“Very good, let start with re-pressurising the area.” A graphic sea of illuminated bar graphs appeared over each module on the 3D holo-table. They all started to drift upwards and the research lab received its first taste of air in over forty months. The atmosphere now cycled through air scrubbers as they worked to clean it of moisture and contaminants. “Looks like we have a minor integrity issue in number four. Can we compensate?”
“We would have less than two point three percent deterioration over one full sol.”
“I think we can live with that.” Nills looked at the stats that were now streaming in. “Okay, it’s going to take a few hours to cycle enough air through the lab before we can enter.”
“Three point three two five — to be exact.”
“Okay, you can let it roll. We’ll check back on it later. Come, let’s get back to the garden.”
“Roger that,” replied Gizmo.
A little over three hours later, Jann and Paolio were in front of the Research Lab door as Nills entered the code to open it. “Well, here goes.”
They heard a thump as the locking bolts retracted followed by a slight hiss as the door opened forward. Nills stood back and waved his arm. “It’s all yours.” Jann stepped in first followed by Paolio. The main lab was a large circular domed space, with racks for scientific equipment lined up along the side walls. The centre was crisscrossed with workbenches. A ring of pale green light illuminated the area giving it a strange alien feel.
“There seems to be a lot missing,” said Jann. There were obvious gaps both on the floor and in the racks where nothing remained except for a bunch of wires and tubes. Jann crouched down and examined the floor where one such unit was no longer. “Look, you can see the indents were something heavy stood here.” She stood up. “Where has all this equipment gone?”
“I know they took some over to the mine,” said Nills.
“But so much? More than half the equipment is gone,” said Jann. “What were they doing over there?”
Nills just shrugged, “mining?”
“Look at this.” Jann ran her hand along the surface of a large machine, still bolted to the lab floor. “A DNA Sequencer. If this works it could prove very useful.”
Around the perimeter of the research lab dome a number of additional modules had been attached, and Nills and Gizmo were over examining the door into one of these. She could sense there was something about this module by the way they were discussing it, while Nills fiddled with the door keypad, Jann came over.
“What’s in here?”
“It’s an anomaly, it still had power going to it.” He looked over at her. “It was never offline.” Nills had taken apart the keypad, wire spooled out as he probed its innards with a small screwdriver. They heard a thump, and the door unlocked. “Okay, let’s go check it out.”
Bright fluorescent lights flickered on as they entered. Around the walls were what looked like server racks. Column after column, arrayed side by side all around the circular room. Each column had maybe twenty or so pizza-box sized units stacked horizontally, one on top of the other.
“Looks like a data-centre.” Jann examined a unit, running her finger along the cryptic identification number on the slim fascia. She heard a click and jumped back as the unit silently slid out from its housing, the top gracefully opened as it moved. They gathered around and gazed into its mysterious interior. Inside, a myriad of strange illuminated circuitry, rendered in glass or some crystalline plastic, shimmered and pulsed with a slow hypnotic rhythm.
“What’s this, some sort of bio-server?” said Paolio.
“Yes, you could say that,” said Jann. “It’s a biological analogue. A combination of electronic and living circuits — see here and here.” Jann pointed to different areas of the strange circuit board. “Each of these sections are a facsimile of different organs; lungs, liver, kidneys. And here, look, the heart… see how it pulsates.
“Incredible.”
“They’re generally used for drug testing.” Jann moved back and pushed the front of another of the units. It slid out and opened, just like the first. “As you know, drug testing is an enormously expensive exercise, that’s before it even gets to human trials. So if you could test a drug on an analogue then a pharmaceutical company could potentially save billions.”
“I’ve heard of these, they’ve been talked about in medical circles for years. I always thought they were just fantasy.” Paolio pushed another one out and was peering into its innards.
“So they were drug testing, that’s how they got so much investment.”
“More than that, they were doing human DNA engineering.” Nills was pushing open more units and peering in. “We suspected it but, they were so secretive about what went on in here, it was mostly just speculation.”
Jann suddenly realised. “Oh my God — they’re human — they’re colonists.”
Paolio looked around at the panorama of racks, “There’s a lot missing. Look at all these empty spaces. Still, there must be hundreds here. But there were only, what… fifty odd colonists?”
“There’s probably at least three or four for each colony member. One would be a control, and could be used to create a genetic replica for experimentation.”
“How would they even create such things?” said Paolio.
“Biopsy samples.”
“But they would have to slice open all the colonists.”
“Or stem cells.” Jann looked over at Paolio as they both felt a piece of the puzzle fall into place.
“Stem cells, of course. The bactrium is how they created them. My God.”
They all stood for a while just looking around, taking in the horror of what this room represented.
“You’re probably in here somewhere.” Jann said after a while as she looked over at Nills.
“Yes, but which one. We would need to get the IT systems up and running first to find out. But, I don’t suppose it matters that much now anyway.”
Jann pushed the units back in. “It does if we want to find out what has afflicted the commander, and how to kill it.”
“Gizmo’s working on getting some of the IT up and running soon. We’ll have a better idea then.”
Jann’s head set beeped. She touched the side of the unit to receive — it was Annis. “Yes.”
