The Diseased Heart

Chapter 18

The drive was short enough before we got back to the lab, even with the traffic from many of the roads in this section of the city blocked with varying degrees of crashes. The laboratory building was five stories, and had four basement levels. The building itself was almost as big as the hospital floor by floor, and was devided into two larger buildings with a thin section connecting them around a fenced in courtyard.

The fence was lined wih various tall trees which helped to hide the less visible parts of the fence which rose upward as a means to keep people from jumping the fence. The large trees were almost enough to hide the unsightly barrier in its entirety.

The SUV began slowing and parked in its designated space, an empty spot marked with this vehicle's number, filling in the gap between two identical SUV's and completing the row. Once it was off, I swung the door open and climbed out, soon followed by Julie.

She walked with me to the main doors while we continued our talk.

"So, you have sent that Email to LR, correct? And asked for the containment facility to be approved in said Email?"

She nodded, "Yes, and they gave a positive reply. Still didn't seem overly happy about it, but they approved the requests."

Flipping through my clipboard with the stack of notes and reports, I nodded, "And, anything new with Raven?"

She shook her head, "No, the same behavior. Skittish and hiding her true self best she can, she rarely makes eye contact to hide her eyes, as well. The only thing of note is she's eaten more lately, which I'm glad for given how thin she was starting to look."

I nodded and checked off a few boxes in the status report in my hands. I barely had to read it to know what it said, I had filled out dozens of identical papers this week alone, many frequent updates needed to be given to keep those with the power to cut our project off satisfied, "Let's hope we can get her to cooperate sooner rather than later. I'd really hate if she resorted to starving herself..."

Julie and I both knew there was one surefire way to get her to cooperate, hopefully. Riley being alive could be our break. Our plan was to tell everyone else that the dart had missed the exact center of her back, therefore it was unable to inject the poison into her nervous system directly, and didn't take effect, allowing her to wake up onc eher body processed the potent toxins. Because of this, we will say it would be smart to put them in the same containment facility unless they show signs of aggression towards each other.

We both knew neither would show these signs given their history.

Julie and I walked to the elevator on the opposite side of the lobby. There were several, but only this one went down from the ground floor. Once the doors opened and we stepped into the empty box, I lifted my sleeve to flash my wrist at the scanner just below the keypad. The metal band I wore had a similar sensor, and when they detected one another, a small panel unlocked revealing a small keypad displaying buttons to the basement floors. Julie and I, being two of the head researchers for the Crawler project were two of the few people with access to the lower ground.

As the elevator began it's slow decent, we stood in silence. The tense situation in the city was not making conversation easy, especially knowing how many potential casualties had been caused in the wreckage. Julie, growing tired of staring at the wall, pulled her phone from her pocket  despite her not being exactly allowed to do so while working. A surprised expression crossed her face for a moment, before turning to one of amusement, "Oh, Surprise surprise, she's famous."

Raising an eyebrow, I turned to her, "Pardon?"

She turned her phone so that the screen now faced me, it was opened to a live news broadcast. As we had all suspected, the damage caused by the panic earlier had already been documented, along with plenty of false information regarding how it happened.

They were saying that the zombified Crawler had been seen rogue throughout the city, carrying a bloody corpse and attacking people in their cars, they were depicting her to the same grossly exaggerated light as Crawlers were nowadays - closer to zombies than to wild animals. Pinching the bridge of my nose and gritting my teeth, I sighed, "These people don't care if they share complete falsehoods, they just want an engaging story. They don't care who's life it screws up."

"Yep. Sad, actually." She put her phone back in her pocket, with ine more quick sneer at the screen for good measure, "I know you have a short fuse when it comes to Crawlers, so I won't light it while in this enclosed space with you where there are no witnesses."

I chuckled and shook my head, but she was right. My blood was already boiling at this scenario, if the word got out that we had contained her, the public would riot until we killed her. This just made everything so much harder. Yes, it was fair that they didn't know she had not been carrying a corpse, but they absolutely did know that she was actively fleeing the wreckage, not running straight into it. Anyone who actually witnessed it would know they were lying, as well as anyone who would see the very same footage they were using in their broadcast, including from the camera of the very same chopper I had been in.

The elevator slowed to a halt before the doors slid open with a faint hiss, allowing Julie to sprint forward as if I was literally about to explode. I couldn't help a small chuckle whilst I followed behind her down the winding halls of the laboratory. Rooms branched off on either side, they ranged from chemical testing rooms to computer labs, all stayed clean at all times to a standard one could only dream of in their own home.

On this floor, though, there were some rooms that were only on this floor. It was the medical sector where we dealt with potentially biohazardous injuries, such were usually among staff who had made a very dangerous mistake, so it was quite unusual - and quite unfortunate - that one of which, contained a certain girl.

I knew which one, I had been alerted which room number during the car ride back. I was the one with the most knowledge on what was afflicting her, after all.

My eyes scanned the numbers beside each door, printed in bold metallic white on raised matte grey placards, before my eyes finally landed on room 336. This was the room the girl was being cared for in. I walked to the door and slowly opened it before stepping in.

The beeping of monitors and machines were nearly the only sound. A few doctors were crowded around the bed where the child lay. I walked over to the window which devided the room in half to silently observe while not risking bringing anything into the sterile half of the room.

The large gash over her ribcage was no longer as bloody or quite as wide and deep. The medicines were working swiftly, exactly as we had tested them to function. It was one thing to test the medication on plants but veet different from the intent, so it was good that early on we were able to do minimal testing on animals. It was entirely lost causes from a nearby farm - sheep and pigs who had grown ill and who were on their last legs. If anything had happened to them, they would have died regardless. Incredibly, all six of the animals recovered entirely within several days of administering the medicine, with minimal side effects and no trace of the Virus.

We weren't quite prepared to try it on a human, given all the possible risks, but we did what we had to so we could solve this, and so far it seems to have worked. For now.

The medicines were composed of specific strains of Crawler DNA. Very specifically separated to remove any and all infectivity of the virus with luck, and leave us with only the regenerative abilities of the Crawlers. When we had finally perfected and distributed the medicine, it would save so many lives. But that was likely years from now.

This girl would be the first life saved thanks to the Crawlers, and many more were to come.

Strange, how these creatures went from the ones who nearly brought humans to extinction, and are now contributing to save them.