Destined | Christopher Pike

Chapter Forty

"W-We need to do something." Emma's voice shook just as much as her body.

She had just been exposed to a biohazard that had the potential to kill her. She was quite literally looking death in the face and she had no idea what to do. For a moment she thought Clyde was going to pass out. He didn't say anything. He just stood by the door and stared at Millicent's now dead body.

"R-Right. We need to...um, we need to isolate the pollen. We need to see if we were exposed." Clyde told her while briskly walking to the computer. He glanced again down at Millicent and swallowed thickly. "Find something to cover her up with. Please."

Emma did as she was told. She managed to find an emergency blanket in the med kit and covered the body with it. Clyde was right. They needed to figure out if the two of them had been exposed. Millicent had been the one who got directly sprayed by the pollen. Clyde was only six feet from her while Emma had been at least fifteen. She hoped the odds were in their favor. The sterilization mist had begun to spray steadily and she could feel a headache forming. She didn't know if it was from the potential exposure, mist or stress.

Her fears grew worse when she realized that Clyde had started to show the same symptoms that Millicent did; the cough, the sweating, the mental confusion. He tried to ignore it and not let Emma see, but she still did. It had only been fifteen minutes since the whole incident occurred which meant they had 45 minutes until they were allowed to be seen by medical. That didn't stop medical from coming to them though. There was a tap on the glass and Emma glanced up to see Dr. M' Benga and Chapel standing on the other side of the door.

"I'll talk to them." Clyde told her. "You keep examining the DNA."

Emma nodded. She could hear their entire conversation. She watched Dr. M' Benga's reaction when Clyde told him about what happened and how it could be similar to anthrax. Dr. M' Benga did his best to hide his concern. She heard Clyde denying that he and Emm had any symptoms which Emma knew was a lie. She just didn't know why Clyde was lying. Perhaps he was trying to give Dr. M' Benga hope that they would be okay. Then she felt it. The tickle in throat. No. The panic began to form inside of her and she tried to swallow it back.

She turned her back away from Clyde, Chapel, and Dr. M' Benga's line of sight and coughed into her hand. She withdrew her hand and what she found on her hand was enough to almost make her hit the ground. Blood.

"You okay, Ensign?" Clyde called out.

Emma quickly wiped the blood in her pants and turned back around to look at Clyde with a forced smile. "I'm okay. Just...trying to hold it together. You?"

"Yeah. Same here." He lied. They both lied and they both knew it. No one truly knew the danger they were in. They needed to work fast.

Chris had been sitting in his usual chair on the bridge when the biohazard alarm came across his notification. That was never good, he thought to himself. It wasn't unusual for biohazard spills to occur. They worked with hazardous material all the time. Normally it was cleaned up quickly and everyone was fine. However, Chris knew something was wrong when Dr. M' Benga requested that he meet him outside of the lab. His first thought was of Emma. He hoped she was okay since he knew she worked down there.

When he finally got to the lab doors he found Dr. M' Benga standing on the other side of the door, unable to go in. He had his tricorder in hand and was attempting to scan someone through the door. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw it was Emma. His eyes connected with her's and he knew something was wrong. He peered into the lab the best he could through the closed doors and his fear grew when he saw a body covered up.

"Does someone want to tell me what's going on?" Christopher asked.

"Biohazard spill. It's manifesting itself like anthrax does." Dr. M' Benga said vaguely.