Quagmire's Gate

by Allan E Petersen

  computer

  His inquiring mind was stronger than his superior’s order not to touch anything. He made a fist and gently hit another spot of the saucer shell, away from the perceived softness. It was solid. However, instead of hearing a dull thud, he heard a soft ‘bong’ type sound like striking a large church bell. Mysteriously the sound did not fade. It got so loud it forced him to put his hands to his ears. He was lucky the earsplitting roar only lasted a few seconds.

  Thinking that he was in trouble for touching the saucer, he looked down to Whelan. He was surprised that nobody down there reacted to a thunderous noise that almost burst his eardrums. It was as if it never happened. This greatly added to his bewilderment. ‘How could they not have heard that?’

  To make sure nobody was looking, he took another furtive glance down to the floor. The female doctor had her eyes glued to Whelan and everybody else was glued to the computer monitors. Returning his attention to the waving motion section, he lightly tapped it as if gently knocking on a door. To his surprise, his knuckle met no resistance. It was as if he had only knocked on air. Extending his finger, he poked the spot but it was like sticking his finger into a pool of water. That agitated the waving action making an upside-down wave motion.

  There was no inner voice warning him not to and so no sense of danger flared up in him. The adage, ‘curiosity killed the cat’ escaped him. He felt coolness engulfing his hand but was more puzzled than alarmed. It was not until his hand had pushed through to the wrist that a sinister feeling tingled through to wherever he had misplaced his good judgment. He quickly pulled his hand from the agitated shell and looked at it. What he saw, or rather did not see caused him to scream in stark terror.

  All eyes on the floor shot up to see what was wrong. Lynda shot her attention up to him but could not see why he was screaming. He was wildly staggering dangerously close to the edge of the scaffolding. Because she had heard screaming many times while an emergency nurse in Australia, she was able to surmise that this was a scream of terror rather than one of pain. It was not until he raised his arm above his head that she saw why he was in full panic. There was no hand! Even though there was a distance between them, she noticed that his whole arm was slowly being eaten away by an unknown hunger.

  Up on the high and by now unstable platform he was raging out of control. Twice he bounced hard off the railing causing the whole apparatus to sway dangerously. Whelan too was shocked by the surreal action up there but had the intestinal fortitude to yell a warning.

  “Hang on man. Do not upset the scaffolding. Stay still, we’ll come up for you!”

  The warning either went unheeded or unheard for he continued to scream in fear and bouncing off the railing.

  The tall scaffolding started to wobble from side to side. Because he was out of control, he lunged backwards and the other arm swung up to strike the solid section of the shell. Again, the invasive gong echoed through his already panicked brain. Nobody below heard what was clanging in his head. All they heard was his screaming.

  It was then that Lynda’s legs almost gave out from under her. Suddenly there was silence. This could not be happening. Yet there it was. Not only was his whole arm gone but now starting with his shoulders, the rest of him as well. His head disappeared as if dissolved into thin air. There was a headless torso up there wildly bouncing back and forth off the railing. To her horror she witnessed the poor man topple over and come hurdling to the floor below. However, nothing hit the floor. It took only a second for whatever had taken his arm and head to react so quickly that he completely disappeared during his long fall. The only evidence that he had hit the floor at all was one boot. It bounced twice and then it too was gone in the blink of an eye.

  A stunned state prompted silence as Lynda, Whelan and the remainder of the investigative team stared at the emptiness that should have shown a headless body on the floor. Whelan was the first to snap out of it. He yelled,

  “All right, nobody touch anything! Out! Everybody onto the elevator and I mean now.”

  Although there was enough room for everybody in the elevator cage there was still the matter of the weight restriction. Lynda and Whelan stayed below watching as the others all too slowly ascended to safety.

  She was still trembling and Whelan was still bewildered. Looking at him, she demanded,

  “What the hell just happened here?”

  He turned so abruptly and cast such a contorted expression at her that she instinctively took a defensive step back. He hissed,

  “Nothing. That’s what just happened. Nothing. Whatever you saw or thought you saw did not happen. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  Yes she did. She had just been ordered to join the ‘Shut Mouth Club’. Whatever happened was not to go beyond this room. Submissively she said,

  “I guess you’re telling me to shut-up about it.”

  Stern military eyes stabbed into hers and she understood the silent reply.

  A few minutes later, the empty elevator descended and in silence, both stepped onto it. Half way up, Lynda looked back down at the mystery of the flying saucer. Although she tried, there was no way her medical expertize was capable of explaining what happened. Because of the table with the hole in it, she could not see the laser apparatus that Whelan had placed under it straddling the hole in the floor. As surly as an ice cube placed over a flame, it melted and dripped into the hole. Before they reached the top of the elevator landing, like the copper coil, it too had disappeared.

