CHANGING OF THE GUARD

JULY 2009
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

        Colors.

        Lights.

        Bodies moving to the pulsing beats of techno and synth. Brian crossed the threshold between hot, visceral nightclub and hot desert air. He stepped into the smoky streets of Vegas, his companion in toe. She giggled drunkenly and slung herself against him.

        "Chloe, off!" he said, his command breaking away into a laugh.

        "No, no, no," she slurred, her normally pale face flushed. She ran her fingers through her long, silky hair. "Carry me back to the hotel."

        "Are you kidding?"

        "Nooooo," she whined. The sound of her heels clicked loudly against the cement. All around them, scantily dressed pedestrians, most of whom were under some sort of influence, flowed up and down The Strip. Brian did his best to weave his way around the ones he passed. Chloe struggled to match his pace. "Slow down!" she said.

        "Why don't you keep up?" he asked.

        "Soooooo rude," she slurred.

        It wasn't long before they'd arrived at the Bellagio fountains. It was still quite crowded around the viewing platform, but Brian managed to find a spot at the marble banister. The pillars of water currently jettisoning into the air were giving off a refreshing mist. It was nearly midnight. Probably one of the last shows of the evening, Brian thought. He leaned over the railing and stared down at his reflection in the water.

        It was like something out of a Picasso painting.

        "You good?" asked Chloe. She approached from behind him and rested her forehead on his shoulder. She moaned. "Man, we can't do this like we used to."

        Brian offered her a small smile, but without turning to face her, it went unseen. The truth was, despite the dancing and the drinking, he was not okay. He had not been able to "let loose," like Chloe had urged him. He was still thinking about his father.

        Chloe must have sensed this--she knew him so well. "He's gonna be okay," she said, now standing directly beside him. She looked out at the dancing waters.

        Brian nodded. "I know."

        "It was just a bit of fatigue from the heat."

        "Sure." Brian kept flashing back to the conference a few days ago. The pallor of his father's skin, the way he'd kept twitching. Even his colleagues had expressed their concerns. The multitude of men and women with whom Dr. Stevens had shaken hands and exchanged pleasantries -- following his presentation on astrobiology -- had yielded many a concerned face or puzzled look as the state of his health deteriorated.

        "I'm fine, really," Dr. Stevens had assured his son, but Brian had not been convinced.

        "You're going home and seeing your doctor," he said. After all, he knew he wouldn't be able to enjoy the rest of the conference with his father being unwell. Fortunately, there had been no argument. On the second day of the West Coast Medical Research Conference, Brian saw his father off and even though he'd received a message signaling a safe arrival and, two days later, a phone call from his father relaying that he was in "perfect health," Brian couldn't stop himself from worrying.

        "Good thing we're staying through the weekend," Chloe said, growing impatient with his moping in their hotel room. "We're going to the clubs."

        And now, here they were -- drunk and reeling, standing in front of the famous Bellagio fountains, and really, in no better spot mentally than before their many rounds of vodka shots and dance-floor escapades.

        "We can call him first-thing in the morning," Chloe said, leaning on him again.

        "I will." Brian nodded. 

        "We still got one more day. What do you wanna do tomorrow?"

        Brian shrugged. "Depends how we feel."

        "That's true." Chloe squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her head. After a moment, her eyes shot open again and she turned to him, expression bright. "Did you get that guy's number?"

        "What?"

        "That hottie who kept ogling you from the bar."

        Brian chuckled. "Ogling?"

        "Yes!"

        Brian shook his head. "No, I did not."

        "I saw him come up and talk to you."

        "Yeah, he did."

        "And...?"

        Brian sighed. "I...wasn't into him."

        Chloe tossed her head back and moaned. "Brian Stevens! He was gorgeous."

        Brian shrugged. "Looks aren't everything."

        Chloe tsked. "No man's ever going to be good enough." She placed her forearms on the banister and arched an eyebrow as she looked over at him.

