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November 13, 2050
Dr. Henry Phillips adjusted his lab coat before leaving his quarters. Today, he and the other doctors would meet the new head of the Medical Division.
He blinked, still tired from the night they’d all had.
By Moon Station Time (synchronized with Washington D.C. on Eastern Standard Time), it had been about eight hours since his conversation with Brigadier General Gonzalez about Claire Price and about seven hours since the American space fighters stopped the bomber.
Since then, the general had pulled the files of each new arrival to the Moon Station and together with Claire compared them to additional information received from someone in the government.
Everyone left from last night looked loyal to the U.S., but then, so had Station Head Moore and her two assistants, the “guards” who’d tried to kill Alex and Claire and gotten killed by two other station guards instead.
Dr. Autumn Hampton, newest Head of the Medical Division, was one of the new arrivals, but Henry believed she was on the Americans’ side. She was the previous head’s niece.
Her new orientation would be in forty minutes—ten minutes after the new station head’s orientation would have finished, if she’d been a real station head.
Which meant Henry had about half an hour to eat breakfast and maybe say good morning to some of his friends.
He entered the main section of the medical bay, not far from the door that led to Dr. Hampton’s office—now a different Dr. Hampton—and the doors to the quarantine rooms, set apart from the open area of individual, curtained-off examination tables and recovery beds.
The quarantine rooms had never been used, as far as Henry knew, but something about them made him feel empty whenever he walked past. Maybe it was the thickness of their walls and clear windows.
Although designed to protect people on the outside from disease, to Henry, it felt more like they were intended to imprison the people who were ill. They looked cold. Cold and stifling. As if they would steal the air of anyone unfortunate enough to be taken inside.
Or maybe it wasn’t the walls and windows at all—maybe it was Henry’s knowledge of times in medical history when “quarantine” spaces had become death prisons.
Isolation. Yes, it was right to isolate a disease to stop it from spreading to more people, infecting more victims, but where was the dividing line between isolating a disease and isolating a human being? Putting someone in a room and then leaving that person to die, due to lack of proper treatment or lack of an investigative mindset that would lead to proper treatment.
Henry shook off his thoughts and smiled at a passing doctor.
He had almost left the main section of the medical bay when he spotted a doctor he didn’t recognize going through one of the cabinets.
Oh, a new doctor.
The young man was looking for something, and from the way he was frowning, he wasn’t finding it.
Henry walked over. “What are you trying to find?”
The doctor straightened and turned around. His coat hung open, revealing his electrical pistol. Thick gloves covered his hands. “I’m not trying to find something—I’m trying to take inventory of what we have.” He shrugged and smiled. “The new medical head’s orders.”
Henry raised his eyebrows. “You’re getting a very efficient start on it. Her orientation hasn’t even happened yet.”
“We met on the ride over, and I may have let it slip that I like to keep myself busy.” The other doctor grinned. “Mistake.”
“Well, thank you for inventorying.” Henry nodded at the cabinets. “Everything in there may be organized, but there’s a lot to have been organized. Maybe I could help?”
“That’d be great. I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome.” Henry smiled and then nodded at the doctor’s hands. “What are the gloves for?”
“Oh, a—a bottle broke.” The doctor looked sheepish. “I put these on in case I break another—so hopefully I won’t get cut again.”
“I’m sorry. Did you have another doctor check the cut?”
“No, I handled it. I guess I handle cuts better than I handle bottles.” He let out a weak laugh and offered an apologetic smile. “Stupid of me.”
“It happens.” Henry smiled back. “As long as your cut was taken care of. How much have you inventoried?”
“I’ve finished with the individual supplements in these cabinets”—he pointed them out—“and so now I’m working on the medications.”
“I’ll inventory the cabinets over there then.”
“Great.” The doctor held his hand out. “Again, I appreciate it.”
“Again, you’re welcome.”
They shook hands.
As they let go, a sticky residue came away on Henry’s skin. “Oh—there’s something on your glove. Maybe one of the other containers leaked.” Henry reflexively grabbed a sanitizing wipe from a nearby dispenser. “You’ll want to dispose of your glove before you touch anything else.”
The other doctor nodded. “I will.”
____________________________________________________________________________
She couldn’t get away. Deep down, she knew that. Tonight’s escape attempt––or was it today’s? Whichever it was, it would end like all the others.
With pain.
Here they came. Too many to fight, even if her battered body were strong enough. Even if her senses weren’t dulled from having just come out of unconsciousness.
Even if—Claire Price jerked awake.
She lay on a bed she hadn’t seen before. Normally they left her on the floor.
