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| PAGE TWENTY EIGHT |
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"Well you would too after surviving a funeral, the complete destruction of your workplace, an earthquake, and then capping it all off by coming down with a potentially lethal plague..Come on, Cap. Let's get you back to bed.." "I'd rather stay here, if that's ok with you.. Gage.." Cap said. "I can recupe just as well from a chair as a stokes.." "Ok. Just have Chet put your O2 back on.." Johnny said, rolling over to get some rest himself. Roy nodded in agreement and soon, Chet and he left Cap studying Marco's sweaty face as he slept fitfully. Cap was almost dozing from the heady effects of the O2 cannula when he realized that Marco and he were no longer alone on just a feeling. He opened his eyes. Miss Thorne had gotten up and she had moved to the chair Roy had vacated. "He's almost my age.." she said gently. Cindy reached out to Marco's face to brush away a tangle of wet hair with compassion. Cap grabbed her hand, and shook his head, preventing her from touching him. "It's all right.. You firemen aren't the only ones known for self sacrificing oneself. And there are two million teachers out there all across the country who'll agree with me on just that point." Captain Stanley smiled and let her go. Then he afforded her some feigned privacy as she leaned down to admit a secret to his sleeping crewmate. Cindy wiped away Marco's tears with a gauze pad and bathed his face in a cool cloth as she talked. "You know Marco. You weren't the only one who wanted nothing else but to run today..." she told his sleeping features.."Stoker here had to tackle me to keep me under that kitchen table until the quake had ended. So I think there's a bit of cowardice in all of us. It's not surprising to me that the ground failing beneath our feet brought some of that out in both you and me. But I'll just bet there hasn't been a single fire that you've ever seen where you didn't just go charging right on into it without hesitation. So you're one up on a whole lot of us teachers in the bravery department, Marco Lopez. Those kids knew that coming here today. And so did I... Just sleep...Things will be brighter in the morning. They always become that way, with the dawn.." In reply, Marco's EKG, slowed into deeper rest. --------------------------------- |
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In the station kitchen improvised lab, Dr. Steven Taylor and Dr. Jamie MacPherson made a startling discovery on their specimen slides. They found....... ***************************** From: finiterider@yahoo.com Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 14:56:21 -0800 (PST Subject: [EmergencyTheaterLive ] The Red Devils-- ...Bacteriophage. Simple, unknown; completely undifferentiated bacteriophage. "Steve. Come look at this. I pulled it off the firemans' gram negative stain." Jamie gasped through her contamination hood. Dr. Taylor joined her and bent down into the microscope. "Look at that Shepherd's Crook morphology. Could this be an RNA filovirus?" Jamie shuddered. "We've only hypothesized that evolution of phage in theory as a zoonotic model, no known living specimens are known to exist." Steven was thoughtful. " Zoonosis? Mexico has plenty of mammalian carriers. Mice, birds..." "Yes, but those vectors are everywhere. What is unique in Mexico city and nowhere else?" Jamie said. "It's tropical around Marco's family's neighborhood. Monkeys?" Dr. Taylor theorized. "None that are native.. Bacteriophage are weak transferring to foreign or human bred hosts. It would have had to evolve in one genus for decades to mutate to an infectious state strong enough to cross species barriers. Mexico has no native simians." Steve was finetuning the microscope as he dressed his sample with an enzyme catalyst to break down the virus into its separate constituents. He took the slide off and shook it while the solution broke it down. Then he replaced the slide. "Oh my g*d. Jamie,.. they're reassembling despite the protein dissolver.." "Self assembling? Retrovirus! That's a class neither virus nor bacterial, millions of years old." MacPherson said. |
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