“Malbec, any word on that Research Lab yet?”
“It’s open for business, mostly. You’ll never believe what they were doing in here.”
“I’m sure I won’t. Anyway you can tell me when I get there. I’m on my way.”
“Did mission control come back with anything useful?
“Eh… no, nothing yet. See you there in a while.” She shut off her comms unit.
“Annis?” asked Paolio.
“Yeah.”
“Any update?”
“None. She’ll be here shortly.”
“Wonderful.” He gave a wry smile.
Over the next few hours Nills and Gizmo worked to restore function to various systems within the lab. Jann’s priority now was the IT system, or at least what was left of it. The lab had been stripped of much of its equipment, moved to the mine according to Nills. “For what purpose?” she wondered. Not that it mattered for what she wanted to do; there was still a good deal of scientific apparatus remaining, enough for her purposes.
And with access to the IT systems, she may be able to gain some insight into the experiments that had been pursued by COM geneticists. But, restoring power to this was proving problematic. So she remained in the Research Lab to assist Nills and Gizmo, Paolio retired to the Medlab to monitor Decker, he had been concerned over his physical state. Annis had still not shown up.
Paolio checked the patient. His chest rose and fell with a steady rhythm. His vitals all looked strong. The cuts and bruises he had acquired were all healed. If Paolio didn’t know better, he would think the commander was as healthy as a pig. He spent some time checking the adhesion of the ECG pads on Decker. Then moved on to the drip. He ma
de up a new batch and replaced the old one, it was nearly out. “Wouldn’t be good to let that run dry.” He thought about increasing the flow rate but decided to do a quick inventory first. They only had a limited supply of the drug that was keeping Decker subdued. How long would it last? He jotted down some quick calculations on a pad. Twelve days. Not much time to find a cure. And then what?
Decker twitched. Paolio jumped. “Jesus.” He moved over to examine the readouts again. Then he took out a penlight and shone it into the commander’s pupils, one at a time. He sat back. There was no doubt that Decker was growing stronger, not weaker. The current rate of drug flow was just enough to keep him under and no more. Should he increase it? If he did then this would just shorten the time-line for a more permanent solution. In the end he decided to leave it for the moment. He would check back later and decide then.
By the time Annis finally showed up it was late. They were all gathered around the table in the common room when Gizmo alerted them to activity in the airlock. Annis arrived caring a bag. “Evening Annis, glad you could make it. What’s in the bag?” said Paolio.
“Eh… I’ve decided to stay here from now on. I think it’s best we all stick together.”
Jann gave Paolio a glance. She was sceptical but maybe she should cut her some slack. “Come, join us. There’s food here if you’re hungry.”
“No… thanks. I’m fine. Is the Research Lab operational?”
“Yeah, partly.”
“I’m going to have a look.” And she walked off to investigate. The others followed her with their eyes as she left the common room.
“Don’t,” said Paolio to Jann.
Jann raised her hands. “I didn’t say anything.”
“No, but I know what you’re thinking. Just let it ride. She’s trying, okay?”
“Sure, fine.” Jann bit her lip.
Nills stood up. “I need to get back to the garden. I’ll show you where she can stay tonight.”
“Just make sure it’s far away from me,” said Jann.
Paolio looked at her.
Jann raised her hands. “Sorry, couldn’t help it. It just came out.”
CHAPTER 23: XFJ-001B
Annis considered the face of Commander Robert Decker, as he lay unconscious on the Medlab operating table. In the harsh glow of her flashlight she could see he was damp with sweat and flushed with fever, as the infection raged inside him. She moved closer and leaned over the bed to inspect the injuries he had sustained to his forehead, they were all healed, and not a scratch remained. “Weird," she thought. She swept the narrow light along the wires that trailed from his body and into the machines that monitored his vital signs. She was about to disconnect them when she hesitated, they may set off an alarm if the status changed. “Best leave them. He can yank them out himself later,” she thought. What she was looking for was the pump that kept him supplied with sedative. The drug delivery system that stopped him from becoming conscious, and kept his violence suppressed. She found it and gently pulled it out from his neck. How long it would take for him to return to consciousness she wasn’t sure, an hour, two hours? It was hard to tell. All she knew was that when he did — all hell would break loose. His body twitched and she jumped back in fright. She held her hand over her mouth to suppress any noise she might inadvertently make. She stood and watched him for a few seconds. Maybe he would wake sooner than she thought. “Better get moving, no time to waste.”
Annis moved silently out of the Medlab and picked her way across the common room floor. It was the middle of the night, 4:35am Mars time. Colony One was in darkness and all the others were asleep. Even Gizmo was docked into his recharge station in the operations room. Still, she couldn’t be one hundred percent sure that the robot was totally off-line and not monitoring some low level processes. She made her way to the research lab, tip toeing as she went. The heavy boots of her EVA suit making hard work of keeping silent. The door was open and power was still on. “Good,” she thought. “This will make things quicker.” She scanned the dim interior with her flashlight and made her way to the racks in the module at the far end. These were the ‘analogues’ and it was one of them that she was now searching for, sweeping her flashlight up and down the racks looking for the serial number that COM had given her. This was the ‘Source Analogue’ that they so desired. Why they wanted it was of no concern to Annis. Other than it was her ticket off this planet. Her flashlight stopped over XFJ-001B. “Found it.” She pressed a button on the fascia and the unit slid out. She grabbed the sides, slid it out of its shelf and placed it carefully inside a rugged case. She stopped, thought she heard a noise, silence. It was just the creaking of the superstructure adjusting to the night time temperature.