  When they had entered the lab for the first time, she felt uncomfortable having to strip down in front of Whelan. This time, for some reason he must have thought the ice had been broken and there was no need for modesty. There certainly was none left in him. While she was looking at him and asking questions, he stripped naked and dressed in his civvies right in front of her. This put her a few steps behind getting her suit off. That allowed him to stand and watch her change, although with her back to him.

  While awkwardly struggling out of her decontamination suit, with a stammer of tension, she asked,

  “So, if I understood the Death Report on Jimmy Hatcher correctly, after his arm disappeared in the infirmary, he was taken to Fort Lincoln for treatment not available here. Is that correct?”

  Although they were back to back, he still found it necessary to sneak furtive glances at her. Snapping his attention back to the locker, he answered,

  “Yes.”

  “And according to the medical report, that is where he died, right?”

  “Yes, just as it says in the report. Why are you asking?”

  “Uh, no reason. I just wanted to know how much you are lying to me, and maybe how much you trust me, that’s all.”

  Whelan became suspicious of her tone and perked alert. While buttoning up her blouse, she turned to face him and continued,

  “I just think it odd that your security officer up on the scaffold touched the craft and somehow disappeared rather quickly. In fact, he was gone before hitting the ground. Yet, Jimmy Hatcher survived the same contamination for hours, apparently dying over in Fort Lincoln some time later.”

  She paused for a reply but none was coming. All she got for her accusation was a stare.

  Hoping that was the end of it, he walked out of the locker area and she followed. She said,

  “I think it’s odd, that’s all. It implies that whatever killed your security officer was not the same thing that killed Hatcher. That is, unless Hatcher didn’t really die over in Fort Lincoln.”

  He knew what she was going to ask next and groaned.

  “Did he?”

  It was clear that she had already figured it out and therefore his reply was brief.

  “No, he died here.”

  “How soon after leaving my infirmary did he die?”

  They were now walking through the main hall toward the elevator. He swiped his card, as did she and the doors opened. Once they were secure inside and rising to the surface, he confessed.

 
“He disappeared completely from sight right here in the elevator. By the time they reached the top, the stretcher was empty.”

  He was proud of her for figuring it out but at the same time nervous. It was supposed to be a secret. She asked,

  “Why the lies?”

  The doors opened and they stepped out into the fresh mountain air. Because Whelan had reports to fill out and she wanted to go home, they stood face to face at the crossroads. It was there that he answered her question about the lies.

  “Because we did not want to panic the scientists. We just thought that if they believed he was only badly injured it would be better for morale, that’s all.”

  She looked him square in the eyes and boldly said,

  “I see. So, that’s the official report is it?”

  Whelan’s great skill at lying to protect secrets was crumbling fast. The more she stared at him the faster the walls of Jericho came tumbling down. She asked the question that left him defenseless.

  “What’s the real reason that the General wanted Hatcher transferred to Fort Lincoln?”

  Instead of confessing, he blurted out,

  “Damn woman, you are too meddlesome for your own good.”

  If he thought that was the end of it, he was wrong. Her piercing stare forced him to confess,

  “Because the General did not want it in his report that there was a contamination in the laboratory, that’s why.”

  Do you mean that he didn’t want the Astrophysical Securities Council to know that there was a problem here?”

  He was forced to mumble

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Look, I don’t know why he wanted to keep the mystery of the hole a secret. That’s something you will have to ask him.”

  As she continued to glare at him, he snuck a peek at his watch and sarcastically asked,

  “I have a rather detailed Death on Grounds report to fill out and send to the General. Would it be okay if I go now?”

  She nodded and good-naturedly said,

  “You are dismissed for now.”

  At that he turned and walked away at a hurried pace. Because there was nobody around to see it, he openly grinned. Among other things, he liked her tenacity. A short time later the Death on Grounds report was finally finished and emailed to the General’s office.

  Chapter 11

  An hour later Miss Crammer looked up and saw Security Officer Whelan Christianson enter her reception area. As far as she was concerned he was the only person in this compound worth smiling at. He was also the only one who ever smiled at her. After a pleasant enough greeting Whelan asked,

  “Is the Great One ready to see me?”

  At the mention of General Irsthill’s name, she automatically escaped into her ‘hate room’. While in that place, she always spoke in a stern intolerable voice. Whelan, through no fault of his own now suffered hostility. She hissed,

  “If you mean has he finished his bottle yet, I should imagine so. After all, it is almost noon.”

