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Europa Contagion

Page 19

by Nicholas Thorp


  Suddenly, the airlock doors all closed. Then the centrifuge started and began to speed up. Navya could tell from the whining sound it made that the centrifuge was accelerating very quickly. It sped up faster than Navya had ever seen before. The spinning vials began to break apart. The glass vials shattered and sharp pieces flew everywhere, along with the liquids inside. Navya saw the glass break, but she only knew something had happened when she heard the pop sounds as each vial broke. Instinctively, she brought her arms up, but she didn’t react fast enough. Pieces of glass flew into her face. The liquid inside the vials splashed on her arm, but several drops got on her face and body.

  The popping stopped. Navya lowered her arms and looked around trying to figure out what was going on. Then she felt a warm sensation on her face, arms, and body. The warm sensation very suddenly turned into a hot sensation, followed by a burning sensation. Before she could figure out why, her arms, body, and face felt as if they were on fire. Navya heard the distinct sound of the airlock doors latching. A burst of gas began spraying in the room. Red lights began to flash and a voice system spoke.

  “Evacuate the room immediately. The fire suppression system has been activated,” it said.

  Between the intense burning sensation on her arms and face, the glass shards in her face, and the pure white gas filling the room, she was caught completely off guard. Navya stumbled backward and hit the wall. As she slid down her elbow hit something very hard. She glanced around to see where the new source of pain was coming from when she noticed what her elbow had hit: an emergency gas mask with a small oxygen tank built into it. She frantically grabbed at the mask and pulled it down. It fell into her hands and she fumbled as she tried to get the mask on her face. Ignoring the straps she simply pushed the mask onto her face. As she pushed the mask on, a small pin built into the mask pushed against her forehead. Depressing the pin immediately began releasing oxygen. The white gas that had been trapped in her mask was quickly replaced by pure oxygen. Navya breathed in deeply, savoring the fresh mixture rather than the noxious gasses that were filling the room. However, her arm and face were still burning. She needed to get out of the room immediately. She stood up, using the wall for support at first, and quickly hopped over to the door. It was sealed shut. She reached to the panel next to the door and flipped up a small plastic lid that revealed a red ‘Emergency Egress’ button. Every major room in the Habitat had two doors: an inner door, and an outer door. This was to make sure that no matter what, a person could enter a room that was or was not pressurized. In this case, Navya needed to exit a room that was experiencing an emergency.

  She pushed the button and the door slid open. She fell into the pressure lock and watched as the inner door closed behind her. With the gas no longer an issue, she scrambled on the floor into the hallway, took the mask off her face, flung it away, and looked at her arms. They were burning like some kind of acid or base was on them. Quickly she got up and hopped to the nearest bathroom. She was about to douse her face and arms in water when she paused. What if this substance wasn’t an acid and the water would only make it worse? She felt like she didn’t have time to play detective and find out, so she put a part of her arm in the water. Very quickly, the feeling of burning subsided. She let the water rush over her arms and then splashed it over her head and body until the pain subsided. It felt much better, but her face still stung very badly.

  Running her fingers across her face, she felt sharp pains and hard objects. The glass from the centrifuge would need to be removed carefully and quickly. Whatever that liquid was - at this point Navya was sure it was an acid of some sort since running water over herself had worked - it had been in the vials. Now, the acid-soaked pieces of glass were stuck in her face.

  She turned around ready to make her way to the medbay when she bumped into something. It was Kato.

  “Oh, Kato, thank God! You have to help me. Something just happened in BSL1 over there,” Navya said, pointing at the room she had just come from.

  Kato had been standing with his good arm behind his back, nodding in agreement with Navya. Then he pulled his arm around from behind his back, revealing what he had been concealing.

  EIGHTEEN

  Code 14

  Alice looked up Code 14 and found that it was a problem with the hydrogen venting in the Habitat. The notes for Code 14 indicated that a manual purge might be necessary. Apparently, the automatic systems weren’t working properly.

