Apocalypse: The Savior with System

44 A Hospital and A Gift

Before he acquired the system that gave Paul his superhuman abilities, the only structure he was able to build from scratch on his own was his son’s crib. As for buildings, it was enough to have four walls, a roof, a window, and a door, and you’re all set. Reading floor plans was not among his favourite things to do until he was forced to do so in military training and actual practice. After all, a soldier had to know how to maneuver through hallways and connecting rooms to smoke out enemies.

Never in his wildest imagination did he see himself labouring day and night for three days’ straight building a hospital complex.

The only silver lining to the labor was the chance to soak up solar energy, which by now had increased his thermal power level to 10, much thanks to the sudden heatwave in the region. Conversion level upgrade was a bit more daunting, what with him needing resources that he also had to use to build the hospital. Eric even teased him if he was in competition with the hospital for iron, silicon, et cetera.

Rahu, meanwhile, had a grand idea of cordoning off more space and annexing it to the arsenal and the hospital within. Rahu blew up a section of the arsenal’s wall and together with some of the non-diseased passengers, began building a new section of the arsenal. Paul knew what their efforts were for. He and Rahu had talked about it at length after that post-dinner announcement in the mess hall three days ago. Paul was going to build Judith a house.

Paul brushed away Andie and Eli’s excited and teasing jabs. Romantic, they said, which he vehemently denied as such. Eric, who had been present while Rahu poured cement over the house’s foundation stone, kept sending Paul conspiratorial looks. Paul shook his head in mock despair.

He did this so that should an outbreak within the hospital happen, Judith can still find a way out, he reasoned. And he did not want her to make the hospital as her living quarters. They argued about it two days ago and short of telling Judith she was not even a medical doctor to begin with, Paul made do with the threat that he would not build the hospital and her precious laboratory complex if it did not include a separate living area for her.

After a two-minute staring contest done in tense silence, Judith relented.

Without consulting him, she and Rahu designed the complex themselves and Paul was not surprised to receive the blueprints during the first day. It did not look anything unlike what he and Rahu had seen in the institute and some of the rooms and patient quarters looked almost like those he occupied in Ormara. Guided by the plans and using resources taken from an unused building within the arsenal, Paul set to work.

Everyone marvelled at the speed with which he worked. Now, on the third day and looking up at the finished hospital complex, Paul felt a sense of achievement, a million times better than when he had first managed to successfully assemble an RK rifle in under 10 seconds. Rahu, who co-designed and engineered much of the hospital’s technology, grunted with satisfaction beside him. Branching off from the building at an angle was a narrow walkway made of iron and glass, which terminated into the house he built for Judith. Rahu designed it both as a connecting corridor and a decontamination area.

Behind him, several of the workers who helped applauded. From the upper storeys of the building where the sufferers and their families were temporarily housed, loud cheering floated down to them.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and saw Eric.

“This deserves a Guinness record, man,” Eric said in awe. More awe-inspiring, though, was Quinn standing beside Eric. She remained stone-silent and stone-faced.

Paul patted his left forearm. “Couldn’t have done it without the system, though.” He craned his neck, looking this way and that.

“She’s already inside inspecting the laboratory,” Quinn shared all of a sudden. Paul looked forward, just in time to see Andie pushing Judith’s wheelchair inside the decontamination walkway. The pair disappeared inside the house. Minutes later, they emerged through the front door and made their way towards Paul and the others. She stopped in front of Paul, an unreadable expression on her bespectacled face.

“So, Doc, what do you think?” he asked, grinning.

“You followed everything and everything is up to standard,” she replied without much feeling. “But one thing needs changing.”

Paul’s face fell. He didn’t know why he expected the woman to look more excited than at present but somehow, he did.

“Oh?”

Judith shook her head. “You made my bathroom too small. I like big, spacious bathrooms with white and gray tiling and a tub.” With a tap on Andie’s hand, Judith was pushed back into the main building of the arsenal…but not before Andie giving Paul a wink of confidence. Paul’s jaw dropped open. Quinn snorted. Rahu grunted.

Beside him, Eli and Eric collapsed to the ground, laughing.

That night, again after dinner, Paul announced to the sufferers and their families that they will be transferred to the hospital complex. The original plan to segregate the infected from the non-infected, regardless if they are family had to be upheld, much to the people’s disappointment.

“But it’s not that bad, really,” he assured them, explaining the living situation. “There are separate, isolated wings for each phase of the disease. And each wing has a glass-walled area where non-infected family members can still talk to and see those with the disease.”

