The Primus Labyrinth

by Scott Overton

  Is it getting darker ahead?

  Acceleration still building. Building. Becoming uncomfortable. How fast will it get? Might be able to use reverse thrust to slow down.

  No. Better to know right away what she can handle. Trust the scientists—Primus is virtually indestructible.

  What about her pilot?

  Wrong thinking. Just an observer here—can’t be harmed. No danger.

  Darkness coming up quickly. Filling most of the view.

  Inside the needle? Can’t see any walls. Much too far away on this scale.

  Currents. Pressure. Sporadic pressure and vibration coming from all sides.

  Kick in the pants from the chair. Another one.

  Darker ahead. Red, not grey. Must be programmed that way. Or is infrared kicking in?

  Sense of sideways motion. No, a spin. Counteract it.

  Earth red. Wine red. Blood red. Coming fast.

  Surge of acceleration! Another one! Major g-forces, squeezing hard. Inner animal screaming to slow down. Slow down!

  Gone into a roll. Can’t correct. Nose dropping. Starting to tumble!

  Rolling. Rocking. Bucking.

  Flash of black. Flash of brown. Don’t be distracted. Don’t turn head. Face front. Face . . .

  Holy shit!

  “The bombs aren’t actually explosive devices in the usual sense,” Lorelei Mallory had explained in the briefing room.

  “Glad to hear it. For a minute I thought either I was going crazy or you people were. I’m not sure which prospect was more frightening.”

  “No-one involved with this project is insane, Mr. Hunter,” Kierkegaard said. “But I can’t say the same about the people who planted these things.”

  “How much do you know about blood?” Mallory asked.

  “Not a lot,” Hunter replied. “I know there are different blood types. Red cells, white cells, floating in plasma. Platelets, and antibodies . . . .”

  “Fair enough. The white cells and the antibodies are part of the body’s defense system—they attack foreign invaders, living or dead. These 'bombs', as we call them, use those very defenses against the host body.” She moved to the front of the room and brought up a PowerPoint slide that featured simple sketches of blood cells in various shapes.

  “Unfortunately we haven’t got a sample of the bombs to study. At this point we aren’t even able to keep the patient in our clinic for consistent access.” She looked annoyed, but Kierkegaard showed no reaction. “So we only have visual observations and some blood test results from the triggering of a single bomb. Even so, we think we’ve come up with the most likely scenario to describe how the bombs operate. Basically, they’re containers full of a chemical called ADP.”

  “I just know there’s going to be a long name attached to that one.”

  “Adenosine diphosphate. It's a chemical responsible for helping the body repair tears and holes in blood vessels. It draws platelets to the site of an injury and converts a protein in blood plasma called fibrinogen into threads of fibrin that form a kind of mesh across the hole to trap blood cells until a clot forms.”

  “How is that a bad thing?” Hunter asked. “Oh. You said a ‘clot.'"

  “Right. A bad thing if there’s no injury. With the quantities of ADP that we’re talking about, especially in a smaller blood vessel, the mass of fibers and blood cells keeps growing until it becomes a thrombus—a large blood clot that can block blood flow completely. Then healthy tissues die—what we call necrosis. The bombs may contain another chemical inhibiting the body’s natural anticoagulants as well. We’re not sure. All we really know is that the one bomb detonated so far was in the patient’s pinky finger, and caused a very noticeable bruise. Possibly some nerve damage.”

  “Blood clots.” Hunter shook his head. “Potentially fatal, I assume.”

  “If they were to happen in the brain or lungs, yes.” Mallory's professorial demeanor was disturbed by her obvious empathy for the victim. “Or if a clot were to break loose somewhere else and travel to the brain, it would create an embolism, which is a prime cause of fatal strokes. However, the clots could also cause significant damage to some of the body’s other major organs—the heart, the liver—possibly with lethal consequences. To make matters worse, we have no way to know how many of these bombs are in the patient’s body, where they are, or how they are triggered.”