  Alice decided that whatever Felix needed her to see, could wait. A hydrogen buildup could be lethal. She made her way to the Hydrogen Maintenance Room (HMR) where the manual release valves were located. She realized that, in all the time she had been on Europa, she had never been in the HMR before. Felix’s job was to take care of that kind of dirty work and, for a moment, she felt guilty that she and the rest of the crew took almost everything Felix did for granted.

  The HMR was rather small and was not lit very well. What was lit was bathed in a dim orange light. Some pipes ran across the walls and ceiling, making their way to and from the main Habitat. She had brought along a tablet and looked at it. The tablet showed a blueprint of the area. According to the notes, she needed to check one of the main release valves in this room.

  Her wristband lit up once again with a different code this time:

  *Code Red: BSL*

  Code red meant a fire had broken out in the Habitat. Alice was torn. Should she keep working on the hydrogen problem or go deal with a fire in the biosafety labs? Either problem could wreak tremendous havoc in the Habitat. While she hesitated, the code went away. The automatic fire suppression systems must have kicked in and stopped the fire. Alice knew based on their training that the others would rush to the area and check it out, so she continued with her work in the hydrogen maintenance room.

  After trying to orient herself to make sure she was looking at the blueprint correctly, she saw an access tunnel that led deeper into the network of pipes. This was the place she needed to check. Alice set the tablet down and crawled into the workspace, inching her way up. The valve should be at the end of the workspace tunnel, just around a corner. With her EMU on, it was difficult to make good progress and it took her a lot longer than she had initially thought it would take. The valve was located exactly where the blueprint had indicated it was: in a corner at the far end of the crawl space. It was rather dark and difficult to see.

  “Alice, are you in there?” Alice heard a voice from behind.

  “Yes, I am. Navya is that you?” Alice responded.

  “Yes. Please come out. Right now,” Navya said. Alice thought she sounded a bit strange, almost like she was pleading with Alice. But in the confined space everything sounded a little muffled so it was hard to tell if that was Navya’s tone.

  “Not quite yet,” Alice said. She was so close to the vent that she could reach up and touch it. Reaching up with her arms, Alice found she was not in the right position for what she wanted to do. Although she could get her hands on the valve, she couldn’t get enough leverage to turn it. She needed to move another few inches forward to do this, so she pushed herself up.

  “Ah!” Alice exclaimed loudly.

  “What? Alice, please come out right now,” Navya asked.

  Alice felt an odd, sharp pain in her back when she moved forward.

  “I don’t know, there’s just something here digging in my back,” Alice replied.

  Alice was in a rather tight space, but she wiggled and got one arm behind her back and grabbed at the weird thing poking in her back. It was loose, and she was able to pull it out from behind her back with a little more work. She maneuvered the object in front of her so she could see what it was.

  “It’s just a hydrogen tank,” Alice said.

  “Are you coming out now?” Navya asked.

  Alice was focused only on getting the sharp object away from her back but thought for a moment. It was odd considering that everything should have been strapped down in the Habitat and no hydrogen tanks were shown o
n the layout in this particular area.

  Maybe Felix had left it here accidentally before everything happened? Alice thought to herself. Regardless, she clipped it to her front belt and got in position to turn the valve.

  She applied some force, but it didn’t move. She would need to put more work into this. She put all of her efforts into the next pull and felt something sharp on the valve. Nothing happened. The lighting wasn’t that good and Alice wondered what it was that had felt sharp, so she turned on her wristband light as bright as it would go and brought her arm up to the area. When the light came on and illuminated the scene, she was surprised. It looked like the release valve had been bent into the closed position. It would take tools and a clever way of positioning them to get it unbent enough to properly turn the valve.

  Just before she could think further than that, she heard a strange sound, like someone beginning to scream and a loud thump.

  Alice was crammed in the small tunnel and couldn’t see back the way she had entered. Slowly, she inched her way backward, out of the crawl space and finally pushed herself out in the HMR. She was happy to be out of the small cramped place when saw Kato was standing next to Navya, all three of them crammed into the small area. Navya’s face looked terrible. No, not just her face, her arms, too. They looked like they had been burnt. There were flecks of blood all across her face. It almost looked like someone had shot a bunch of BB pellets at her face.

