"- Uh, I'll - contact my manager - can you provide a number for callback?" 

"I'd rather stay on the line. This is urgent. I won't bother you." 

"That's against policy I'mgoingtoputyouonhold," the poor public health nurses says, rushed, and then there is hold music. 

Gah. She's tempted to start trying other vaguely-related numbers until she happens to get someone with any mental flexibility, but she can't do that without hanging up, which wouldn't exactly be good for her credibility here. 

She waits, taking the opportunity to skim some Pubmed papers about influenza, trying to find something that's a little bit vaguely applicable to Ma'ar's situation. She can find studies on immunocompromised patients, but he isn't - that's half the problem, he's mounting a very strong immune inflammatory response. 

She remembers reading about young healthy people being hit especially hard by the Spanish Flu pandemic. Of course, ICUs didn't exist as a concept back then, but maybe she can find something useful... 

Elsewhere, Bridget's manager Albert picks up his phone. "What? I'm in a meeting, can it–" 

     "I just got a phone call from a Dr, uh, Zee-lin-skee? At the Montfort? She's claiming they've got– it's ridiculous, this has to be some sort of drill or something - she's claiming they have a patient who's an alien??? I, uh, put her on hold." 

There is a pause. 

"- One moment, going to duck out of this meeting." 

Rustling. Muffled apologies. Footsteps. 

"Zielinski?" Albert says into the phone thirty seconds later. "Are you sure? Agnes Zielinski, ICU fellow?" 

     "- I mean, she said she was, but how do I know? ...Caller ID does say it's from the Montfort." 

"Well." 

     Bridget clears her throat. "...And?" 

"Transfer her to my office in - thirty seconds. Please. I'm headed over there now." 

And then the hold music breaks off. 

Dr Zee clears her throat. "Hello? This is Dr Zielinski calling from the–" 

"Agnes?" The voice is familiar but not quite enough to place. "What the hell is going on? ...If you're not Agnes and you're some bloody med student pretending to be, you're going to regret it once I tell her." 

"- Bert? Is that you? God. How's Moira?" 

"Going wild over our first grandchild. But it doesn't seem like the time for chitchat. What the hell? Agnes, tell me everything right now." 

Ten years ago, Bert was the nurse manager at the Civic Hospital dialysis clinic. But like Dr Zee, he's a researcher at heart; she has fondly-irritated memories of him haranguing her on the phone about obtaining data on his patients' hospitalizations so that the records for the half-a-dozen studies he was trying to enroll all of them in at all times would be complete. Nine years ago they had a big success together, when he heroically did most of the legwork to set up a kidney donor chain, saving a thirty-year-old mother of three who Dr Zee had thought almost certainly wouldn't live long enough to get a kidney. They're not close friends, per se, but they attended some of the same staff Christmas parties. 

Now doesn't seem like the time to congratulate him on moving into public health, either. But she's glad it's him on the phone. Bert knows how to actually try. 

"- Right. A little over twenty-four hours ago, a man was found sleeping on a park bench, brought into the ER with severe hypothermia. Not very lucid and didn't seem to speak English. Initially assumed he was an OD, but tox was negative for everything. He started decompensating during rewarming, they shipped him to the ICU - Thomas was on yesterday, not sure if you remember him? Anyway, they got him stabilized and were prepping for extubation and - when he woke up, he tried to escape. By using some sort of mind control powers on the resident. He's also telepathic, which is the only way he can communicate with us. The nurse managed to put together that he was claiming to be from another world - one with magic, with countries that don't match anything in our history, and where there was just an incredibly destructive war." 

"...You're kidding," Bert says faintly. "Please tell me you're messing with me." 

"I wish I were! ...Actually, I don't, it's incredibly exciting to have contact with another world! And I'm convinced, at this point, I spoke with him - telepathically, I mean. He's clearly a military guy, high-up - you must know the type, and he just radiates it. Unfortunately, everything's a mess. He spiked a high fever overnight and he's deteriorating. Now another of our patients has a new-onset fever. Most of the unit nurses must've been exposed, not to mention the ER staff - and other patients..." 

