The Center: Patient Zero -Part 4 by: Starbuck In the language of epidemiology, patients are numbered sequentially. Once an epidemic goes public it is patient one who gets the news coverage or journal articles written about them. What is less known is that there are unrecognized patients who predate the first acknowledged case. Sometimes these people are carriers, like Typhoid Mary, but oftentimes they are merely the unsung victims who's stories are not tied into the whole until long after the papers are written. Jesse Lee was such a person, this is his story. Story is a prequel to and is set in Lilith Langtree's 'The Center' universe.

Chapter Four

Jesse struggled to wake up.

Normally, he would have been the first one bouncing out of bed, but thoughts of what now faced him in the mirror made him want to stay asleep, praying that what his mind and body were telling him were part of some weird nightmare. Unfortunately, that option was ripped away from the new Jesse by a stabbing pain in her stomach. In a sharp motion, she curled around her belly, the sudden movement eliciting an anguished moan. Moments later, the fluorescent lights snapped on as the duty nurse swept through the door.

“Easy honey,” the nurse said as she lay a hand on Jesse's shoulder. “Cramps?”

The teenager could only moan and nod as another wave of pain radiated outward from her stomach. Her breathing becoming short and her vision beginning to blur.

“Shhh. Try to lay back down slowly. Stretch the muscles gently.” As the girl slowly relaxed, the nurse took a moment to lean out the door and wave to the duty desk for Doctor Langdon to be paged.

Returning to her patient, the nurse began gently rubbing her stomach, feeling the knots in the muscles below her ribcage and gently encouraging them to release. The doctor arrived moments later as the girl was finally able to melt back into the thin mattress of the hospital bed. A peaceful respite that was soon broken by a moment of total mortification as her stomach loudly grumbled and groaned.

Skin bright red and eyes wide, her focus shifted from the equally wide eyes of nurse to the doctor and back again. After five eternal seconds the nurse snorted, then snickered. The unexpected mirth soon infected Jesse who began to giggle, then laugh out loud. Unfortunately, the spasms of laughter soon began to affect the still twitchy muscles of her stomach and the hunger cramps returned with a vengeance.

As the nurse once more eased the teen's knotted muscles Doctor Langdon turned to the telephone and placed a quick call to the hospital cafeteria. Returning to her bedside, he held her left hand.

“Hindsight's 20/20 Jesse,” the doctor apologized. “I should have realized that the change your body has undergone would require tremendous reserves of energy. Energy that must be replaced. I have the cafeteria bringing up a tray of sandwiches. Just try to lie still until they get here.”

Jesse merely nodded as her stomach complained loudly at the delay.

Lieutenant Harris pulled the gray Suburban to a stop in in the driveway of the V.I.P. Guest quarters. Pocketing the keys he took a moment to adjust his cover in the mirror then check his watch before stepping out on to the pavement. With near-perfect timing, the black SUV with the Lee's on-board moved through the blue of the mercury vapor streetlights and pulled in behind Harris' vehicle.

Stepping to the door behind the driver, he depressed the latch, took a half-step back and came to attention. “Mrs. Lee, welcome to Fort Bragg. It is well after visiting hours, but as soon as we have you settled into temporary quarters, I'm to escort the three of you to Womack to visit with y... with Jesse.”

Covering his faux-pax with with a smile, he held out an arm to assist the travel-weary mother from the truck.

“Harris! How.” The three hour ride had not helped John's anger with the situation any.

“Helicopter. Been back on the ground barely long enough to change uniforms and fetch your transportation from the motor-pool.”

“Transportation?”

Harris casually waved toward the gray wagon. “As the doctor explained. Until we know what caused Jesse's illness, everything is suspect. We are providing you with this vehicle until yours are either cleared or replaced.”

He ascended the steps to the small porch that marked the entrance to the building. “We've assigned you temporarily to V.I.P. Guest quarters. As you can see, they are built on a duplex plan. Currently the other half is not occupied so you should have no troubles with noisy neighbors while you adjust to the change.”

Mildly ravenous, Jess polished off the golden delicious apple core in his right hand and tore into the fourth hoagie.

“Hello, cafeteria? … This is Doctor Landon up on five. Yes, could you have another half-dozen sandwiches and a bowl of fruit sent up to room 515? Thanks.”