        Brian felt a strike of heat flash across his face -- he couldn't tell if this was a result of his drunkenness, or some sort of emotional trigger. As he tried to sort this out, he started to say, "You know that's not true," but only managed to get a few words out before he was interrupted.

        A clamor of shouts erupted to their left. A few cuss words and surprised, angry protests. Brian and Chloe turned to see a few people engaged in what looked like a scuffle. A man in a suit fell back hard against the cement, another man climbing on top of him. 

        "That doesn't look good," said Chloe. "Probably drunk."

        Brian watched the men a moment longer. The man on the ground began to writhe and yelp as his attacker stuck his hands beneath his jacket. Then--laughter. The man on the ground was laughing and cussing and yelling. From this angle, it looked almost like...

        "What is he doing?" Chloe asked.

        "I don't know," answered Brian, though he had a pretty good idea. He had a...sense for what he was witnessing.

        Tickling. 

        Brian was almost 100% certain that he was witnessing a man tickling another man, in public. Now, Chloe was right -- it was most likely two drunk friends being stupid, but bearing witness to such a thing was not only bizarre, but so....so....

        Brian felt something react down below.

        "Get off of him!" a woman shouted, approaching the scuffle. Another man tried to get the attacker off of his victim, but this only caused said attacker to shout out wildly. He wretched the bystander from him and seemed to be overcome with some sort of fit. He started to shake and shout out.

        "C'mon," said Chloe, and Brian felt her hands close around his arm. "Let's...go."

        "S-sure," said Brian, eyes still locked on the spectacle. The sound of Chloe's concern, however, was strong enough to pull him away, and they began to make their way back to the hotel.

        "That was...weird," said Chloe once they were well out of the area.

        "Yeah, it was." Brian kept reliving the scene over and over in his head. 

        The city was still pulsing with life around them. He looked up into the sky, heavily diluted with lights, and his thoughts began to drift back to his father. Chloe began to talk about her grandmother coming to visit from Japan -- something for which she was excited -- and Brian did his best to sound interested and supportive, but his swimming head made it difficult to concentrate. Another five minutes passed before he found himself arriving at the station for the Deuce bus line. He and Chloe were still about twenty minutes from Mandalay Bay.

        "Ugh, I just can't wait to take a hot shower," said Chloe as soon as she spotted the next bus pulling up from the nearest intersection. Its backdrop was a wide avenue of headlights and taillights, billboards on either side, lush palm trees running down the middle. 

        "You're telling me," said Brian. As he watched the gray double-decker bus approaching at a speed than seemed a bit faster than normal, he frowned.

        "That's our line, right?" asked Chloe. The tone in her voice indicated that she noticed it too.

        "I think so."

        A few mumbles were stirred up among the other patrons waiting around them at the stop. The bus was not slowing down. And it looked like it was swerving a bit.

        "Is the driver drunk?" a woman asked from beside them.

        "Whoa! Get back!' shouted someone else. The bus was approaching the curb, its speed consistent.

        "Shit," said Brian and he pulled Chloe away from the street. 

        The bus continued on speeding past their stop and from within, Brian caught a flash of something strange--a scene of panic and shouting and terrorized faces. There seemed to be another scuffle happening from within the swerving bus--passengers on top of one another.

        What the hell...?

        Before Brian could fully process what he had just seen, the vehicle nicked the curb and veered violently to the right as if to over correct. People on the sidewalk gasped and shouted in surprise.

        "Watch out!" Chloe shouted, almost instinctively.

        Brian merely stood there, frozen and mouth agape, as the bus continued into the intersection, where it collided with another vehicle. There came the blast of a horn, the crunch of metal and the crackling of glass.

        More screams.

        "Oh my god!" Chloe shouted.

        Some people rushed towards the scene of the crash, while others rushed away. Brian belonged to the second camp. "Let's go," he said. He tugged at his friend again.

