Lieutenant Dan narrowed his eyes and leaned in toward Geoffrey. Geoffrey’s heart beat as if it would burst from his chest any moment. Lieutenant Dan had a look on his face as if his body was building up too much pressure and he planned to release it into Geoffrey’s face. Instead, with a deep sigh, he abruptly released his painful grip on Geoffrey’s shoulder and straightened up.
“The doc’s right, Mr. Summons. That meteorite fragment you found marks the change of the entire world as you know it. And it is very likely that you’ll never see your family and friends alive again.”
Lieutenant Dan heaved another deep sigh and slowly returned to his original position behind the doctor. Once he got there, he continued his oration. “This location,” the lieutenant general waved his hand in a wide arc toward the entire grounds. “is a highly classified and heavily-guarded fortress. And as with all fortresses, this one was meant to protect something. Something more important than money, more important than any high tech computer, and more important that any one weapon.” He turned and again leveled his guarded gaze upon Geoffrey, “Knowledge. We have known about alien life in our part of the universe for decades. We’ve been bringing back primitive alien life forms from the moon and mars since we got there. What looks like alien bacteria or fungus, nothing complex but life. But nothing ever lasts long once they get it back home. Everything always dies once it’s been subjected to our atmosphere. Everything. It always just turns to dust.”
The lieutenant general’s voice heightened a note or two as he continued, “Even received some kind of transmission from the ‘higher functions’, as the science personnel like to call ‘em. That crowd figures that if alien intelligence can send a readable signal, then they have to be at least as smart as humans, and since they’re aliens, it’s probably best to assume they’re smarter than we are. So, anyway, they finally receive a transmission from these ‘higher functions’ and it’s in numbers. It’s been fifteen years, and the guys in the offices still can’t figure it out. Whole messages written in numbers.”
“Well,” interposed the doctor “it does stand to reason that if there is a universal language, it would be some kind of math, or something like it. Numbers are the only things that are likely to be the same on other planets.”
“That’s right. You did say that you took up some kind of math before you got into medicine in college.” Lieutenant Dan observed.
“Infinitesimal calculus,” the doctor clarified “and I only got into medicine as you say, when I got here fifteen years ago.” He turned his attention back to Geoffrey, and continued Lieutenant Dan’s narrative, “But even stranger than that was how the message was sent. It came on a burst of pure energy. Light, Son!” the doctor nearly yelled, “Nothing can travel faster than light, not even information, so these foreign intelligences have found a way to actually use light itself to carry information. Light is of prime importance in one way or another in many fields, including, and especially, medicine. With the improvements we could make to lasers for instance, if we could learn to manipulate them better, we could possibly perform more complex surgeries with them and completely disinfect open flesh even while it’s being removed or repaired. The Cleaning Lights we all passed in the corridor are just a start of what could be done with the knowledge we’ve already garnered from these alien intelligences. And that’s just the tip…”
“Cleaning Lights?” Geoffrey asked.
“The lights you passed in the hallway leading here. You couldn’t have missed them. Didn’t you notice that they were much brighter than any lights you’ve ever seen before?” Geoffrey had noticed that the corridor’s lights were incredibly bright, but after the whole hidden entryway thing, he didn’t take as much note of the phenomenon as he likely would have otherwise.
“What about them?” Geoffrey asked.
“Well, what they are,” answered the doctor, with the same faint rise in enthusiasm as had been witnessed in the lieutenant general a few moments ago, “is the best sterilization agent the world has ever seen. When you came in here and passed under and through those lights, your body was nearly instantaneously purged of most of the potentially dangerous microbes, spores, bacteria, etc., that live on your skin…as well as in your body.”
“Potentially dangerous?” asked Geoffrey with a noticeable tone of alarm.
The doctor quickly answered, “No, nothing that we did: Nature, Son. You see, you already have literally hundreds of millions—maybe more—living microorganisms that call your body home. Your mouth, your skin, your eyebrows, even that full head of hair you young people are usually unworthily blessed with, is all saturated with hordes of bacteria, and yeast. Now, most of these microorganisms are good for you, but some aren’t. As far as we can tell, the vast majority of them are fatal to alien life forms that haven’t had millions of years’ experience in the hostile environment of our planet to build up an immunity.”
“Are you saying that you have…real life aliens…here?” Geoffrey asked, astounded. He hadn’t used the phrase ‘real life’ for anything since he was a kid, but now he felt sort of like a kid: A confused, helpless kid.
The doctor looked at the lieutenant general before he went on. Lieutenant Dan just answered his look with a gruff grunt. “Hey, Doc, you’re the one thinks he has a right to know.” Was all he said.
The doctor turned back toward Geoffrey, “Yes, Son, we do, but not aliens. We have only a single foreign entity housed at this particular facility at the moment, and we’re not sure yet that it’s from the life forms that sent the fragment.” With that, Geoffrey’s assumptions were confirmed. He knew, he just knew, that that meteorite fragment was much more than it appeared. Up until this point, there was no way for him to know for certain that all of this wasn’t because of his alleged assault of Mr. Reynolds. If that were so, he’d be in big trouble, but with this new information, there arose a new, more vibrant fear. Was Earth under attack by alien life forms that could hurl incapacitating glowing rocks into our atmosphere whenever they wanted? If they were—which seemed to be where things stood at the moment—then he was, in fact, still in huge trouble…and so was the rest of the world.