Her eyes trailed a path across the small room to the concerned face of the young woman sitting on the bed across from hers. She wore a United States Galactic Force uniform.
“Bad dream?” Topaz Bailey asked.
Claire nodded slowly.
“I’m sorry.”
Claire pushed the sheet off and sat up, setting her feet on the floor. “Thank you for letting me sleep here. You didn’t have to. Especially after—”
“Don’t mention it!” Topaz smiled, gently brushing off Claire’s guilt with her own cheerfulness. “I wanted someone to share the room with, you know, but there are only 33 operators altogether, so someone had to go without a roommate. I’ve been the odd one out for a month!” She climbed off her bed. “But now I have you.”
Claire cleared her throat and blinked back tears, hoping Topaz hadn’t noticed them. “You might change your mind if I have any more mornings like this. Were you already awake when I started dreaming?”
“Yes.”
Claire studied her a moment. “No, you weren’t.”
“Hey, I—”
“I might end up waking you every morning.” Claire looked her in the eyes. “Are you sure you want to deal with that? I know all the rooms in the pilots’ quarters are currently occupied by guys, but there are other places I could sleep.”
“No way!” Topaz stood. “You’re staying here. Look.” She suddenly got serious. “I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to help you with—with the nightmares or the memories, and I don’t want to say or do the wrong thing, but—I’m here to listen if you need to talk or anything.”
Claire cleared her throat again. “Thank you, Topaz. That—it means a lot to me.”
“Just, while you’re here—let me know if I do say or do something wrong, okay? I don’t want you to be keeping quiet about something because you don’t want to upset me. I mean which one of us went through—what you went through—anyway?”
Claire smiled. “All right. I will.”
“Good.” Topaz grabbed her CID, her electrical pistol, and an empty battery off a shelf by her bed and attached them to her belt, connecting the empty battery to her electrical shield. “Let’s go get breakfast then. I’m starving. And you and Alex go on patrol this afternoon. This will be my first time with two pilots!”
____________________________________________________________________________
Something felt strange.
Henry tried to brush it off as he finished making notes on the number of supplements in one of the cabinets. Probably lack of sleep, no worse than anyone else’s. And I don’t have patrols, like the pilots.
Henry had spent the last ten minutes helping the other doctor with the inventory, up until the doctor left the room for his quarters. “Shoot. Forgot my CID. I’ll be back.”
Henry smiled at him and then went on with his cataloguing. His limbs felt tight, and he tried to shake his right arm out. He didn’t think he was that tired.
Well, his morning schedule would be light that day, just dispensing the usual supplements of magnesium, calcium, Vitamin D, and several others…there would be another set of supplements to administer in the evening, but during the afternoon, maybe he could catch a nap, if Dr. Hampton was all right with it.
He raised his eyes as a young woman, maybe several years older than him, entered the room. “I don’t suppose you’re Dr. Henry Phillips?”
“Yes.”
She smiled. “My uncle told me about you. Said you were trouble.”
He felt his eyes widen.
“Said you had ‘a dangerous way of approaching preventive care.’ You should have seen the look on his face when he said it.” She put her hands in her pockets. “I’m his niece, Dr. Autumn Hampton.”
Henry tried to relax. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
They shook hands, and she smiled again. “Do you mind if I ask what you thought of my uncle?”
“He was a good head of the Medical Division.”
“What did you think of him as a doctor?” Her eyes twinkled.
“He is a great doctor—but, I believe he could review more new studies than he did while he was here.”
“I think his problems with you started earlier than your time at this station.” She smiled. “He said he taught you in several classes. But maybe we can get into that later. May I call you Henry?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then you’ll call me Autumn. I get the idea we’ll get along very well.” She turned to head back toward her office, then stopped. “Have you had breakfast?”
“Not yet.”
“Get some.” With a final smile, she strode out of the room.
Henry smiled, then set his notebook down. Maybe breakfast would help with the strange tightness in his limbs. He turned to leave for the corridor exit just as Colton Close walked up. “Oh! Good morning, Colton.”
“Good morning. Do you have time for breakfast before your orientation?”
“Yes, I think”—he wasn’t sure what happened next, but suddenly, he couldn’t breathe, and Colton was holding him up. “Colton, I—”
“Don’t talk. Just try to catch your breath.” Colton kept his arms around him. Turning, he gently pulled Henry toward one of the examination tables, changed positions to boost him onto it, and then helped him lie down. “Stay here, I’ll go find help.”
Thank you for reading “Substance” (Part 1). Read the next part of this episode here.
The previous installment of this series is “The New Arrival Pt. II” (Part 3) Read it here.
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