  Then Alice’s attention focused on Kato. He was holding something up to Navya’s head. When Alice realized what it was, her eyes went wide.

  “Kato, is that a gun?” Alice said, completely taken by surprise. Was it even possible that someone had brought a gun with them to Europa? Kato was holding the object exactly the way you would hold a gun, but instead of looking metallic and shiny it looked dull and made of plastic.

  “That’s right. Now, come on. Both of you are coming to the mess hall. You’re in front. Don’t make any sudden moves,” Kato commanded Alice to move in front and held the gun to Navya’s head from behind forcing her forward. Alice reluctantly moved forward and purposefully walked very slowly toward the mess hall, trying to figure out what to do. They all made their way through the hallways. It didn’t take long before they entered the mess hall, the same room where Sonya had attacked Kato.

  “Stop right there, Alice. On your knees, both of you,” Kato said.

  Both Navya and Alice dropped to their knees.

  “Now, I’ve got a theory here,” Kato said.

  “Kato?” Alice began but Kato spoke over her.

  “I said,” Kato answered slowly. “I’ve got a theory.”

  Both Alice and Navya could tell that Kato wanted them to ask him what his theory was, but neither of them asked.

  “Every person other than me was in that lab when we first got those samples. Even Felix went in there to fix something, and that’s when you, Alice, tore your suit. I don’t know how exactly but that’s when this all started. I’ve got a plan to contain this all, but I need everyone here to make sure of it.”

  “So you think you’re not infected? This thing could spread. You could be infected too,” Navya said in response. She spoke slowly and Alice could tell she was in pain.

  “I’m infected? It’s possible, but no, I don’t think so. I’ve already gone through the UMAC after Sonya attacked me. If I was infected, it would have shown up. I looked at the results from the imaging. The UMAC didn’t detect anything like that. Isn’t that right?” Kato directed his question at Navya.

  “The UMAC didn’t tell me there was anything in Sonya's brain, I saw it on the images. I’d need to look at your images again,” Navya answered. “I was looking for brain bleeds, I wasn’t looking for a parasite infecting your brain.” This gave Kato pause, but only for a moment.

  “For all I know you’re right. I could be infected too. But I’ve got a plan here and I’ll be damned if I let this get out of control,” Kato’s voice stayed flat and never rose. He seemed oddly calm about the whole situation. The tension in the room rose to a peak as he pressed the gun hard into Navya’s head.

  Navya decided to try and negotiate to calm the situation down.

  “Kato, let’s talk,” Navya said.

  “Yes, let’s talk. I saw you running around with those boxes. I know you’re up to something, I just don’t know what,” Kato said.

  Navya remained calm and said, “I was gathering supplies when I was attacked in the BSL. Don’t you know where Felix is? He could be infected, too.”

  “Of course, he’s not here,” Kato said under his breath only loud enough for Navya to hear. He looked around as if Felix was somehow hiding nearby. Then Kato spoke more loudly, “When the Code 14 alarm went off, I thought everyone would gather here.”

  “So you don’t know where Felix is?” Alice asked.

  “I’ve sent an emergency call to him,” Kato responded. “He’ll show up here soon and I’ll have everyone who’s guaranteed to be infected in one spot.”

  Navya sat on her knees with her hands on her lap in front of her. Kato stood with his gun pointed at Navya’s head. Like Alice, Kato was wearing his EMU without his helmet. He still had all the bandages and gauze on his head from when Navya worked on him.

  “Kato,” Navya said. “We can still figure this out. I didn’t have enough time to tell you, but I fixed the UMAC. We can run everyone through it if you like.”

  Amazingly, Navya’s words seemed to have an effect. Kato’s face relaxed a little and he dropped his gun down to his side.

  “Trust me, I’d like to do that, but even if we looked at it again, nothing is stopping you from lying. What’s to stop you from telling me that everyone isn’t infected? Or that I’m the only one infected?” Kato brought the gun up again.