From the front pocket of her EVA suit she took out one of the seismic charges and set the timer to its maximum. That should be around forty five minutes. She placed it in a gap between the racks. She set two more to take out the rest of the units. The last charge she placed against the exterior hull of the lab module. It would be more than enough to open the whole place up like a can of tomatoes in a microwave. “That should keep them busy for a while.”
The steady orange LED on Gizmo’s breast panel flicked green as he detached himself from the docking station. He spun around and whirred off at full-speed to wake Nills. He found him lying in his hammock in the centre of the bio-dome. One arm hung over the side, his hand hovering above a half smoked joint that was poised on the edge of an ashtray fashioned from a small rover dish antenna. Gizmo stroked Nills’s arm gently with his metal hand. “Nills, wake up.” His eyes snapped open. “Gizmo, what is it?”
“An earthling has just operated the airlock.”
Nills sat up in the hammock and jumped down. “Who?”
“Temperature coefficient of the accommodation modules indicates that First Officer Annis Romanov is not at home.”
Nills was now checking the camera feeds on his holo-tab. He flicked through each of the modules. Annis’s bed was empty. “What the hell is she up to?”
“I’m afraid I have no logical answer. Perhaps she couldn’t sleep and decided to go for a walk.”
“Come, let’s find out where she is.” They moved off together to the operations room.
Dust swirled around Dr. Jann Malbec and engulfed her. It billowed and blew with a frenzy and blocked all sight. It formed into bacteria and they moved and shifted across her field of vision. She thought she saw a light flash from inside her EVA suit helmet. Where was she? She heard a voice calling her name. ‘Jann… wake up Jann.’ She opened her eyes and Gizmo was beside her bed. She jumped up and clutched the blanket to her neck.
“So sorry to wake you Jann, but Nills needs you in the operations room. It appears your colleague Annis has gone walkies.”
She arrived to find Nills bent over a 3D map of the Colony One site.
“What’s going on?
Nills pointed to a marker on the map. “Annis went EVA half an hour ago and she’s spent the last few minutes inside the MAV.”
Jann looked down at the green marker that was First Officer Annis Romanov. How much did she really know of her? Not much, it seemed. Then it started to move out from the MAV, but not back to Colony One. It was heading to the fuel processing plant.
Jann stared at the dot in disbelief.”
“How long does it take to prep the MVA?” Nills had a concerned look.
“Around twenty minutes.” Then it suddenly dawned on Jann. Annis was getting ready to leave. “Jesus, I don’t believe this. She’s planning to lift-off. Why would she do that?”
“You’ve got to stop her. We can’t let her get back to Earth caring that bacterium.”
Jann looked wide eyed at Nills. “Shit,” was all she could manage.
“It would be chaos, if that infection gets loose, Armageddon, the end of human civilisation as we know it.”
“Shit, shit.” The magnitude of the possible devastation that would befall humankind if Annis were to successfully return to Ear
th was beginning to dawn on her.
“How?”
“Any way you can, you stop her. She must not take off, you’ve got to stop her.”
A nerve shattering scream emanated from just outside the operations room entrance, as the bloodied and broken body of Dr. Paolio Corelli sailed through the door-way and landed with a crash on top of the 3D display. The map flickered off and sparks flew as Paolio’s lifeless body buried itself in the remains of the table. Jann turned away from the destruction, just in time to see Decker swing a long bar and connect with Nills’s extended forearm. He let out a scream and went flying across the operations room floor. Before she could react Decker pounced on her and swung the bar down hard on her head. She dodged, but it connected with a searing crack on her collar bone. She dropped to the floor as the pain engulfed her. She tumbled backwards and cracked her head off something, blinding her momentarily. When she opened her eyes, Decker was standing over her with the bar held ready to plunge into her chest. But then, his whole body started shaking violently. He dropped the bar and it clanged to the floor. Jann grabbed it with her good arm and jumped up. Two long coils of wire ran from prongs embedded in Decker’s back to Gizmo’s breast panel. A taser. Nills had fitted him with a weapon.
Decker shook. Smoke rose from his body, the skin on his skull blackened and his eyes boiled and hissed in their sockets.
“Gizmo, switch it off.” With that Decker stopped shaking and dropped to the floor — dead. Jann turned and staggered over to the forlorn figure of the doctor. “Paolio, I’m so sorry, it’s my fault.” She touched his bloodied and battered cheek with her hand; tears welled up in her eyes.
“Jann, JANN! You’ve got to stop her, time is running out.” Nills was tugging at her shoulder. “Oh God, Nills, your arm, it’s broken.”
“It’s alright, Gizmo will take care of it… go, go, you’ve got to go, now.”
Colony One Mars: A SciFi Thriller (Colony Mars Book 1) Page 15