  Gage leaned forward. “We believe the bombs are probably a lot larger than white blood cells, but so far they’ve been impossible for us to distinguish in the bloodstream. We’ve begun to look for traces of metal and silicon from radio antennae and silicon chips. The bombs have to be programmed in some way to navigate to the desired locations, or at least to stop drifting with the current at a promising spot. Then they must be triggered to burst and release their cargo of ADP by a radio signal. A pre-programmed release wouldn’t fit the scenario Devon has described to us.”

  Tamiko took a turn. “We’ve managed to get access to a prototype hybrid scanner that combines the highest resolution ultrasound yet developed, as well as positron emission tomography or PET for short, and a form of spectroscopy using x-rays. Scan results from the three technologies are merged by computer, and the result is amazing. Far beyond what’s been available to this point. We’ve also borrowed some cutting edge MRI equipment developed at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. With the best of each technology, compared by computer, it’s just possible we might find them.”

  “In the meantime,” Kierkegaard stressed, “we can only use deductive reasoning for the most likely locations of the bombs. We cannot wait for something more precise. We will place Primus close to where we think a bomb is likely to be planted, then hope that you can find it on your own. It would be useful for you to spend some time getting a grasp on blood chemistry and its fluid dynamics, as well as human anatomy, especially the bloodstream. Doctors Mallory and Tamiko will help.”

  “I don’t understand.” Hunter said quietly. “Why would anyone do something like this?”

  Kierkegaard replied in a voice heavy with disgust.

  “Leverage.”

  Primus is a projectile, sling-shot into the bloodstream. Incredible impression of speed, and still accelerating!

  Huge planetoids everywhere, the current somehow dancing the ship past them by the narrowest of margins. Over, under . . . . No, bumped that one, the chair shuddering, Primus fishtailing toward port. Going into a spin. Pulling heavy lateral g’s.

  Now tumbling. A tilted cartwheel at breakneck speed. Can’t stop it.

  Hit something. Tail glanced off . . . what? A blood cell? Dark—a red blood cell.

  Got to be a way to get some control. Feather the thrusters: port side half thrust . . . more . . . now fore starboard to full—dampen the spin. That’s working. Try all four blades planed flat with downward thrust in front, upward at the rear. There, the tumble dying out. The machine reacts so positively. Real danger of oversteer.

  The current swirls wickedly close around a pair of cells. Another fishtail beginning to starboard. Got it corrected in time. Shit! It’s like taking a carnival bumper car into a demolition derby with supertankers. On glare ice.

  Can’t keep this up.

  What if . . . .

  Flip all four thrusters to face outward, away from the hull. Their thrust will cancel each other out. At 90 degrees to the plane of motion, maximum revs, they should act like . . .

  Gyroscopes.

  Yes! Some stability. A lot straighter through eddies and side currents and whirlpools-in-the-making. Smoother, but steering is badly limited. The thrusters can be slaved together in pairs, fore and aft—a kick to the starboard nose fan triggers a slowdown in the portside fan and the ship turns left. Slow, though. Not quick enough . . . OUCH . . . not quick enough to avoid collisions.

  House-sized objects popping up everywhere. Like a minefield. No way to avoid them all. What are they? Antibodies? Are they swarming?

  Damn sure hope not.
That would mean the alert is out and the heavy artillery is on the way.

  No, they seem to be thinning out and falling behind.

  What the hell is that?

  Dark vortex on the port side.

  Primus snatched sideways into it—suddenly pulling three or four g’s to starboard. Accelerating again. Huge surge forward. A greater impression of space, too. Walls farther away—blood cells spreading out.

  Where is this?

  No idea.

  How fast?

  No idea.

  What nasty surprises are hiding in the murk ahead?

  No frigging idea.

  Still accelerating. Unbelievable speed. Visual resolution is starting to break down—everything blurring. Occasional blood cell jumping into view, keeping pace for a few seconds, then vanishing like a ghost. What’s happening? No way to avoid collisions. No possible way to see them coming. Another one! Damn it, if the ship hits the ceiling at this speed . . . .

