Quagmire's Gate

by Allan E Petersen

Looking down at his hands, she indicated for him to remove the hand covering the injury. He slowly slid the hand away to reveal a small puncture wound on the top of his right hand. Inspecting the hole with the discerning eye of a Doctor, she shook her head in bewilderment and said,

  “It’s very strange indeed isn’t it?”

  Rather casually, he said,

  “Yea, I guess it might be at that Doc.”

  “What happened? How did you get it?”

  “I don’t know. I was just working in the lab and happened to look down and there it was.”

  “But you must have felt something didn’t you? I mean a hole like that in your hand must have produced a bit of a nasty sting.”

  Rather casually he shook his head. It really did not hurt at all. After more thought to the injury he casually said,

  “No, not at all Doc. Like I said, suddenly there it was. What do you think it is? Maybe a bug bite or something?”

  As soon as she realized there might be a chance of a biological contamination and not knowing what was going on over in the secret laboratory, she was prudent enough to put on latex gloves. Little did she suspect such a simple precaution would save her life. Now protected against a possible infection, she did not hesitate to rub her finger over the wound. As she did, she said,

  “Well if it is a bug bite then it’s not like any I’ve ever seen and trust me mate, where I’m from I’ve seen just about all there is to see in bug bites. Besides how could it be? We are at least two hundred feet underground. Before entering the lab you had to change your street clothes and take a decontamination shower before entering it. No mate, this place is one hundred percent sterile. Trust me. It’s not a bug bite.”

  Up until that second, until reminded of the near perfect sterile conditions in the Deep Lab 6 Research Laboratory, he felt good thinking that the injury did not pose a threat. He even considered not bothering coming to the Infirmary at all. She noticed his sudden nervousness. When he realized that she was correct and considering what was in the secret lab, sudden alternatives to a hole in the hand brought to bear unpleasant alternatives.

  Hatcher was a brilliant scientist lucky enough to be born with an intellect and dogged determination to dissect and quickly come to a solution. A steadfast determination drove him to what he was today, a top scientist in Quantum Physics. Although there was no pain in his hand, there was a mystery to be solved. Now, being reminded that his first prognosis was impossible, a tinge of insecurity slowly surged through him. His beating heart took over and raised his blood pressure just enough to make him sweat.

  Doctor Lynda Gray took her eyes off the injury and looked at his face just in time to see the dilemma flow though him. She saw his brave facade crumble like crushed crackers. Trying to entice an answer from him, she said,

  “Obviously it is not a bug bite is it?”

  As he responded, she felt a slight tremble in his hand. He asked,

  “Then what is it?”

  She wanted to know what caused the hole but unfortunately she does not hold a high enough security clearance to get into the lab where it happened. Her security restricts her to this medical lab. To go over and investigate a contamination or anything hazardous was strictly out of the question. Taking a step back and looking him straight in his by now very uncomfortable eyes, she responded in the only way she knew.

  “Why don’t you tell me what it is then?”

  The aura around Hatcher suddenly turned bleak. The result of a preliminary diagnosis by the Doctor had just blown his naive ineffectual assumption through the ventilation fans and out into the thin desert air hundreds of feet above. She saw his flippancy melt and replaced with one of alarm. For the first time since coming to this secret laboratory in the middle of the desert, she had a slight curiosity about what was going on over there. However, that was all, just a slight interest. That all changed when seeing a curious hole in this young man’s hand.

  Looking into his unnerved eyes, she suspected that he had obviously invented the simplistic story of a bug bite and knew it was a foolhardy explanation all along. There was no bug in the world she knows of that bites and then produces compounds to cauterize the veins like that. In most cases, bugs produce an anticoagulant with the purpose to draw blood, not restrict it from flowing. She knew he was covering up something.

  He feebly tried to pull his hand away but instinctively her grip tightened. She had seen panic of unknown injury in patients many times before. She also understood that suddenly he did not want the injury looked at anymore. All of a sudden the reason for it was unimportant and replaced by a fear that she might start asking questions he was not permitted to answer.

  This sudden turn of events greatly perked Doctor Gray’s curiosity. Although the patient was filled with misgivings, she was filled with bewilderment and curiosity. ‘What’s going on?’ Doctor Gray also had a doctor’s heart. She wanted to know what on earth caused it. The last thing she wanted was a contagion stampeding through a laboratory.

  She did not know how deep the hole was. Because he was a young man, by now the viscosity of his skin had almost closed over it. However, it was deep enough to cut capillaries so there should be blood. Yet, there was none. She again rubbed the injury with her gloved forefinger. As she did, she looked into his blank face for any signs of pain. His vacant expression remained intact. Doctor Lynda Gray asked,

  “Can I assume there is not even the slightest discomfort?”

