Thin, short, wheezing...being chased...smell of sweat on lips...street signs blurring by...coughing...lungs burning...the chase...runners, escaping...praying...

chest beating...about to explode...it won't really explode will it...not happening...this is not happening...it's not supposed to end this way...seizure...clutching...shirt in a clinched fist..

Too soon...too soon...

The beginning of a plague...

News broadcaster:  tight white shirt, too small for her build.  "Today marks the 25 year anniversary of the Plague.  Rumors circulate throughout all the great cities of a cure, but government officials deny any such cure exists."

Cut to thin, pale boy, sitting in hospital bed.  Dim light room, flicker of moth on light bulb.  Boy coughing, screams in the distance, sound of something wet dripping on the ground.  A mother crying, distant screams in the background, unable to distinguish if it’s loved ones or patients.

"Over 400 million dead in those 25 years.  If there is a cure, please, you must..."  Transmission ends, screen turns gray, Government logo replaces it.  Mechanical sounding voice, "This broadcast has been terminated for its illegal content.  This station will be investigated, and the guilty punished.  Please turn your receiver to channel 10001 for sanctioned news broadcast."

Distant shouts, the sound of overturned garbage cans, thin, pale androgynous looking girl runs by a 200 ft public television, the Gov/Corp logo staring down at her.  Out of breathe, arms going numb, her head shaved, baggy civilian clothes, non-sanctioned, adding to her sexless appearance.  Five heavily armed medics pass the screen a few seconds later, cameras follow the movement, someone, somewhere is watching.  Someone is always watching.

They are close, she can feel them, even without looking, she knows that escape is no longer an option.  

“You!  Stop or we will fire!”  

Accepting her fate, she begins to stop, her body hunched over, hands on her knees, gasping for air.  

“Raise your hands above your head for identification scan!”  

A thin green beam crosses the back of her neck, a transparent tattoo begins to appear as the beam moves back and forth.  An almost neon looking barcode is now visible.  She stands motionless sweat dripping down off her eyebrows, lips trembling.

”Identity confirmed.  Subject is 2342-234-56-9876.  Confirmed carrier, handle with extreme caution.  Do not touch her, highly contagious.”   

Her muffled cries echo through the alleyway as the medics begin the decontamination process.  (Medics are genetically altered humans with biohazard implants.  The large keyboard and monitor pad attached to their arm is completely integrated into their bodies.  Its official name is the MEC, Medical Environmental Control, but it has other names, more sinister names, the sort of names only whispered about in dark alleys.  The MEC controls every aspect of their anatomy, from heart beat and breathing, to pain and sensory dampeners.  Their clothing is a microorganism that appears as fabric, it’s also controlled by the MEC.  The microorganisms contain every virus counter agent known, and can expand to cover every inch of a medic’s body if needed.)

“Turn around slowly, do not lower your hands.”  

She turns, catching the last few seconds of the medics change from the corner of her eye.  They are now completely covered, full biohazard suit, the microorganism supplying them oxygen.  As they approach her, she hers the distant sound of sirens, and the slush, slop sound of their suits.  Her eyes widen as she watches the medic closest to her explode from the inside, flesh wrapped inside the MEC, splashing against her face, the wall, and the other medics.  The visible look of shock, evident even beneath the MEC, this doesn’t happen.  MECs don’t die.  One by one, they begin to explode from within.  The wet, gelatinous tissue running down her face, neck, arms legs, a chill crossing her spine, her mouth opens, but no sound escapes.  Only the darkness, as a warm electric shock pulses through her body.  The world turns black.

-----

There’s a bright light, she can see it through her eyelids, even before she opens them.  It’s directly above her.  Voices all around her, almost mechanical sounding, like something left over from an old video game.  She tries to remember, “what was the name of that…”  Then the sudden pressure in her chest, like a mound of bricks placed on top of her.  She can hardly breathe.  She tries to scream, before realizing that there’s a long tube stuck down her throat.  She can taste the blood in the back of her throat, the uncontrollable urge to piss.  “She’s awake,” cold, sterile voice, “give her another dose.”  She drifts back into the darkness.

Sudden screams, gasping for air, so bright…so bright.  Her mouth is dry, lips cracked, the taste of dried blood.  Focusing her eyes on the first thing she sees, a small plasma television.  “I thought they stopped making those,” she mumbles, trying her voice for the first time.  It sounds alien, dry and rusty.  “Was that me,” unsure what to trust.  

