The Far Side

by Wylie, Gina Marie

  By the time they were ready, Kurt had the rest of his crew on site. They too wore body armor and carried a variety of automatic weapons, including two men with RPGs. Kurt stationed one of the RPG men in the room with Kris, and the other north of the house, between the house and the school, even though there weren’t any kids there while the rest were held back as reserves.

  Finally, about ten in the morning their ducks were in a row, and most of the police had pulled back. Kurt, Ezra, Kris, and the RPG guy were in the home theater, and Pete was in the garage at the main electrical panel. Captain Wolford was in the room, along with the robot’s operator and two SWAT officers.

  It was a larger group than Kris felt comfortable with, eight people in the room with another in the garage, but she didn’t think that there could be fewer without ruffling feathers.

  She turned on the fusor and brought the door into shimmering existence. She had the operator move the robot forward as the door steadied. It solidified and the robot arm began to extend forward.

  It had gone just a few inches when something began to beep on the robot operator’s panel.

  “What’s that?” Captain Wolford asked.

  The operator tapped the blinking light. “That’s the carbon monoxide alarm,” he told the captain. “That’s not possible. There’s no carbon monoxide source.”

  “Stop!” Kris commanded. Without another word, she flipped the switches and the door blinked out. “Everyone out of the house! Right now!”

  She picked up the radio to Pete. “Pete, listen up. Open the garage door and go out that way -- don’t go back into the house.”

  “You guys?”

  “This room has a sliding glass door to the outside. We’ll use that. Hazardous gas levels!”

  Kurt already had the door open, and Ezra was shooing people forward. The robot operator got his machine shut down and looked at Kris. “You don’t think that was a sensor malfunction?”

  “Listen,” she told him.

  In the distance, out in the hall, another sensor was chirping. “Houses like this have carbon monoxide alarms just like they have smoke detectors. Come on, before we all turn blue.”

  They went outside, and the various deputies joined them. “There was a problem?” the mayoral deputy asked.

  “Yes. Evidently the room on the Far Side has been flooded with carbon monoxide. It’s a good thing we weren’t down there, because we’d have had a tough time getting out if we’d been downstairs.”

  “We have air tanks, don’t we?” the police official asked Captain Wolford.

  “Yes, sir,” Captain Wolford. “It’ll be uncomfortable as hell, but at least it’s October and not July.”

  “Sir,” Kurt spoke out. “This is something we hadn’t expected. If a man loses his mask or air in that sort of environment, he’s dead. This is going to significantly increase the risk.”

  “And you want more money,” the deputy mayor said disgustedly.

  “No, sir, we have a contract and we’ll keep it. But I’m here to tell you, sir, that the people who went through to the far side are either dead or prisoners such that it is unlikely we can retrieve them without a lot of casualties.”

  “We need firemen and EMTs,” Kurt told them. “Someone knowledgeable about carbon monoxide.”

  “We have a couple of fire engines on scene and three EMT squads,” Captain Wolford told him.

  “Call their senior guy,” Kris told him. “Are there any other assets available on site that you’ve overlooked mentioning?”

  He shrugged and looked apologetic. “I’m sorry; this is a standard emergency turnout. There is a police helicopter in the area, and a state police chopper close by as well. We even have a pool reporter, back at the safe line, two miles away. By now there are several hundred officers on the perimeter.”

  One of the SWAT sergeants produced a map and started pointing out locations of units and officers who were cordoning off the site. He also sketched the safe line, well inside the inner perimeter. Kurt grunted approval when the sergeant finished. “Let this be a lesson to all of us. You said it was a standard emergency turnout. Well, guess what? We haven’t rehearsed, and you people have. Speaking now as a big fan of Norwich, we’d sure like the loan of some of your trainers at some point in time to come and talk to us about ‘standard’ emergency procedures.”

  “You’ve got it,” Captain Wolford said. “Chief Murphy of the fire department is on his way up.”

  Kris had been musing for a moment. “The cat’s out of the bag, right? The word about a fusor and a door to the Far Side is public?”

  “Yes,” the deputy mayor told her. “The mayor was displeased with the premature release of the information. We’ve been on the air telling people not to panic -- but a lot of people saw Tom Cruise and the War of the Worlds movie. There is already very heavy traffic headed out of the city this morning; heavier than what we usually see. So far it’s orderly but...”

  “I know this is your area, sir, but I would like to talk to that reporter. Information management is something we should stay on top of.”

  “And what are you going to talk to him about?”

  “Offer him a chance to come along in exchange for not showing it live. I’d like to get a cut at the first edit, but they won’t give us that.”

  “No, they probably won’t,” the deputy mayor said. “I got my start in the PIO trenches. Odds are that I know whoever it is. Sure -- a little good publicity would be helpful.”

  The fire chief arrived. He wasn’t much taller than Andie, Kris thought. Then she realized that he was missing his legs below his knees; the lower portion of his legs were shorter than on most people. He didn’t seem to have any trouble getting around, though.

  “What have you got?” the man asked. “I’m Fred Murphy, Battalion 51’s commander.”

  “We were trying to go through a Far Side door,” Kris told him. “You know about those?”

