“Alma Gutierrez, sophmore EE major ...” I flipped through the file and then back to the picture taken of her new self. “Has her form changed anymore from this that we know of?”
“No, the change seems permanent and stable. In fact, I already took the liberty of having her wait in your clean room.”
“The clean room? Do we really want to scare the girl by poking at her while we look like CDC workers?” I closed the folder and got to my feet. Reginald looked a bit sheepish.
“I simply thought that would be best for achieving the best results as quickly as possible.”
“This isn’t a petri dish of microbes, Reggie. This is a human being, for Christ’s sake.”
I left the dean there to sputter and made my way across the lab offices to the experimental areas. At the end of the hall was the clear-paned door of the airlock into the clean room. From there, I caught my first glimpse of Alma Gutierrez, college student and now experimental subject.
She was short before the Push, at least from the school’s records, but now was fairly tall, even taller than I was, topping six feet easily. Her entire body seemed to have been replaced with intricately faceted crystals of some unknown mineral. Whatever her new body was made of it, it was semi-transparent: I could observe the subtle motions of crystalline bones and the shifting of internal structures in her bare arms and legs as she paced the sterile room. I wondered for a moment at the lack of shoes but then I noticed how the hard edges of her body were already wearing cuts into her denim shorts and flannel shirt. As with Eric and the other Pushed I had met, my head began to ache and my senses twist: I could see that ghostly afterimage of what the photo had told me was the real Alma inside the new shape. Exposure was starting to making the feeling less sickening but no less bizarre. I depressed the intercom switch by the door and cleared my throat.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Gutierrez. The Dean was just being overcautious.” I pointed at the airlock door. “Let’s get you out of there, OK? Get in the airlock and I’ll cycle you out.”
If I hadn’t been able to see that phantom self inside of Alma, I’d have been hard pressed to read her expression through the angular lines and see-through segments. The inner Alma seemed relieved though and dutifully entered the airlock and waited. I ran the air exchange from the outer door panel then opened the pressurized door for my guest. She stepped out into the hallway. Up close I was a bit dazzled as the overhead lights refracted with rainbow colors through her body. After a moment, she spoke for the first time.
“Thanks.” As with Eric’s, I could hear two voices. The first was windy and resonant; the second was normal and tinged with a Mexican accent. “I hope you can help me.”
“I hope we can too.” I offered her a hand to shake. “I’m Dr. Irene Roman, head of this research group. My specialties are physiology and physical therapy. It’s nice to meet you.” Alma stared at my hand for a long moment with those clear, crystal eyes.
“It’s good to meet you too, Doctor.” The facets in her face contorted, her inner face showing embarrassment. “I, uh, I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t shake your hand.” It only took a moment of thought to realize why.
“All of the edges of your facets are rough then?”
“Yeah. The fingers and toes are the worst, but anywhere they get small, they get sharper, I think.” She ran her hands over her face, producing an eerie sound. Up close, I could see her hair too was now composed of crystalline strands, extremely stiff and hanging limply against the nape of her neck.
“Well, we will be careful then.” I carefully put a hand on her shoulder, avoiding putting any real pressure against the edges sawing through her shirt. Strangely, her crystal skin felt like jelly under my fingers; I had to force myself not to push through it. This difficulty was compounded as I felt every fiber of my being want to recoil away from her. “Follow me and let’s get the initial exams started.”
As I started the physical examination, I decided to strike up a conversation. I would have liked to have said it was purely for scientific purposes, or to help my patient feel more at ease with her unusual situation, and it was partly for those reasons. I am a little ashamed to say that I also had another ulterior motive: I wanted to see if I could figure out how the Push affected the mind. I had only a minor in psychology and minimal post-grad work, but with what I was about to undertake, I wanted to know as much as I could about them.
“So, Alma, can you tell me what how this happened?” I took a casual friendly tone as I began.
“I don’t know.” Alma was trying to hold still while I, in vain, was searching for normal human vitals, but I could feel her crystalline body shudder ever so slightly. “I just woke up yesterday morning like this. The sheets were torn up, my underwear ... I ...” She paused, her faceted eyes shut behind transparent eyelids. “I hurt my boyfriend pretty bad. I must have been thrashing or something.”
“It’s okay, Alma.” I gave up on her pulse and put a stethoscope to her chest. I could see, with close examination, exactly where what had to be a crystal heart beat in her body, clouded by layers of diamond-like tissue. I was struck by the oddity of her body's hardness to my instruments, despite the strangely liquid sensation it had under my fingers.
“I can assure you, with one hundred percent certainty, this is not your fault.” Everywhere, it seemed, was more pain that Eric’s experiment had caused.
“It’s not okay.” The sound of her heart beat was more like hearing the amplified noises of a weak, repetitive earthquake. “Maybe it’s not my fault I’m this way, but I still hurt him.” I looked up at the sound of what I could only guess was this body’s way of crying. Small semi-fluid shards seeped out of the corner of the shut eyelid facets. “There’s one thing you can never do, Doc, and that’s forget about what you’re responsible for. Even if I never meant it, I did it. I’d do anything to fix it.”
