“We can push the meeting out for a few days, if you prefer.”
“No, no, a thousand times no. Not a problem. The sooner you see what we have to show you, the sooner the galaxy as we know it will be changed forever. My name is Erma Wiley. I’m the public relations specialist for Nagari-Hamilton here on Movi. How far are you from our state-of-the-art facility?”
“We can be at your door in just a few minutes.”
“Splendid. I’ll wrangle one of our top technicians to give you a tour and we can get started!”
“I can’t wait!” Michella said. She blipped the connection closed. “Let’s go see what there is to see.”
Lex nodded and set the coordinates. “This place is a few hundred kilometers from Gloria. The planet is practically empty. Why would it be so far away?”
“The press kit says it is isolated from the local population to maximize security and minimize the threat of contamination in the event of a catastrophe.”
“Ah. So it is one of those ‘potential catastrophe’ labs.”
“Is that a problem?”
“I’ve got a bad track record with those places. The last one I was in was almost demolished by a corporate super-ship.”
“Trev, what are the chances something like that would happen again? That probably filled your disaster quota for a lifetime.”
“Yeah, I used to think that too.”
The SOB settled down outside the facility. It was clear that they took security seriously. Ten-meter-high fences surrounded the complex, and the gray walls were entirely windowless. The fences were topped with barbed wire, humming with electricity, and festooned with signs graphically depicting the consequences of trying to scale them. Conspicuous cameras swept the courtyard from perches atop the roof and regularly spaced poles. There was even a telltale shimmer in the air above the facility betraying the presence of a force field of some kind, which was the sort of precaution that became necessary once cars started hovering and thus fences stopped being quite as effective as protection. An armed guard of the standard rent-a-cop variety stood at the main entrance of the courtyard, and beside him was a lab-coat-clad scientist, presumably the technician sent to greet them. The PR representative was on hand as well, her teeth gleaming and her arms wrapped around a plastic bin loaded with colorful items. Lex brought the ship down in the middle of a largely empty parking lot.
“First, you’re going to want to hand me Squee,” Lex said.
“Oops, I almost forgot about her. She’s so comfy,” Michella replied. Amid a drowsy grumble of protest from the creature, she lifted Squee from her neck and placed the beast across Lex’s shoulders.
“You’ll also want this,” Lex said, handing back a strange-looking wand.
“A lint stick! Thank goodness. I wasn’t looking forward to brushing all of this hair off.”
Michella took the wand and clicked a button. Instantly the loose funk fur that had collected on her shirt and pants began to trail away, sticking to the wand. She waved it over herself a few times, clearing herself of Squee’s shedding, then handed it back.
“You’re a lifesaver.”
“Nope. Just a guy who delivered a package while covered in funk hair one time too many.”
He popped the hatch and was hit by the dense, muggy atmosphere. There was an unpleasant, swampy smell to the air, and the temperature already approached uncomfortable. He climbed out onto the hull and chivalrously hauled Michella up as well. Squee tried to hop down to the ground, but given the number of warnings plastered all over the fence, Lex decided it was probably a good idea to tuck her under an arm and dig out the leash. The PR representative hurried over to the SOB, leaving the technician and guard at the gate.
“Ms. Modane. I must say, you certainly know how to make an entrance,” said Erma. “Is this your valet?”
“Valet with benefits,” Lex said. He untangled the leash and secured his pet, then hopped down to the ground and helped Michella to dismount.
“This is Trevor Alexander. My boyfriend,” Michella explained.
“Oh, yes, yes! This is the fellow in the Heroes of Tessera story! You helped defuse a bomb or something.”
Lex shrugged. “Close enough. It certainly beats my old title, Disgraced Racer.”
Erma tipped her head to the side and furrowed her brow slightly, though the disingenuous smile didn’t even waver.
“I don’t know if I should be relieved or disappointed that people don’t remember that anymore.”
Erma decided to shift the discussion back to familiar territory. “If you’d like to come inside, we can start the tour, and then you can talk to the lead researcher in charge of this momentous project. Remember, text and stills only, and they’ll have to wait until we lift the press embargo, but we should be ready by this afternoon. Also, you won’t have access to any data or voice communications inside. The whole structure is radio-shielded to protect the experiments and to prevent industrial espionage. You’ll need access to our secure repeater if you want network access while inside.”
“Not a problem. I’ve always been a pen-and-paper gal.”
Squee, happy to be out of the cockpit and experiencing the sights and sounds of a new world, wrapped her leash around the legs of Mrs. Wiley and sniffed curiously at her feet.
“Also, I’m afraid we’ve got strict policies regarding animals in the facility,” Erma said, raising one leg and cringing as though a legion of rats had just surrounded her.
“No problem. If you don’t need me working cameras, I’ll take Squee for a walk, find a proper parking spot for the SOB, and check in to the hotel… you know, the whole valet experience.” Lex stooped and picked up the funk. “Call me when you need a pickup.”
“Will do, babe,” Michella said, kissing him on the cheek. “You’re the best.”
“Yes. Yes I am.”
