“Visibility low, lowering speed to 40 kilometres per hour,” said the AFV. The lonely vehicle was once again caught in a blizzard. The snow brushes on the front screen were making cracking sounds as they tried their best to remove the thick layers of snow that appeared to be endless. Yet, in its cosy pilot seat, the doctor injected itself with a giant needle that is filled with white greasy liquid while enjoying an old song called ‘September in the Rain”.
“In September, in the rain~” the doctor sang and checked the map, “let me guess, we are still 3 kilometres from the camp?”
“We are currently 2.99 kilometres away from Isolation Camp #4510,” said the AFV.
“Close enough,” the doctor lay back and drew out its weapon, “damn it, forgot to grease it after using yesterday.” The doctor held the extended barrel of the revolver-like gun, and twistedly lightly, allowing it to detach from the rest of the weapon. Then, the doctor picked up a thin, long brush and used it to clean the inside of the barrel. After dragging the brush out, a lot of black dust fell out, “damn, I might have overused it this month. Fine, time to clean the gun breech.” After unloading the syringe-like bullets from the drum, the doctor got a can of pressured gas to blow away the dust and gunpowder left-overs.
Extract from ‘Medical Personal Equipment Guide 2069’ published by the World Health Organisation page 199:
“The XwX12.5 is a large calibre (12.5mm) revolver manufactured by XwX Ironworks limited, originally used for hunting large (net weight over 1 ton) land animals… the XwX(f)12.5 is a modified version for Class F medical staff to [deleted]. There are a few differences between the XwX12.5 and XwX(f)12.5, as the latter has a longer barrel (50mm) for greater accuracy as well as a titanium structure for greater durability. Also, XwX(f) can be modified to carry 7 rounds instead of 6…Attention to all Class F medical staff: when using the XwX(f) on [deleted] targets, the Expanding Foam (EF) shells must be used instead of the standard solid shots. The EF rounds will… The XwX(f) should always be cautiously cared and maintained so that it will always be at its best performance level.”
“Destination reached, Isolation Camp #4510,” the AFV stopped. However, there was no entrance to the camp at all, the only thing that could be seen were just endless scenes of pure white.
“God damnit,” the doctor put its pistol back together and hid it on a spot beside its right leg, “is it buried by the snow? Can you detect where the entrance is exactly and I’ll just melt the snow with the laser?”
“Searching,” said the AFV.
It took an entire hour for the doctor to finally stand in front of the frozen iron gates towards Isolation Camp #4510. It punched the gate with a huge force, “hope it can still open properly…”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Crannnnnk…The circular rings on the door started to rotate slowly.
“There we go,” said the doctor happily, “there are still survivors.”
The circular pressure door swung openly, degree by degree, revealing the inside which was in complete darkness. The doctor switched on its night vision ability, “Huh? Did the lighting system broke?”
Bzzzz!
A bright green dot appeared from the darkness, causing the doctor to stop in its tracks, “Hello?”
“Scanning…” a familiar mechanical voice spoke through the darkness, “Subject: Class F WHO doctor.”
The doctor finally took a better look at the person/thing: just like the doctor, it had a gigantic central ‘light bulb’, but the majority of its body was empty, instead, organ-like rubber tubes consisted the lower part of the thing. It reached out a metal arm to the doctor, where the end of the arm was a hand that was covered in artificial skin, but the artificial skin was removed from the rest of the body.
“What are you…”
“I am Nick, the guardian of Isolation Camp #4510, welcome to the first ‘Intelligent Isolation Camp’ proposed and built by Dr Haig,” the thing said.
“Dr Haig?” the named reminded the Finale Doctor, “Is it that robotics engineer who tried to build a fully automated mask production line?”
“You are correct,” Nick the android replied, “I am a Type A(II) medical android who is in charge of maintaining the health and hygiene conditions in the camp.”
The Finale Doctor looked at Nick from head to toe again, “It seems to me that your current conditions are poorly maintained. I mean, all your artificial skin are gone and…”
“You are very correct,” said Nick calmly, “in fact, Dr Haig passed away ten years ago, and the maintenance android broke down five years after his death.”
“Well,” the doctor shifted the focus towards the rest of isolation camp, “where are the humans?”
In the darkness, a few other skins fewer androids stood motionlessly outside of what seemed like depressurised isolation chambers. Yet, there were still some movements in the camp, in the far end of the camp, the fully automated factory still worked as the ancient gears rotated slowly.
“The humans are in perfect care,” said the android, “they are all put under quarantine at the moment.”
“So there are already cases in this camp?!”
It took a second for the robot to process the question, probably due to the age of the machine, “No, there are zero cases.”
“Then why are they under quarantine?”
“It is the safest option for the humans to survive through this outbreak,” explained the skinless android, “until WHO issues the ‘Green’ pass, we will continue the quarantine. Don’t worry, the food production is fully automated, so the humans in this camp are always given the basic survival needs.”
The doctor looked at the endless columns of isolation chambers, “No, this is wrong…How many live members are currently in this camp?”
The ‘light bulb’ on the android flashed as it searched for the data.
Bzzzzzz….
“Data search complete,” it replied, “there is currently one living subject in this camp.”
“Please tell me you mean one hundred thousand,” the doctor marched towards an isolation chamber.
“False,” the android repeated, “there is one living subject in this camp.”
“No way?!” the doctor opened the heavy door on the isolation chamber and the inside was shocking. From the roof was a thick rope made of bedsheets which a human skull was tangled within and on the ground was a pile of human bones. The doctor slowly approached the body and found something in the pile of bones, a piece of written paper.
“Rather dead than locked in this fucking coffin,” read the doctor. It paused for a long time, still staring at the paper.
“What kind of quarantine are you using?” the doctor exited the room with the paper in hand.
“To achieve the maximum effectiveness of quarantine,” replied the android, “we constructed a depressurised isolation chamber for each resident, so they can be fully separated from one another.”
“Even families?” the doctor cried.
“Searching for the definition of Families,” the android said and stopped speaking.
“Do the rest of the humans die this way?” the doctor pressed on.
“False,” replied the android, “about 20% of the subjects died natural causes, and 79% died of suicide and 1% died of unknown causes.”
The doctor thought for a long while, “I’ll return to my AFV for a bit but I’ll be back and please take to see the final live subject.”