  He simply looked at her and shrugged his shoulders. Casually he bravely said,

  “Nah. It’s like it isn’t even there.”

  “But it is, isn’t it dear.”

  “Yea Doc, I guess so.”

  “Well, if it doesn’t hurt let’s see how deep it is then.”

  Hatcher was sitting on an uncomfortable swivel stool across from the Doctor. Just in case he wanted to pull his injured hand away from her, she held it tight. Just as she was about to turn and reach for a thin metal probe to stick into the hole, her fingers felt something on the other of his hand, on his palm. A gentle rubbing with her fingertip confirmed that there was definitely something there. As she turned his hand over, she asked,

  “What’s this then?”

  On his palm was another small hole. This one, like the one on top was also cauterized with no signs of blood. As she looked up into the now almost panicky face of the young man, she realized that it was not necessary to ask how he got that one either. His bewildered expression was self-explanatory. She needed an answer to one question.

  “Are there any other mysterious holes on your body I should know about?”

  Still alarmed, he slowly shook his head and softly said,

  “I guess the only logical answer is that I don’t know."

  “Well then I guess the only logical answer is that I should have a look, isn’t it.”

  Horrible visions of him standing naked while a good-looking female Doctor inspected every inch of his body seemed to have replaced fear with great humility. She had seen that shy ‘run like hell’ look in young men many times before. It was one she enjoyed seeing. The fearful look implied she was in control. Yet, in her years spent in the Australian Air Force hospital, she had seen so many naked bodies she would rather yawn, go home and do the dishes. He was relieved to hear,

  “Before I subject you to that however, let’s have a closer like at this one shall we.”

  He was quick to answer.

  “Yea, I’m pretty sure that’s all there is anyway.”

  It was hard not to tease him.

  “Well, we’ll see about that young man.”

  As she inspected the second hole in his palm, there was a silence in the infirmary. The normally quite ventilation fans above could have been roaring jet engines. A brief moment later she turned the hand back over and again looked long and hard at the one on top. Flipping back to the hole in his palm, she said,

  “That’s odd. The one on your palm is directly underneath the one on top of your hand?”

&n
bsp; To confirm her discovery, he flipped his hand back and forth inspecting the anomaly. She had to ask again,

  “No pain? No indication of a slight sting then?”

  With wide eyes he gasped,

  “No.”

  A thought came to her. It seemed ludicrous but then so did the fact that there was no pain or blood. As she twisted around and opened a drawer behind her, she said,

  “I want to try something. Let me just get my torch.”

  Surprised, he fearfully blurted out,

  “Torch?”

  The fear of a flame applied to the wound jolted him into snapping his hand out of hers and into the protective custody of his chest. His other hand shot up trying to hide it. Puzzled, she turned back and saw his stunned expression. He was shaking his head and projecting a defiant posture.

  Because she had not done anything to justify this sudden reaction, she wondered if perhaps she had said something wrong. She asked,

  “What’s the matter with you? You can’t be afraid of a little torch can you?”

  Nodding his head, he defiantly said,

  “Little or not the flame is the same. Why do you need to cauterize the hole with a flame anyway?”

  It was not the first time she had been misunderstood. Beaming a broad smile she held up the implement and asked,

  “What’s this then?”

  There was still hesitancy in his voice but he was sure he was going to get the question right.

  “It’s a small flashlight.”

  “Right. But where I come from we call it a torch.”

  Relief washed across his face. He said,

  “Yea, I forgot, you are English aren’t you.”

  “No love, I’m Australian. There’s a big difference you know.”

  To her the difference was as obvious as fire and ice. Yet she saw by this Yank’s blank look that there was not an inch of difference to him.

  She signaled for him to pry his hand away from his chest and back into her outstretched hand. It was clear that he did not want to but slowly submitted. She then pressed the flashlight hard against the hole in his palm and said,

  “Straighten your fingers out so there are no wrinkles in your hand.”

  He did. She then turned the flashlight on. While keeping the flashlight tight against his palm, with her free hand she slowly turned his hand over.

  He was puzzled about her intent. It was not until she reached down and with two fingers gently spread the hole apart that his eyes practically fell out of his head. There, on top of his hand was a glimmering beam of light. Not understanding what the Doctor had just proven, he was puzzled why a light was beaming out of the top of his hand. However, because he was a scientist, it did not take long for him to figure it out. In horror, he snapped his hand away and again pressed it hard to his protective chest.

