The Black: Arrival

by Paul E. Cooley

  Jay stared at the small amount of M2. He waited for it to do something. To move. To burble. To explode. He blinked. The substance did nothing but sit there. He blew a hiss through his teeth and turned to Kate. “Your NMR sample.”

  “Thanks.” She looked up from the control panel and saw the beaker. She cocked an eyebrow. “Is there actually anything in that beaker? Or did you decide you needed ocean-sized glassware for a raindrop?”

  “Ha-ha,” Jay said. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to give this shit a chance at my suit.”

  She opened her mouth and then closed it. Kate stood and took the beaker. “Good point.” She glanced at the other beaker on the table. “You think that one’s big enough?”

  Neil stared at the wall with the glassware. “If you see one that’s bigger, I’m all for it.”

  “Yeah,” Kate said. “I guess you’re right.” She touched his shoulder with her free hand. “Be careful.” She walked to the NMR.

  A sound caught his ear and Jay turned back to the dispensing station. Something in the pipes burbled. Another shiver raced down his spine. Get a hold of yourself. You’ve heard that sound before. It’s just the vacuum. He reached for the other beaker and then stopped. His hands were shaking. Jay clenched his fists. When he relaxed them, the shaking had stopped.

  His stomach growled. Food. Dammit, they hadn’t eaten in a long time. Much less stopped to drink something. As soon as they got the tests up and running, he was heading upstairs for a snack and at least two bottles of water. And he’d drag Kate out of the goddamned lab if he had to.

  Jay grabbed the beaker. He entered 1 liter into the dispenser keypad. The display flashed the amount. He took a deep breath, placed the beaker below the dispenser, and hit the button.

  The pump hummed. This time, he was sure he heard something in the pipes. Something more like a growl than the spitting of air.

  A thick stream of M2 poured out of the spout and into the beaker. Jay kept his hands around the glassware, but once again stood back as far as he could. The liquid quickly filled the beaker. Bubbles rose from the bottom and popped at the surface even as more liquid flowed in on top of it.

  Jay’s hands started to shake, and not from the added weight. The stream slowed as the dispenser pinched off the flow. It turned into a trickle, and then a few drops. Then? Nothing.

  The liquid in the beaker bubbled some more and then stopped. His skin puckered into gooseflesh in the hot suit. As if M2 wasn’t strange enough, the idea he held nearly a liter of a corrosive substance similar to sulfuric acid was terrifying. He wished he’d never gone into the secure area and never seen what he’d seen. At least then he wouldn’t be so damned afraid.

  Jay turned from the dispensing station and headed toward the fluoroscopy machine. He walked with slow steps, his eyes flicking up to watch where he was going and then quickly down to look at the beaker. With each step, a bubble rose from the bottom and popped at the liquid’s surface.

  When he finally reached the machine, he placed the beaker on the table. He studied the glassware. There was no M2 clinging to the sides. “What the hell are you?”

  “What was that?” Kate asked.

  An embarrassed smile lit his face. “Nothing,” he said without turning. He slid aside the cover of the sample reservoir. It could hold up to four liters of liquid, but a single liter was enough. He hoped. He didn’t want to go through this madness again.

  He lifted the beaker and slowly tipped it toward the reservoir. The M2 sample poured out of the container in a rush. He nearly dropped the glassware in surprise. The beaker was empty. No strands or tendrils of liquid remained on the sides. The stuff had acted like a solid rather than a liquid. Jay stared into the reservoir, but saw nothing but darkness. Another shiver wracked his spine and he pressed the button on the control panel. The reservoir panel locked into place.

  He exhaled long enough to fog his faceplate. The M2 was in the machine and no longer in his hands. The beaker had no trace of the oil. He put it aside.

  “Jay?”

  He nearly jumped. Chuckling, he turned to Kate. She stood next to the squat NMR machine, hands on her hips. “Yeah. We’re ready to start the fluoroscopy. You ready too?”

  Kate nodded. “Of course. We should—” She stopped. “Jay, you okay?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Just— I don’t like carrying that much of that shit.”

