The Devil’s Noose

by Michael Angel

  Twenty seconds of shaky video footage scrolled by. Navarro felt the skin on the back of his neck prickle as he heard Austen shout ‘Get down!’, followed by his cursing. The deadly tug-of-war they’d engaged in a mile below the laboratory followed. His arm twinged as her camera caught the moment she slashed the biofilm free of his wrist.

  She backed up a few seconds to when her camera caught a full-on shot of the grotto. Then she split the screen to show a second video clip. This one was steadier, with a clearer shot of the dinosaur bone floor and bejeweled Tyrannosaurus skull.

  “This second shot was from Lelache’s camera,” she explained. “Note the difference in the biofilm’s activity. Helen’s observations are likely correct – this organism is photosensitive, reacting to light. It’s also sensitive to vibration and damage to its extended members.”

  “Members?” Navarro asked. “So, this isn’t one…creature?”

  Blaine spoke up this time. “It does appear to be some type of a ‘colonial’ organism. We’ve already teased out a dozen subtypes of bacteria from your sample. Some are bright blue, others emerald green.”

  “That explains why the sample keeps shifting in color,” Preble added. “Ian showed that these things form motile strands. But the strands are tangled up together, like wool off a freshly shorn sheep.”

  “So we’re dealing with bacteria,” Navarro concluded. “Not viruses, or toxins.”

  “I’m still not sure about that last bit,” Preble grumbled.

  “It’s definitely a type of bacteria,” Austen insisted. “One that lacks a membrane-bound nucleus. That tells us something very interesting. We’re looking at a form of life that’s really old.”

  “Older than dinosaurs?” Navarro ventured.

  She shook her head. “Older than trees. Older than fish. If it’s a form of photosynthetic cyanobacteria, then it could be older than all multicellular life. It could even have been responsible for drastically changing the amount of oxygen in the early earth’s atmosphere.”

  “But there’s not much chance of any sunlight getting down there,” Zhao pointed out. “Whatever the blue-green color comes from, it’s not chlorophyll inside chloroplasts.”

  “The structures that look like chloroplasts are still doing something,” Preble maintained. “I’ll wager that they’re throwing off a whole cocktail of substances.”

  Lelache paced back and forth in her eagerness. “That’s part of what makes this life form so unique. It’s got some traits like the blue-green bacteria that grow in colonies. Others like the extremophile bacteria that proliferate around undersea vents. It even seems to be a methanogen, spewing methane compounds into the atmosphere around it!”

  “The only thing I can tell you for sure,” Austen said, “is that this pathogen’s age may be part of the trouble. It shares ancient ancestry with everything on this planet, so that helps it jump species. But it’s alien enough that any biological system interacting with it is bound to go haywire.”

  “This is all well and done,” Navarro finally said, “But is this our killer bug? If so, how did it survive long enough to infect people outside of this mine? And most important to me, how did it almost pull my damned arm off?”

  Austen’s chair squeaked as she quickly stood. “All good questions, and they all need answers as quickly as possible. So, we’re going to divide up the work. Amy, as our resident bacteriologist, I want you in the lab. You need to tease out and identify the separate strains of cyanobacteria in that sample. Also, find out what this bug can do to various cell cultures of different species. If we don’t have a readily available sample, then the computers here can simulate them.”

  “Of course,” Zhou acknowledged, with a bob of her head. “But those are big tasks. I could use some help.”

  “I agree. Ian can work with you on the identification process.”

  Blaine looked askance at that. “Me? Why do you want me there?”

  “As the resident virologist without a virus to study, you need to be our utility player in the lab.” Austen turned to glance at Preble. “Ted, we need to see how this thing kills, and up close. You’re the only one with a background in pathology, so I need you ready to do a quick and dirty autopsy.”

  The older man nodded. “Give me more time to prep, that’s all I ask.”

  “Is that really a good idea?” Blaine objected. “To give a scalpel to a man who can’t even…I mean, he’s got certain challenges to overcome.”