The doctor’s voice, as he continued his harrowing narrative, was the only thing that helped usher Geoffrey back to reality. “We’ve had others at less technologically advanced facilities, but it would seem that their housings, their bodies if you will, cannot bear to be in close, unguarded proximity with the microorganisms that I spoke of earlier, that are associated with virtually all human beings. A few days in any human’s presence, no matter what we did to prevent it, and they all eventually ceased to function.”
“They died?” asked Geoffrey.
“Yes, and turned to dust like nothing we’ve ever seen…radioactive dust. Those lights in the entranceway corridor that you and Lieutenant Dan traveled through to get here, effectively killed or vaporized at least 85% of the harmful microorganisms residing on or beneath your skin, and especially a flora of microorganisms residing within your respiratory system.” The doctor’s tone took on an introspective air, as he continued, “My team and I were already making great strides in the practice of bloodless, laser-aided surgeries, but it wasn’t until we were fortunate enough to have some of this alien technology fall into our hands that we discovered how to unlock more of light’s, how shall I say, greater potentials. We still have some ways to go, but with time, I’m sure we can do even more unimaginable things with what we’re discovering.”
“So, those lights can kill germs and things…inside my body, from the outside?”
“Precisely.” The doctor nearly shouted, jabbing a finger into the air.
“And you developed them?”
“Yes.” The doctor answered, then as something of a side note, “Well, I had some help, but yes, I developed them.”
It would seem that the purpose of most of this oration was to draw attention to the fact that it was the doctor who had authored this great stride in the field of medicine. Geoffrey thought about M
r. Reynolds wanting his name attached to some new discovery so desperately that he was willing to put himself in the kind of danger that got him where he was right now. It would seem that even aged and seasoned professionals were still just children at heart, trying to secure the shiniest toy and claim it for their own. At the very least though, Geoffrey was getting some valuable information, so the rest mattered little.
The doctor continued to laud his latest achievement and its vast implications until he said something else that piqued Geoffrey’s interest. He explained how the lights made the entire underground facility essentially a huge, high order clean room, when he noted that all this was done in addition to the fact that the lights never needed to be changed or repaired. When Geoffrey asked how that was possible, the doctor was more than happy to explain, “…and that’s the fascinating thing!” The doctor was almost giddy. “There are no lamps in these lights, as you can see if you look at them closely enough. They have only what we call containment units. And, also, they have no cords, because they don’t use electricity. Why would you think that is?”
Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders. He opened his mouth as if to answer but then closed it without a word. He had no idea how the lights could operate without electricity.
“Because these fixtures,” the doctor gestured to the ceiling, toward a set of lights that were identical to the ones in the corridor, except that they weren’t as bright, “don’t produce light, they store it.” The creases in Geoffrey’s forehead as well as the way he simultaneously raised an eyebrow and squinted said that all this made no sense to him. The doctor went on with the explanation, growing more excited like a kid showing off his shiny new toy. “It is accepted among scientists that light exhibits both wave and particle properties. Now, I’m sure you understand the wave properties of light, as it’s the part of light that you can see,” The doctor’s energy was reaching a peak. “but you’re probably not familiar with the particle properties of light. That’s the part of light that, under the right circumstances, you should be able to feel.” Geoffrey’s eyes lit up in understanding.
“We’ve,” Here, the doctor’s tone suggested that he actually meant I, “found a way to synthesize light into a physical presence!” The doctor sat back in his chair silently, satisfied to let Geoffrey awe at his fully-revealed, shiny new plaything.
And marvel, the intern did. This latest revelation cast light—quite literally—on a lot of other things, and Geoffrey was trying desperately to take it all in as fast as it was coming. After a few moments of enjoying the stark amazement plastered on the intern’s face, the doctor continued, “Now that we’ve found out how to make light a material presence, there’s no limit to the things we can do with it, including sending information by it. That’s what we think happened with your astronomer friend in there,” the doc gestured toward the one way glass, “That fragment he touched was covered in light, you said, right?” Geoffrey nodded. “Well, we believe that information about whoever sent that fragment may be contained in that light.”
“So, what’s happened to him, then?” Goeffrey asked.
“I believe his body is absorbing that information. One of those machines in there will wake him out of his daze, at least that’s what we’re shooting for. If it works and he comes to without severe brain damage, he may be able to give us all the information we need about this alien life force and its home planet, or perhaps even galaxy.” The doctor lowered his voice conspiratorially, “Your friend in there may hold information that is the key to understanding the entire universe…but more importantly, to help us avoid the complete and total annihilation of all life on our planet.”
Chapter 9
“I need a heart monitor in here right now!” the doctor yelled.
“And get me an oxygen machine!” another demanded.
