Chapter 119 - 116: A New Type of Lung Fever
Saint Louis, Missouri, United States.
Inside a national hospital, a special patient was being rushed in by ambulance.
"Make way, please! Make way!"
A nurse pushed the patient’s gurney, racing toward the emergency room.
A team of doctors, already prepped, was waiting inside.
The patient was a middle-aged Black woman. Gasping as if from an asthma attack or suffocation, her expression was one of extreme pain.
A doctor took out a pair of trauma shears and cut open the woman’s shirt, revealing a reddened chest.
He reached out to touch it and found it was almost searing hot.
"Start physical cooling on the patient immediately! Administer analgesics and prep an endoscope to examine her respiratory tract..."
The attending physician barked out orders to his assistants, his own hands never stopping as he helped connect monitoring sensors to various points on the patient’s body.
After more than an hour of frantic work, they managed to temporarily stabilize the patient’s condition using physical cooling and a ventilator.
Dr. Avin emerged from the emergency room, his face etched with exhaustion.
People from the Center for Disease Control were already waiting for him outside—a woman who looked like a medical professional and two men who looked like bodyguards.
"Dr. Avin, hello. We’re from the CDC. Here are my credentials."
The woman leading the group flashed her ID.
Avin glanced at it and read silently to himself, ’Josephine, virology expert.’
"Whatever it is, we can talk as we walk."
Avin seemed uninterested in their arrival, not breaking stride as he headed toward the restroom.
"Doctor, how many cases like the one you just treated have you handled?"
This was exactly what worried Avin.
"This was the twenty-third. And I still can’t find the cause."
As if remembering something, he turned his head toward the brown-haired woman.
"But the patients aren’t contagious, and the condition isn’t caused by a virus."
They reached the restroom. Avin walked over to a sink, turned on the faucet, and splashed cold water on his face to wake himself up.
"Can you tell me about your findings?"
The woman showed the courtesy of a genuine seeker of knowledge, not the arrogance of a government official.
"The first case was about three weeks ago. At the time, I thought the patient had inhaled hot gas, causing burns to the respiratory tract and lungs."
Avin’s expression grew distant as he recalled the events.
"It looked serious, but not like something we couldn’t handle."
"But three days later, the patient was found dead. That was completely unexpected!"
"Then came the second case, two days after the first patient’s death. A week after that, three more cases appeared. Two weeks later, another seven consecutive cases. After that, we started getting similar patients sent here almost every day. The one just now was the third today."
The woman’s expression was grave.
"According to your reports, there have been no more deaths since the second patient, is that right?"
Avin nodded.
"Let’s go. We’ll go see him."
...
In a hospital room, a white man with a sallow complexion was struggling to breathe with the help of a ventilator.
When he saw Avin enter, he could only greet him with his eyes.
"Ben, you’re looking much better!"
Avin smiled as he spoke to the patient, then shot a look at the three people behind him, who were now wearing masks, warning them to watch what they said.
Josephine observed the patient closely.
He was lying on a bed that was a size larger than a standard hospital bed. In addition to the ventilator, there was a circular ice pack on his chest. Judging by a small freezer nearby, the ice packs were likely being changed out for him at regular intervals.
Avin noticed them looking at the freezer and gestured for the three of them to step out of the room.
Once they were outside and the door was closed, Avin began to explain.
"Physical cooling is the most effective method of control, and it’s essential. If we don’t cool down the patient’s lungs and respiratory tract, their chest and lung temperature can reach nearly 45 degrees Celsius within three days, with signs of continuing to rise. I believe that’s how the first patient died in the middle of the night."
"And after the physical cooling?"
Avin forced a smile.
"I’d say I’m a competent doctor. With the physical cooling in place, we can use medication to alleviate the patient’s pain, and the burns in the respiratory tract and lungs show signs of self-healing."
"But there’s another problem. Even when they’ve healed to a certain point, if we stop the physical cooling, their chest and lung temperature starts to rise again. On top of that, the patients are constantly listless and weak."
To avoid any misunderstanding, Avin quickly added another explanation.
"It’s not the kind of decline in physical condition you’d expect after an illness. I’m talking about a level of weakness far beyond the norm. The lung and chest injuries themselves shouldn’t make it difficult to even lift a hand."
Josephine exchanged a look with her companions. Frowning, she peered through the window in the door at the "second patient" inside the room.
"Thank you for your cooperation, Dr. Avin. I imagine that starting tomorrow, you won’t be seeing any more patients like this sent to this hospital."
Avin looked at her.
"The CDC is taking over? But this disease isn’t contagious. Why would you give up the medical resources of a normal hospital?"
Josephine smiled. She looked at Avin.
"We have no intention of giving up the medical resources of a normal hospital. For instance, Dr. Avin, we need your help."
...
At that moment, the Nineteenth Division of the National Special Security Department was not yet aware of the small-scale outbreak of a special disease in Saint Louis. Or rather, it hadn’t yet reached a level that demanded their attention.
Besides their initial findings and monitoring the domestic situation, they were also paying close attention to the movements of the French.
As it turned out, those baguettes were truly useless. According to the intelligence sent back by Baru and the other spies, those guys hadn’t obtained any valuable information at all.
Instead, it was Baru who discovered an anomaly that had occurred in France. He covertly notified the French authorities, preventing some losses for France, and at the same time, sent back the intelligence on how the French handled the anomaly.
What was worrying was that this anomaly wasn’t one of the "conventional" ones previously discovered around the world, but a new, inexplicable type. The French authorities called it the "Death Illusion Barrier."
The inhabitants of half a small village had descended into a state of psychosis and began to be drawn to suicide. Several suicides occurred in a short period.
The French authorities’ method of handling it was simple: forcibly evacuate everyone from the village and then seal it off.
The evacuated people were treated with medication and returned to normal after 48 hours. They all told the authorities that they had been having nightmares for days. Some said there was a monster in the village, while others believed they had been poisoned.
The investigation revealed that there were no monsters and no toxins. As long as a person didn’t stay inside for more than six hours, they were completely fine. Furthermore, the time limit wasn’t cumulative; if one person came out after five hours, another person entering at that moment would still have a six-hour limit.
Since the area of effect didn’t seem to be expanding and there were no extreme reactions, the French authorities decided to "quarantine and study" it.
This was exactly what Norton was thinking about—this kind of difficult-to-handle case.
’If something like this happened in the United States, how should we handle it? The same way the French did?’
"BRRRRING~~ BRRRRING~~"
Just then, the phone on his desk happened to ring.
Norton was currently half-reclined, his feet propped up on his desk. He nudged the phone with his foot, and it landed precisely in his outstretched left hand.
"Hello, Sir! There might be a problem with the new type of ’lung fever’ discovered in a district in Saint Louis!"
’A new type of lung fever? What disease is that?’
"Be specific. Is it that the condition can’t be controlled, or is it contagious?"
For a new disease, those were basically the only two questions Norton could think of.
"No, the condition can be controlled, and they’ve found an effective method. And it’s not contagious..."
’FUCK! Are you kidding me?’
But his subordinate immediately added a clarification.
"But they can’t find the cause of this disease. It’s only occurring in the Bevo District, and the number of cases is trending upward. As for the patients’ condition, I’ve already sent the file to your email."
PS: Chapter 3/3.
Non-stop work calls all night, so tired. Should I watch the World Cup or not...