Chapter 186

Chapter 186

Charlotte took two steps back, her legs turned to jelly.

Not from exhaustion, not from blood loss, but because for those entire thirty seconds, she had been pressing down on a lifeless body.

"X-ray's ready." The middle-aged military doctor repositioned the probe. "Frontal chest film."

The shutter clicked once, and the digital image appeared on the laptop screen.

The middle-aged military doctor peered at the screen for a full ten seconds.

"extensive infection in the middle and lower right lung." He pointed to a blurry white region on the image. "Here, the the right costophrenic angle is obliterated. There's fluid, not much, but—"

He zoomed in on a section of the image and frowned.

"We need to drain this with a needle aspiration." The female military doctor was already preparing the puncture kit. "Get it done."

Charlotte stood at the foot of the bed, her hand gripping the metal frame, knuckles strained white.

With the oxygen, Michael began breathing shallowly again. His eyelids trembled twice but didn't open.

The female military doctor disinfected a patch of skin on Michael's back with iodine, marking the puncture point.

The puncture needle was long. The moment the silver tip pierced between Michael's ribs, his body jerked involuntarily.

Charlotte's grip tightened further.

Fluid began flowing through the drainage tube—cloudy, streaked with pale yellow and gray. The middle-aged military doctor collected a small sample and held it up to the fluorescent light for several seconds.

His expression changed. "This isn't your typical bacterial infection."

He set down the test tube and looked at Charlotte. "It looks like some kind of culture medium that was intentionally introduced. This kid was used as a human guinea pig."

Charlotte remained silent. She stood at the foot of the bed, hands gripping the metal frame so tightly that the skin stretched white over her knuckles and the veins o the back of her hands began to bulge.

"What do you mean?" Elton spoke first.

The middle-aged military doctor drew another small sample of the murky fluid from the drainage tube and placed it on a portable microscope slide. He adjusted the focus and stared through the eyepiece for over ten seconds.

"There are residues of synthetic culture medium in here." His voice was very low. "And... fragments of some kind of incompletely inactivated pathogen."

He looked up, glancing at Michael, then at Charlotte. "This simply means that; the child's chest cavity was used as an incubator. Someone injected specific culture medium and pathogen precursors into his body, letting them evolve naturally in the human environment. Then they periodically extracted samples."

The basement went quiet for three seconds. In those three seconds, too many thoughts flashed through Charlotte's mind, too fast.

"That mutant toxin." Charlotte's voice scraped out from deep in her throat. "Which kind are you talking about?"

The middle-aged military doctor and the female military doctor exchanged glances.

"We will need a more sophisticated lab to confirm, but judging from the culture medium components..." He pointed to the microscope eyepiece. "This belongs to the same family as the toxin in that patient we treated before."

The previous patient... meaning Charles. So the testing ground for the biochemical toxin that nearly killed Charles on the cruise ship was Michael's body?

Charlotte released the metal frame. She walked to the stainless steel work table. Surgical instruments lay on the surface, next to the metal medicine cabinet with its glass door, behind which medicine bottles and gauze were neatly arranged.

She raised her right fist.

The sound of shattering glass exploded in the basement. Medicine bottles jumped off the shelves, and two rolled off and smashed on the floor.

The broken glass cut her hand, four gashes of varying depth. Blood immediately welled up, dripping from her fingers onto the cement floor.

Elton and the female military doctor both stepped back.

Charlotte stared at her bleeding hand. The words from that notebook were still spinning before her eyes.

[Left pinky finger fracture. Response: silent. Pain tolerance improved.]

A five-year-old child... breaking his finger, recording that he didn't cry, then writing "pain tolerance improved"?

[Recommend disposal.]

That assessment was like dealing with a broken machine.

Charlotte raised her right hand again. She wanted to smash things, smash anything, smash everything, smash this world, smash the skulls of those people who labeled Michael as "Subject 02" in their spreadsheets.

Two arms locked around her from behind, with considerable force, but not an attacking hold—it was the kind of restraint technique used by someone who'd seen too many breakdowns, locking the elbows but not the wrists, restricting large movements without causing joint damage.

Charles's chest pressed against her back. He was running a fever, his body temperature seeping through their clothes, abnormally hot.

"He's still alive."

Charles's voice was right by her ear, hoarse, with the breathiness caused by high fever.

"Right now, you need to keep him alive, not go get yourself killed."

Charlotte's body went rigid. Her chest heaved violently, air scraping through her windpipe like blades.

She knew Charles was right. She knew that smashing up the entire clinic wouldn't change the damned culture medium residue in Michael's body. She knew she should stay calm.

But she couldn't stay calm after seeing those records.

"Let go."

"No."

"Charles."

"I'm here."

"I said let go."

"I said no."

Charlotte struggled once. Charles wasn't holding her very tightly.

He couldn't exert much force right now. But his arms were like two iron hoops, steadily circling the outside of her elbow joints, using leverage rather than brute strength.

She could break free. With her skills, breaking free from a feverish man with an injured left shoulder wouldn't take two seconds.

But she didn't move. Charles's chin rested on her shoulder. His breathing was rough and burning hot, spraying against the skin on the side of her neck.

He was burning her with his body heat. Those emotions that had surged to their peak seemed doused with cold water in that abnormal heat. Not extinguished, but pushed down. Pushed into the cracks between her bones.

Charlotte stopped struggling. Her shoulders slumped, her breathing changing from rapid to deep, long rises and falls.

After four breaths.

"Let go." She said it for the third time.

This time her voice was different. No trembling, no gritted teeth.

Charles's arms released her.

Charlotte turned and walked toward the middle-aged military doctor.

Her steps were steady now, and the emotion in her eyes had settled. "What's the detox protocol?"

"Need to get back to Emerald City's military hospital." The middle-aged military doctor answered seriously. "The conditions here can't handle plasma exchange and targeted drug therapy, but the priority is controlling the lung infection and stabilizing him first."

"How long?"

"Controlling the infection requires at least forty-eight to seventy-two hours of IV antibiotics. His body is too weak, we can't use too strong a dosage or his liver and kidneys will give out first."