Afterimage

by Roderick Geiger

  “Hmmm. Any other reporters?”

  “I haven’t seen any print, but Channel Three is here. And…oh look, here comes Channel Ten from big bad Los Angeles.”

  “Really!” Ed’s gears were churning. L.A. rarely comes out this far. “Okay, it’s 10:50 now. Meet me in front on the Fourth Street entrance in a half - make that one - hour. Work up some sidebar ideas in case I can get you another reporter... Keep nosing around. Do we have art?”

  It was a lot of questions. “Okay, chief. Donlevy’s here.”

  “Good. Tell him to keep shooting. Talk to patients, staff, everybody. Get me quotes.” His voice was fading in and out as he struggled to put on his shirt with a telephone on his shoulder. “Go, go, go. Do your thing. Do your stuff…”

  Ishue almost had enough, but she still needed something from the fire investigator and more from - or about - the injured. For the latter she’d probably have to go up to Mayton. But since she was stuck here till Ed arrived, she milled into the crowd of wheelchairs waiting for the next shuttle bus and began asking around for someone who might have heard the explosion. A man around 50, with tattoos all over his arms running up under his shirt sleeves, said he’d definitely heard it.

  “Our room is on the ward closest to radiology,” he said. Another man, head heavily bandaged, nodded.

  “We told the firemen,” he said.

  “We was watchin’ TV when suddenly the power goes out and we hear this low, rumbling noise,” the tattooed man said.

  Again the bandaged man nodded.

  “So I went into the hall just as the emergency lights come on. Smelled really bad, like a cornered gray fox or somethin’. An’ suddenly it gets real cold an’ quiet, like pin-drop quiet. Then I see this guy.” The tattooed man stopped at this point, as if assessing his own credibility. “A short, bald guy, a doc, wearin’ a white coat with blue letters here…” he brushed his fingers across his own chest at pocket level. “He’s lookin’ at me, an’ then he just like disappears. I mean, one minute he’s there, ten feet away, then he just fades away. Gone.” With this the speaker went quiet, arms folded in anticipation of the impending disbelief.

  With a smirk and a skyward glance, the bandaged man drew little circles with his index finger beside his head.

  By sheer reporter force-of-habit, Ishue got their names and contact numbers, though she was quite sure she would never need them.

  Day 21

  Sunday

  Port Alford,

  Henrique Islands,

  South Indian Ocean

  Devon Robbins strolled slowly up toward the old French fort with Emilie Toubold, arm in arm, sharing the day’s events related to their respective duties on the island. Although actually an employee of the United Nations International Monitoring System, Devon was required to maintain a cover as a seismology student from Perth University. He was not very committed to the deceit, which he thought of as merely foolish paranoia, and he was not very good at lying, so he said as little as possible about his work.

  Emilie, a botany grad student from Montpellier Academie, loved to talk about her greenhouse filled with sub-arctic conifers, which she was systematically transplanting to her school’s fragile experimental forest one-half kilometer inland. “The last of my White spruce died today,” she said in a tone usually reserved for mourning a pet dog or cat. “The Scot’s pine, this ees the only species that does not die, but the little trees, they do not grow either.” She held her hand out, waist high, palm down. “Some have been up there three years and still they are only thees tall.”

  She pulled her arm free of his just then, skipping backwards up the hill. “But what of you? I saw you on the skiff headed out to sea thees morning. What ees it you do all day?”

  “Watchin’ seismograph needles, mostly,” he said, skirting the question.

  “Why ees eet you get to have all the fun?” She said playfully, turning to sprint the last 10 meters up to the ruins of the fort.

  Devon watched her crest the hill. He carried mixed feeling for the slender and naturally pretty brunette; on the one hand he loved her youthfulness, on the other he feared her immaturity, so common among these science students who had studied their childhoods away. In this place - where he had worked more than three years but the students only did nine-month stints - there was no room for committed relationships.