She swallows. 

"- I'm hoping he's sick with one of our germs. I think it's more likely than not. But that doesn't mean he's not carrying something nasty. Bert, I - I don't know what to do." 

"Shit." 

A long pause, with just his breathing to keep her company. 

"I - I'm really sorry, Agnes." 

She bites her lip. "What...are you thinking?" 

"I'm thinking that I hope to God this is somehow a false alarm. ...No, I don't think you're lying, but - what are the odds, right - from where I'm sitting, the guy could be tricking all of you somehow. Don't know how but it's hardly less plausible than 'another world exists and has humans on it who have magic.' And if it's real, then - well, hopefully it's from our side. If not..." 

He clears his throat again. 

"...If not, then we may be intervening too late already. But it seems a damned lot better to overreact than under-react. So. Your unit is now under provisional quarantine. No one leaves. No visitors - I know, I'm sorry, just -"

He stops. Takes a breath. "I'm going to come in. If I'm about to piss off the entire hospital about this, I need to see this telepathic guy for myself." 

"But -" 

"I know. I'll be risking exposure too. I promise that I intend to be very careful, I won't have to be in the room long, and I'm not planning to leave the hospital afterward. If this is for real, I'll sit on hospital administration until they clear out some extra rooms for us. ...If someone's got time to start making a list of all the staff who came into contact with this patient, that'd be great." 

"...I'll do my best. The unit is getting hammered pretty hard right now. You know, 'tis the season and all. ...I'm putting eight of ten odds right now that our telepathic guy has influenza. But I don't know." 

Despite herself, her voice cracks. "I, I don't want to lose this patient, Bert. I want to get him better and then sit down and hear all about his world. If I could I'd be demanding they send us another five nurses and bring in one of the other attendings to take the rest of the unit. They're swamped and I've got a new grad nurse in there alone - she's sharp, and the patient trusts her, which means a lot, but still. And anyone we bring in is going to be exposed as well..." 

"- I think it makes sense to risk that. Treat the entire unit as a lowkey quarantine zone - and if possible quarantine off our patient zero separately, keep the newcomers for other patients who're less likely to be contagious." 

"I'll do what I can. And..." She swallows hard. "Thank you for - for believing me." 

Amélie's conversation - well, conversations, with the ICU admin clerk at the civic, and then the charge nurse, and then the unit manager, and then the medical ICU manager, and then the manager for the whole ER-and-critical-care block - are not going nearly as well. They're packed with flu patients already and are not inclined to give up one of their last two remaining negative-pressure isolation rooms, and when the chance of a novel pathogen is brought up they're even LESS pleased about it. And the part where Ma'ar is from another world is bouncing off entirely. It's agonizingly awkward to try to explain and Amélie keeps sort of trying to dance around it, even though this is not helping at all. 

She's almost relieved when Dr Zee comes storming out of the conference room, asks if she's still on the call, and informs her not to bother, the unit's under quarantine. 

She's much less pleased when Dr Zee informs her that she has to track down everyone who was on shift yesterday, or on night shift and has already left. 

Nellie overhears their conversation from the quiet sanctuary of the chair outside Ma'ar's room, where she's been sitting and worriedly glaring at the monitor while she refreshes the lab results page every twenty seconds. (She's aware that this is stupid and not helping, but right now she's too tired to deal with her stress in a less stupid way.) 

She...should probably get up and go offer to help with contacting people. That would require standing, though. Instead, she stays exactly where she is, and calls Marian. 

Who, of course, has no idea what's been happening. "Did we get the lab results?" 

"No. Person I called said 'soon'. It's just - I -" For some reason this hurts to say even though Marian will understand and probably not even be surprised. "Dr Zee called someone at Ottawa Public Health and they're - taking it really seriously. Way more than I expected. We're banned from leaving - they're going to call everyone who came in contact with him..." 

"Oh." Marian swallows. It takes her another ten seconds to find her voice. "That's...good. I think?"