A man, covered in what looks like a MEC suit opens the door, she tries to jump from the bed, hide, attack, anything.  But her arms and legs are restrained.  “Calm down, just calm down.  I’m not going to hurt you.  The contagion is more or less gone, but we must take certain precautions.  You are a very special girl, very special indeed.  A miracle, one would say.”  Her body is trembling; eyes fixated on the suit…the death suit, only Gov/Corp agents…  The beeping sound of a heart monitor begins to fill the room, growing louder and louder.  “Nurse!”  Darkness again.

----------

“It’s ok, that’s it, sit up slowly.  Don’t rush it this time.  You’re doing just fine.”  Her eyes begin to focus.  There’s an elderly woman holding her hand.  The restraints are gone.  

“Where,” voice sounds like desert air, “where…where am I?”

“Don’t worry about that right now.  The doctor will be in shortly.  He wants to talk to you; there is so much to talk about my dear.  Do you even know how special you are?  You’re the first…oh, my, I’ve said too much.  He’ll tell you all about it.  I’ll be right back.  I’m sure everyone knows you’re awake, but just to make sure.”  

She can finally see the woman, old, slow, like a character from a TV show, one of those old re-runs she watched as a child, sitting on her mother’s lap, before the dying started.

What did she mean by cured?  There is no cure.  There’s only the chase, the MECs, and the dead television skies of the Q-zone.  I’ve got to escape, this has to be a trick, maybe she’s already infected, we’re their little lab rats.  Maybe, maybe…what am I going to do?  I saw the death suits.  And the pain, the blood in my mouth, on my face…I can’t…what if…how do I.  Get a hold of yourself girl.  

She can hear voices coming down the hall, the slow creak of the door opening.

“Dear, the doctors are here.”  

The door opens completely, the old woman stepping back out of the way as four men in white coats enter the room.  She can feel the fear again, that kick you in the gut kind of fear, nowhere to run.  

One of the doctors approaches the bed.  

“My name is Dr. Yuzaki.  I am responsible, if any one person is, for your recovery.  Of course, you were only in stage one, and we have no idea if later stages are curable, but you are our first success.”

He used that word again, cured.  There is no cure, I know there is no cure.  If there were, the companies would have already hidden it.  The plague controls the population.  It gives them completely power, the Gov/Corp.  They would never let there be a cure.

“Would you care for something to eat, perhaps a little something to drink?  I know how hard this all is to believe, but it’s the truth.  You are cured.  We are looking at a new evolution in the history of mankind.  The plague will be a thing of the past.”  Dr. Yuzaki twirls around, the other men in the room clapping, like some magician waiting for the crowd’s applause.

What does he mean by “the plague will be a thing of the past?”  Maybe they’re infected too.  This is all some MEC lab experiment.  See what the silly plague carrier will do sort of thing.  I need to make it to the outer rim.  I have to get out of Q-zone.  

”Please bring, Miss….”
”Miss is fine.”
”Yes, anyway, bring her anything she may need.  She’s the proof of my success, and nothing will prevent us from going public with what we have found.”

They leave as quickly as they had entered.  Leaving her alone with her thoughts and the small plasma TV sitting in the corner of the room.  

“It all looked real enough,” she thought.  At least they took the time to make it look like a Q-zone hospital.  Small, cramped room, technology from before the dying started, before Q-zone was created.  She remembered going to have her tonsils removed as a small child.  Maybe they wanted her to feel comfortable.  Relaxed enough to tell them how she got infected.  Or maybe, they just wanted to see what kind of reaction a victim would have if they believed themselves cured of the disease.  Question after unanswered question, one leading to another.  She begins to stare blankly at the television, absorbed by the blue filtered light.  Her thoughts lost in the commentator’s voice…

”As we continue to mark the 25th anniversary of the plague, let us look back at how it all begin.  The first case was reported in the city formerly known as New York.  A single, white mouth of no discernable ethnic decent was diagnosed with a new form of flu.  She returned home from, and three days later everyone within a city block was infected.  The symptoms were mild at first, soar throat, cough, ache throughout the chest and arms.   Within a few weeks, over 50,000 people had died in New York.  The city became a ghost town as residents fled, carrying the disease with them wherever they went.  The World Health Organization formed an emergency committee containing all the leaders of the world.  President Walker of the United States was given emergency executive powers.  All the nations of the world were now under one governmental system, with WHO as the controlling branch.  Nearly 3 million people died in the first 6 months, with the largest concentration in the former United States.  To date, over 60 million people have died, with large areas of the world no longer inhabited.  The less fortunate now live in areas called Q-zones throughout the world.  The largest Q-zone stretches from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River in what is now called sector 1, since this was the region most devastated by the plague.”

She throws the small pot of plastic flowers next to her bed at the screen.