  And with Emilie there was another complication, the little matter of a longstanding boyfriend back in Calais. But that was some twenty thousand kilometers away. Devon believed he would eventually win her over; he was just not so sure what he would do when it happened.

  Thirty minutes earlier the Island’s entire population – 23 in all – had crowded the ruined fort’s hilltop colonnade, hoping for a late-season visit by the elusive Aurora Australis. It wasn’t like up north where Borealis sightings were fairly common. This was the timid Australis. Many of the students here completed their nine-month tours without ever having seen it. And tonight, as Emilie and Devon arrived, most of the students and faculty had already given up, headed back down the hill to their respective bungalows.

  Seated next to Emilie, Devon felt a tinge of guilt as he watched Ravinder glide gracefully into the twilight. She was a new meteorology student from Calcutta University; statuesque, perfect bronze skin, straight raven hair down to the small of her back, thick bangs, black eyes, almost unapproachably beautiful, headed for a successful TV News career, no doubt. The other male students had noticed her as well. Mostly the French boys. They’d definitely noticed. She was the talk of the island.

  Devon found himself unable to avert his stare as Ravinder floated downslope, swaying gracefully out of sight.

  “She ees gorgeous, no?” Emilie hissed.

  “Who?” Devon said stupidly…and received a playful but passionate punch in the shoulder for it. “Ouch. What was that for? Hey! You’re jealous!”

  “I am not. Eet is only natural for a woman to expect complete attention…from all men around her.” She smiled meekly.

  “And you have mine,” he said coyly.

  Devon now realized he and Emilie were the last still on the hill. No aurora again tonight. As a sudden, chilling breeze whipped through the fort, Emilie shouldered herself into his open coat, snuggled her arms around him. Under a canopy of stars in a moonless sky, enough light to see the Australian boy’s handsome face. The Japanese believe babies conceived under the aurora are granted great intelligence and talent.

  Devon checked his watch. Eleven P.M. “It’s probably too late. It’s not going to happen.” He tried to swallow back a yawn. “Why don’t we head over to my bungalow for…”

  Suddenly Emilie was up, scampering to the top of the partially overturned concrete wall, excitedly pointing south. “There eet ees!” Sure enough, far on the horizon, a single brushstroke of turquoise-purple, a shimmer of pink. He thought of calling out to the others, but didn’t. They were beyond sight, probably beyond earshot.

  “Over there!” Emilie shouted, pointing west-north-west. What? Impossible! Australis always appeared to the south, toward Antarctica. But there it was, the unmistakable curtain of faint light, off in the general direction of South Africa. Then another splash of pastel light, north, toward India. Another and another - all around, encircling them, pulsing in and out like the flickers from a dying fire.

  As they watched in amazement, the sky erupted all at once in a dazzling flash of light, from horizon to horizon, brilliant white. It lasted only an instant, but it blinded their darkness-adjusted eyes, and Emilie, losing her balance, skidded with a shriek down the angled slab.

  Devon groped towards her, calling her name and calling: “I can’t see you.” They found each other by sound and huddled together as their eyesight slowly returned. It was dark again, very dark and very loud, the surf crashing into the rocks far below. Much louder than it had been only moments before. “What is that?” Devon gasped. We’re a full klick from shore!

  “I’m so nervous,” Emilie said. “I’m shaking! Do you fe
el it too?”

  He did. His heart pounded in his throat. “We’re just scared,” he said, trying to soothe her.

  “No, no. Not fear. Anxious. I feel like I’m going to explode. This must be what it’s like just before one is struck by lightning.” She’d once read a paper about lightning survivors. The smell of ozone, the maddening crackle of electricity. “God! I can’t stand it!”

  They hugged, squeezing the breathe out of each other for several very long, very tense seconds. Then the continuous crash of surf seemed to subside and their bodies calmed a little. “I don’t see any lights down there,” Devon said ominously. “My vision’s still messed-up.”

