“Somehow I am unsurprised to see you all in seemingly perfect health despite having had no heart rate for the past twenty minutes,” Dr. Jansen said.
“Then why’d you make an emergency call?” Leah asked pointedly. “You could have just called us yourself to ask how we were doing.”
“I could have,” the doctor acknowledged. “But that would only have been fine if you were indeed stable. I made the call on the off chance that you were in as much danger as your pulses indicated. If that had been the case, the time it took to call you personally would have likely doomed you.”
“Oh. Thanks, I guess.”
“You are welcome. Now that you are here, I would like to discuss today’s developments.”
“Developments? You mean test results from the blood samples?” Noah said hopefully.
“No. I am referring to the situation here on campus concerning the spread of your sickness.”
Noah felt a sinking sensation
“It’s been spreading?” May asked.
“Indeed. There have been about a dozen reports of symptoms in the past three hours. All but two of which were from students currently residing in your dorm halls. We must assume this is only a fraction of infected students, because despite our best efforts, many of them do not feel that it is necessary to contact the health center when they suddenly begin breathing dust and losing all sense of touch.” She turned to Brian and Noah. “I took it upon myself to call your roommate Paul when I became aware that the illness was spreading.”
Noah leaned forward. “Is he okay?”
“He has been infected.”
Noah put his head in his hands. “Oh, man.” A thought occurred to him and he looked up. “How about Robert?”
“Who the heck is Robert?” Leah asked.
“Robert is one of the receptionists who work in this building,” Dr. Jansen said. “He is the one who helped you this morning. To answer your question, Noah, he is one of the two known individuals not residing in your dorms who has fallen ill.”
Noah nodded. He hadn’t expected any other answer.
“What are you doing with all these sick students?” Leah asked.
“A school-wide announcement has been released informing everyone to isolate themselves if they are aware they have been exposed to the dust, or if they are displaying the known symptoms of the illness. I am currently in the process of convincing the college board that they need to lock down the campus until we have more information about what is happening.”
“Woah,” Brian said. “That’s going to affect a lot of people.”
Dr. Jansen gave him a hard look. “You might have done well to consider that before you waltzed through your dorm this morning.”
He winced.
Stolen story; please report.
Noah just sat there in shock. It felt like everything was slipping out of control way too quickly. If they had only been a little more careful, they could have single-handedly prevented the mess that was beginning to unfold.
“How big is this going to get?” he asked quietly.
They all looked at Dr. Jansen.
“It depends on how soon the campus is shut down and how effectively people obey the announcement. Based on the rate of infection so far, and my previous experience with college students… this will get worse before it gets better.”
She suddenly clasped her hands and straightened. “Anyways. I would like to administer another round of physical testing.”
“That’s fine,” Leah said. “Same stuff as before?”
“More or less.”
“Uh, alright.”
“I’ll make it quick,” she assured them, grabbing a pen light off her desk and flipping off the lights. She left the open window uncovered, which allowed plenty of light into the office.
They were sitting in the same places as they had that morning, with Noah closest to her desk, so the doctor started with him. She did exactly as Noah expected and shone the light into his eyes one at a time.
“Interesting,” she said, leaning back. “Your pupils were reactive. The response was minimal and delayed, but there was noticeable miosis.”
That’s kind of weird, Noah thought as she moved to the others and found the same result. Why would that be working when hardly anything else is?
Dr. Jansen seemed to be wondering the same thing. “I can’t say I expected these results, but perhaps I should have. After all, your sight has been one of your few bodily functions to remain functional throughout this ordeal. The illness does not seem to affect vision thus far.”
She set the light down, turning it off and switching the office’s overhead light back on. She then picked up something else from inside her desk, but kept it hidden in her closed fist. She turned to them and for the first time seemed to hesitate.
“Now, you are under no obligation to submit yourselves to this test,” she said in a tone that did not fill Noah with eagerness for whatever she had in mind. “This would not be considered part of a standard examination.”
Leah narrowed her eyes. “What is it?”
Dr. Jansen held up a single-bladed razor. The blade was sealed in a slip of airtight plastic. “If you so choose, I will make a small incision on your arm and lower leg.”
Noah’s eyes bugged out. “Why would you want to do that?”
“I am curious how your body has been regulating its blood pressure. In a normal scenario, the blood in a corpse will settle due to the lack of circulation. Yet you are displaying no signs of swelling in your lower limbs.”
“Aren’t there other ways to take someone’s blood pressure?” Brian asked. “You don’t typically see doctors pulling knives on their patients. Also, we’re not corpses.”
“I will gain more information with this method. Your unique symptoms would mean you feel no pain, though I understand if you wish to skip this test. And I apologize for the comparison; you are correct. I was merely pointing out the established effect that a lack of circulation has on a body.”
“I’ll do it,” May said, surprising everyone. She pulled up her sleeve and pointed to her upper arm. “Here?”
“Er, that works,” Dr. Jansen said after a moment. “Alright.”
“May, you don’t have to,” Leah said quickly.
“It’s okay. If this is helpful to the doctor, then I can put up with a little cut,” she said with a smile. “It would hardly be the worst of our worries, right?”
Noah remained silent, feeling uncomfortable. This seemed like a massive departure from standard operating practice. Also, he couldn’t exactly pin down the difference, but Dr. Jansen seemed to be acting a little differently than when they had met with her earlier. He was trying to figure out if the two were related when something suddenly occurred to him.
“Hey,” he said.
Everyone looked at him.
“Who’s that other person who got sick? The second one who’s not from our dorms.”
Dr. Jansen looked at him for a few seconds before taking off her respiration mask, letting a dark cloud spill out.
“That would be me.”