The scene was chaotic, nurses and assistants rushing in every direction, struggling to gather machines and medical materials that were being screamed for much more quickly than they could be produced. Meanwhile, Delilah gazed on at the entire scene with an unusual mixture of pleasure and panic. She was well-used to being fussed over. Her father always made sure that she had a virtual army of chefs, beauticians, maids, and even surrogate shoppers to do just that, but the chaos that was ensuing over her now—the only thing she had done was alerted the doctor that she was feeling a little out of breath—was quite alarming. Just outside her monotonously white room, she saw white suited professionals stumbling over each other to retrieve the things that were being yelled for.
In her room, three male doctors were doing the yelling. One stood beside her bed checking her pulse, another stood at two large windows that faced the hall in the front of the room, from which she watched an intermittent haze of white uniforms rush to and fro. A third stood at a large mirror recessed into a side wall of the room. He was mouthing something to the mirror, but in the blur of bodies and voices surrounding her, Delilah didn’t think too much of it. One of the scrambling white suited people rushed in with a machine that had been yelled for.
“Get the hell out of here!” the doctor near the window yelled savagely. “No one is to enter this room except us!”
The bewildered orderly, looked as if he was about to ask where the doctor wanted the machine then, but he didn’t get a chance, because the doctor interrupted by roaring, “I said, get the hell out of here, now! And tell the others to leave whatever we call for out in the hallway! No one is to enter this room except us!” Once the unfortunate, and confused, intruder backed out of the room, the doctor turned to Delilah. The smile on his face looked forced. “I’m sincerely sorry about that, Ms. Hanson.” The doctor said. He spread his hands in exasperation. “Help. I’m sure you can relate.”
Delilah didn’t open her mouth to answer. The only thing that was going through her head was, What the hell is going on? Meanwhile, the first doctor continued to check her pulse. The second, the one who was talking to the mirror, walked over as well. He looked at the first doctor questioningly. “Pulse is slightly higher than normal.” The other answered the silent inquiry.
“I thought so,” said the mirror whispering doctor. “I think we should step outside for a moment.”
“But…” the other began to reply.
“I think we should step outside for a moment.” Interrupted the first, through bared teeth. The pulse checking doctor finally got the hint and all three headed to the door. Neither of them bothered to answer a single question plaguing Delilah’s mind, as they did so. The door didn’t shut all the way after they exited and Delilah heard them talking just outside. “We cannot upset this patient in any way, form, or fashion. We all know that, so what the hell is going on here?” Delilah listened on, excited at the prospect of getting some questions answered. “We need machines and supplies, but I’ve already told these damned orderlies a hundred times to never enter…”
“Well, first of all,” returned the first voice. Delilah felt dreamy and slightly tired and couldn’t tell who was talking to whom, “they’re not orderlies, they’re government certified security clearance worthy nurses.” Delilah couldn’t tell which of the doctors was talking, but she could tell by the thick, insubordinate tone, that this latest bit of information was fodder that the doctors had been reminded of countless times. Delilah could all but see eyes rolling in disgust even as the words were spoken. She knew the look well. It was often her own.
“Well, I have to record that her pulse has risen and the big wigs will want to know why.” Came the reply.
“I know, and we can’t sedate her any more while we get these machines set up. If we can synthesize a vaccine, it’s going to have to come from her blood, so we can’t afford to keep drugging her.” Before she could stop herself, Delilah let out a brief, but reverberating squeal of horror at hearing that she had been drugged…again.
Obviously, one of the doctors heard her because the only conversation that followed was a quick proclamation of “Oh!” before the door was pulled closed all the way and three
highly-concerned doctors quickly passed the front windows to her room. Fresh repulsion flooded Delilah’s breast. She knew something was wrong with her, otherwise she surely would’ve been screaming at the top of her lungs hours ago for her father to be contacted and for her to be taken out of this place that very instant.
Even now, it was much more difficult than usual for her to get upset—Delilah upset, that is—and she knew that it must be the effects of the sedatives flowing freely inside her. Anyone who knew Delilah would’ve assumed that those sedatives were the extra strength variety to quell the Hanson fury as they had, and they would’ve been right. As Delilah lay beneath leather straps and dim lights, revulsion began to subside and in its place rose up a fiercely strong feeling that she was being watched. By the feel of things, it was the room’s odd mirror that was doing the watching. She wanted to yell, but it was just too difficult to summon the energy for her usual tantrums, so she just lay there pouting, wanting to cry, but unable even to summon the comforting tears of self-pity.
After a while, another doctor entered the room. “Hello, Ms. Hanson.” The doctor said.
Delilah had been staring at a far wall, still pouting over just how unfair her situation was, but turned her head sharply at the voice. It was not the voice of someone she would consider a friend, but it was familiar and right now, that counted for more than she’d have ever thought possible.
“Help me get out of here, Ian.” Delilah pleaded. “Get me out of here. Get my dad. Get me out of here please!”
“Whoa, slow down, Miss Hanson. Just calm down,” answered the doctor.
“I want my daddy!” Delilah was so frustrated and confused that she didn’t care if she sounded like a lost four-year-old. It was also possible that she didn’t care because a lost four-year-old is exactly what she felt like, yet again.
The Virus Page 6