  “No. It’s totally dark,” Emilie panted, holding her chest. They each tried their flashlights. Neither worked. She shook hers hard. “How can thees be?”

  Devon had an idea, but he did not mention it now. He could feel moistness along a tear in Emilie’s jeans.

  “Ow,” she chirped, “my ass ees bleeding.”

  Holding tightly to one another, they started down the moist, gravel road toward the now invisible bungalows and research complex, stumbling through the darkness.

  Etienne Arnet, a new arrival from Armees Oceanographique, waved a propane lantern outside the commons building where the cafeteria, rec room and several offices were housed. Devon and Emilie made their way toward the light, the last of the Island residents to check in.

  Etienne closed the door, pushing it hard against the chilling wind. “It must be five degrees out there,” he shivered. “What is our backup heating situation?”

  There was a backup heating system, an inductive wall heater that ran on liquefied petroleum, but it had to be manually lit. And all throughout the station there was only one LP heater; here in the rec room. Etienne and two other students headed to the utility building to investigate.

  Professor Marguerite Rawls from Brest Institut Universitaire tended to Emilie’s wound by candlelight. A large-area scrape, but not deep. “Take off these pants,” she ordered, and as Emilie slipped the jeans from her slender thighs, several male students leaned closer in unison. “Haven’t you anything better to do?” Rawls scolded as she dabbed alcohol on the wound. Devon attempted to provide some privacy with his jacket.

  Emilie watched the young Australian over her shoulder, his eyes riveted to her behind. “That stings,” she said, smiling.

  Rawls applied the bandage. “Button up,” she commanded. Then, coyly to Devon: “Try not to disturb the dressing.”

  Emilie came close to Devon’s ear. “I have to check my greenhouse first.”

  “Me too,” Devon said, then added hastily: “I mean my equipment.” He watched her head up the hall towards the north wall of the commons building, then he borrowed a candle and turned south to his cubicle, a small alcove filled with computers that formed the electronic terminus for his array: a T-phase seismometer, a seafloor hydrophone and six Multiple Sensor buoys tethered in a three-mile arc around the south side of Henrique. It was an automated system that transmitted continuous live data via satellite to the Vienna, Austria headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty Organization. The CTBTO (pronounced sit-bo) for short. Devon checked his watch as he stumbled into his cubicle. 11:53. Almost nine in Vienna.

  All the computers, all the instruments were dead…nothing he could do about it until power was restored, or daylight, whichever came first. The Landsat transmissions would be dark for a while. Almost nine in Vienna. Sunday night. I wonder if anyone will even notice this until tomorrow morning?

  Emilie caught up with him in his cubicle. “I cannot maintain the temperature now, but the glass is intact, so my specimens should be okay for a few hours,” she reported.

  “Well, my stuff is fried,” he said.

  She ran her fingers across one of his Mac processors. “So this is where all your ‘secret’ work is conducted.”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  She laughed. “Eet is not so easy to be clandestine in such a small and confined community.”

  “So you know?”

  “Everyone knows you are some kind of spy, but little else.”

  “Great,” Devon moaned. “I’m supposed to keep my purpose on Henrique a secret, lest some nearby, hostile power infiltrate the station and compromise my ability to detect nuclear tests.”

  Her eyes got big. “You think thees could happen?”

  Devon leaned in close, whispering for effect: “It may already be too late.”

  Just then the Island’s maintenance man, Patrick Mulfre, stormed past the cubicle headed for the rec room. Patrick had several flashlights, which he passed out, none of which worked. “The generator is melted,” he announced loudly. “So is the backup. The base batteries are dead and it looks like both wind generators are seized.” He shook his head. “With all this redundancy, it is not supposed to happen this way.”

  Devon thought he recognized a faint smell, but to be sure, he brought one of his computer towers into the rec room and removed the cover screws. The inside of the computer was melted, the chips, boards, wire insulation: a stinky mass of slag.