  “You can say ‘Parkinson’s’,” Preble noted wryly. “It’s not like you’ll catch it if you say it. Though if it upsets you, you could always call it ‘The Disease Who Shall Not Be Named’. Gives it a more poetic ring.”

  “Button it, Preble. I was thinking of your safety too. An unsteady hand on a bone saw could end up injuring you. Or someone else.”

  “Only one of my hands shake. And that’s only when I rush.”

  Austen let out a breath. “Ted, I hate to say it, but he may have a point. No powered tools, all right? Lelache and I will be gowning up and heading into the Infirmary Building just outside Module E. And I’ll make sure you get a body to work on.”

  “More suiting up?” Lelache asked. “Then I need to go and change clothes.”

  “And if I’m going to be doing a corpse crawl,” Preble declared, “then I want a last toke of nicotine. I’ll be outside the front doors for a bit if anyone wants me.”

  Lelache disappeared behind one of the sliding panels that walled off the sleeping quarters. Preble also left the room, hobbling his way out. Blaine’s face remained tinged with red, though he waited until the older man had left before speaking.

  “All right, maybe I was out of line there,” he admitted, before rallying to challenge Austen. “But if you’re just going to haul a body out of the infirmary, you’ve got a problem. How are you going to get permission from a family to do an autopsy? There’s laws against just–”

  Austen slammed a fist against the table with a wham.

  “Dammit, Ian, I’m running out of patience with you! First, these miners came from local villages. Everyone in those villages is also dead. Second, the only law around the Karakul is what can be enforced by Votorov or Navarro’s men. Neither group seems to care all that much about the delicacies of an autopsy. Third, even if there was an objection, the WHO has designated this situation as a public health crisis. So, take your own advice and button it!”

  Blaine’s jaw snapped shut. Turning, he stomped out, back stiff.

  “I…ah…guess I ought to start getting ready for the lab work,” Zhou said, looking profoundly uncomfortable. She unlatched the pressure door to Module D and then went in, closing the door behind her with a clank.

  Suddenly, Austen found herself alone with Navarro.

  “What do you need me to do, Leigh?” he asked quietly.

  She sighed. “I could use your help one more time. If your injured arm is up to it.”

  He flexed it carefully. “Even if it wants to go on strike, I’ll make it reconsider. It’ll be strong enough.”

  “What about your stomach? Is it strong too?”

  “It usually is. Do I want to know why?”

  “You probably don’t,” she admitted, as she led the way towards the gowning area. “Come on. This might be nasty, but it has to be done.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Austen’s time in the field of epidemiology had forever marked her. Rather like a beat cop in a bad part of town, she’d been hardened and fortified by her experiences. She’d seen sickness and death in many more colorful varieties than the average doctor, let alone the average person.

  Once she and Navarro gowned up inside their hardsuits, they crossed the small open area and opened the door of the Ozrabek infirmary. Holding her breath for a moment, she stepped in and gazed around the room, taking in the array of neatly placed body bags. The rush of emotion she felt both surprised and calmed her.

  Relief.

  Nothing in the infirmary’s morgue pulled up horrors from t
he depths of her psyche. As far as she could tell, the old truism was correct – what the mind could conjure was far worse than the reality. Nights of chloroquine dreaming weren’t in store for her.

  Navarro didn’t flinch as she moved along the nearest row of body bags. Checking the toe tags for dates she found the last corpse to be placed in this room. Together, the two managed to shift it onto the morgue’s wheeled gurney. From there, it was only a matter of moving it along the path back to the lab’s autopsy area.

  “What’s going on with your men?” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the wheels as they squeaked along the cracked cement path. “Is everything secure?”

  “For the moment,” Navarro said, as he continued to push the gurney. “But the thing is, something at this base just isn’t right. It’s staring me and my men in the face, and I’m not seeing it.”

  “And I should’ve listened to the part that said, ‘Treat the unknown with care’ when we were down in the mine.”

