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> "Don't fix what's not broken."
> "If it's not broken, you haven't tested it enough." -- [SilverRey](https://www.internutter.org/bb/user/silverrey)

_If it ain't broke, don't fix it._
_If it isn't broken, test it some more._ -- Conflicting Human Axioms.

Some things need fixing before they break. Emergency services anticipate even the ridiculous emergencies so that they can be ready before they happen. This has lead to the 'zombie plague' and 'black hole' plans in the emergency systems all over Alliance space.

Zombie Plague has been on the books in Terran Emergency Systems since before the Shattering. As an emergency plan goes, the forces of entertainment have created an imaginary monster that covers all potential pandemic precautions. Those, of course, including the need for isolation, containment of the infected, tracking and monitoring of infections, proper hygiene and decontamination procedures... the list goes on.

Humans have dealt with debilitating pandemics roughly once a century, and every single time, they have been unprepared. Those foretelling the pandemic of the twenty-first century were busy looking for the wrong kind of pandemic. Those predicting the panic of the twenty-second were also ignorant of the wrong direction.

Nobody expects a plague from an under-sea vent. Not in combination with deep-sea food crops, unusual pets, and pleather accessories[1].

It all comes down to how darn useful it is to think of things in the terms of hollywood zombies. They have everything. A long incubation time in combination with a symptoms checklist that looks like a far more harmless disease. A vector spread that flourishes in high-population, high-traffic areas. A means of communication dependant on lax hygiene avenues. Up to and definitely including administrations that ignore the clear danger in favour of promoting business as usual because, "all those eggheads are panicking for no reason."

A moment of silence for those who, in ignorance, made every single pandemic worse than it ever had to be. A minute of silence for those lives sacrificed on the twin altars of commerce and wilful ignorance. They may never be known, but may they never be forgotten.

Fortunately, Medik Science has advanced to the point where _most_ pandemics are contained before they can be a big problem. This, of course, is entirely dependant on the definitions of "big" and "problem".

Medik Ryivh was up to her elbows in a potentially enormous problem. Galactic Mediks tend to measure enormity on planetary and solar system scales. This particular plague had begun -as most devastating plagues do- on one of the Greater Deregulations. They had, in turn, allowed it to spread because the flow of commerce was more important than the preservation of life, no matter what their concentrated breeding programs' propaganda had to say in the matter[2].

Of course this lead to worse than decimation in the planet-local population. In this case, one in ten were likely to survive, owing to an extremely poor health profile owing to extremely limited nutrition in the bulk of the populace.

Now it had mutated to the point where it could be an extremely enormous problem for everyone this particular pack of Dereggers came in contact with. Which meant, in turn, erecting an emergency border station around[3] any and all wormholes out of the general area. As a part of the thin red line between civilisation and wilful ignorance furthering infection, Medik Ryivh was getting very tired of explaining things to those on the other side of the understanding barrier.

"Yes, I do understand that you have very important business on Cestus Five," she intoned. She had explained this five times so far. "I also understand that you have a lot of money. However, you also have three distinct strains of PatheFifteen in your system. Those diseases are highly communicable, and highly dangerous to other cogniscents--"

This particular example, forcibly restrained in technoswaddling[4], interrupted. "I have a private barge!"

"--including the cogniscents you plan on meeting. You don't have to conduct your business in person. Nor do you have to have flesh-to-flesh contact as you maintain on insisting. We have readied the best of paired-atom comm systems for real-time communication with--"

"Comms ain't good enough! I know my rights!"

"--your designated contact. A designated contact who refuses to see you as in person as you insist on seeing them now that it's been confirmed that you are, indeed, infected and at risk of carrying three strains of PatheFifteen into Alliance space. Now that you are diagnosed--"

"PatheFifteen isn't real! It's a conspiracy to humiliate our glorious dictator! All those alleged victims have been poached by a rival company that forces them to manufacture all those false-positive testing kits and--"

Medik Ryivh snapped. "Sir, you are dying."

"--drive MegaHoldings Limited out of - wait. What."

"Sir. You are dying." Medik Ryivh paused for maximum effect. "Those are the words I _will_ be saying if you don't _shut the flakk up_ and accept the treatment you keep refusing from teams of Mediks like me who have been _working around the clock_ to defeat this hellplague!" She panted out her frustrations instead of simply punching the man, though it was a very close call. "Without treatments, if you went on your business trip, you would be dead before you returned home. In the process, you would have also spread your three plagues to literal billions of cogniscents in the Alliance, but I know you think that information isn't real. You have two choices. Die slowly by drowning in your own mucal fluids in combination with bursting your skin from hyper-retention of fluids... or shut up and take your medicine like a good boy."

Now that he had made it in his own best interests... he stopped struggling against the technoswaddling. "I'm really going to die?"

The ancient author had it exactly right. _Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum._ Once you have their hearts, you have their attention.

"You have three days before your symptoms become so overt that even _you_ won't be able to ignore them." _You_, here pronounced, _A dense piece of flotsam with less intelligence than the microbes living inside a fresh turd._ "Five to ten days before it becomes irreversibly terminal."

She let him absorb this information with further explanations that were dumbed down to the point of cartoons and small, monosyllabic words. A process that chipped precious hours out of his treatment window. A process helped by the countdown clock in red, unfriendly font to outline exactly how little time he had to decide on his treatment plan.

"Okay, okay, okay," he bleated. "I'll be good! I'll do whatever it takes! Any treatment! Anything! Just make sure I live!"

Oh Powers, how she _lived_ for these moments. She handed over the waiver that allowed for literally _any_ treatment at her discretion and allowed him to sign it however he pleased. Typical Deregger, he never read what he was signing.

It wasn't strictly _necessary_ to administer the treatment as a series of injections via the gluteus maximus muscle, nor was it necessary to use a slightly blunt, and therefore more painful needle. Medik Ryivh put it down as necessary for _her_ mental wellbeing and further for the Deregger in question's greater education. Stating quite calmly and factually that, if he had allowed her to treat him earlier, none of it would be necessary.

[1] AN: They probably do _now_, but I eagerly await someone at the CDC calling me a clever clogs in an angry voice.

[2] Every single neofascist regime is all about saving babies until after they're born. After that particular moment, the infant becomes someone else's problem.

[3] People tend to think that there is only one way to approach the 'soft spot' of a wormhole entrance and thereby enter hyperspace. People are wrong. In order to completely shut off a wormhole from travel, it is necessary to encapsulate it in all three dimensions.

[4] For those patients who insist on fighting no matter what. The fabric bonds only with itself and is used to gently, but forcibly restrain patients from harming themselves and others. Those in its embrace have likened it to a soft, warm, yet insistent hug from the kind of relative who insists on hugging just that tiny bit too hard.

[Image <a href="https://www.canstockphoto.com">(c) Can Stock Photo / stocksnapper</a>]

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