon enough. It’s time for you to get out of that bed and start helping people again.” She then picked up a communicator and said, “Baxter’s room. He is to be spit and polished in thirty minutes.”
“Yes ma’am,” was heard from the other end of the call.
“You are very important, Dr. Baxter. But, be advised, you are agency property for the time being. Continue on in the way you have and we will get along just fine. Give us any trouble and it will be a very unpleasant experience for you.”
Jamie did not speak, but gave a slight nod.
“Very good,” Halle Preston said and left the room.
Five black uniformed soldiers in full gear and masks came into Jamie’s room and unstrapped him from his bed. They removed his IV and his catheter. Jamie said nothing, as the pain was a reminder that he was still alive. They lifted him from the bed and carried him out of the room. As Jamie’s body became aware of the world’s actual orientation a unique pain filled him from head to toe. He did not speak, but instead tried to hold his own weight as he was stripped, shaved, showered, cleaned and dressed by the soldiers who had carried him into a locker room area.
Twenty-eight minutes later Jamie, accompanied by two of the soldiers, was seated outside the commander’s office. He’d not recognized himself in the mirror. The man, thin, pale, with dark bags beneath both eyes and a beard that ran from his cheeks to his mid neck, with a stranger. Even cleaned, shave and dressed in a simple blue uniform he could only see a hint of himself in the face that stared back at him. Now, sitting, waiting for the commander, he looked at his hands, which were thin and spider like compared to the thick, well-fed fingers he had known most of his life. Even his knees appeared more prominent, as his legs, normally slightly stronger than average, had atrophied.
“The commander will see you now,” a soldier said.
The soldiers on either side of Jamie rose and Jamie followed suit. They marched into the office and a single chair was situated in front of the desk. Jamie sat in it.
