“Wow!” observed the intern, staring up through the thick, specially-insulated glass geodesic dome above him, as the heaven bound curtains of vibrant colors passed by overhead. Antarctica was currently experiencing one of its polar nights, where the sun does not rise above the horizon for months at a time, and so, even though it was mid-morning, the sky was dark enough to render this spectacle even more fantastic.
The intern’s superior asked, “Now, did you notice anything out of the way about this display, Geoffrey?” One of the scientist’s many quirks was that he never said odd or unusual, but only out of the way.
“It’s spectacular.” answered Geoffrey, absently, unable to summon his gaze away from the brilliant colors. He had read about the phenomena many times, but actually witnessing it firsthand now…well, the lengthy book descriptions just didn’t do it justice.
The scientist—his name was Arnold though he insisted he be addressed as Mr. Reynolds—scoffed at the intern’s childlike awe. He was an extremely practical person who prided himself on never being taken off guard for any reason. He had long forgotten the non-book oriented passion and curiosity that drew him into the field of astronomy in the first place. His appearance certainly suggested as much. He had a tall, lanky frame with long, thin limbs and a face that looked as if it had been sucked dry by the very vacuum of space which he was paid to study. His head was covered by a full mane of curly dull, black hair that matched the simple goatee he kept meticulously trimmed. His eyes were slightly recessed into his drawn face, but were still as penetrative as if they were a pair of black binoculars bulging out of his head. The centerpiece of this facial mosaic was the thick glasses the scientist wore even though there was absolutely nothing wrong with his vision. He fancied that they helped him notice things that perhaps he would not have otherwise.
He was the only black person stationed at the research facility, and, excluding his young intern, he was the youngest there at just thirty-nine years old. He usually assumed an air of snobbery (he would call it confidence), as he was assuming just now, but for all stuck up appearances, he was, in fact, a brilliant scientist. Already, a chemical nuclear reaction and a certain type of cosmic radiation that he had discovered, were named after him, and some believed—most ardently, he, himself—that it was only a matter of time before he was a proud (in the truest sense of the word) recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics. He had been at this particular research station for a total of six months now, and saw it as a prestigious, albeit cold, assignment. He always assumed that his brilliance had been the deciding factor that earned him the right to be here, considering that he was a minority and much younger than the other scientists, but in reality, it was the simple fact that no one else wanted to deal with the ‘young upstart who knew everything except how to keep his damn mouth closed’, that had gotten him here. It was just as well. He would certainly prefer his own rendition of things anyhow.
The glasses Mr. Reynolds wore were the modern half rim design that were normally assigned as prescription glasses. He steadied these upon his semi-flat nose now, as he scoffed at his youthful assistant. “Yes, I grant it, it is a worthy sight,” he said, speaking of the curtains of lights in the sky, though his tone would imply that he was too mature to be taken aback by such trivial emotions as wonder, “but if you intend to be any kind of a scientist worth your salt, you’re going to have to learn to move past the mere aesthetic properties of observation and teach yourself to find the scientific value, if there be any, of those observations.”
It was Geoffrey’s turn to scoff now, though he was not so foolish as to do it loud enough for his lofty, and unfortunately, influential, mentor to hear. “I thought that’s what I was here for, so you could teach me to pinpoint ‘scientific value’ where I would have otherwise missed it.” observed Geoffrey, still without looking away from the sky above (it could not be deduced by his tone whether or not he was being sarcastic, but Mr. Reynolds’s excessive store of pomp was such that he could fairly well interpret anything as a well-deserved compliment). The platform where the intern, Mr. Reynolds, and the other scientists stood, had been raised high into the huge domed structure for just such observation. In addition, there were sets of large steps by which a person could elevate themselves even further into the dome, and telescopes of varying size and power were scattered strategically for the same purpose.
With great grandeur, Mr. Reynolds stepped up two or three of these steps and positioned himself in front of one of the telescopes. For such a practical man, it didn’t matter that the southern lights in the sky were so close that using this or any of the observatory’s telescopes was completely unnecessary. In Mr. Reynolds’s mind, positioning himself just so made him look sophisticated.