  “Don’t blame you. I didn’t like handling 50ml of it.” She stared at the machine in front of him. “What do you think we’re going to find?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. But that shit was bubbling again.”

  “You think it will hurt the test?”

  “I doubt it. But I want to know what’s in this stuff. Or what it really is.”

  “Well,” Kate said, “let’s get things started.”

  She turned back to the NMR station. Jay watched her for a moment while she punched buttons on the computer keyboard. Get things started, he thought. Yeah, let’s do that. The fluoroscope screen was dark. He touched the monitor and the screen lit up.

  He typed on the on-screen keyboard with his index finger to enter the label for the sample as well as the parameters. Once the machine was ready, the screen turned green. A dialog box appeared with the words “Cancel” and “Start.” He took a deep breath, and pushed his finger on the “Start” button.

  The machine hummed as it drained the reservoir and pushed it into the pipes. The monitor flashed and showed a wheel of color. A camera inside the machine took digital video of the oil as it flowed through the pipes. Different wavelengths of light shot out and bombarded the M2 sample.

  The oil glowed with different hues before swallowing the wavelengths. “The hell?” He leaned closer to the screen. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The color wheel shifted as it rapidly flipped through all the shades of red. He flicked his eyes back to the view of the oil. Normal crude would absorb some of the light, sure, but all of it? No.

  A soft humming noise caught his ears. Jay shifted in his chair. Kate was starting up the NMR. The powerful magnets in the portable machine would start pulling and imaging M2’s molecular structure. With any luck, the process would model M2 and they’d finally find out what it was made of.

  “Everything okay?” he asked Kate.

  She grinned. “Yup. I’m ready to fry this sucker.”

  “Good. While it’s being poked and prodded at the atomic level, you can come over here and tell me what you see.”

  Kate cocked her head. “Oh.” She stabbed a key on the keyboard and the humming sound increased. “I can’t wait.” She touched a few more buttons and a bright yellow dialog box appeared on the screen.

  “If you do’d it, you get a whipping!” Jay called in Bugs Bunny’s voice.

  She chuckled. “I do’d it.” Her gloved finger touched the screen. The lights in the lab dimmed for a millisecond and then recovered. The humming of the NMR increased into a constant drone. Kate rose from her chair and walked over. “Okay. What’s it doing now? I mean—” Her voice trailed off.

  The color wheel had turned again. This time the M2 sample was bathed in various shades of green. As the light hit the liquid, it reflected for an instant before it was swallowed. All that remained between flashes was the impenetrable darkness of the black.

  Kate groaned. “Why can’t it just be normal?”

  “Good question,” Jay said. The light wheel spun again. This time, to yellow. The lightest shade vibrated against M2’s lack of color. The picture flickered. “What the—” The yellow moved to a darker shade and the image lay still. “What was that? What made the camera do that?”

  Kate shook her head. “I don’t think that was the camera.” Her voice came out in a barely audible croak. “I think that was M2 moving.”

  “Bullshit.” Jay watched the colors deepen toward a bright orange. Had it moved? He was certain the camera had jittered. Or vibrated. But had it? And what if it was the M2? What if it had moved? “Maybe we should stop
the test.”

  She shook her head. “No, Goddammit. We’re getting somewhere. It moved in the yellow range, right?”

  “The lightest, yeah.”

  She pursed her lips. “What if it doesn’t reflect anything back but full spectrum light?”

  Full spectrum light. He peered up at the soft fluorescent bulbs. Those always cast a bit of blue and were far from full spectrum. Halogens? Much closer to real sunlight. “ROY-G-BIV,” Jay said, nodding. He turned to the other lab stations.

  The light above the dispensing station was much brighter than the fluorescent bulbs. That’s because it was an ambient halogen. The other lamps at the stations, including where they’d run the first few tests, also had bright white lights. The bubbling. “Shit,” Jay said. “I have a theory.”

  Kate grimaced. “What might that be?”

