Pathogenesis: Anatomy of a Plague
Chapter 4
Anatomy of a Plague
©Searska GreyRaven
_This is part of a rather lengthy series. It has heavy dark, horror elements later on. If you aren't a fan of the sci-fi horror genre, move along. If you are under 18 or you shouldn't be looking at this sort of thing, move along. If you have objections to graphic violence and adult themes, move along.
If, however, you love the idea of tentacles, alien parasites, vore, mind control, transformation, and hard-core weirdness...Let me introduce to you -- Pathogenesis!_
(This part includes plot development, dissection, medical procedures, and gore.)
Chira ran her paint brush along the edge of her ship's wing and leaned back on her ladder. She propped her wings on her hips and crossed her arms over her chest before nodding to herself. Aurus had finished the repairs to her ship, but before she had a chance to properly thank him, an alarm sounded and he vanished. That had been yesterday, and she still hadn't seen him, so she took the liberty of repainting her ship herself.
"Probably still fixing the other ship." Chira murmured. She added a few touch-ups to the wing before finally jumping down from the ladder. Chira gave her body a good stretch, enjoying the open space to flex her wings. Bats, even though they slept in confined places, where still winged beings at heart and the lack of space made her edgy.
"Chira!" Logan called from outside the ship's stall. Chira turned and smiled. Logan was a lean raccoon, the head of engineering at the Rasi base, and quickly becoming a close friend of hers. Chira flicked her ears, sending the many metal earrings jingling.
"Logan! Just in time! How does it look? Is the paint even?" she asked. Logan paused and stepped back, eyeing both wings critically.
"Looks good!" He replied, giving her a thumbs up. "Have you seen Aurus?"
Chira cocked her head to the side. "Not since that alarm yesterday. Is something wrong?"
"He didn't come in this morning. He's never late, not even by a few minutes. For him to not show up is...concerning." Logan said, scratching one pointed ear with a black-furred paw.
"Have you checked out the new arrival?" Chira asked. She pressed the lid back on the can of paint and turned to leave the stall.
"Yes, and it doesn't even look like it was touched. It's a mess. Aurus wouldn't leave a ship like that. There's no registration, no ID number, nothing. That ship's a ghost. About all I know is that it's a linsang. And it gets weirder." Logan said, following her out of the stall. Chira replaced the paint on the shelf where she found it and turned to regard Logan.
He looked around, as if making sure he couldn't be overheard. "The linsang captain was supposedly taken into the med center shortly after landing, but she's missing. Her room looked like there had been a fight. All the staff could find were scraps of red and white fur, and a few drops of a clear liquid they can't identify." Logan whispered. Chira looked at him.
"Have the med staff been able to tell you more about the bodies in the morgue?" Chira asked.
"The doctor did an autopsy on one of the bodies. I can tell you what he found, but if you've got the stomach for it, it may be best if I showed you." Logan said. "It's just too bizarre to explain."
Chira nodded. "Show me. The sooner I can get an actual report, the sooner I can send word to my clan about this."
She followed Logan into the medical center, and the pair made their way back to the morgue. After donning smocks and masks, Logan knocked on the door into the isolation chamber.
"Who is it?" came a male voice from a nearby speaker. Logan pressed the com button.
"Logan and Chira. Can you buzz us in?" Logan asked.
"One moment." Came the reply. Suddenly, the door made an electronic buzzing sound and Logan opened the door. Standing over one of the three bodies was a rather large raccoon. The black fur on his face had begun to grey, but his eyes were still bright and alert.
"Logan! Good to see you again. Have they found Aurus yet? I hear Kez is quite upset about the whole thing. Blames himself." He said.
"No, no sign of him. I'll talk to Kez about it later. Lev, this is Chira, the bat I told you about?" Logan said, introducing Chira. Lev nodded.
"I'd shake, but, well..." Lev motioned with his paws. The latex gloves were covered in blood.
"That's alright. Lev?" Chira raised an eyebrow.
"It's short for Levander." Lev said with a sly grin. "Never liked that name. Too difficult to say quickly. And any time my mother wanted my attention, she used my full name. Led me to adopt a shorter, easier to remember nickname. But I'm certain you didn't come here to chat! Let me show you what I've found here. Fascinating, truly fascinating." Lev said, almost too cheerfully.
"Lev, could you tone it down a bit? Not everyone is as enthusiastic about death as you are." Logan said. Lev paused and looked at Logan, then at Chira. He chuckled.
"My apologies. It's just that I seldom ever see anything this exciting." Lev said. "This is one of the most brilliant parasites I've ever seen. Almost perfect." Lev motioned for Logan and Chira to step closer. When Chira hesitated, Lev smiled like an indulgent grandfather.
"Relax, child, it's quite dead. What a scene that was, I assure you! I was terrified that this creature didn't die with its host, but it does. It appears the parasite needs the warm, living body of its host to survive. When the host dies, so does the parasite." Lev said. Chira approached the body warily. Body, not a person, a body, Chira thought.
Lev had opened up one of the canine bodies, the female. She had been a wolf in life, as black as shadow. Chira was no doctor, but even she could see that something was very wrong. Lev had started with a Y incision and pried open her ribcage. The wolf's internal organs were encased in a mesh of bulging veins. The twisted, mutated tendrils had wormed through flesh and bone, until they had invaded nearly every part of the she-wolf's body. It seemed only her heart had been left untouched, though the large arteries and veins nearby were not.