“Quite right.” He answered his assistant. “And if you intend to learn anything worth learning, you’ve come to the right person. But no one, not even I, can teach you how to be a scientist. You have to be born with a special something already in place. I can only teach you science itself…” It looked as if Mr. Reynolds was about to open into a lengthy treatise of some sort, as no doubt he likely would have, had it not been that Geoffrey was suddenly taken over with an aptly-timed bout of suspiciously insatiable curiosity.
“Mr. Reynolds, you were saying that something was strange about these lights. What did you mean?” interrupted the intern.
“Not strange, Geoffrey, out of the way.” Corrected the scientist.
“Okay, Mr. Reynolds, out of the way, but what was it?”
“Come up here, Geoffrey.” The scientist instructed. Once Geoffrey made it up the steps and stood beside him, he pointed a finger at one of the predominantly green curtains that was in the process of waving by. “Now, do you see that?” he asked. Of course Geoffrey did, but that also didn’t seem to matter. “Now, I take it that you’ve never seen an aurora before?” Geoffrey shook his head that he hadn’t. “Well, that is truly unfortunate, because if you had seen an extensive amount of them—as I have—then you would know that that greenish hue you’re seeing now is highly out of the way for auroras. Highly out of the way…”
Geoffrey worked quickly to avoid yet another meaningless lecture. “How so? What exactly is…out of the way about it?” he asked humbly, scratching his head in intimation that he knew nothing without Mr. Reynolds’s significant expertise.
The scientist went on to explain to the decidedly-ignorant Geoffrey that the southern lights, like their northern counterparts, were the results of great amounts of radiation from solar winds bathing and interacting with Earth’s atmosphere. He continued on to explain that the outermost layers of the atmosphere were sparsely propagated with a much higher percentage of pure oxygen than was the rest of the layers. Through a highly-complicated series of cosmic radioactive interactions, that saturation of oxygen was the catalyst that made the pure green lights possible. The only problem was that the reaction should be happening where the oxygen was, on the outermost layer of Earth’s protective coating, not, as it were, so close and in plain view.
After this explanation, Geoffrey asked the question that most non-experts would’ve asked at this point; namely, what was the difference between that oxygen and the stuff humans depended on to live every day, to which, Mr. Reynolds awarded his intern with a look that said clearly, ‘My poor, ignorant, and totally inept Geoffrey. How very much you have to learn. Thank God in heaven that you met me’, etc…etc…, before informing him that oxygen was a highly reactive substance, one of the most reactive substances in the universe, in fact, and that the oxygen that caused the green reaction of which he spoke was so pure that it could actually kill humans from acute oxygen toxicity if breathed for any extended period of time. So, seeing the southern lights so green was therefore highly out of the way because it would suggest that a saturation pure oxygen was in the breathable part of Earth’s atmosphere…which would mean that shortly, everyone breathing it would soon be dead.
If Geoffrey hadn’t been paying attention to such a confusing and compl
icated explanation, he was all ears at the mention of the possible demise of all people.
“But, since none of us seem to be falling over dead at the moment, I’d say something else was happening.” said Mr. Reynolds, noticing the alarmed look on his apprentice’s face.
“What else?” asked Geoffrey, cautiously.
“Well, as scientists, and aspiring scientist, in your case my dear Geoffrey, that’s what we’re here to find out, isn’t it now?” Mr. Reynolds’s observation had obviously scared the intern, and he (Mr. Reynolds) was enjoying every moment of it. Unfortunately for the proud scientist, his observations were much closer to the truth than he could’ve imagined: He and everyone else around him were, indeed, breathing in highly toxic substances. It just wasn’t the kind he had in mind.
Meanwhile, as the lights subsided, Geoffrey gazed out onto the unbroken white of compacted ice that surrounded the station in all directions. Though his eyes were steady upon the hypnotizing lack of color that was the Antarctic tundra, his mind was far removed. Even in the short time that he had known Mr. Reynolds, he knew him to be a consummate asshole, but he also knew another thing: Mr. Reynolds’s observations were usually dead on. What bothered Geoffrey was that in this, Mr. Reynolds’s latest observation, dead on may very well be taken literally. As much as he wanted to, he didn’t press the scientist to elaborate. He knew he didn’t want to die out here, away from his family and friends, in this frozen wasteland.