  He cleared his throat. “The M2 didn’t respond much to the fluorescent lights. But it bubbled when it was near the halogens. Halogens create something more akin to natural light, but still far from the real thing. Can’t remember the numbers, but it’s in the 3,000 kelvin range. I think natural light is closer to 5,000 kelvins.”

  “So?” Kate pointed at the color wheel as it shifted into green. “Nothing else has made it twitch.”

  “Right,” Jay said. “What if we take out the prism? Instead of having it split the light into the different wavelengths, we just hit it with a full spectrum and see what happens?”

  She stood straight and stretched. “I think we need a break, Jay. My stomach is crying for food and I’m thirsty.”

  Jay’s stomach growled on cue. He grinned. “Me too. But let’s try this. The NMR is still going to take a while.”

  She sighed. “Okay. Fine. Stop the test. Reprogram it for full spectrum.”

  “Thought you’d never ask,” Jay said. He touched the red stop-sign icon and the machine’s gentle whirring halted. He canceled out of the program and returned to the main screen. Although the machine wasn’t made to use full spectrum light, it had a test mode for that very purpose. Jay selected diagnostic mode.

  A warning popped up. Jay growled at the screen. “Yes, I know it’s not a real test, dumbass.” He punched the ignore button and continued. He set the timer for 60 seconds and brought the color temperature to its maximum color. When he started the program, 4,000 kelvins of white light would flood the chamber and hit the M2 sample.

  He looked up at Kate. “Ready?”

  “Hit it.” She grinned.

  Jay hit the button. The vacuum pump started circulating the oil. Two seconds later, the camera image flared to life. White light bathed the circulating oil. As they watched, the liquid bubbled and boiled.

  The pump groaned and the machine started to shake. “What the—”

  “Turn it off!” Kate yelled.

  A tendril of smoke rose from the pump mechanism. Inside the vacuum of the recirculating pipe, M2 sloshed against the sides in a silent, furious scream. Jay blinked as the oil started to disappear. Tendrils of dirty gray gas gathered inside the pipe.

  “Turn it the fuck off!” Kate screamed.

  Jay moved a gloved finger and touched the “Stop” button on the screen. The machine groaned again as the pump was silenced. The light died and the camera image faded to black.

  Even though the analyzer had stopped and the light was turned off, a high-pitched whine started from inside the machine. A red dialog box popped up onto the screen. “Shit,” Jay said. “The pressure. There’s too much pressure in the pipe!”

  “Release it!” Kate yelled.

  “If I do that, it’s going to fill the lab with whatever that shit was.”

  Kate turned and ran as fast as her suit allowed. The atmospheric purge box sat on the far wall. The bright red handle was encased in a heavy plastic box. She reached it, clicked open the release, and pulled the red handle.

  The lab exploded with sound. Heavy fans in the ceiling started turning. They spun backwards to pull air up into the purge system. A klaxon alarm pierced the air. “Hit it!” Kate yelled.

  Jay stood, stabbed the “Release” button on the screen, and then quickly moved away from the machine. He was glad he did.

  A valve turned inside the machine and broke the pipe’s vacuum. A heavy cloud of white burst from the pipes and rose up into the air vents. But that wasn’t the scary part.

  Tendrils of black squirted out of the pressure hole. They streamed onto the floor and pooled. Jay’s entire body shook. The separate little pools moved toward one another. The oil, or whatever the hell this shit was, gathered itself into a single pool of smoking black.

  “Oh, shit,” he said. “Kate! We have a problem!”

  The remaining sample of M2 slid backwards into the shadows. As he watched, it seemed to grow in size, although it could have been a trick of the light.

  He stepped backward until his ass hit a table. “Kate?”

  “Hang on,” she said.

  Jay kept his eyes on the place where the M2 flowed. He wasn’t going to let it out of his sight.

  The klaxon silenced, but the fans continued whirring. “Okay,” Kate said into the mic. “Tell me what just happened. And please get your breathing under control. You sound like a panting dog.”