  “Must be that slow learner thing we share,” he said, as they lifted the gurney’s wheels to get it up and through Module E’s side door.

  One more heave, and they got the bagged corpse onto the autopsy table. As they did so, the hatch from the adjoining space opened. Preble managed to stagger through, cane in hand. Instead of a rigid Class 4 hardsuit, he wore a flexible Class 3 hazmat suit. So did Helen Lelache as she entered at his side.

  “Looks like the gang’s all here,” Preble remarked. “It appears my timing is spot-on for once.”

  “It appears they have a body for you as well,” Lelache remarked.

  “You and I are still going to head into the infirmary proper,” Austen told Lelache. “I want to examine anyone who’s survived exposure to this bacteria.”

  A chime came from the overhead speaker, followed by the voice of John Redhawk.

  “Nicholas Navarro, to A-Module.”

  Navarro looked surprised. He toggled the broadcast communication circuit in his suit with a touch of his fingers.

  “Navarro here,” he replied. “Is it urgent?”

  “It’s not an emergency,” Redhawk replied, in a way that made Navarro sense something else was going on. “But I wouldn’t contact you unless it was important.”

  “All right. Give me a few minutes. I need to decon my suit before heading your way.”

  He toggled the broadcast off before looking to Austen. “You going to need me for anything else?”

  She shook her head. “Not right now. Helen and I can take it from here.”

  Navarro nodded and headed to decon his hardsuit. Preble had already begun digging into the cabinets surrounding the autopsy table, gathering the tools he’d need. Lelache indicated the side door with a toss of her head, and the two women returned to the infirmary.

  A shadow slid across the bleak yard space between the mobile field lab and the infirmary building. Austen looked up to see a brassy, disk-shaped object passing overhead. Lelache looked at it with a flicker of annoyance.

  “That’s one of Redhawk’s camera drones,” Austen explained, as they pushed their way back into the building. They bypassed the morgue this time and headed down the main corridor. A central desk with a flickering computer screen sat in an alcove with multiple doors.

  Lelache peered through the windows inset into each of the doors, her expression grim. Austen sat at the desk and looked at the screen. She let out a gasp of surprise.

  “I didn’t expect this,” she said. “The orderly who kept the records must’ve been an ex-pat from the States. This is a set of standard office databases, and everything’s in English! That’s the first stroke of luck we’ve had.”

  “Stroke of luck for us,” Lelache considered. “Extra job security for whoever did the recordkeeping. No one would’ve been able to easily translate or understand their work.”

  Austen’s fingers were encased in the hardsuit gloves, which made it difficult to type quickly. A quick rummage through the desk’s drawers turned up a thumbnail storage drive in the shape of a cartoon crocodile. She plugged it in and began downloading the files, even as she pored through the notes on the screen.

  What she saw made her heart sink.

  “This thing’s a slate wiper in humans,” she gasped, as she looked through the records. “Half the mine workers here came down with this bug. They’re all in the rooms across from us. The other half…maybe they fled home to their villages. But the lethality rate is off the charts.”

  “From what I can see through the windows, it must be,” Lelache said heavily. “They left the bodies in their hospital beds. There was no more room in the morgue.”

  “I’m not seeing any survivors so far,” Austen said, as she paged through record after record. “Even the medical personnel came down with it. Whoever maintained this…I think they were one of the very last. And the doctors were…they were desperate.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “The therapies tried. They start with tetracycline, then to antivirals, then to more exotic drug cocktails. By the end they’re throwing everything they can at this, and all they do is slow it down. Instead of dying in six hours, it takes twelve. Or a full day.” She looked up. “The ward at the end…two of the patients aren’t listed as dead.”

  “I did see the flash of monitors from that room. Let’s go check.”

  Austen grabbed the storage drive and followed Lelache into the ward. It had been set up dormitory-style, with separate curtained areas for each patient. A deathly silence hung in the air, broken only by their own footsteps. Dusty cream-colored sheets hung from the ceiling, enhancing the place’s shadowy, funereal look.