Now, he looked out from the lightly-tinted glass dome, at the unforgiving habitat surrounding it, in earnest. Though he tried to block them out, images of his body dotting an otherwise monotonous ice sheet dominated his vision. He imagined himself fighting for precious life against some fucking oxygen toxicity…and losing. He saw himself gasping for air and being choked to eternal stillness by the very substance his body needed. He stood, staring at the imagined dots of him on the frozen surface for so long that he began to believe he actually saw a dot on the horizon. He shook his head hard to get rid of the hallucination, but it was still there. He moved up a few steps to get a better look and to prove to his shaken psyche that the dot was no more than his unfounded fears preying upon his mind, but still, the dot remained.
Reluctantly, he called one of the other scientists in the room to his aid. He tried not to arouse the attention of Mr. Reynolds, as he was sure he would make more out of this than was necessary. One of the other scientists came to find out what was the problem.
Geoffrey pointed into the distance. “Do you see anything there?” he asked timidly. He hoped like hell that the scientist didn’t see it so he could assure himself that it was all in his head, but the other guy did see it. The scientist went to one of the telescopes to get a better look at the dot. He stood with his face in the goggle mask-like apparatus of the telescope for a few moments. When Geoffrey next saw his face, there was a confused and meditative look on it that promised not to bode well. The scientist returned his face to the telescope’s mask for a few more long moments, then did the very thing that Geoffrey least wanted. He called loudly to Mr. Reynolds. Mr. Reynolds and a few of the other scientists came to see what the fuss was about. Each in their turn looked out through the telescope and they, too, shared the same strange look.
As they stood by, talking amongst themselves, Geoffrey took the opportunity to look through the telescope himself. Really, he didn’t want to see what was out there—he had called for help in the first place to debunk the frightening hallucination, not verify it—but as no one seemed to be paying his repeated questions any mind, the only thing left to do was see it (whatever it was) for himself. When he did feed his face into the mask, he saw what looked remarkably like a small meteorite fragment. The fragment seemed to be about the size of a small beach ball and permeated completely with small craters. Staring intently at the fragment, Geoffrey’s eyes widened. The meteorite seemed to be glowing, but glowing wasn’t the proper description for what it was doing. There was a light or perhaps some faint radiation, emanating from the fragment, but it illumined it like nothing Geoffrey had ever seen before. The fragment was nearly two miles away but the faint ‘light’ surrounding it made it appear like it was no more than a few feet from Geoffrey’s eyes.
It was nothing like any natural or artificial light on Earth. In fact, it basically defied any description at all. The luminance didn’t seem to wane even though a decent distance separated it from the viewers. Furthermore, it seemed to pulsate with some equally mysterious power. Whatever it was, it promised to be the very first of its kind, even an alien artifact perhaps. Eager to have yet another discovery named after him, Mr. Reynolds suggested, and all the other scientists agreed, that it should be checked out. Of course, Mr. Reynolds was at the head of the expedition, as everyone mounted up on special snowmobiles that had been fabricated specifically for scientific discovery in the coldest weather on the planet. Once everyone had gained a few extra pounds in protective clothing, the voyage began.
There aren’t many life forms in Antarctica and virtually no animals, so, except for the cold, no one feared venturing out into the open tundra. Even beneath myriad layers of thick, double-insulated fabric, the biting frost could still cut to the quick, and so, it was with shivering limbs and chattering teeth, that a reluctant Geoffrey and the group of ambitious scientists (Mr. Reynolds always foremost) arrived at the fragment. Everyone was interested to see what new thing they had stumbled upon. Even though they were closing in on the thing, the ‘light’ coming from it did not grow brighter. Whether from the observatory two miles back, or right up on it, the unnatural glow gave off a clear luminance as if the observer was always very near to it.