  She pressed the intercom and announced Whelan’s arrival. To her great surprise the gruff voice responded right away,

  “Well send him in here then you damn woman, what are you waiting for.”

  She looked over to Whelan who was already at the office door. She tried her best to project a smile showing that the insolence meant nothing to her. It did not work. Before opening the door he softly said,

  “Don’t feel bad, he’s worse with me.”

  When he disappeared through the door, she reached into her desk and pulled out a Flash Drive. Inserting it into the intercom, she pressed a button and a soft dim light indicated a connection. This time, because she wanted to know what was going on in there, she swished her hair away and pressed an ear bud into place. Somehow being a spy for the Astrophysical Securities Council made up for her treatment by a foul mouth drunk.

  Whalen saw the death report of Securities Officer George E. Comstock on the desk and knew there was going to be trouble with it. Until then he was not sure why he was ordered to appear. Surprisingly there was alertness about the General this time. There was no glassy eyes looking across the desk at him and his posture was very complementary to his rank, sitting up straight and alert. This made Whelan very uncomfortable. He always felt that he had the upper hand when the bottle was empty. Now, as the General sat there looking across the desk at his Security Officer, it was Whelan who wished he had a bottle.

  General Irsthill was polite enough to wait for Whelan to sit before he slammed his hand down hard on the ‘Death on Grounds’ or DOG report. He bellowed,

  “Disappeared?”

  Whelan did not know what to say, everything was in the report. Why was he questioning it? Very uncomfortably, he replied,

  “Yes sir. It was exactly under the same circumstances as the death of the scientist Jimmy Hatcher.”

  Quizzically the General tilted his head and barked,

  “What? You mean that kid with the missing arm we sent over to Fort Lincoln, he died?”

  “Yes sir.”

  The General again slapped the ‘DOG’ report. He scanned the desk and Whelan thought it might have been a search for the bottle. He half spit out the question,

  “Why haven’t I been informed of this? A death under my command must be reported to me, it’s in the directive, damn it. The last I heard he was being transferred over to Fort Lincoln.”

  A hammer suddenly hit Whelan square in the forehead. Because the Astrophysical Securities Council was investigating the General for incompetence, they ordered Whelan to send all reports directly to the ASC first. Whelan correctly reasoned that for some reason the ASC had not forwarded the DOG report to the General yet. As the head of Securities and privy to all sealed books, one learned quickly to wrap himself in a dark cape and lie without a flinch. Not wanting the General to catch on that he was under investigation, it was easy for Whalen to blurt out,

  “Yes sir, it’s just that he didn’t die under your command. He died at the Fort Lincoln Air Force Base Hospital. That is out of your jurisdiction. You know how slow the ASC is about filtering reports downward. I’m sure they will be contacting you shortly.”

  A long hard and very uncomfortable gaze beamed across the desk Whelan. The General’s right eye closed as if taking aim at him. Very slowly and carefully, the General asked,

  “And how is it that you know about this before me?”

  Perhaps the bottle made him imagine a plot against him from every dark corner. However the unknown truth of the matter, at least to his myriad of insecurities was that when one keeps so many secrets, anxiety comes easily. The General had never understood that here in this underground facility it is impossible to keep track of all the secrets. Whelan was quick to recognize the infliction and tried his best to explain it away.

  “Like you sir, I have many friends throughout the system. My cohort at the base hospital phoned me before the incident was classified.”

  However, that lie did not pacify the General. With eyes still digging hard into Whelan’s, he slouched back in his chair.

  If there was going to be a pissing contest about who was supposed to know what happened first, then Whelan made up his mind to stop it here. He was Head of Security and as such it was his job to be on top of these things. If the Contract was interpreted correctly, in some cases Whelan out ranked the General. He was determined not to get into an argument over what each was entitled to know for the efficiency of their respective duties.

  Perhaps the General had similar thoughts. It was not in his nature to show weakness. Despite his inner rage, he knew that a potential face-off over rank and who had what authority would eventually lead to why he tried to keep the mysterious hole in the floor a secret. It was not wisdom that pushed his eyes away from the staring contest but rather self defense. He knew when to concede a battle for the sake of the war. The General asked a question designed to change the subject.

  “I suppose the man who died this morning was a good man
then was he?”

  Whelan was not pleased with the negligence of the question. Comstock was one of his best security officers and here the General did not even know his name. Moreover, the change of tone from belligerence to an acted out scene of compassion was weak. Whelan immediately and easily recognized it. Making sure he used his full name and rank, Whelan spoke loudly,