  Outside, the wind had picked up considerably, a storm moving in from the north. Unusual for this time of year. “We should all stay in here tonight,” Ravinder fairly yelled above the growing gale outside the concrete walls. She and another student went to look for more blankets.

  The wind and rain subsided after daybreak, a few minutes past 3:00 a.m., and the rec room began to slowly fill with the familiar dull, gray light that came in through its twelve Lexan skylights. By 5:00 a.m., Patrick Mulfre had succeeded in igniting the inductive wall heater, woefully inadequate to keep the building warm - but pleasant enough when standing close. Most of the island’s young scientists crowded around the heater grill, engaged in lively discussion about the previous night’s events.

  A lightning strike directly on the generator building had become the prevailing theory, supported by the fact that every electrical device, on at the time the alleged lightning hit, was now damaged, overloaded by an electrical surge. This theory was bolstered by Patrick’s claim that the back-up generator, wired out of the system at the time, had sustained only minor damage and was likely repairable.

  Devon disputed the lightning theory for several reasons. First, the generator was housed a mere 80 meters from the rec building…wouldn’t someone have heard the thunderclap?

  “Not necessarily so,” said Ravinder. “There are atmospheric circumstances that mute or mis-direct thunderclaps. It’s possible the lightning hit one of the wind generators, several hundred meters from the base, and the wiring carried the electrical surge back to the generator building. The prevailing wind would have compressed the sound waves…” She attempted to model this with hand gestures. “And the thunder could have drowned in this high-noise environment.”

  Most of the students nodded approvingly. “Yes, the wind turbine,” someone confirmed.

  “Okay,” Devon conceded. “What about the radios? Even the transmitter that wasn’t plugged in doesn’t work now.”

  “Maybe it got hit through the antenna leads?” someone suggested.

  “I don’t think the antenna was plugged in either,” Devon said tentatively.

  “Maybe it was unplugged because it was already broken,” said another.

  Several students entered with a steaming coffee pot made by boiling water on the gas stove, then pouring directly into the Mr. Coffee basket. They also carried a box of donuts, defrosted – not in the microwave – but in the gas oven. “Who said today’s youth lack ingenuity,” one proclaimed, handing out cups.

  The conversation now turned to communications, or rather the lack of it. The base was almost entirely dependent on satellite uplinks, now hopelessly damaged. Without communications, how would the outside world even know to send help? Argyle, the station’s supply ship, wasn’t due for another six weeks.

  The idea startled some of the students. What about food? With the fr
eezers out, wouldn’t their food defrost and rot? And the elements? What if a freak cold front came this way? Could they survive six weeks?

  “No worries,” Devon announced. “They already know we have a problem.”

  “How?” Etienne asked.

  “My data stream. My superiors in Vienna will want to know why it stopped, and when they try and contact me, they’ll find out the Landsat’s down as well. Imagine how suspicious that’ll look: two unrelated systems knocked out. I’ll bet they already know…” He checked his watch. 11:53? He shook his wrist.

  “Mon Dieu, we’re saved!” Emilie shrieked sarcastically. “Do you think they will send a helicopter?”

  “Hmm,” Devon pondered, “yes, I think there’s a good chance.”

  “From where?” asked Professor Arnaud, the Henrique station chief. He’d just come in from outside, carrying two fish by the tails. “The nearest French naval base is La Reunion, 2400 km away, out of range for helicopters.” He surveyed the concerned expressions around him and continued in a more cheerful tone: “But it is no matter. We will be fine for the few days it takes a ship to arrive.”

  An awkward pause ensued.

  “What have you there, professor?” Emilie asked, wrinkling her pixie nose at the fish smell.

  “Something very peculiar. Paradiplospinus Antarcticus…a species of mackerel. He held up the long, skinny fish, each about the length of his forearm. “Deep, saltwater species. I found these specimens over by the wind generators, 100 meters up from shore. Does anyone know how they got there?” When no one answered, Arnaud motioned to one of his students. “If you would assist; perhaps autopsies will shed some light on this mystery.”