The hand that heals

[jxie93]

Felix remained at the make-shift command centre he had his men set up, just next to the Medics and ExoGeni's operations room. In the midst of bulky hazmat suits and loud chatter, his constant bark down the communicator was distinct to any ear in that confined room unfit to contain this volume of personnel.

After being bombarded with requests and status reports for the past three hours, Felix was fed up with the general doubtfulness and incompetence of his colleagues and was about to switch his command temporarily to a tertiary coordination team when his communicator buzzed in his hand once again. After glancing at the source and identification of the communication request, he reluctantly answered the call.

"Co-ordinator, this is Pilgrim requesting clearance for a level one bio-scan of the Hawaii…Target is the pet of Andrew Ross - sequence data uploaded…Standing by..."

"Oh for the love of… You're asking me to grant you a LEVEL ONE scan? Don't you have at least half the brain of a Gaian monkey? Go through your emergency handbook and find me the list of personnel who can issue authorisation to a level one bio-scan. You see, there're people below me who're less important. Ask THEM instead of calling the EXECUTIVE coordinator. I'll fire you if you dare to ask me about such a trivial matter again, understand?" Felix yelled down the communicator, but quickly regretted losing his temper and professionalism.

Without even waiting for the employee to answer, he flung the communicator onto the conference table along with scattered equipment. He then picked up a latest report on the autopsy of certain victims from a senior scientist and immediately raised an eyebrow upon reading it.

"Seems to be worse than I thought," Felix said to himself then turned to Ashley, who was standing next to him, "Ashley, it appears we'd have to prepare for the worst case scenario. Get on the line with our control teams and prompt them to increase the settings on their equipment to near lethal."

"Yes sir, I'll get right on it." Ashley answered in a monotonous voice; working long shifts without breaks have dampened her composure. She has lost her radiant glow she arrived at the Hawaii in.

Meanwhile, Felix picked his communicator back up. It was now filled with several missed communications. He simply flicked his finger across the screen and they were hidden amongst the communicator's busy screen. He then sat down on his chair facing away from the room and activated the communicator's virtual keypad. As a 3 dimensional keypad flickered to life in front of him, Felix began to construct a relayed request for assessment addressed only to the senior inspection teams. The dim light from the communicator further emphasised the ominous and grave look on his emotionless face.

"Identification: Executive Coordinator Felix Cabulb
Authorisation code: LF-FC012-Gamma

From what I've read on the autopsy reports, it's come to my attention that this epidemic is highly lethal and resilient. Therefore, I hereby request a conclusive critical assessment from all principal inspectors on the potency, resistance and contagion potential of any discovered agents or virus onboard the Hawaii. Focus on physical and psychological effects on victims and report back any symptoms of aggressiveness, intellect capacity, physical deterioration/empowerment and other related issues. Assess whether or not this agent or virus can be exploited in any way to our advantage. If so, obtain a sample of each strain and conceal them in discreet locations. Encrypt your reports using the following key at the end of this message. You know what'll happen if you tell anyone about this."

Felix's finger hovered on top of the transmit button as he hesitated and reviewed the message quickly. Then, with a swift press followed by a small bleep, the message was sent and relayed through many levels of Cryer exclusive proxies to a point its source and destination was too scrambled to be recognisable to receiver without the precise protocols. He then swivelled around to face the noisy room again and began to process the missed transmissions.

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