  After both holes were dressed and bandaged, she asked,

  “You understand Mr. Hatcher that I am the resident Doctor at this research facility. If anything of a hazardous medical nature happens over there, I want to know about it.”

  As he slowly nodded, she once again saw fear oozing out of him. Any questions that might be construed as a breach of security to what was happening in the secret lab next door brought instantaneous bouts of anxiety to almost everybody who had taken the oath and signed very intimidating confidentiality papers. How much could he tell her? What constituted a breach?

  She snapped off her rubber gloves and tossed them in the garbage pail at the side of her desk. Because she then started putting the bandages and antibacterial balm away, she did not see what was happening in the garbage pail. The tip of the crumpled latex glove that had touched the hole in his hand started to smolder like the tip of a cigarette butt. However, there was no heat and no smoke. The sparking quickly devoured the glove and it disappeared in the blink of an eye.

  With her back to him, she continued with her investigation of the injury.

  “You understand Mr. Hatcher that we have to rule out an insect bite.”

  She did not hear an answer and really did not expect one. With the medical supplies safely put away, she shut the cabinet and turned back to the still perplexed Jimmy Hatcher. She continued.

  “Now we both know that I have no security clearance for whatever it is you people are doing over there in the lab. However, I have the authorization to question you about injuries that I deem hazardous to you blokes in there.”

  Though he nodded, she knew it was more of an empty-headed acknowledgement of her statement. She saw that he seemed lost to deep thought. After a few moments of awkward silence she realized that he was not about to answer. She continued.

  “Fine. So let me ask you this. I can only think of one thing that could make a hole like that and cauterize the skin and vessels at the same time. Are you working with or experimenting with lasers in there?”

  She was new to this ‘Shut mouth’ syndrome. If in doubt, shut your mouth. In most cases, she saw these security clauses as merely a joke, games that macho men for some reason need to play. With a deep sigh of resignation, she rephrased the question.

  “Very well. If, and of course only if you are working with laser technology then I’m going to make the assumption that you were stupid enough to get your hand in the way of the beam and that hole is the result of it. If that is true then I will just close the book on this injury and enter it in my log as an industrial accident that will not happen again. Are we fine with that assumption Mr. Hatcher?”

  He lowered his eyes to the bandages and then turned his hand over to confirm there really was a hole running clean through it. Without looking up, he slowly nodded.

  She changed the subject and asked,

  “Is there anybody else in the lab that might also be suffering from this sort of mysterious injury? I don’t mean just on their hand but elsewhere on their body?”

  He shrugged his shoulders and she continued,

  “Is there anybody in there that might be in danger of this happening to them?”

  He nodded but only once and every slightly.

  Just as he was reaching for the door, preparing to leave, she said to him,

  “Don’t be afraid to send others to me if this happens to them. Even though we are in a sterile lab, a small hole like that can cause infection or even worse.”

  He nodded and on the way out, closed the door behind him. She had no choice but to assume that the fool had gotten his hand in the way of something that he was not supposed talk about.

  Chapter 2

  Later that afternoon she was sitting in her office deeply lost to the predicament of the characters in her book. This was not the first time exciting characters in a romantic novel erased her sense of time. She knew they were just the imagination of a pen but they all led a more exciting life than hers. It felt as if everybody in the world had a more exciting love affair than the one she once had.

  There were times she wished she had never accepted this assignment. On the surface, it looked like a great way to get away from it all. She needed to get away from the tears, the memories as well as sights and smells of things that only brought remorseful memories to bear. They were all hurtful recollections best forgotten. She was here because she thought it was far enough away to forget. However, hurt and bad memories do not travel well together. They cause conflict constantly at the forefront of sorrow.

  It was her first trauma of the heart and therefore was ill prepared to bury the sad experience deep in the darkest reaches of memory. Most people, those unlucky at love or even life, have learned where to put these sad lessons. That is how they survive. They push them aside and move on to the next tragedy or hopefully new experience with romance. She had miserably failed at that attempt. The only lesson learned so far was that too much idle time was an open invitation for those memories to jump over the inadequate fence imprisoning them. Loneliness now danced through her life.

  As a recognized Doctor of Biomedicines in the Australian Air Force, taking on a job as Head Doc
tor of this Infirmary to a bunch of closed mouthed and often scared Yankee scientists in the middle of a foreign country was appealing because of the distance. Little did she suspect that she had unintentionally packed into her suitcase the very memories she was trying to escape.

  Hatcher was the first patient to come into the infirmary since she arrived last month. It was a twelve hour rotating shift with another Doctor. This allowed for seven hours of sleep and five hours of boredom before reporting back here. Monotony described her job. It had only been one month but already it felt like three years.