  Jay gritted his teeth. His heart beat raced at light speed and pounded in his ears. Calm. Calm. Calm. Kate was right. He was on the verge of a goddamned stroke. He took a deep breath and exhaled through his nose. “Okay,” Jay said. “Better?”

  “Better. What the hell just happened?”

  It was still there, in the shadows. An inky pool against the dull floor. The place where the sample had landed was clean. Shiny. It glimmered even in the wan light.

  “We need to get out of here,” Jay said. He lifted a finger and pointed at the shadows. “Do you see it?”

  She walked from the controls and stood next to him. He didn’t bother turning to look at her face; he didn’t want to risk missing any movement.

  “What am I looking at, Jay?”

  “See the shadows?”

  Kate grunted. “Beneath the fluoroscope?”

  “Yes.”

  She chuckled. “Jay. Those are just shadows.”

  He jumped as the phone rang. Kate sighed and walked back to the control desk. She picked up the handset. “Chem-Lab. We’re fine. We—” Her voice paused.

  Jay wanted to turn, but didn’t. No fucking way was he imagining what just happened. And no fucking way was he going to stop looking at whatever it was. It had moved, dammit. He knew it had.

  “Okay,” Kate said. Jay heard the beep in his earpiece as the phone was patched into their headsets. “Go ahead, Mike.”

  “First off, are you two okay? Really? What happened?”

  “One of the analyzers had a meltdown. The M2 sample reacted and caused a critical pressure problem. Had to purge it in case it was toxic.” Kate sounded a little out of breath herself.

  “Have you been able to determine toxicity?”

  For a moment, neither he nor Kate made a sound.

  “Hello? You still there?” Mike asked.

  “Yes,” Kate said. “Sorry. No. We don’t know what it was.”

  Mike sighed into the intercom. Jay immediately knew their boss was under more stress than from just a lab incident. “Okay. Here’s what I want. I want you two to get on respirators. And I want you to stop all tests on the PPE sample.”

  “Mike? What happened?” Kate asked.

  “Marie is very ill. The CDC is on their way to quarantine us and they’ve asked that you stay in your labs. Both teams.”

  Jay fought the urge to tear his eyes away from the shadows. “They think it’s contagious?”

  “They don’t know,” Mike said. “But they’re going to quarantine us to make sure.”

  “How long before they get here?” Kate asked.

  “Fifteen? Twenty minutes? Look, you and Jay just need to stay the hell away from the samples and stop whatever tests you’re running. Understood?”

  Some
thing twitched in the shadows. “That could be a problem,” Jay said.

  Mike grunted. “What do you mean, Jay?”

  “It moved.” Jay’s words were little more than a whisper. “And we can’t stop the NMR.”

  “What? Why can’t we stop the NMR?” Kate asked.

  Jay pointed to the shadows. “Because we have to go through it to get there.”

  Mike groaned. “Jay? Have you lost your mind? What are you talking about?”

  The shadows moved again. He heard Kate’s sudden intake of breath through the headset. She’d seen it now. And no, he wasn’t hallucinating.

  “Mike? Let me call you back.” Kate killed the line. “Jay?”

  “What?” His eyes watered. He’d barely blinked since he’d first seen the puddle of M2 move.

  “What do we do?”

  “Good question. I’m ready to hear some ideas.”

  Kate cursed under her breath. Jay wondered how long they had before the thing in the shadows decided to do something.

  *****

  Panic. He knew that’s what he should be feeling. Instead, he was too tired to feel much of anything. He’d been in the ER long enough to lose track of time and any semblance of order. He was hungry, but didn’t feel like eating. He was thirsty, but didn’t want to ask for water. Why? Because Marie was dead.

  While he sat on the portable hospital bed and they drained vial after vial of blood from his arm, the steady, but slow rhythm of the electro-cardiograph beeps provided a constant backdrop of sound. He heard it below the speech of the doctors and the clinking of medical equipment.

  The CDC docs looked like astronauts in their gear. The only differentiating features among them were the name tags taped to their suits and their height. Disaster movies kept playing through his head. There was always high drama, people with strained voices, and some kind of invisible clock ticking down. This was nothing like that.