The chemical bath was his favorite time of day. Yes, the specially treated water burned. He did have to strip naked in front of a team of scientists. And in the few months since he’d been brought here, the chlorine in the water had bleached his once gray-brown hair a strange shade of platinum-blonde -meets-muted-green. None of that bothered Harry Ludlow very much though. Because in spite of all the discomfort and inconvenience, the few minutes in that big plastic tub were the only time he had any real company. More importantly, it was the only time he had an audience.
The scientists weren’t much for conversation. There must’ve been some rules that stopped them from chatting on the job. Besides, they all wore gloves and facemasks and full plastic hazmat suits from head to toe. Probably couldn’t talk in one of those things even if you wanted to. None of that stopped Harry from trying to get a reaction. In the beginning he’d gone for the low-hanging fruit. Fake drowning. Star Wars references. One day a scientist reached down, as always, to scrub his ballsack. Harry asked if he was gonna have to give him a tip. He thought he heard one of them snort, but he couldn’t be sure. Probably the best day so far had been when they’d come into the room and found his lips puckered, his legs artfully crossed, and his eyes reading an obvious “come hither”. He hoped they’d enjoyed that one as much as he did.
After the first week or so locked in the facility, he burned through the easy material. Luckily, in his life before all this, Harry had been a comedian. Not a rich one, or a famous one, or if he was being honest with himself even a particularly good one. But he was comfortable on stage, heckled an audience in a way they enjoyed, and was at least alright with impressions. The last few days he’d enjoyed barking the scientists around in his increasingly convincing President Ward impression. No reaction. But this morning there had been a man in a suit standing in the glass observation area outside the washroom. When Harry proclaimed in the President’s signature Southern drawl that his “diet of corn and Omaha beef” was what made him immune to Vicker’s disease, the man in the suit definitely laughed. Harry tried to get a read on him but then the scientists yanked his attention back to the tub with their scrubbing.
After the wash, Harry was dressed and lead back to his room. The door was vacuum-sealed, and once again he was left alone with his bed, his books, and a television. He chose the TV and put on a nature documentary. A giraffe fight was exactly what he needed. He’d burned through most of the good shows and movies in his first month or two, and he hated flipping channels. Even before all this, he especially hated the news. Now it was even worse. The same thing every day. Vicker’s Disease. No one wanted to talk about anything else. And considering his particular situation, Harry had heard more than enough. Giraffes were far better than talking heads.
But before he could settle into watching the documentary, a flashing red box appeared on the center of the screen while a loud buzzing sound drowned out the audio. Harry groaned. The buzzing stopped and a familiar European man appeared on screen.
“It’s Doctor Konig,” the voice squawked, “Are you there Harry?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“We managed to find some video that I want to walk through with you.”
“Ok,” Harry said, happy to be doing almost anything, “Let’s see it.”
There was a pause and then Doctor Konig’s face disappeared from the screen. In its place there was black and white security footage of a mall. A homeless man was stumbling around before he fell to his knees and started waving for help while he grabbed at his chest. Everyone ignored him. After another thirty seconds, he fell over face first in the middle of the marble floor outside the jewelry store. People formed a little circle around the man and eventually a pair of mall cops came over. They flipped the homeless man onto his back. A