I carefully put one of her hands into my own. Unlike her clothes, my skin remained unscathed. The gesture of empathy seemed to calm the young woman.
“I promise I’ll do everything in my power to fix this. For now, though, we need to find out how your new body works so that we can take care of you and you can take care of yourself until we do find out how to fix it. Please lie back and let’s keep talking, okay?”
Despite the fact that I still wanted to find out how the Pushed mind worked, this brief conversation had shamed that line of questioning from me. I promised myself that I wouldn’t violate people the way Eric had, intentionally or not, while trying to fix this. I wouldn’t stoop to his level. Never.
It took eight hours to complete the battery of tests we had laid out for Alma. I had become so engrossed in trying to give her some answers I completely forgot about the Congressional announcements. Some results were pending as I wound up having to send tissue and fluid samples not to the biology department but to the material science department instead. I continued to notice how unnaturally her tissues reacted to my touch, forcing me to use tools and instruments to manipulate all the samples taken.
One question was answered for us at lunchtime when Alma found that normal food and drink was more than sufficient to sate her hunger. It was right around four o’clock when I brought Alma to my office to tell her what we had discovered.
“Well, the good news is that, for the most part, your new body operates in many ways like your old one. You seem to eat, drink, excrete, and your brain produces comparable electrical activity and nerve impulses to a human brain. The exact frequencies and voltages are a bit different, but comparable. I’m going to also infer from that evidence that you will sleep and dream like you used to as well.” There was some relief on the young woman’s face from that.
“What’s the bad news?”
“Well, obviously, you are not flesh and blood anymore. We won’t get back the material analysis until tomorrow at the earliest, but from my examination, your skin is now an extremely hard crystal. Not as hard as say diamond, but close. I guess the difference in hardness may be some a
llowance for flexibility, or your skin would crack and shatter anytime you moved. Your blood and fluids are also seem to be completely inorganic.”
Alma’s hands had started to grip the arms of her chair, the sound of twisting metal interrupted us as the arms had begun to deform under the pressure. Her eyes swam in a strange mixture of horror and a new-found elation.
“Alma, it’s OK.” I couldn’t help but note that before, she had simply been scared of what she had become. Slowly, it seemed, it was turning from fear to thrill. Was that the Whiteout’s mental influence starting to work on her?
“As you just showed, because your muscles and bones are now also made from this incredibly durable crystal, you are much stronger than you were previously. I’m currently working out the biomechanical models, but suffice it to say that it’s doubtful you’ll need help opening pickle jars any more.” It was a bad joke, but the woman was still so stressed and confused that even the weak attempt at humor made her laugh, if only a little.
“Thanks, Doctor. I think I needed that.” Faceted lips formed a rainbow smile.
“You’re welcome. There’s a lot more here to go through if you’re up for it.”
“Sure but ... one thing first.” Alma looked down at her hands, especially the now razor-sharp nails. “What should I do now?”
“What do you mean ’what should you do’?” My brow tightened in thought. “If you’re uncomfortable at your old dorm room, we can find you another place on campus to spend the night. Obviously I want to see or at least talk to you every day to see what course of treatment we can find to help get you back to normal. Otherwise, I’m not sure what you mean.”
“What should I do with these ... powers?” Alma held her hands up towards the overhead lights, watching the light refract through them. Her voice was almost dream-like now.
“You shouldn’t do anything with them.” I put her medical file down. “Obviously, if you need to, for instance, fight off a mugger attacking you, sure, scratch him or throw him across the block, but seriously, what else would you do with your physical changes?”
“Well, a lot of the other Pushed people seem to be doing things with them.” Alma lowered her hands and looked at me. Though I couldn’t see it in the crystal orbs, I could see that odd star-struck look in Alma’s real face. “I’m practically a superhero! I could do lots of things with them, good things. It’d be a waste to do nothing.”
“Alma! Please!” I could see through the windows to my office that my sudden shout had made the rest of the lab start then scurry on. I rarely lost my temper, but the research assistants knew to scatter if I raised my voice. “It’s not a waste to live a normal life. Besides, what happens if you got hurt, crystal skin aside?” I started to pace behind my desk. “What could any doctor in any hospital do for you? How do you stitch living crystals? How do you transfuse blood when your best guess at a blood type is ’O Rocky’?” I stopped and looked into Alma’s eyes. “It’s crazy, is what I’m trying to say.”
I could see that she was thinking about it, weighing my words of reason against whatever impulses the Push was causing in her brain.
“ ... Maybe you’re right ...” The sound was sad, defeatist. “I don’t know. I’ll ... I’ll sleep on it? OK?”
I would have to take what concessions I could get. We made arrangements with student housing to get Alma moved to a new private dorm room, not too far from the physiology lab. As we were about to make our goodbyes, I carefully embraced the confused, young woman, trying my best to be comforting.
“Be safe, Alma. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, OK?”
“Sure, Dr. Roman. Thank you for everything.”