  A body lay in each of the beds.

  Some lay peacefully, as though sleeping, while others with dried, gluey eyeballs stared up into nothingness. Still more dangled from one side of the bed, their life ending with one final convulsion.

  Austen knew from the records that these men were the last to have died. Decay hadn’t set in yet. The markings upon each sunken face were similar. Splotches of dark blue appeared on each man’s cheeks and their lips were bluish, as were the lobes of their ears.

  That told Austen a couple of things.

  This pathogen wasn’t a hemorrhagic fever like Black Nile, which turned mucous membranes to mush and left the patient bleeding from all orifices. It wasn’t a plague germ that left swollen, pus-filled buboes in its wake. And it wasn’t a poxvirus that stamped its presence with centripetal rash or sheets of ruby-red blisters.

  The blue skin and lips spoke to a lack of oxygen. A slow-motion smothering caused by mucous or some other substance in the lungs. Maybe a crust or film that blocked the alveoli and prevented oxygen from diffusing into the bloodstream.

  She moved on to the last pair of beds. Lelache turned away to examine one of the men. She shook her head.

  “This one’s gone,” she said. “The monitor’s running, but there’s no brain activity.”

  Austen approached the final patient, the last survivor of whatever plague had ravaged this once-booming mining compound.

  He was a swarthy, bearded man of middle age, his lips and cheeks stained deep blue, as if from an old bruise. To one side, the monitors registered a sluggish and irregular heartbeat. She couldn’t see a rise and fall of his chest, so she reached up to lay her palm on his sternum.

  The man’s eyes flew open.

  He brought up a work-calloused hand. Before she could move, he clasped her forearm in a death grip. She gasped as he pulled at her arm, using it as leverage to sit up.

  His eyes were a blank blue-gray. Mad, and with a madman’s strength he pulled her in. His dark blue lips parted, revealing jagged yellow teeth as he drew his face up to hers.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The dying Ozrabek miner shook as he brought his face up next to her transparent faceplate. His tongue was swollen, and so blue it was almost black. His voice came out in a wheeze that she could just make out.

  Po-STAV-kha!” he whispered. She didn’t know the
word, but she clearly made out three syllables. “Po-STAV-kha!”

  “What–”

  The man’s eyes flicked twice over her shoulder.

  That was the last effort he would ever make.

  With a last rattling breath, he collapsed back upon the bed. His eyes stared up at the ceiling, gazing into oblivion. Austen looked for a pulse on the monitor but saw only a flat line. She reached up to pull his lids down.

  She wasn’t sure what had just happened. The man had seemed panicked at the end, yet trying to warn her. He’d even looked over her shoulder at something.

  But he must have been seeing phantoms in his last moments. There had been nothing and no one there. No one except the other patient.

  And Helen Lelache.

  * * *

  While Austen dealt with the very last survivor, Navarro made his way back up to the C&C in Module A.

  Redhawk remained at his spot by the bank of computer monitors. Views of the cramped streets and alleyways from his seven drones’ cameras slid by on the screens. The remnants of a recently consumed MRE and an open bag of piñon nuts lay on the desk next to his elbow.

  “Talk to me,” Navarro said, as he pulled up a chair to sit next to Redhawk. “We get a breach in the perimeter? Even an attempt at one?”

  “They haven’t stopped to shoot us the bird, if that’s what you mean,” Redhawk replied, as he popped a roasted piñon nut in his mouth to chew. “But Votorov’s patrols have come closer to my surveillance routes. A couple are sighting on the drones and laughing about it.”

  “Laughing?” Navarro looked grim. “I doubt it’s for fun. They wouldn’t do that unless ordered.”

  “Yup, I figured as much. As for those patrols getting closer, that’s also under orders. They’re trying to see if there’s something that’ll trigger our alarms. Could just be general military ball-busting. Or something else.”

  “What’s October up to?”