Day 6 (12 Days of Trauma Center)

6. GUILT or Stigma with holiday designs


“You see,” Tyler didn’t stop sketching as he replied, “GUILT has become a boogeyman. We shouldn’t be taking it so seriously.”

“Just what do you mean, exactly?” Doctor Myers spoke up. “You don’t suggest we neglect the threat?”

He put the pencil down and turned to face them. “Of course not. But think about it. GUILT has mostly been confined to one continent. It’s not airborne – low infectiveness, in fact. Most cases of it have been caused by medical terrorism, and Caduceus did an awesome job containing them. But the public is more scared of it than reasonable. And so are we, by the way.”

“It’s nothing like any disease that we’ve ever faced, though.” Leslie wasn’t quite seeing what this had to do with his drawing. “Before Doctor Stiles came along, we had no idea how to fight it.”

“It’s not that simple.” Tyler was silent for a while – thinking of Amy, probably. “Derek’s good. Real good. But he did what our researchers already had in mind. And we had other doctors replicating his techniques after some training. We haven’t had a new outbreak in a month, only isolated cases. So, why’d you think everyone’s still treating it like the bubonic plague?”

“It might as well be.” Cybil shrugged, then took of her glasses, biting down on the earpiece lightly as she kept thinking out loud. “Nobody knew what caused it or how to stop it, and we’re still debating on its exact nature. A virus that becomes a parasite; that’s terrifying enough.”

To Leslie’s surprise, though, Tyler grinned at these words.

“Yeah, exactly! Terrifying. That’s the intended purpose, dude… uh, ma’am…”

“I don’t mind. Go on.”

“It was created for terror. All that movement and cellular duplication – you know how much ATP that takes up, right? Not to mention that it requires D-amino acids… Well, as Victor said, there are more efficient ways to kill people. His words, not mine.”

“Can’t GUILT kill within minutes, though?” Leslie asked carefully.

“During a surgery, yeah,” his voice was more somber now. “Otherwise, with some strains a patient might hang on for several years – ah, why am I explaining, we all know it.” He sighed. “Anyway, where I was getting at is that it’s demoralizing because it was created to be. And something needs to be done about this fear. Otherwise, Delphi has achieved one of its goals.”

“They’ll forget all about it soon.” Cybil put her glasses back on, pushing then up on the bridge of her nose. “Just wait, in a couple years it will be a thing of the past.”

“I sure wish that. We gotta cope in the meantime, though, right?” Tyler picked his pencil up again. “No good will come out of being scared like that. GUILT is a boggart, and you know how you deal with these.”

“I don’t think GUILT can be funny…” Leslie mused, but Cybil shook her head:

“It’s human nature to make light of things. In my days on the force, we used to make some pretty gruesome quips, as a coping mechanism. I don’t think I’m ready to joke about the epidemic yet…” she paused. Her hand rested on her abdomen for a moment – where Leslie knew the scar from the Paraskevi extraction was. “But, Tyler, you’re free to, if that can lift the spirits on the holidays.”

Tyler flashed a thumbs-up without a break in sketching. “You got this. Have you seen that publication from Caduceus Europe, by the way? They’ve got these drawings of all the strains. Pretty useful, like Gray’s anatomy, but it makes them look real weird. Never thought Deftera could resemble a pair of goldfish.”

That actually made Leslie laugh a little – and stop herself hastily. “Can I ask what you’re working on, doctor Chase?”

“Sure. Speaking of goldfish and holiday spirits…” Tyler held his drawing up proudly.

A pair of Deftera – no, a pair of goldfish-like creatures that unmistakably were Deftera. They were holding fins, and they wore Santa hats. “Happy holidays!” was written above.

“Should I hang that in the staff room? Or is it too soon?”

“Better yet,” Cybil looked at the paper skeptically, “send it to Derek. He’ll appreciate it.”