"These things," Lev said, pointing to the veins, "Are actually closer to roots than veins, despite their look. I imagine they steal nutrients from the host to fuel the parasite. Smart critter, it leaves the heart untouched."
"Why not take the heart as well?" Logan asked, peering into the open cavity.
"A parasite wants to keep its host alive long enough for the parasite to reproduce. These roots are rather rigid and would probably disrupt the heart's natural rhythm. You'll notice that the thicker roots are here, at the core of the body. They all merge here," Lev reached into the canine's guts and rummaged around (making Logan turn a little green) until he exposed the wolf's uterus. He hefted it gently in his hand, making the entire body twitch. Logan jumped back.
"Relax! It's these roots! They are connected to everything. You can even see a few buried into the spine from here. Absolutely fascinating." Lev said. Chira swallowed.
"So...why is it in her uterus?" she asked, her voice betraying her calm demeanor.
"This is where my knowledge ends. All I have are theories. From my examination of both the male wolf and this female, I have to guess that it needs the mammalian reproductive system to, itself, reproduce. In the female, it simply takes up residence in her womb and begins producing eggs." Lev peeled back and opened the uterus for Logan and Chira. Inside the canine's womb was a lump of opaque jelly the size of Chira's fist. Several tendrils branched off of the lump and passed outside the womb. Lev pointed with his scalpel.
"This," he said, "is where things get truly interesting. According to my blood work, this parasite creates a hormone that puts the female host into heat. This little tentacle-like thing pops out of the cervix. This little tentacle is quite fascinating. It gathers a male's semen, and uses it to tailor the egg to a specific species. It then saves the leftovers and fertilizes other eggs with it. I found three different genetic variations inside this one."
"That means it can choose which egg to infect the host with." Logan said.
"Precisely. It can even keep them in a sort of suspended animation until a suitable host is found. Which, if my theory is correct, is just about any mammal." Lev said grimly.
"Any mammal?" Chira echoed.
"Possibly anything warm-blooded, but I can't be certain. But this parasite needs a warm body to incubate and survive in. I doubt it would be able to infect a reptile or amphibian. I can only guess about the avians, since they are also warm-blooded. Why do you ask?" Lev looked at Chira.
"Because the other clans have to be warned." She replied.
"I think, perhaps, you'd want to hold off on that for a bit. There's something else I think you need to see." Lev said. He pulled off his gloves with a rubbery snap and dropped them in a biohazard container. Lev opened one of the morgue storage containers and unzipped the body bag inside. His breath fogged the air around his nose, and frost crystals began to form on his whiskers.
"This," Lev said, "was a squid. It was on the same ship as the three infected furs." Lev paused, waiting for the information to sink in.
"The squids are helping the parasites." Chira said quietly. Logan paled and looked at Lev.
"Very clever. What makes you say that?" Lev asked, raising a bushy eyebrow.
"Because this parasite is too advanced for a squid. Probably too advanced even for a dragon. The squids could transport them, even allow them to infect their prisoners of war, but there's no way a squid could have created this." Chira explained.
"Good girl! You've figured it out! Now, the question is, how did the squids make contact with this parasite?" Lev shook his head. "I've checked and cross-checked all the archives at my disposal, and I can't find a single reference to this parasite. If there are more of them, I wouldn't even know where to begin to treat it." Lev zipped up the squid and put the body back into its freezer. "And my best guess would be that, after the first hour, there's no way to safely reverse the process. These three had been infected for a number of weeks, possibly months, but the damage the parasite did in that short time..." Lev shook his head. "Those roots aren't just wrapped around the veins. They're wrapped around the host's nerves. It's done in such a fashion that it won't hurt the host, but they become, for all intents and purposes, a biological zombie. Completely at the mercy of the parasite." Lev made a sweeping motion with his paw.
"Well, doc, what do you suggest we do?" Logan said.
"You know, I hate it when you call me that." Lev said, giving Logan a wry look. "I suggest you figure out where the squids found this thing, and how to send it back to where it came from. The Council is all but useless these days, and we're too far out on the Rim to get help any time soon. There are only two, just two, clans that may have information about this parasite: the saurians and the dragons." Lev said. "Of the two, I suggest you start with the dragons. Most of the saurian species tend to be either very xenophobic or play more political games than the entire population of primate clans put together. Not to mention a fair few are openly hostile to all but their own kind."
"We'll start with the dragons, and hope for the best then." Logan said, looking at Chira for confirmation.
Chira wasn't listening. She was staring off, her brow furrowed.
"Chira?" Logan asked, waving his paw in front of her nose. Chira flinched, blinked, and drew back, wrinkling her nose.
"I just thought about something." She said. "Aurus." Chira looked at Logan. He looked at her blankly.
"What about Aurus?" he asked.
"What if the captain of that ship was infected? You said yourself that it had no registration, no ID number. What if Aurus..." Chira's voice trailed off. She swallowed back the words, as if to say it would make them true. Logan paled.
"You believe Aurus may have come in contact with someone who was infected?" Lev asked, looking concerned.
"We don't know anything for certain." Logan said. "But it's possible."
"Then we should be careful. I don't know how much of the original personality survives this change. If you do see him again, I want you to call for a quarantine immediately. If he's not infected, we can always apologize later." Lev said. "But I don't want you taking any chances. Don't hesitate, I mean it. I don't want to be doing a post-mortem on either of you." Lev said, shaking his finger at the two. "And I don't even need to mention the possibility of a mass-outbreak." Logan and Chira nodded gravely.
"Now, let's see about getting you some star charts." Lev said. "I'm sure someone around here still knows how to get to draconian space."