  Shit. Got to move the sensor array behind the tail for protection.

  It’s sliding aft, but too slow. Too damn slow. Got to stay mid-channel, but can’t see a damn thing.

  The computer can’t handle the speed. Can’t stitch the visual references together quickly enough. Must be in a major vein.

  That wasn’t supposed to happen.

  That means being carried through the whole frigging circulatory system. Once a minute, ’round and ‘round, maybe hundreds of kilometers a second at this scale. Incredible!

  And absurd. How could they ever have expected to control something at this speed?

  They didn’t. It wasn’t supposed to happen. Primus was supposed to have stayed in minor veins, or even capillaries. At a sane speed.

  Now . . . right off the map. Out of control.

  The pilot can eject, but the craft is lost.

  End of story. End of mission.

  5

  “We’re counting on the bombs giving themselves away once they’re ready to be deployed. With their radio antennae.”

  “I don’t follow you,” Hunter said.

  “Antibodies and white blood cells attack foreign objects because they sense that the invaders don’t belong,” Gage explained. “A white blood cell bumps against an object and discovers that the shape and outer texture aren’t right. It sounds the alarm, and more defenders come to its call: antibodies, and larger killer cells called macrophages.”

  “Wouldn’t the bombs feel foreign anyway?”

  Mallory fielded the question.

  “We believe that whoever created these things was clever enough to have sheathed them with a lipid and protein shell—a shell of the host body’s own cellular material—to trick the natural defenses. A disguise. But if the bombs extend an antenna once they’re in position, that would be a giveaway.”

  “Why don’t the macrophages just gang up and destroy the bomb before it does any harm.”

  “We have to assume they’re made of tougher stuff than that,” Mallory replied. “The disguise is only to let the bomb slip through the defenses until it’s in position. Then the bombers would actually want to have white cells crowd around as ready material to start building the blood clot.”

  “Then I don’t see what’s important about their antennae giving them away.”

  “Once a cell identifies an interloper, antibodies, white cells and macrophages are chemically tagged to be a match for the invading organism. Those tagged cells are something we can detect.”

  Hunter finally put it together.

  “A test. You can test the blood for tagged cells.”

  “Right. Then we might at least get some idea of how many bombs we’re up against. If we’re really lucky, careful sampling might even tell us where the highest concentrations of tagged cells are—narrow our search a little, anyway. That could mean the difference between success and failure.”

  “I’ll be grateful for any advantage.” Hunter frowned. “I keep picturing myself looking for a needle in a haystack thousands of miles long.”

  “We’ll do everything we can to help you,” Mallory said earnestly. “We’ve drawn blood from the site of the clot in the patient’s finger, and we should be getting the first batch of test results any time now. By the time your first test run is completed and evaluated, I’m confident we’ll be able to give some good advice about where to begin the actual search.”

  “I hope so.” Hunter nodded, wishing he could sound more confident. “But how do we get Primus past the body’s defenses? We won’t accomplish much if our ship is swallowed by the cellular equivalent of Moby Dick.”

  Tyson smiled. “You’re absolutely right, Mr. Hunter. Which is why we’ve given Primus the same disguise as the bombs.”

  Is it time to pull the plug? Get the hell out? Why haven’t they done it already? Their screens and instruments should be showing them the same blurred insanity of uncontrollable speed. The same undeniable signs.

  The signs of a failed mission.

  No-one wants to admit defeat. A permanent defeat, with Primus lost forever in the endless current of the bloodstream, a patient with a death sentence, and who knows what else at stake.

  No. Too soon to give up. Too much to lose.

  Think, then, damn it. How to get off this mad carousel—slow down enough to regain some kind of control, then find a place where Primus can be found and extracted.

  Have to try kicking the drive into reverse.

  Nothing.

  Full reverse thrust.

  Still can’t see a damn thing.

  Should be a slower current flow near the vein walls. Or is it artery walls by now? Try edging over. Bound to be wicked turbulence closer in, though. Oh yeah. Getting rough as hell.

