Chapter 2
"Your team has had their flu shots haven't they?" Fury didn't bother with a greeting as Phil Coulson picked up his phone.
"Is this about the request I filed for reimbursement?" Coulson asked with a puzzled look on his face. He had been fairly sure someone was going to call him about his request for reimbursement for a hundred and fifty dollars in flu shots, but he thought it would be accounting, or Victoria Hand who would be calling, not the director. "I know that medical provides our flu shots free,. To be honest, I'm not sure how we all ended up getting them at Walgreens instead." He wasn't even sure he wanted to figure out how it had happened. At least Skye and Simmons had a reason to be in the drugstore, picking up female supplies, and Fitz had probably been there for the snack aisle, but as for the rest… "Skye did have a good point, though, about how much it would cost to go out of our way to a Shield base for free shots, when we could get them right there for only twenty-five dollars."
"You'll be reimbursed. No one on your team has symptoms of the flu, then?"
"No, that's the point of the flu shot, isn't it?" Why did Fury seem so interested in the flu? And why was he feeling a sudden sense of fast approaching trouble?
"You would think, wouldn't you?" Except he had three hundred people who had taken their shot sick with the flu in the Hub and who knows how many who had been too sick to make it in before the base went into lock-down. "I've got an assignment for you that needs to be taken care of fast."
"Centipede?"
"I wish." Centipede, Loki dropping by, whatever Stark was up to that was causing those funny flashing lights off the roof of his tower. He would take any of those before this. "I need you to pick up some supplies and take them to the Hub."
"You want us to handle a supply run?"
"A medical supply run, and then keeping an eye on everyone for the next week. There's a problem at the Hub. Everyone's down with the flu."
"The… Wait, when you say everyone, do you mean…."
"Victoria sent a message informing me of the flu and that she was shutting down the Hub and putting everything on lockdown not more than ten minutes ago."
Coulson closed his eyes for a moment, imagining Victoria Hand with the flu. "This is because I died, isn't it? You think I'm eager to face death again?" But, still, these people were his fellow agents. If they needed help, he was going to do all he could. "How bad is it? I thought Victoria was insisting that everyone who set foot in the Hub have proof of a flu shot after the incident with the agent from MI-13 who sneezed and burned her desk to ashes."
"They had their shots. I have no idea why all of them are down with the flu. I'm waiting on a call from medical here for that." Fury closed his eyes for a moment. It was really to early in the day for an epidemic, and what if it had hit any of their other bases? But surely he would have gotten at least a few other texts if other agents were dropping like flies from the flu. He hoped the lack of additional texts might be a good sign. "There are 300 people in the Hub. Victoria locked down the building so no one can come or go. You'll have to override that when you get there. They only had 50 boxes of Tamaflu, so we're pulling more to be delivered along with acetaminophen, ibuprofen and aspirin. Medical isn't answering there, so we're not sure what else they might need beyond that." And beyond the softest tissues he could find to ship off to Victoria. "They should have IV fluids, antibiotics, hopefully the basics if this ends up being more serious than expected. Victoria said that her fever was 103. Would your biochemist know what sort of problems that could cause if she isn't the only one with a temperature like that?"
"I'm sure she can handle it. Just tell me when the supplies are ready and where to pick them up. And send through a list of the personnel that are in the Hub so we can divide them up. I'll go and brief the team." Coulson ended the call and pulled himself to his feet. "Everyone, briefing in ten!" He called to his team. "Director Fury just called with a situation!"
"Do we finally have a lead on Centipede?" May asked as soon as they were assembled.
"No, there's a situation at the Hub they need our help with."
"A situation at the Hub?" Fitz asked suspiciously. "This situation isn't like that last little situation, now is it, because if it is, I'm turning in my resignation."
"No, no suicide missions, no missions without extraction plans. This is medical. Fury's trying to figure out how it happened, but there are 300 people at the Hub right now who are down with the flu. We need to take medical supplies to them and keep an eye on them until they recover."
"The flu? Didn't they get their flu shots?" Jemma asked.
"Did they get shots from the defective batch?" Skye asked and then when everyone looked at her in confusion she added. "It's trending on Twitter. Apparently some company made a mistake with a batch of the shots they distributed. It was kind of confusing because there are about a million explanations for what the specific problem with the shots is, but basically, they don't prevent the flu, they give you the flu. Sixty people are in the hospital so far."
"Okay," He was going to have to call Fury back and alert him to this, but for now it didn't really change anything. No matter why they were sick, they still had 300 sick agents to figure out how to care for. "Skye, see if you can find out what those people ended up in the hospital for, and how many total are looking to be effected, not counting our agents. Jemma, what sort of supplies are we going to need?"
"The Director really expects us to…" Jemma paled but then shook her head. They wouldn't be talking about this if the Director really didn't have the insane idea that the six of them could somehow tend 300 sick people. Okay, what did she know about the flu? "Anti-virals, obviously. Medication for the fever and pain."
"Fever. Victoria told the director her fever was 103. How serious is that?"
"103? This is a suicide mission, I knew it!" Fitz moaned.
"Oh, Fitz." Jemma murmured. "A fever of 103 isn't going to cause Agent Hand to try to kill you. It's actually not as bad as it sounds. Some people don't recommend medicating for anything 102 and under. I'm sure 103 feels terrible, but it's not horribly serious with medication. 105, 106, that's when you need to be concerned, and prolonged periods of 107 or 108, can of course cause brain damage but… IVs for dehydration, cooling blankets. They should have those, wouldn't you imagine?"
"IVs, I'm sure, cooling blankets, I'll ask the director."
"Really, the fever isn't the worst thing." Jemma continued. "Pneumonia or another secondary infection is what we'll have to watch for."
"600 reported cases so far, 60 and climbing in the hospital." Skye said as she looked up from her laptop. "That's over ten percent."
Does it say what they were hospitalized for?" Jemma asked with worry. Over a ten percent hospitalization rate? Didn't these people remember she was a PhD, not a medical doctor?
"No pneumonia, at least not yet, that's good, right?" Skye said. "Dehydration, pain, one man was shivering so hard he fell out of bed and broke his leg in four places, pain, pain worse than a 42 hour labor with ten pound twins, and more pain."
"Morphine." Jemma said. "Antibiotics to be on the safe side. Fluids, tea, juice, broths." 300 people. How were they going to take care of 300 people, especially if the rate of 10 percent being sick enough to be hospitalized held?
"I'll talk to the director and see about getting as much of that as possible. The Hub has supplies, but better to have more just in case. Jemma, could you keep thinking about it, and let me know if there's anything else we might need? Skye, keep looking, and see if you can find more information on those shots. Fury's going to want to know if what took down one of our bases was really an accident."