Europa Contagion

by Nicholas Thorp

  Feeling as though she was making good progress, she looked around the room and found a cabinet that held the normal jumpsuit that everyone on the Moon base wore. It was somewhat tricky, but Alice managed to get out of her gown and into the jumpsuit. The more she moved, the better she felt.

  She noticed a tablet sitting nearby and grabbed it. The screen flashed on and her name appeared with files listed below. She scanned each file name quickly:

  Overview

  Labs

  Medications

  Vitals

  Notes

  She realized these were her medical records. She clicked into the ‘Overview’ file hoping to find more information, but was disappointed when it only listed her demographics and history. She opened ‘Labs’ and was relieved to see all her lab values were listed in black except for a slightly elevated hemoglobin level which was listed in red. She wasn’t concerned with this level as it was a common side effect of space travel. What mattered was that, according to her labs, she was healthy.

  She skipped past the ‘Medications’ and ‘Vitals’ files and went straight to ‘Notes.’ The last entry was from two weeks ago by Dr. Hartley. It said:

  “Patient has undergone a full battery of tests to determine if there are any infections or abnormalities. There were no anomalies found during testing. Patient’s condition appears to be rapidly improving, but she has not regained consciousness at this time. We will continue to monitor her regularly”.

  Alice turned off the tablet. No anomalies found. She wasn’t infected. She’d survived.

  Finally, it was time to get the door open. She went over and pushed the “Lock/Unlock” button. The light turned from red to green. Pushing the button again, her diligence was rewarded: the door slid open. She peeked her head into the hallway and looked around. There was not a soul in sight. She was at the end of the hallway, so there was only one path to take.

  Leaving her room, she took the IV stand with her down the hallway and followed it. The hallway had white curved walls and a black polished floor with bright Laser-Diode lights overhead. Most doors she passed were closed and locked but she could see a few green lights indicating unlocked rooms. Alice stopped at a room with a door that wasn’t locked and pushed the button. The door slid open. Her view was of the bottom-side of a hospital bed. It looked like someone had tried to barricade the door with the bed.

  Farther down the corridor, she could see a few doors were already open. She continued on.

  At the first open room, Alice looked inside but there was no one to be seen. IV bags, pills, and other medical equipment were scattered across the floor. The bed was on its side and pushed to the corner of the room. Everything was a mess.

  Soon, the hallway led to what looked like a waiting area. There were chairs lined up along the walls and a reception desk that no one manned. There was also a giant window that showed the view outside. She could see the familiar grey scenery with pockets of craters and rocks that Alice had seen many years ago. She was on Earth’s Moon. But where was everyone?

  She walked to the reception desk to look at the computers. The screens were black until she tapped on the keyboard. They had been in ‘sleep’ mode. As the screens lit up, she felt something sticky on her finger from where she touched the keyboard. It was red. She looked down at the keyboard and saw the same red color streaked across the keys. The red color streaked across the whole keyboard and onto the counter and on the floor and the walls. Then she saw the monitors flashing a warning:

  Emergency. Evacuate Immediately.

  Alice simply stood there, staring at the message. She had a bad feeling that she knew exactly what was going on.