        "What if someone needs help?"

        "I-- I..." Brian's inebriated brain could not handle this. Not right now. His fear response was kicking in. Despite his medical training, he sensed that he needed to flee. His eyes traced the shifting tides of people around him, searching for the best route of escape, and that's when he came to see, for the first time, a sign of what was to come.

        Everything was about to change.

        Out from the wreckage of the bus stumbled a man. Skinny. Light-skinned. He was dressed for a night on the town--short sleeved polo, dark jeans, dress shoes. His wavy hair was wild. He was twitching and shaking, as if undergoing some sort of seizure. He fell onto the street, convulsing. A bystander--another man--ran over to assist him, as others approached the crash site. As soon as they made contact, the writhing man jumped up and tackled the man coming to his aid. They rolled around on the street and scuffled before Brian saw it again...

        The man who had stumbled from the bus--now with a twisted, maniacal smile on his face--began tickling the other man, hands plunging into his ribs. The man shouted in protest and yelped for help before he began laughing and spluttering.

        "Bri?" said Chloe. "Are you seeing this?" she whimpered. "What is--? What is happening?"

        Brian swallowed, his hand fumbling for hers. He readied himself to turn away, but there was something horrible and strange captivating him. "H-he's tickling him," he muttered.

PRESENT
november 2009
ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA

          Brian walked hastily down the hall, through the double doors at the end of the corridor, and out into the early morning. The sky was still dark, but it was tinged with the first signs of dawn. The winter air bit through his thin lab coat, the fabric of his dark slacks, and he shivered. He passed several chain-link cages with writhing human forms concealed within. As he stepped by each cage, he heard them -- the twisting groans and moans of the Infected.

        Grrrrraaaaaaaoorrrrrrr...

        Huurrrrraaaaaaggghh...

        Arrraacckkk!

        A particularly aggressive young woman slammed herself into the nearest wall of mesh beside him, but Brian gave her no satisfaction, no reaction. His brown dress shoes crunched against the worn asphalt beneath him as he pressed onward. A G.U.A.R.D. soldier saluted him as he approached the steps of the next building. He slipped his hands into his pockets as he ascended to the next set of doors, leaving the commotion of the afflicted behind him.

        "Dr. Stevens."

        "Hello, sir. Good morning."

        "We've got a few more rounded up. I'm sure you saw."

        "Did you hear about the latest batch of Sound Spheres from R&D? Expanded range."

        Brian left one storm of sounds for another -- various colleagues said things to him as he encountered them. He provided them with a few affirmations or nods as appropriate, but he did not stop. 

        Step.

        Step.

        Step.

        Step.

        He kept walking. He made it to the elevator where he called for the sublevel below him -- B1. It took only a moment for him to arrive at his destination. He stepped into a large room, adorned with drafting tables, laboratory equipment, and an assortment of glass containers. His eyes flashed to the far wall, where a withered map of the West Coast had been hung, crudely adorned with red thumbtacks and yarn.

        We're containing this thing. We are, he told himself, his eyes following the large black trail of yarn that ran up the state lines of California, Oregon, and Washington. The Line -- it pulled around the small blip of Vegas before tightening back up between Southern California and Arizona. Brian sighed. He thought of his father again -- his final images of him, but before the nightmarish scene could take hold, he cleared his throat, shook his head, and made his way over to his workstation, at which sat a small glass chamber. This chamber had an opening equipped with a rubber glove that allowed Brian to reach into it without, of course, breaking any seal. And, at the center of this little container was...

        ...IT.

        The organism responsible for all the madness. The mass of cells -- a growth about the size of a half-dollar coin -- looked like a little white blob of mold. Or maybe slime. A slime mold. It behaved as such, after all. An assemblage of individual microscopic organisms that, when bonded, formed a network, capable of growth and movement.