  “I still have trouble believing that serious people think they are real.”

  Captain Wolford sighed. “I’ve seen it. It’s real.”

  “Okay, it’s real. You want us to lay a few hose lines and drown them?”

  Kurt laughed. “That might not be a bad idea!”

  Kris ignored him. “Five people have been forcibly pulled through this door and haven’t returned. A few minutes ago we opened it again, and what,” she turned to the controller and asked, “about thirty seconds after it was stable, the probe robot’s carbon monoxide alarm went off?”

  “Thirty seconds is close enough. It’s on the telemetry log back in the van -- if you need the exact time, I can get it for you.”

  “It was quick,” Kris told the fireman. “I asked what it was, and the robot operator told me. I was trying to evaluate the validity of the threat when I heard what sounded like a smoke detector go off in the hallway of the house, about fifty feet from us and on the same level. That’s when I turned off the machine and ordered everyone to withdraw. I had a man in the garage open the garage door. The door into the house was left open behind him. Once everyone was outside, I had people go around and open all of the exterior downstairs doors.”

  “And you want what from me?”

  “Information about carbon monoxide,” Kris told him.

  “Well, I’m not sure that’s what you faced. Carbon monoxide isn’t as heavy as carbon dioxide, but it still is slightly heavier than the nitrogen component of air, and so it tends to cling to the ground at first if it is in any concentration. Eventually it mixes with the air, but at first it hugs the ground.

  “I can’t think of any way carbon monoxide could have gotten upstairs in quantity quickly unless the concentration downstairs was very high. Most home detectors are sensitive to the concentration of carbon monoxide, and it would take a very high concentration indeed to trigger an alarm almost at once.”

  “It is possible that the atmosphere on the Far Side was over-pressured,” she told him. “The flow would have been from there to here.”
/>   He nodded. “That would do it, although the concentration still seems high upstairs.”

  “And if nine of us had been down in the basement? What would that have been like? Would we be alive or dead?”

  “Curtain time,” the fireman said bluntly. “You wouldn’t notice any symptoms for two or three breaths. Call it ten seconds. Then you’d start to pant, as if you’d run a long distance. Two or three pants and the odds are you’d pass out. Even at relatively low concentrations, it is only thirty or forty seconds until death. The carbon monoxide blocks oxygen up-take from the blood. Even if someone could hold their breath for a couple of minutes, he’d have been screwed. He might have gotten upstairs, he might have gotten outside into clean air, but the CO would still have been in his blood. If someone had been right there, oxygen ready, you might limit it to significant brain damage. Anything else -- and it would have been over. And that CO alarm? Those are usually on the ceiling, next to a smoke detector. It would have gone off later rather than sooner.

  “We tell people to put them low down, on the wall, but they don’t like that. More than once people have been rendered unconscious before the alarm sounded.”

  “Would firearms still function?” Kurt asked.

  The fire chief shook his head. “In very high concentrations, above ten or twelve percent, the gas is explosive. Carbon monoxide is the product of incomplete combustion -- like charcoal is a product of the incomplete combustion of wood. Add heat and it will burn; it would depend on the concentration of the gas, but I’d say you wouldn’t want a spark, much less a gunshot. I can call the house and get an exact answer for you.”

  “Please, if you would, then,” Kris asked.

  The fire chief studied Kris for a moment and then turned to the deputy mayor. “I’m an easy-going guy, Mr. Deputy Mayor, and I don’t mind intelligent questions from anyone. Direction? That’s something else again.”

  “Major Kurt Sandusky is the incident commander,” the Deputy Mayor told him. “Miss Boyle is his senior advisor.”

  The fire captain laughed at that, looking around him. “Senior in high school?”

  Kris laughed. “No, that was last year. This year I’m back to being a freshman. But I am the civilian expert.”

  “Kris as in Kristine Boyle, daughter of Oliver Boyle?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Just a sec then,” he told her, and stepped back to speak into his radio.

  A woman of about thirty, black, but not as dark as Captain Stone, appeared and nodded at the deputy mayor. “Jack, how are you?”

  “Fine as can be expected, given the circumstances, Janice. You’re the pool reporter?”

  She laughed. “I was the only one the station could find stupid enough to want to spend a month in quarantine, rather.”

  The deputy mayor turned to Kris. “Miss Boyle, this is Miss Janice Kingsolver, one of our better local TV reporters.”

  Kris spoke right up, “You’ll be happy to know, Miss Kingsolver, that we have gotten the quarantine time reduced. Two weeks, if we declare it an emergency and none, if the President says it’s an emergency.”

  “And he’s a Chicago Democrat who knows where his bread is buttered,” the reporter agreed. “Is it true there is one of those doors to another planet in there? That five people are missing?”

  “That’s right, Janice,” the deputy mayor told her.

  “We would be willing to let you observe us,” Kris told her, “if you are willing to agree to a few things first.”

  “And you would be who?” the reporter asked.

  “She would be Kris Boyle -- her father is leading the charge to impeach President,” the deputy mayor told her.

  “Ah, in that case Miss Boyle, I would be happy to do whatever you want -- so long that you promise to sit down with me afterwards for a couple of hours for an interview.”

