Apocalyptic Rebirth: With a repairman system space, she rises again.-Chapter 573: Not good news.

A lump the size of a jagged rock grew in Dwayne’s chest. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even blink. The words ’poison’ and ’amputate’ rotated through his mind. Even worse, the doctor had said it was possible that they would fail to stop the poison. He was at a loss for what to say.

Zed, who had been uncharacteristically still in the corner, stepped forward. He asked the question Dwayne was too terrified to put into words. "Doc... is she dying?"

Dr. Cody didn’t look them in the eye. He just looked at his clipboard. "It is too soon to say anything, we are doing everything we can, but nothing is bringing the fever down. She seems to be getting even hotter. The ice is melting as fast as we spread it around her. Any other time, I would be soft, but this is the apocalypse and nothing is guaranteed. I advise that you pray and hope for the best but prepare for the worst."

THUD!

Dwayne’s fist slammed into the reinforced wall, leaving a small dent in the plaster. "Do more than your best!" he roared, his face contorting with a mix of grief and fury. "Because if she doesn’t make it, you aren’t just answering to me. You’ll have to answer to Sunshine Quinn. You think she’s going to accept ’we tried our best’ as an excuse?"

The mention of Sunshine made the room go silent. Even the beeping monitors seemed to quiet down.

"I will bury you with her." Dwayne growled, lifting the smaller sized doctor off his feet.

Zed stepped in, placing a heavy, vibrating hand on Dwayne’s shoulder. "Hey, hey. Calm down, man. You can’t threaten the doctor that is trying to help. Put him down and let him work."

Dwayne let go of Cody but snapped at Zed. "I can’t calm down, Zed! They’re talking about taking her hand! And he said we should prepare for the worst. What the fuck is he talking about?"

"I know," Zed said softly, his voice grounded for once. "But the doctors are just doing their jobs. Punching the wall, grabbing doctors by the neck and cursing isn’t going to cool her down. All we can do is find Sunshine or Hades."

Dwayne took a shuddering breath, looking through the glass at Nimo. She looked so fragile, regret washed over him. "She cannot die.... not yet. I have not told her that I love her."

Zed snapped his fingers at Dwayne. Had the man not heard that they needed to find Sunshine? He decided to go and do so since Dwayne was having a panic attack or temporary loss of all functions.

He had never seen the man shed a tear before, not until today! He zoomed out of the medic bay to search for the extraordinary help the doctors were missing.

While the medic bay was a whirlwind of panic, another activity was going on at the police station in the third wall.

Hades stood in the center of a dimly lit interrogation room; his shadow stretched long against the damp concrete wall. Beside him, Carson was casually cleaning under his fingernails with a small, terrifyingly sharp and long knife.

On the chair between them, a smuggler named Miller was heavily bound to the metallic chair, his eyes wide and bloodshot, darting around the room like two trapped flies. He had just finished singing his confession like a bird.

"So," Carson said, his voice smooth and conversational. "Let’s review the list again. We have the soldiers at the gate, hunters, and even Donnie that works at the meat cutting section. Is that everyone, Miller? I’d hate for you to have stayed awake for three days just to give me an incomplete homework assignment. That would mean that we would have to do this again."

Miller let out a sound that was half-sob, half-moan. Carson had injected him with a solution he said would deny him sleep. Miller’s brain felt like it was being scrubbed with sandpaper, and he was pretty sure he could hear his own hair growing.

"Please," Miller rasped, his head lolling. "I told you everything, that’s everyone that I know. We just... we just do what Sting tells us. He brings the stuff, we move them. Can I sleep now?"

Hades stepped into the light, his face like carved granite. He flicked through a digital tablet, his thumb scrolling through the thousands of registered residents in Fortress Four. "Sting," Hades muttered. "I’ve gone through the database three times. We have many names that start with ’S’ but no ’Sting.’ Give me a real name, Miller."

"I don’t know!" Miller shrieked, nearly falling off his chair. "Nobody knows! He’s the boss, not me like you thought. He gets his orders from someone even higher up, but we don’t see them! We’re just the delivery boys! These deals are made at night in the dark and everyone hides their faces to prepare for situations like these."

Hades looked at Carson.

Carson shrugged, looking disappointed. "The chemical is working perfectly, Hades. If he knew a name, he’d be singing it in four-part harmony by now. His brain is too tired to lie."

Hades sighed, a low sound of irritation. "Fine. Keep digging to see how far this thing goes. Set up a team right now, we can’t wait. A small one. High impact, low noise. We’re going to erase every root of this smuggling ring until there’s nothing left but dirt."

Carson’s grin was slow and shark-like. "I love a good cleaning. Should I arrest or shoot on sight?"

"Both, depending on the circumstances," Hades said, checking the sidearm at his hip. "And don’t bother calling Sunshine. I will be with you guys on this mission."

Carson paused, his eyebrows shooting up. "You? Usually, you prefer the view from the command center. What changed? Tired of the paperwork?"

Hades thought of the chaos in the fortress, the strange orange devices, the watchers on the bubble and his wife wanting the smugglers caught. "Who better than me to get to the bottom of this?" He looked back at the shivering Miller. "Give him the antidote, Carson. Let him sleep on his way to the prison base."

He had more instructions to give but his phone buzzed, once again, Dwayne was calling. He had ignored it three times, but it could not be ignored anymore.

"Are you dying or has the bubble burst?" He said with a smile on answering.

The response from Dwayne made him frown. It was short too because the call ended quickly. It left Hades feeling like he’d swallowed a bag of hot gravel. He stared at his dead phone screen for a long beat, his heart heavy. Nimo was like family, and his wife would likely tear the fortress apart with her bare hands if she came home to find her friend gone.

"Why does everything fall apart the second she leaves?" Hades muttered to the empty hallway. He wanted to sprint to the medic bay, to stand guard over Nimo’s bed, but he would be useless there.

Zed was ushered into the room, and he explained the details Dwayne had left out.

Hades got the emergency pill his wife had left him and gave it to Zed. "Take this to Dwayne, Nimo needs it."

As for him, he had another problem to tackle. At least, when his wife returned, she would receive good news along with scary one. Hades took a deep breath, straightened that arms of his iron shirt, and looked at Carson. "Let’s go catch a bug."