  Navya looked at Alice with a sad, defeated expression. Then, Navya gave Alice a very quick head nod as if to say, ‘be ready.’

  That’s when Navya stood up quickly while turning around and jammed her hand into Kato’s head. She didn’t just randomly pick any spot on his head; she chose the spot where she had cut it open during the surgery. Kato angrily let out a cry of pain and fired his gun directly at Navya.

  Kato grabbed his head and dropped to his knees while Navya stumbled backward holding her torso and falling back onto her knees.

  Alice’s body rushed with adrenaline as she ran to Navya’s side.

  “Come on!” Alice said as she pulled Navya up and wrapped Navya’s arm around her head. As quickly as she could, Alice pulled Navya out of the room. Alice had no idea where she was going, but she knew she needed to get away from Kato as quickly as possible. After only a few slow steps she felt weight being taken off and looked over at Navya. Navya had begun to walk on her own. They took a few turns down the hallway, until they rounded a corner and saw Felix standing near a door.

  Alice stopped as quickly as she could and shouted, “Felix! I need help! Navya is hurt and Kato has gone insane, we need to stop him!”

  Felix looked shocked and was tapping his fingers uncontrollably. He just stared at Alice. Felix was pale white like he was very ill. He looked at Navya, then back at Alice.

  “Navya is hurt?” Felix said. He stopped tapping his fingers and continued to stare at Alice. His expression changed to a furious one. “So, Alice, you hurt her. And somehow you survived completely unscathed!”

  “No, Felix,” Navya began, but she was short of breath and her voice was too quiet for Felix to hear.

  Alice realized that Felix might not be on their side. For a moment Alice thought she heard something and looked behind her. It was either go forward through Felix or face Kato. Alice made her decision and pulled Navya with her past Felix as quickly as she could. Felix lashed out as Alice ran by, swinging his fists in the air. One fist made contact with Alice’s head, but the swing was so wild that there was hardly any force behind it. Alice lost her balance for a moment but continued to move as quickly as she could through the hallway away from Kato and now away from Felix.

>   The fight or flight response is a physiological reaction. It is an instinctive reflex that is not easily controlled. On Earth, when fleeing from an imminent threat to survival, running away as fast as possible is the only thing being considered. On Europa, however, the low-g environment made sprinting nearly impossible. If Alice had been born and raised on Europa she would have been able to flee as quickly as she wanted, being perfectly acclimated to the gravity. However, being an adult and having spent most of her life on Earth, Alice found that she was trying to run just as she would do on Earth. This, as well as the spacesuit and helping Navya, slowed her down enough that Felix was able to catch up and grab Alice’s foot.

  Alice found herself falling straight down toward the floor. Navya fell down next to both of them. As she reached out her arms to absorb the impact, she looked behind to see that Felix was trying to pull himself up toward Alice using her spacesuit. Despite Alice’s best efforts to get away, Felix managed to make it up to Alice and began to beat on her in a crazed frenzy. Alice was face down on the floor and she couldn’t bring up her arms to defend her head.

  Felix was bringing his fists down again and again and again on Alice’s head. Each blow hurt worse than the previous one. Alice had been trying to use her hands to defend herself, but in her position, it wasn’t working. For a moment the blows ceased and Alice looked up to see Navya ram into Felix. The force threw Felix straight into the wall of the hallway and he fell away from Alice.

  “Go, go!” Alice shouted at Navya. Navya was hobbling down the hallway holding her sides. As Felix was getting his bearings, Alice had already gotten off the floor. She quickly caught up to Navya and began to pull her along.

  There wasn’t exactly a plan that Alice nor Navya had in mind at the moment other than ‘get away,’ but they were making surprisingly good progress on that front. Alice had decided to take a few random doors in the hopes that Felix couldn’t easily follow their trail. As they turned into the next room, Alice and Navya found themselves in a room with white residue on the floor. This was BSL1, and apparently, this is where the fire had occurred earlier. Both sets of airlock doors to the area were now wide open. Nothing about the room looked like there had been a fire. The only thing out of place - other than all the white residue - was the centrifuge in the center which was obviously broken.

 

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