med

"... and the virus took over his body, the last untouched body in all the earth. All was lost... yadda yadda yadda..." Jeremy was complaining about how all the sci-fi of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first was completely predictable.
"Yeah, I know..." his wife feigned sympathy from the other room. What they both found comforting in those novels was the irony. "But you finished it, and that's what entertainment is!" Jackie was such a realist, that she found it hard not to be optimistic about another accomplishment, even as tiny as finishing a book.
"It's rubbish, not entertainment, and it kept me up too late, now I'm tired and bored..." pause for effect "... but not by you." she smirked at his corny remarks. "Go to work Jeremy" she nagged, he left.
Jeremy pulled up to the complex, exhaled and got out of the car. Once outside, he began his ritual. Thirty three steps to the door; sixteen breaths by then; full contact with handle and fake a cough once inside. Now it was to the elevator, hit each call button, then make sure the elevator stops on floors 4, 11, and 23 but his own hand, since those floors were statistically, the highest population. If not, he would go up to 27 and back down to 23, sometimes taking the stairs. Once on the floor. Just go sit down and get to work.
The work wasn't bad, nobody would say they love being an auditor. But Jeremy found a great deal of satisfaction knowing that he was a safeguard for the company. Knowing that a large corporation put this kind of trust in his department made him weary, but he was satisfied nonetheless. It was simple through. Follow a trail, use randomness to select the trail, mold your logic to the personnel's and follow the path they need to. Once you're at the end of the path, write it down, make sure it's right, wrap it up with a bow and send it to their manager, your manager and file a copy for yourself. He prided himself on conserving the paper and prided his ability to manage data. Something that several auditors couldn't seem to get a handle on.
Bathroom break, to the stall. Wipe off the toilet seat. Sit, wipe, flush. Everything had a process. Jeremy always laughed at the sign "Employees are not required to wash their hands before leaving the lavatory." Jeremy's love for science fiction allowed him the ability to think outside the box, and then to see the humor in their author's portrayal of "the future of man."
"Did you hear about Len?" was the topic of his cube-neighbor's small talk. "He's in the hospital, wasn't doing his routine again..." Len did have a way of forgetting the necessary tasks to protect oneself. "I don't think Len's ever gotten the feel for pack mentality." Jeremy offered up a defense for the absent. "If doesn't soon, he never will"
Len was thirty-five when the baby Kim accident occurred, and had a tendency to be obsessively clean before the accident, and therefor was particularly cleaner than anyone else Jeremy knew. Jeremy had caught Len on several occasions saying "To get that cleaned up..." and did his best to help Len out. As he did with anyone who was used to trying to stay clean.
The Baby Kim effect or just BKE or BKS to civilians now, was a cocktail of poor habits, combined with poor education and the result of incorrect living practices being handed for generations. BKE was a flaw in reason, a flaw in humanity. How BKE was discovered wasn't strange, there was no U.F.O., no atom bomb blast, nothing. There was a baby that died; perfectly healthy. Doctors did test upon test. The parents were testing, the grandparents were tested. They kept searching for months. Months became years. The media lost interest, the doctors lost interest, the family moved on.
Then it happened again. Exactly the same situation. Sterile doctors, the best. Sterile hospital, hundreds of babies delivered in that room. Normal parents; in fact, they had done a complete genetic analysis while the fetus was developing. The child simply died. But this time, the child flagged a test with a false-positive. During one test, one time. The child came up HIV positive. This was a fluke. This child did not have aids. But, it did instigate further investigation on the coroner's behalf into the immunity capabilities of the child.

(will continue)