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Dr. Luke Gillespie had been given his orders by the hospital administration and the provincial Minister of Health: Trace the disease back to its origins and keep victims of Wormwood from giving it to anyone else.

“Wormwood?” he said out loud. “Great, now even I am calling it that,” he said to himself. He had submitted blood samples from all four victims to the lab so they could be tested for poison. He wanted to make sure these victims were not being targeted by some sick serial killer. He needed to find the similarities. Luke knew it was the only way to truly find out what this disease was and how it had been transmitted.

Nationally, the federal Department of Health finally started tracking the disease. They committed to creating a database that listed each case and its particulars, such as province, victim’s sex, occupation, blood type, other diseases, known criminal activity, etc. First rule of order was to determine if each patient had Wormwood and not something else.

Luke would now be working with a national team of infectious disease experts. Once they were able to find the origins, then they would be able to stop or at least contain the disease. When all information was combined, they would hopefully get a better understanding on how it was spreading. Now that the federal government was backing them, there would be money to assign research studies, put out warnings to potential victims, and stop false information from spreading to the public and the media.

I don’t understand why the federal Department of Health had this information for a year or more and did nothing with it, Luke pondered.

One thing all involved agreed on was this disease, whatever it is, didn’t discriminate. It didn’t matter who the victim was, what province they were from or ethnic background, whether they were rich or poor. Luke was happy the national group was in charge of finding out if it was a virus that was causing the disease to spread. Everyone feared a pandemic.

He put together a medical form for doctors and nurses to use when dealing with any patient who had the Wormwood symptoms. He had to find out who the patient had contact with, when they got sick, and where they were when the first symptoms appeared.

Once doctors across the country had their facts together and shared into a national database, they would start getting answers and create a plan. The number one mystery was, How are people getting infected? Once they had an answer to that, they would be able to control the spread of the disease. Everyone involved knew this was not going to be solved overnight.

Each province was required to send weekly reports to the federal Minister of Health, and his office would compile a monthly report for the medical community and update the media with any new information. The minister would be the keeper of all information concerning Wormwood, and his office alone would decide who would know what and when they would know it. Rumours were spreading faster than the disease, and the government needed to keep on top of it.

Mrs. Furey had issued gloves, masks, and protective gowns to all staff who were to have contact with patients who showed signs of Wormwood. She had directed her informatics department to install whatever was needed on their computers so Luke’s team could stay in contact with teams across the country.

The team was already interviewing patients, looking through their hospital records, and talking to their families. Several team members were assigned to go back through historical files to look for the symptoms in past patients or deceased patients. Blood and other bodily fluids had been taken and sent to labs and were waiting to be analyzed. Eventually the puzzle would start to come together.

The national team did have one breakthrough: the disease was not contagious. There was no fear of catching it through accidentally touching blood or body fluids or by touching a person affected in any way.

Mrs. Furey would oversee the hospital’s response to the crisis and coordinate the efforts of all other hospitals in the province. Luke would remain the spokesperson.

Questions and requests for interviews came in daily from the media to the hospital’s public affairs office. There were no answers to give them, but Luke did his best to make at least one weekly appearance at a media outlet. Although it was eating up his valuable research time, he knew people wanted to know what was happening. Everywhere he went, it was all anyone spoke about. People were getting sick and dying. People didn’t really understand how it was being spread, but that didn’t stop them from spreading rumours. Every doctor involved knew they had to make quick progress with this mysterious illness.

He put the finishing touches on his weekly report to the federal Minister of Health and emailed it to Mrs. Furey for final review. Once she had given it her seal of approval, she emailed the encrypted report to the federal Minister of Health.

* * * * *

The report landed directly in the inbox of Minister Ronald McKenzie. He was anxious to read its contents and opened the message with great anticipation. This Dr. Luke Gillespie seems to know what he’s doing. Maybe a little too much.

McKenzie knew he had to slow down the progress of this research. He would have to consult the network to find out how to derail a medical and police investigation all at once. This wasn’t going to be easy. He put the report in a secret folder he hid on his computer from his assistant and secretary. He would have to put a stop to all of this. The network demanded it. They had threatened to release certain information and pictures concerning his digressions.

Minister Ronald McKenzie wondered how he would do this discreetly. He felt something hit his chest. Looking down, he saw a deep red bloodstain on the front of his white shirt. He quickly reached for his box of tissues and grabbed a bunch, putting them to his nose. Lately, the blood was thicker and darker than ever. My God, I am so thirsty, he thought to himself.