He let Squee take her usual position and climbed back up into the SOB, firing up the still-warm engines and coaxing the ship gently into the air. Michella watched him go, shielding her eyes from the sun.
“If you’ll come this way, Ms. Modane.”
“Just a minute,” she said, watching the SOB turn and tilt to the side. In the cockpit, she saw Lex catch eyes with her, and she treated him to a wink and blown kiss. He grinned, then set off toward Gloria. Michella turned back to Mrs. Wiley. “He always steals one last look before he leaves.”
“Very sweet,” Erma said, though her tone added, and has nothing to do with my sales pitch. She gestured with her head. “This way.” She headed back toward the gate, holding up the basket she’d brought along. “I thought you might like to take a look at some of the other inventions and discoveries that have put Nagari-Hamilton on the map. This is a new formulation of biodegradable plastic. Not only does it break down, but it actually fertilizes better than any similar product. This is a battery with integrated solar and a radio charger…”
She worked her way through the basket, showing off the fruits of her organization’s labors with all the zeal of a TV pitchwoman. She stretched the short walk to the gate to the precise length necessary to finish her presentation. It was practically choreography. Michella nodded appreciatively, jotted some notes, and generally absorbed information, but she was on journalistic autopilot. This was her first project since her days with the financial team that she was working on not out of interest but out of necessity. Though her carefully cultivated mannerisms and responses didn’t let it show, anyone who had ever seen the fire in her eyes when she was onto a good story would know that in this instance, her heart wasn’t in it. Things only got worse once she was handed off to the technician so that Mrs. Wiley could get back to work speeding up the video clearance.
“Luke Henning, Assistant Research Technician,” he said.
Either out of awkwardness, obliviousness, or nerves, he didn’t present his hand to shake or in any other way attempt to foster conversation. He simply stared at Michella quietly. He looked very much the part of a researcher, with a lab coat, thinni
ng gray hair, and a desk-job paunch. One notable feature was an unsettling amount of motion in the iris of his eyes. There looked to be tiny rings that were shifting in and out.
“Hello. Michella Modane, GolanaNet News.” She extended her hand, which he stared at for a moment, then shook, then resumed staring at her face. “Before we get started, and I apologize if this is rude, but what precisely is going on with your eyes?”
“I’m wearing autoloupes.” Again he didn’t seem to feel further comment was necessary.
“And for our users who might be curious, what is an autoloupe?”
“It is a contact-lens-based variable magnifier. I’m to give you a tour of the facility before you talk to our head researcher. Follow me, please.”
What followed was the driest tour Michella had ever received. There were few things she enjoyed more than listening to an expert in any field speak passionately about their craft. Technician Henning was doing nothing of the sort. The facility was nothing but a network of gray corridors lined with doors, and his tour consisted of pointing to a door, stating the name of the room, the name of the assigned researcher, and the name of his or her project. She could have gotten the same level of information and personality if she’d simply read the directory. The main floor and two sublevels were excruciatingly dictated to her, putting her courtesy and patience to the test, when finally they reached the Primary Observation Lab.
“This is the laboratory used by Dr. Stuart Dreyfus to observe and test the recently discovered potential extraterrestrial.”
“Ah!” Michella said, a bit too eagerly. “I’m scheduled for an interview with Dr. Dreyfus. I suppose this is where we part ways.”
“I suppose,” said Henning, walking away without so much as knocking on the door of the laboratory.
“I guess ‘one of our top technicians’ was a reference to his research ability and not his social skills,” Michella muttered. She found a button with the instruction “When research is in progress, press this button to alert researchers of access requests.” She pressed it.
A distant buzzer coincided, and a moment later the door opened. The man who answered had a gray streak in his hair and a lab coat, but it was there that any similarity to Henning ended. He was thin, though not scrawny, and appeared to be several years older than the other technician, perhaps in his midfifties, but one of those lucky few who wore the years well. The wrinkles and lines on his face were minor and gave him a distinguished look. Michella had to look up to meet his gaze, but his height was only part of the reason. The doctor was strapped into a sort of standing chair. Separate braces, similar to those found in old-fashioned wheelchairs, cradled his legs. The braces met at the top, where they connected to a narrow seat and short back held to the doctor’s hips and waist with three stout belts. The whole contraption hovered silently, giving him a few extra centimeters of height, such that his head was only a centimeter or so lower than the top of the doorway.
“Hello. You must be Michella Modane,” he said, holding out a hand.
“And you must be Dr. Dreyfus,” she said, shaking his hand firmly.
He glanced down the hall behind her. “They didn’t send Henning out to conduct the tour, did they?”
“They did.”
“I hope he didn’t sap the will to live out of you. He’s a thorough researcher, but the man’s got the personality of cornstarch.”
Michella stifled a laugh. “I only felt the urge to run away screaming once.”
“I admire your willpower. I hate to rush you, but please follow me. We were just about to begin the day’s tests, and we are trying to keep to a strict schedule to prevent undue stress to the specimen.”