        Brian sighed. "We're going to figure you out," he whispered, the words barely audible under his labored breath. He stuck his hand, already protected with a blue latex glove, into the sleeve of the glass container, reaching toward the small mass at the center of the chamber. "We're close. I know it..."

        He wiggled his fingers, imitating a tickling movement. The collection of cells rippled and shuddered and then, almost imperceptibly, it moved towards Brian's hand. As he extended his index finger out to it, so too did the little mass of cells extend itself out to him. It pulsed and then shifted upward to form the tiniest of proto-appendages, which almost looked like a mushroom. A bulbous tip, a thin stalk.

        Something so small, doing so much damage... thought Brian with a quiet chuckle. As he watched the mass slowly latch onto the very tip of his gloved finger. It twisted and branched its way up to where his nail was concealed and remained there a moment.

        Still behaving predictably. That's good. Brian cleared his throat and removed his hand from the container. He slid over to a desk at the opposite wall and began consulting some notes.

        Sound wave response...

        Dormancy period...

        Regenerative properties... (similar to axolotl cells)...

        Brian reached forward and typed away at a few keys on his laptop. The blue light of the screen reflected images and information:

        ...titillatio monstrum brain infection...

     Brian preferred this to the other moniker assigned to the contagion, the one that invoked his family name: Stevens Pathogen.

        ...collection of single-celled microscopic organisms...collect to produce fruiting bodies in the form of a plasmodial mold that produces spores...

        ...shows parasitic properties...

        ...not 100% communicable...skin-to-skin contact as most viable means of transference. Once having breached the skin barrier on a human host, the cells hijack the nervous system to travel to the brain where it releases psychosis-inducing chemicals to induce behavioral changes that ultimately result in--

        There came a few sharp knocks at the laboratory door, the crack of a door, and then a familiar voice. "Bri?"

        Brian turned to the woman who had joined him. Chloe. Like him, she was wearing a long lab coat, and she was clutching a clipboard with some documents to her chest. The dim lighting made her look more pale than usual, contrasting sharply with her hair, eyebrows, and eyes. "The Ramirezes have returned. There was another...incident out on the field."

        Brian raised a brow. "Are they okay?"

        "Yes."

        "Good."

        "But they picked up a few civilians."

        "Okay."

        "One of them claims..." Chloe's voice drifted off. She thought a moment, then continued. "One of them claimed to have been studying the Infected. He was traveling with his infected brother."

        This piqued Brian's interest. "Is the garg in containment?"

        "No," she said. "Killed in an altercation when the Ramirezes encountered the civilians."

        Brian sighed, then stood. "What's the civilian's name? The one who was studying the Infected?"

        "We're not sure."

        "What?"

        "He's not talking. He seems to be in shock. Juliana's the one who relayed the information to me."

        "Ah." Brian sat himself down again. "Well, let me know if he comes out of it. I'd like to speak with him."

        Chloe hovered.

        Brian turned back to her. "Is...there something else?"

        "One more thing." She consulted the clipboard a moment. "Regarding one of the other civilians. We do know his name. An 'Andrew Adler'?"

        "Okay."

        "We tested all of them for infection before they were granted access to the medical bay."

        "Chloe, that's protocol." Brian was growing frustrated. "Why are you telling me this?"

        She took a hesitant breath, then stepped forward and handed him the clipboard. "There was...something a little unusual about his results that I think you should see."

        Brian took the notes in hand and surveyed the medical reports. His eyebrows lifted, and he felt a strange, familiar fluttering in his heart. Then, the tingling aftershock of a warning radiating around his underarm. He shook away the sensations, rolling his shoulder, then looked up at his colleague, his friend. "Huh. I mean, it could be nothing, right?"

        "Of course. Could be nothing," she repeated. "But...didn't you--er, don't you have similar reactions when..." Her voice trailed off. She locked eyes with him. There was something uncertain floating behind her gaze.

        Brian hesitated a moment, then sighed. "Where is he, Chloe?" he asked.​