“What? Like in prison?” someone asked.

Paul sighed. “Well, if you want to think of it that way for convenience, yes, it’s kind of like what we have in prison. But this is not a prison. The non-infected can still walk around and out of the hospital complex as long as you all test negative with Doctor Merkel’s test.”

For the rest of the night, everyone was tested, from the oldest person to the babies. The results came out faster than Paul expected and Judith explained that she used a prototype for a new testing protocol, which Rahu helped modify.

“It’s not the final test, though,” Judith told him quickly, while drawing a blood sample from him to be used as a control. Rahu already had his blood sample taken. Paul watched as Judith, attired in what could only be described as a space suit that could have weighed a ton, drew blood from his arm and deftly transfer it to a labelled tube, then placed it beside Rahu’s in a white box that had two padlocks and a keypad.

“Isn’t that overkill?” he asked, motioning to the box with his chin while Judith pressed a sterile cotton ball to the puncture site and taped it in place.

Judith looked at the box locked it manually and punched a code into the keypad.

“We can’t be too careful, especially not with yours,” she said, shooing him off the examination table in the newly-built laboratory complex. After getting a rotor wash strong disinfection from the attached chamber, Paul waited until Judith wheeled herself inside. With her thigh still recovering from the bullet wound, Judith couldn’t take her space suit off on her own, which left Paul the task of helping her remove the costume from her body.

“Don’t get any ideas,” she huffed, gingerly raising her leg as Paul slowly but surely pulled off one leg wrap.

Paul hid a smirk. “I don’t have a habit of jumping on invalids.”

He felt, rather than saw, Judith roll her eyes.

“Really? How many layers does this suit have?” he complained seconds later.

“Seven,” she responded.

“SEVEN?!”

“We’re only on the third layer, and I still have to replicated controls so we better make this quick.”

“Ooh! That sounds really hor—”

“My right leg can still give a mean soccer kick.”

Paul repositioned himself, close enough to assist but as far away as possible from said foot.

When the last layer had been removed, leaving Judith in a pair of scrubs and her space suit helmet, which was really only a surgical mask and a face shield, Paul pushed her out of the laboratory complex. Only then did he notice her not carrying the well-locked box with his and Rahu’s blood.

“You didn’t bring the box with you?” he asked.

Judith waved a hand in dismissal and used the same hand to stifle a yawn. “I’m too tired and sleepy, which I think can be blamed on a pain reliever I had to take at dinner. The replication process is automatic inside that box and will be done by the time we finish breakfast tomorrow.”

“That’s good, then. By the way, Eric and I talked about this. As the only other positive case in our team, I’ll help get the classified sufferers into their designated wings and rooms. Eric will do some census stuff with Eli.”

Judith yawned again. She’s really tired, Paul thought.

“Sure. But they have to wear protective equipment from here on out when they see the patients,” she reminded him in a low voice. “We should’ve done so since we’re…”

“Did you get yourself tested, too?” Paul was worried that because of her physical closeness and far longer exposure to him and Rahu, Judith could also be infected now.

She nodded, saying, “I tested negative. So did Eric, Eli, and Andie. Even Quinn.”

“Quinn let you prick her?”

“Well, not me but Eric,” she admitted. “But she had no choice. Rahu was pointing a gun to her head when we were inside the lab.”

Paul chuckled. “Where was I when this drama was unfolding?”

Judith craned her neck to look up at him. “Weren’t you fixing my bathroom?”

Paul grinned down at the top of her head as they went up to the lobby where the walkway to her new house began. She fumbled inside her pocket and dropped something to the floor. Paul picked it up and saw it was the electronic and personalized key card Rahu gave her.

Judith had begun to turn the wheelchair towards the main entrance to the hospital, possibly to go back to the sufferers inside their temporary holding area, but stopped. With a sigh and two yawns one after another, she nodded to the key card in his hand and said in a defeated voice, “Just take me home, Paul.”

“For real?!”

“My eyes are droopy but I can still muster enough strength to hurt you, Paul Justinos,” she said in a frighteningly hard tone.

Paul laughed as he pushed her towards the electronic door and pressed the card on a biometric panel. The door slid open and the walkway lights all opened.

By the time they reached her new house, disinfected to within an inch of their lives even inside their nostrils, Judith was lightly snoring. Paul carried her through to her bedroom, a little disappointed he wasn’t able to show her the newly enlarged and refurbished bathroom, and laid her on the bed.

After tucking her in, Paul watched her sleep for some time and left quietly.