He pivoted in the air and drifted smoothly into the dimly lit lab, Michella a figurative step behind. His laboratory wasn’t nearly what she’d expected. The “extraterrestrial” coverage that had made it into general circulation so far was more likely to include a dilapidated barn and the word monster than a laboratory and the word specimen, but this place looked to be legitimate. Dr. Dreyfus entered a sequence of numbers, then pressed his thumb to a reader mounted in the wall. After that he aligned his eye with a second reader and spoke his name.
“Unauthorized materials detected on designated guest,” stated a synthesized voice.
“Oh, yes. I’m sorry about this, but I’ll need to ask you a few questions before the system will let us enter. Security, you see. This is one of our high-threat laboratories.”
“High threat?”
“Yes. Most research in this facility is fairly low-risk materials research, but we keep four labs equipped to deal with things like weapons systems, viruses, things of that nature. Because of the number of unknowns regarding the specimen, we are treating it with maximum security protocols. It is our only high-risk project at the moment. Now, you are carrying recording devices, correct?”
“Yes.”
“If you’ll just give us the access code for your recorder’s wireless connection. We need to monitor your usage while you are inside.”
She hesitated briefly. While it hadn’t been her plan to violate any of the security agreements regarding audio and video, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to do so bothered her. She tapped the code into a keypad on the wall. Her camera bleeped and its screen indicated a series of modes had been disabled.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” remarked the voice.
Dr. Dreyfus reentered his credentials and confirmed them. This conjured a heavy sliding sound and allowed the door ahead of them to begin to open. At first glance it had seemed to be a standard door, like the dozens she’d walked past to get to the lab. Upon opening, she caught a glimpse of the edge and realized that it was nearly thirty centimeters thick and made from a dull gray metal.
The door led to the upper level of a two-story space, maybe six meters from top to bottom with a metal grating serving as a floor midway between. The walls, each about forty meters long, were lined with displays and tool stations. A pair of large screens dominated most of the far wall, and visible through the floor grating was a team of lab-coated assistants going about various tasks lit by flashlights and the glow of monitors. The center of the lab was taken up by a floor-to-ceiling enclosure. It was pentagonal, about ten meters in diameter, with walls made from a honeycomb of metal wires sandwiched between thick sheets of heavy-duty glass. Cameras and monitoring equipment were focused on the chamber, which, though transparent, was too dark to reveal its contents.
As he drifted, Dr. Dreyfus called orders to his assistants. “Start the artificial sunrise. Set it to five hundred percent. Have we got the component assortment ready? I’d hate to let this thing go hungry. Make sure to have the protein supplement at body temperature.”
The lights in the room slowly rose. Rather than the cold high-efficiency lighting elsewhere in the lab, the light here came from warm full-spectrum lamps. Michella followed closely behind the doctor, trying to jot down notes on everything that was happening. In spite of herself, she was getting excited. If nothing else, they put on a very professional show.
Dreyfus drifted over to what looked like a short microphone stand. The leg supports shifted to a sitting position as the mobility device settled down over the stand and coupled to it, becoming something very akin to an office chair, positioned in the center of a wraparound desk.
“How long have you been working with the specimen?” Michella asked, pen poised.
“I personally have only had it for three days. There was a testing process to determine if it was safe to bring it to the planet before that,” he said, looking over the half circle of 2D and holographic displays arrayed around him. “Prudent, but ultimately unnecessary. It has been completely harmless, almost sessile at first…”
“Sessile?” she said, scrawling in her pad. She craned her neck, trying to see to the floor of the central chamber.
“An immobile organism. It seems to go through periods of complete dormancy. It only stirs in response to very specific stimuli.” He s
miled when he noticed her barely restrained curiosity. “Don’t just stand there, go take a look.”
Michella edged closer to the enclosure and peered down within. The “sun” had reached a high enough intensity for the floor of the chamber to be visible. It looked almost like a zoo exhibit. Along the ground lay an arrangement of stones on a bed of gravel. Clumps of gray lichen clung to a few of the larger rocks, and a large square of tall grass sat near one wall just beside a long, low shed of sorts. She touched the glass and found it to be freezing. Nonetheless she leaned closer, trying to find some semblance of the supposed alien.
“Where is it?” she asked.
“At night it usually lies dormant in the den we built there. Look up at the roof of the enclosure. That’s where the feeding rig is. Once we lower down breakfast, you’ll see our guest.”
She raised her eyes and spotted a small transparent crate slowly lowering from a hatch set in the roof of the chamber. As the cables reeled out and the crate passed eye level on its way down, Michella caught a glimpse of its contents.
“It looks like it is filled with junk,” she said.
“Not quite junk. Specially selected components. You’ll see. There’s also a loaf of synthetic protein. If we calibrated it right, it should be hitting about forty degrees Celsius when it hits the ground.”
Michella kept her eyes on the crate as it swung and wobbled toward the ground. When it hung just slightly above the gravel, a release cable drew taut and the contents were dumped to the ground. There were various bundles of wires and bricks of plastic and metal, along with an unappetizing gray-pink lump, which was presumably the protein. She squinted into the shadows beneath the shed, now quite dark in comparison to the fully risen “sun.” After a moment, there was movement. A vague form shuffled and clattered stones about, then something emerged from the darkness.
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