  Christ! Must’ve hit the wall. Again! Damn it—can’t navigate by collision! Feel the back swell—find the balance. Like navigating near a rock wall with the tide coming in.

  Still not slow enough. No choice but to turn the ship around and use full thrust against the current. Shit, this is going to be tricky.

  Off the wall again! Knocked into a spin. A good thing this time—go with it. Now hard lateral thrust! Straighten out. Swing the thrusters vertical again for stability.

  Jesus, Mary, and effing Joseph—the angels must’ve been riding shotgun on that maneuver.

  No time to celebrate, though. Bring up the throttle.

  Half thrust. Bucking.

  Full thrust. Shuddering wickedly. For shit’s sake—maybe next time they should make the chair motions a little less realistic. Feeling nauseated.

  Still can’t see. Vibration rattling the eyeballs like dice. The sensor array is tucked behind the tail, looking straight back through the vortex of the propeller—got to be serious prop wash there.

  Wait . . . . Some blood cells. An impression of a wall to the right. Ghost images. Flashes. Like the wall of a subway tunnel between stations. Snatches of data that the computer can correlate. Speed must be dropping.

  How long can the engine run flat out?

  Whoa! A giant backward surge. Another—the engine useless against it. A regular rhythm, almost like a . . .

  Beat.

  Oh shit.

  The heart.

  “You’ve disguised Primus like a bomb?”

  “No,” Tyson had replied. “We just used the same disguise: covering the Primus with a shell made of lipids and proteins taken from the patient’s own cells. We don’t know how they got their material—possibly the same way we did. She’s a blood donor. The point is, the body’s defenses will believe that Primus is one of them, and will have no reason to attack it.”

  It was the first time Hunter had heard the patient was a woman. He didn’t point out Tyson’s slip. Who was she that a billion-dollar research project would drop everything to come to her aid? One of the rich and privileged, he supposed. The average Jane on the street would have been shit out of luck. But then Jane wouldn’t have been a target. He suddenly felt empathy for th
e woman. She seemed less like a laboratory experiment, more human.

  “I have to ask: has the patient agreed to all this? To what we’re going to do inside her body?”

  No one but Kierkegaard met his eyes. “No, she hasn’t. She knows nothing about it.”

  “What? You’re going to inject a . . . mechanism into her body, learn every microscopic detail you can, and she doesn’t even know?” Hunter gave a dazed shake of his head. “Big Brother would have loved you guys.”

  Kierkegaard leaned forward on the table, his jaw muscles rigid. “We are trying to save her life, Mr. Hunter, and the President has explicitly commanded that she not be told what has happened to her.”

  “It doesn’t matter who ordered it. No-one has the right to perform that kind of . . . invasion of another human being without their consent. I’m not going . . . ”

  “You’re not going to what? Not going to play ball? Not going to save a woman’s life because of your principles? Or is it because you feel sorry for yourself for the way you were mistreated?”

  Hunter’s face burned. Was that the real reason? He couldn’t deny it outright.

  “She should be told the truth.”

  “I can’t do that. I won’t. I personally believe that keeping it from her is the kindest thing we could do. She could be killed at any moment, without warning, and we have only a completely untested strategy upon which to offer any hope whatsoever. Is that your idea of benevolence, Mr. Hunter? The whole truth, no matter the cost?” Kierkegaard straightened, and spoke more softly. “It doesn’t matter anyway—my orders are not negotiable.”

  Primus in the heart.

  Chaos. Anarchy.

  No up, no down—

  Collision

  —tumbling, twirling, twisting, an electron around a nucleus—

  Collision

  —starbursts flashing, vanishing, strobes of color, fireworks exploding across the mind, ghosts of circles, spectral lightning; the universe tears . . . shreds . . . chasm of black, fountain of red, falling . . . falling—

  Collision

  —snapping into a frenetic spin, whirling madly, pulled, stretched . . . the projectile on the end of a sling, now rising, geysering, riding the volcano, erupting . . . erupting into . . . .