The crystalline woman made her way into the dormitory, stopping once for a long backward glance at me before letting the glass door close behind her. I turned to walk back to the lab, wiping a thin trickle of blood from my cheek where I had cut myself against her, the first time I had managed to do so during the entire day. I swore to myself as I stalked down the sidewalk that I would fix this, now more than ever. Before I had only seen the outward destruction the Whiteout was causing, now I had a chance to see the more personal damage it was threatening, not just to normal humanity but the Pushed as well.
Chapter 8 Icarus
I strode across the deserted campus, back to my lab. Just like the rest of the city, Georgia Tech seemed locked in the same state of shock. The quiet was welcome; there were few distractions from my thoughts. What today had shown me was how urgent action was becoming.
I had originally considered simply trying to recreate Eric’s experiment. Eric had said the God particle was generated by belief or strong thoughts. I could, in theory, simply use my feedback prototype and amplify my own thoughts, then proceed to think very, very hard about the world the way it was.
There were two immediate problems with that idea. First, most obviously, I had a strong suspicion my prototype wasn’t the only component that generated the Whiteout. Eric had said that most of his equipment had been to detect and quantify the God particle, but not all of it.
Second, I wasn’t entirely certain if I could get it all correct without extensive practice. It’s not that I was bad at visualization. It was more my concern of having my own preconceptions color the reality it would cause.
If I took Eric at face value, it was obvious to me that, already, things were not going according to what he believed he would be bringing about, despite his extensive planning. Right now, until I could either turn Eric’s mind around or collect more data, trying to mitigate the damage seemed to be the best way to go. I was mulling over specifics when the campus announcement system crackled to life.
“Please remember, all students and faculty must obey the 7 pm curfew as set by the Department of Homeland Security. All evening labs and classes have been indefinitely suspended. If you need to leave class early to comply with the curfew, please inform your professor or teaching assistant. Thank you.”
I glanced at my watch. It was already 4:28. Fortunately I kept an overnight bag in my office, the result of one too many all-nighters. I had work to do and here was the best place to do it. By the time I got back to the lab, most of my colleagues had already left or were packing up to go. I passed Ken on the way to my office.
“Hey, Kenneth, do me a solid?”
“What’s up, Irene?” Ken flashed me a jovial smile. “I’m just about to get up out of here, but if it’s quick, I’m your man.”
“Please let Eugene know I’m going to be working late.” No reason to freak out the night watchman, after all, not these days. “I want to get a head start on Alma’s biomechanics numbers.”
“Sure thing! Want me to swing by your pad and let Eric know?” Ken was a great guy. Unfortunately, he was being too helpful right now.
“Oh, no, no,” I smiled in response. “I already called him, he knows.”
“Cool beans! Well, I am outta here. Have fun with your numbers!”
With that, I locked myself in my office and booted my computer. It seemed like I had some major news to catch up on before I did anything else. What I found plastered on every news agency’s front page was a link to the joint Presidential/Congressional press conference from earlier that day. I watched it, replayed it once to put it to memory, then sat back, letting it all sink in.
To be fair, it was about what anyone should have expected in response to what was, by all measures, a global natural disaster. The entire nation was declared to be in a state of emergency. All National Guardsmen were being called into service immediately, as well as all military reservists. A national curfew was being enacted to help reduce the sudden and disastrous outbreak of violent crime as well as provide a potential safe time zone for reconstruction work to begin.
The President made sure to mention that while he was thankful for those private citizens that had stepped in and used their new abilities to help contain the violence, there was a fine but important line between self-defense, good samaritanism, and outright vigilante activity. The
United States was a country of law, I believe is how he put it, and the best thing for any of the newly empowered to do to assist the country was to follow legal channels. Any crimes where a Pushed individual uses their powers were considered to be committed using a deadly weapon or lethal force, where appropriate. The powers that be assured the nation that the best minds in the free world were working on finding out the causes and long-term impact of the Whiteout and that our country would continue onward, doing our best to balance freedom and national security. Near the end of the press conference, the President made a specific statement that I particularly paid attention to.
“Now, there has been talk of an assembly of these empowered individuals, a rally of sorts, to be held here in our nation’s capitol in two days time,” he said, then paused a moment. I could tell, despite the makeup for TV’s benefit, that the man hadn’t slept in a day or more. “While we will not suspend anyone’s right to assembly, even in this time of crisis, I would like to personally put forth that such an assembly has the potential to be a volatile situation with the current state of affairs. I want to make sure that the organizers of this event realize this and take that into account for their plans.”
There was concern in the President's voice, and just the faintest undercurrent of fear. Whatever charm the Whiteout was weaving wasn’t universal, or was it? Maybe this wasn’t only a rational response. In quite a few of those comics I jammed into my marathon reading session, the government was often portrayed as a possible foil to the noble heroes. Registration acts, black ops, super soldiers, and old fashioned paranoia were all themes explored. It was certainly possibly that the powers that Eric unleashed were following a similar course.
Would Eric take the president’s veiled warnings in stride and alter his plans? I had no idea. He might take it as an affront and turn the event into something more violent. He might take it as a chance to win over the suspicious by showing up and enforcing peace. He might just cancel the whole thing.
The Push Chronicles (Book 1): Indomitable Page 6
