[Author's Note: I'm taking a break from /r/WritingPrompts. Instead, I want to expand/combine a couple of the existing posts. This will continue from from where yesterday (Mo Eats Breakfast) left off.]
"Nothing." Gabriel smiled.
"You're staring at me like I have grease or something on my face."
"Nope. Nothing like that."
"Because, you know, I can't tell. No mirrors or anything else to show me just how awful I look. I'm sure that my hair is a mess and needs a good brushing. Also, these clothes. This is day two in them and I'm not sure that they were completely clean when I put them on yesterday morning." Mo realized that she was babbling, something she did when she was nervous; had they seen her antenna test? She knew that they had to be watching her. "So, anyway, I'm sure that I smell, but I can't really tell."
"Smells fine from here."
"Then what do you want?"
"To give you some news on our progress." Gabriel sat forward. "Our friend, the merchant seaman, he's been doing quite a bit of infecting here in the Denver area. Why he waited until he got fifteen hundred miles from the sea is a bit of a mystery. Something we'll have to ask him when we catch him."
"And this affects me how?"
"You're going to get some company here in convention hall A."
"No surprise there. I've been watching the development. Tell me, are those split-level ranches or two-story colonials?"
"Looking to upgrade?"
"It would be nice to have a full bathroom instead of this," Mo glanced at the bucket, "one-tenth bath?"
Gabriel nodded. "Sanitation is going to be a problem. And that brings me back to my point. Your company. We've got three more people identified and another seven or eight suspected. We're in the process of bringing them in."
"Then what?"
"Then you'll have company."
"Some company. We'll all be within shouting distance of each other in a big, echo-ie hall. It may be more chaotic than useful."
"We'll see."
"Not to be annoying or anything, but have you made any progress on clearing me and my system out?" Mo knew that she needed to keep at least an outward appearance of wanting to help, even though she was not entirely sure which way to jump: with Gabriel or with the virus/bacteria thingy. "It seems to me that the easiest way to solve all of this is to cure us and let us go. Then you can return all this copper and we can all get on with our lives."
"Trust me, we're working on it."
"I have to ask: what's keeping you from flushing me with a broad spectrum antibiotic and doing a factory reset on my electronics?"
Gabriel looked done at the table for a second before answering. "Nothing, except that we're trying to keep you alive. We tried doing what you describe once. It did not turn out well for the patient."
"Wait. You said I was the first."
"I may have been a little flexible with the truth. You are the first person we've kept alive. Does that help?"
"No." Mo took a deep breath. "How many did you go all Mengele on before me? And what happened to them?"
"Only one. A tech from one of the wireless stores. When we pumped him full of penicillin, he started spewing from every bodily orifice. Mouth, nose, eyes, ass, sweat glands. Ever where. Apparently, the bacteria responds to attempts at killing it by trying to reach a new host. It was... unpleasant."
"So what are you trying now?"
"Our experts are examining the bacteria and working out the mechanism it uses for identifying the attack and then causing the body to expel so violently. Then, well, we've got samples of the bacteria and a room full of hamsters. I think you can figure out the rest."
"All of that is here in the Convention Center?"
"It wasn't being used for anything else. Would you really want to try and hold an actual convention here anyway[1]?"
"I guess not. So, when does my first neighbor move in?"
"As soon as we're able to make physical contact. Hopefully this afternoon."
"More tasering?"
"We did try to avoid that, but you were balking."
"With good reason, it turns out."
"I'm not going to apologize for that. It's what needed to be done for the greater good."
"The greater good. Go look for that in the ruins at Guantanamo Bay."
Gabriel's smile turned a little sour with that. "I think I'll leave you with your sandwich. Someone will be by with some dinner later on. I'll try and stop by tomorrow for another of these oh-so-pleasant chats. Don't go anywhere."
"I'll try, but these boots were made for walking."
Gabriel nodded and left. Mo wondered if he had latched on to the reference. She doubted it. Mo had only stumbled onto Nancy Sinatra due to a shoe store loc-ad that got stuck in her system for a week, long enough for her to search out the source. Now she had several playlists of 1950's pop-jazz vocals. Unfortunately, they were all stored on her cloud. Anyway, she pegged Gabriel more as a trance-house kind of guy, if he listened to music at all.
The PB&J was a poor substitute for her disconnected music. She took one bite and then tossed it in the bucket.
[1] No one would. Or at any of the thousands of other convention centers in the world, no matter how nice. Everything was handled through chats or, in more eccentric cases, with avatars in virtual environments like Convention Life, but those tended more towards the fanboy style conventions.