Jess mumbled her thanks around the mouthful of bread, cheese and meat she was chewing.

“You're welcome.” The doctor responded to the semi-articulate grunt. “I'd hate for you to go cannibal on your family. They'll be here in an hour.”

The nurse shot a look over at the grinning doctor. “Hey, what about me! We're state-side. The nursing staff doesn't get hazard pay!”

Completely missing the nurse's repartee, Jess forced a swallow. “Family?!? Here!?”

Langdon nodded.

“A..and they know... about... about...” Unable to articulate words for what had happened, the girl in the bed waved her hands from her chest to her hips and back. “This.”

The hum from earlier re-lit in the back of her head as the varied permutations she'd run sprang back into flux. Rapidly her brain categorized the potentials and eliminated all the ones where her parents didn't know about her change before they entered the room. Having done so she rifled through the possible outcomes, fearing what she knew wasn't there. By not being able to control how her father found out about her condition, the probabilities of her father accepting her as she now was had become zero.

She came out of her catatonic state to the blinding flash of the doctor's pen-light in her eyes. Blinking furiously, the girl shook her head, trying to rid her vision of the drifting blue-green smear. Visions of Jesse's lost relationship with her father swam behind the glow.

Suddenly, her body stiffened. She saw her father, in hunting gear carrying a rifle. In her vision, he was screaming incoherently at her, anger coloring his face.

She could feel her own anger welling inside of her. The vision snapped and jumped and they were at a strange house, she was throwing clothes in a bag while her father screamed in another room. She kissed the top of her sister's head and turned toward the door. Rage and sadness suffused her.

She paused for the briefest of moments, then walked through the open door.

“Jesse?” There was a sharp snap of fingers by her left ear. “Hello Jesse, are you with us?”

Doctor Langdon's voice cut through her mental fog and she nodded slowly.

“You weren't here for a bit there. Can you tell me what happened?”

“I...I'm not sure?” She took a deep breath. “I think...”

The click of the door opening and Lieutenant Harris' voice interrupted her train of thought. “And 515, here we are.”
Her father stepped through the door first, carrying the tray of sandwiches they'd liberated from the orderly who had been about to enter. “Hiya Sport. How ya... feel..ing.” Jesse's father's eyes landed on the distinct curves that lay, barely hidden, beneath the sheet.

“Oh hell.”

“Cellarage under the stage. Bardo! I win!!!” Anita crowed her way into the room.

“Not now Nit,” the girl on the bed growled.

“Hey, only Jesse calls me Nit,” the younger girl pouted, then blinked. “Jesse?”

John stood frozen, the tray of sandwiches in front of him like some weird restaurant display. He knew what McCoy and Harris had told him happened, but seeing his son... A white-hot haze descended over his brain and he remembered nothing else until he found himself sitting on a bench across the parking lot from the hospital's main entrance.

Melissa was about to scold Anita for being insensitive to what Jesse was going through when her new daughter's growl was echoed by the man standing beside her. Out of reflex, she caught the tray of sandwiches as it was shoved towards her. Rage swept from the room and she could hear the cursing in the hallway begin just as the door swung shut.

She was torn, but only briefly, by the need to chase after her husband of 18 years, knowing that she was best suited to soothe the roaring beast within him. But then she turned and looked at the young woman laying on the bed. The girl had rapidly grown as pale as the sheet by which she was covered. She watched as the girl's lower lip began to quiver and her eyes began to glisten.

With a heart-wrenching sob one word escaped the girl's mouth. “Dad.”

The pain and anguish enunciated in those three little letters erased all thought of chasing down the thing that had stormed out of the room. Her husband could take care of himself, for now, Melissa's child, her first-born, her Jesse needed her far more.

Somehow Anita ended up holding the tray of sandwiches as a sob broke from Melissa's throat and she wrapped herself around the girl in the bed.

“Shh Jess. Mommy's here.”

The dark air was almost still, with only the occasional breeze to move the humid blanket that lay over the base. To the southeast towering clouds blotted out the stars, randomly backlit by the silent flash of lightning. The thunder swallowed by the intervening distance of moisture-laden air. Wan light washed out to the bench that sat beneath a tree bordering the parking lot, dimly illuminating the man slouched on the wooden slats. A pair of security guards stood in the pool of light gathered in front of the hospital, keeping a wary eye on the man.

