Chapter 74: Medical Examination - II

The thin light finished moving across Echo One-One’s body.

The female Medic lowered her bio-scanner tablet and stared at the result.

"No infection detected."

Echo One-One blinked.

"What?"

"Remain still."

She raised the tablet once more. The light passed over him for the second time, slower than before.

Several seconds later, the same result appeared.

"No infection detected," the Medic repeated.

Echo One-One looked toward the entrance.

"But that machine said—"

"We’ll discuss that after everyone is examined."

She gestured toward the side.

"Wait there."

Echo One-One obeyed.

The Medic contacted Bastion Three through her communicator.

"Send the next Scout."

Echo One-Two entered soon afterward.

The same examination followed.

"No infection detected."

Echo One-Three came next.

His result was also clear.

Dmitri entered last among the Scouts.

The female Medic examined him twice as well, paying closer attention to the readings displayed on her tablet.

Dmitri remained silent until she finally lowered it.

"Clear," she said.

"You’re certain?"

"There are no signs of infection. Perhaps your mission has been too intense. You should take a rest."

Dmitri frowned.

The machine at the Nuclear Power Station had identified all four of them within seconds. It had called them contaminated and immediately attempted to kill them.

Yet the Medics found nothing.

"What about the dogs?" he asked.

"They’re next."

Rex and the second Attack Dog were brought inside one at a time.

Neither examination produced anything unusual.

The Medic studied the six completed results before looking back at Dmitri.

"All four Scouts are clear. The Attack Dogs are clear as well."

Dmitri did not feel relieved. Instead, his confusion deepened.

"Could that machine have mistaken us?"

The female Medic waved her hands, shooing them away.

"You Scouts should really take a rest," she sighed. "Severe exhaustion, dehydration, and prolonged stress can affect your judgment. In worse cases, they can even cause confusion or hallucinations."

"All four of us heard the same thing," Dmitri replied.

The Medic stopped.

"The machine scanned us one at a time. It identified all four Scouts as infected, ignored the dogs, and then opened fire."

Echo One-One nodded.

"We didn’t imagine the bullets either."

The Medic looked at the other Scouts.

None of them appeared amused.

"This machine," the Medic paused. "Care to describe that?"

Echo One-One glanced at Dmitri before answering.

"Four legs. Mechanical. Came out of some kind of portal built into a wall." He held up a hand at roughly waist height. "About this tall. Weapon mounted on top, some kind of lens array on the front."

"It talked," Echo One-Two added. "Said something about biological screening before it scanned us. Called us contaminated right after."

"The machine ignored the dogs completely," Dmitri said. "Adjusted its aim every time one of them crossed its line of fire. The machine would not shoot through them."

The Medic’s brows drew together.

"That doesn’t sound like anything in our registry."

"It’s not related to us," Dmitri said. "If that’s what you’re asking."

"I wasn’t going to assume it was." She lowered her bio-scanner tablet and checked the results once more.

"Then the machine may have been malfunctioning," she said. "Or its screening system follows a different standard."

Dmitri looked toward the tablet.

"But according to yours?"

"No infection. No abnormal viral activity. Nothing that requires treatment or isolation."

The Medic placed the tablet against her side.

"Medically, all of you are clear. I submit your medical examination results to the Commander later. Tonight, I advise you soldiers to get a good sleep."

Dmitri remained silent. The results should have reassured him and Echo One. Instead, the difference between the two results only made the situation stranger.

Echo One collected their gear from a side table—weapons first, then the smaller items. Dmitri checked his MP7 out of habit before slinging it over his shoulder.

The squad returned to Bastion Three, entering the large infantry compartment with confused thoughts in their minds.

The rear ramp of Bastion Three had already closed by the time the Medic waved them off. She disappeared through the doorway without another word.

Echo One-One shifted his weight, glancing toward the darkened rooftops of the base.

"So that’s it? We just... go?"

"You heard what the professional said," Dmitri replied. "We’ll get to this matter in the future."

Nobody moved right away.

The night had settled fully over Grefort by now, the floodlights along the perimeter carving pale circles across the concrete. Somewhere past the barracks, faint noise drifted from the direction of the mess hall—clattering trays, the low hum of a generator, voices too far to make out.

Echo One-Two exhaled and rolled his shoulders.

"I could eat a horse."

"There’s no horse," Echo One-Three said flatly.

"You know what I meant."

Dmitri said nothing. He looked past the two of them, toward the eastern edge of the base where the Radar’s dish continued its slow rotation atop its tower. Somewhere far beyond its reach, past the coverage line, the plant’s cooling towers were probably still standing in the dark, unlit and silent.

Rex nudged against his leg.

Dmitri crouched and scratched behind the dog’s ear.

"Good work today," he murmured.

"Squad leader." Echo One-One’s voice was quieter now. "You still thinking about it?"

Dmitri stood.

"Aren’t you?"

Echo One-One didn’t answer that.

"Get some rest," Dmitri said. "We’ll deal with the rest of it tomorrow."

Nobody argued. The Scouts dispersed toward their designated barracks, Rex trailing after Dmitri as he lingered a moment longer, looking east.

He let out a breath and finally turned away.

...

Inside the medical building, the female Medic returned to the records room, six completed scan results still open on her tablet.

Dominic looked up from his desk as she entered.

"So how was it?" he asked. "We got a long night ahead of us?"

"Four Scouts, two dogs." She set the tablet down beside his terminal. "All clear."

"That’s good, isn’t it?"

"They didn’t think so. Said some automated machine scanned them during their mission and marked them as infected."

"That must be one hell of a machine," Dominic raised a brow. "They said anything else?"

He pulled the tablet closer, scrolling through the readings.

"Four legs, mounted weapon, talked before it opened fire on them. Ignored the dogs completely." She shrugged. "Whatever it was, it wasn’t ours."

"These are clean." Dominic tapped the screen. "Nothing here worth losing sleep over."

"It’s not us who will lose sleep but them," She pulled a chair over and sat. "Ours found nothing. Theirs found something."

Dominic set the tablet down and leaned back.

"Could be a different detection method. Older systems, pre-collapse tech—they weren’t built with our systems in mind. Maybe it’s not even looking for the same thing our scanners are."

"That’s what I told the squad leader." She rubbed her eyes. "He didn’t look convinced."

"Would you be?"

She didn’t answer that.

Dominic pulled up a blank report template on his terminal.

"I’ll have Bastion Three’s crew add their observations. Might help to know if anything happened before extraction—anything the Scouts didn’t think to mention."

"They said nothing unusual. Just the retrieval."

"Still worth asking." Dominic began typing. "Better a redundant report than a missing one."

The female Medic watched him work for a moment before pulling her own terminal closer.

"I’ll file the examination results as written. No infection, no abnormal readings, six for six." She paused, fingers hovering over the keys. "But I want to flag the discrepancy separately. The Commander should see both sides of it, not just the part where everyone’s healthy."

Dominic nodded without looking up.

"Send it tonight?"

"Tonight." She began typing. "He can read it in the morning. There’s nothing urgent enough to wake him for."

Neither of them said anything else for a while, the only sound in the room the soft clicking of two terminals compiling a report that neither of them fully understood.