  “On one condition of mine -- we talk about fusors and not my father or what he’s doing or what happened to him or my mother. Go there, and you will get an earful that you won’t be able to print.”

  “Hush your mouth, girl!” the light-skinned black reporter laughed. “Print! That is so my grandfather! Podcast and on my video blog at the station!”

  “We will let you record what we do. The only portions of it that you can subsequently broadcast are events with the gate open. Nothing about planning, dispositions and the like.”

  “That’s pretty standard.”

  “And not live. I’d like to ask for first edit rights, but...”

  Janice Kingsolver laughed. “You can always ask. And I’ll say no, my producer will say no -- everyone up to the station manager will say no.”

  “Without that, then, do you agree?”

  “We’re getting close to an agreement. If there’s live action, can we go live?”

  “So far you’d have a minute of minutiae, the door solidifying, and then an alarm a few seconds later and ten seconds after that, nine of us beating a hasty retreat. If that’s what you want to put out live, you’re going to disappoint a lot of viewers,” Kurt told her.

  “Would you let us decide?” she asked.

  Kurt looked unhappy. “My every instinct says that you will overstep the limits.”

  “If we overstep our limits, Miss Boyle won’t talk to me, will she? Do you realize that that’s a million-dollar interview? No one is going to jeopardize that!

  Kris grimaced. “You and a cameraman will need to wear body armor, and we’re going to try again in a few minutes. You’ll both have to listen close, wear full armor and carry oxygen and wear a full mask.”

  “They tried to gas you?” the woman asked, her eyes widening with surprise.

  Kris told her yes and then stopped. “Ezra, would you get on the phone and call my mother, tell her it’s urgent.” She turned to Kurt. “We’re going to need the equipment the army has, the full body protective gear, before we even try to go back. See what you can get.” Next, Kris talked to the fire and police captains. “What do you people have in the line of poison gas detectors? I can’t believe it’s as simple as we see on TV.”

  “It’s not. We have some, for a few common types. Mostly, if we suspect toxins, we go in wearing full body suits, take samples carefully, pull back until the techs tell us what it is. Sometimes that can take days, and more than once we’ve had false positives. It’s real exciting,” Captain Wolford told Kris.

  “Let me be blunt. I think there are intelligent creatures on the other side of that door. They acted deliberately against us, just now in that house. Mr. Deputy Mayor, you need to call your boss and have him ask the parents just how many people’s lives they are willing to risk in the slight chance that we can rescue their sons. You need to ask the mayor how many lives he wants to risk to rescue his police officers. These things aren’t interested in talking; they’ve had plenty of chances to not escalate or to try to parley. Instead, for whatever reason, they keep raising the stakes.

  “My own recommendation is that we be permitted one more attempt to get a camera through to the other side and see what we can see, and then withdraw, dismantle the machine and fill that basement with concrete so that no one will be tempted to go there again.”

  “Why not just quit while we’re ahead?” Captain Wolford asked.

  “It would be helpful if we had some sort of image of what we’re up against,” she told him. “Something, even if it’s the shape of a room or a skyline in the distance.”

  She turned to the robot’s operator. “You can collect air samples, right?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then regardless, we’ll open the door. The first priority will be to gather an air sample of what’s coming through. Then we will try to get a camera close enough to the interface so that we can see what’s beyond, even if it isn’t for long. We will only attempt to pass through the door if there is anything that vaguely resembles a chance that any of the five missing people are still alive.”

  “Kris, your mother,” Ezra said, holding out his cell
phone.

  Kris took it.

  Her mother was acid. “What, now you’re so important that you don’t have to make your own phone calls?”

  “I’m in the middle of something just now,” Kris said patiently. “Tell me something. If you exposed the people of Arvala to Sarin or VX nerve gas, what would happen to them?”

  “They’d die. Their biochemistries are different than ours, but most nerve toxins work on a broad spectrum of animal life.”

  “In general, how many toxins are there that would affect multiple species?”

  “Thousands,” her mother said. “Why are you asking? What are you doing?”

  “I’m trying to save some people, Mom. But the folks on the other side just hit us with carbon monoxide. We’re checking right now to see just how many lives the families of the lost are willing to risk.”

  “Kris, if you throw in gases that simply kill, no matter what species you are, there are thousands of them. People have died just walking into a room with pure nitrogen and that’s nearly eighty percent of the atmosphere. You just can’t afford to let oxygen get much below 15 percent, or carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide to rise much above a half percent or so.

  “In addition, there are a lot of poisons that act just on people and not on say, dog and cats. There are others that kill insects but don’t affect us and vice versa. Sprinkle a few grams of ethylene glycol on a cat’s food dish and a single bite is fatal. You’d just make a face at the awful sweet taste. Twenty or thirty grams would make a person very sick.”

  “We will be careful, Mom, I promise. This has been very, very useful.”

  “Well, do be careful dear.

  Please, in the future if you want to talk to me, call yourself.”

  “Mom, I was in the middle of a meeting with a dozen people. You’ve had your secretary call me more times than I have fingers.”