The door opened and another man, this one wearing the white smock of a doctor, stepped through. Pausing briefly, he scanned the parking lot then walked casually across, taking a seat at the opposite end of the bench. He fumbled briefly at a pocket inside the white lab-coat, pulling out a pack of Marlboro's. Digging in his pant's pocket, the doctor slipped a silver lighter out. Tamping a cigarette free of the pack he grabbed it between his teeth, pulling it out. The metallic click of the cap opening was followed by the snick of the wheel being spun. The sweet smell of burning lighter fluid followed by lit tobacco drifted to the opposite end of the bench.

“Aren't you doctor's always on the public's back to drop that habit?” John grumbled.

McCoy snorted. “I have bigger fish to fry.” He held the cigarette up. “This. This keeps me sane.”

“Bigger fish...” John trailed off.

“Like what happened to Jesse.” Joshua waved toward a lit window on the hospital's fifth floor. “I give you a seven out of ten.”

“Huh?” The older man looked over at the young doctor. “What?”

“Seven out of ten. If what happened to Jesse happened to my son, I wouldn't have just yelled, screamed and cursed my way out of the building.” McCoy pulled out the Marlboro pack. “Cigarette?”

Reaching out, John plucked one from the pack and stuck it in his mouth. “I shouldn't be doing this,” he mumbled as McCoy flicked the lighter and lit it for him. After a slow drag on it he began coughing.

“Easy John.”

“Been a while. I quit cold turkey when Jesse brought home his fifth grade health book. You know, the one with the picture of the black 'smoker's lung' in it. Haven't even looked at a cigarette since, until tonight.”

McCoy took a long pull on the cigarette then let it out slowly as he watched the lightning play across the distant clouds, the occasional low grumble beginning to reach his ears. “Thing is, this stress, figuring out the mystery of what happened to your son. This is what I live for. But I'll tell you something really, really important.”

John leaned back on the bench while McCoy paused to finish off the cigarette and stamp it out on the concrete.

“As much as I hated being the one to tell you what happened this afternoon, there is one thing about that meeting that made the whole thing far more bearable. Your son is still alive, Mr. Lee. He may be a drop dead gorgeous girl now, but dammit Jesse is alive. Ninety percent of the families I interview don't have that.”

McCoy got up and walked across the parking lot and through the hospital doors without looking back. Behind him John dropped the cigarette on the sidewalk and curled over his knees, tears flowing down his cheeks as the gathering storm grew closer.

Third Interlude:
Penthouse- Carson Tower- New York City

Jason Carson stood on the balcony overlooking Central Park. Bill Gates could have Seattle with is grunge rock and all that rain. New York was the center of power in the world for up and coming companies and no company was as up and coming as Carson Software. Where else could you rub shoulders with more of the real movers and shakers in industry. Only five years after leaving Seattle to strike out on his own and Carson Software was already the first choice for hundreds of different industrial and business applications.

Carson Software was an ostentatious success and its Chairman/CEO was a flamboyant figure making the world of computer programming hip and cool. He stepped back from the rail, draining the last sip of scotch from his glass. Setting the glass on the mahogany bar, he closed the balcony door.

The quiet ding of the elevator arriving drew him to the entrance foyer. With a glance at his watch he reached for the door.

“Right on time My Love,” he greeted his wife as she stepped through the open door. Her chauffeur and her bodyguard each lugging suitcases and shopping packages behind her.

“So Emilie, how was the shoot?”

Emilie Dupreche ne Carson smiled at her husband of just over a year. Her soft, Parisian accent sending a shiver down his spine. “Tiring.” Reaching in the cooler under the bar she pulled out a cold bottle of water.

Strolling over to her, he lifted her flowing locks free of her right ear and nibbled at it. “Ah, perhaps ze Hope Springz zhpokesmodel...” he kissed her neck... “is too tired for mi amore?”

Turning in his arms, she leaned in to press her lips against his. “Your faux accent is atrocious, Mon cher...” Her voice faded to a quiet whipser. “Je veux un petit garçon.”

“Yes, my love.” He mumbled as she pulled him into the bedroom.