Gathering around it now, everyone dismounted their dual track snowmobiles and drew cautiously closer. It was truly fascinating. The luminescence covering the fragment made it difficult to see exactly what it was, but it was not creviced as it initially appeared. Rather, the assumed craters were minute variations in the light surrounding the fragment. What lay beneath the light looked like some kind of transparent, perfectly round rock. It was impossibly perfect. Everyone’s snow mobile was equipped with a decent-sized storage bin that contained, among other things, large tongs for just such an event, whereby an unusual specimen might be handled. Mr. Reynolds was the first to get his out. Another scientist produced a plastic container that looked large enough to hold the glowing meteor.
Mr. Reynolds closed in on the fragment, tongs outstretched, as the others looked on. They all wanted to be the first to handle the thing and thereby take more credit for its discovery, but being so close to it now, without the thick, glass dome to protect them, the fragment looked suddenly more ominous and threatening. It was only sheer pride and ambition that led Mr. Reynolds to move where the others hesitated. In reality, he was just as scared as they (perhaps more), but as strong as his fear was, his thirst for recognition was that much more. The tongs he held were intended to collect smaller specimens, approximately the size of a soccer ball, and it soon became apparent that they would not suffice to pick up this strange artifact. Mr. Reynolds asked if anyone had anything larger that may be of better use. Everyone looked in their storage bins, but no one had anything.
Geoffrey cleared his throat, “I have a shovel…”
“That won’t help,” snapped Mr. Reynolds, uncharacteristically agitated, “The ground is too hard to dig around it and I don’t want to damage it. It could be fragile.” Exasperated, Mr. Reynolds slumped his shoulders. “Somebody needs to go get something bigger that we can put this in.”
Geoffrey moved toward his snowmobile. “Not you,” the scientist snapped, and Geoffrey froze where he was standing, “You’d probably bring something useless back,” he waved his hands impatiently at the other scientists who were looking around nervously and shifting side to side, “Someone go get something we can pick this up with. Hurry, off with you!”
The other scientists left to get more supplies, while Mr. Reynolds and Geoffrey stayed. Once they were alone, Mr. Reynolds adjuste
d the glasses just above his scarf, and stepped closer to the object.
“That might not be a good idea, Sir,” advised Geoffrey, as the scientist pulled his scarf away from his face and knelt down beside the fragment so close that his prescription grade glasses nearly touched it.
“Who’s the professional here, Son?” Mr. Reynolds asked, coolly. He reached out, not really intending to touch the thing. He removed his gloves and raised both his hands over it to see if any heat was coming from it, when the fragment pulled his hands onto itself. It all happened so quickly that Geoffrey hardly had time to react. In a split second, Mr. Reynolds had gone from hovering over this thing, to grasping it, both hands clasped upon it by some irresistible force, and clinging to it for dear life, quite against his will. With the fragment firmly in his hands, he began to shake violently. His mouth hung open and his eyes rolled back in his head until nothing but the whites showed. He head began to bulge slightly as if some creature was filling it, and his shaking grew ever more violent and erratic.
If Geoffrey didn’t do something—and now—Mr. Reynolds would be shaken to death. Already, Geoffrey saw the spittle flying from Mr. Reynolds’s mouth while his teeth and jaws were being rattled loose from their sockets. Geoffrey grabbed the shovel and slammed Mr. Reynolds’s shoulder with it as hard as he could. Thankfully, the hit knocked the scientist and the fragment loose from each other. The scientist flew in one direction and the fragment in another. Geoffrey dropped the shovel and checked on the overly ambitious astronomer. He was still shaking, but not nearly as much. His irises were still nowhere to be found, but he was breathing.
Geoffrey looked back at the fragment, and noticed that the ‘light’ coming from it had dimmed considerably. It was also here that he noticed that the ‘light’ was actually separating the fragment from the ice beneath it. The light wasn’t coming from it, but encasing it like a shield. From what Geoffrey could see, the light had a physical presence. As far as he could tell the ‘light’ was solid matter! He turned back to look at Mr. Reynolds’s hands, and just as he suspected, the light, though also noticeably dimmer, was covering them like a glove…and being sucked into them with every passing second. In the course of a few brief minutes, Mr. Reynolds’s hands absorbed the light like a sponge would a syrupy liquid. Then, Mr. Reynolds’s hands stopped glowing and his body ceased its shaking, but still he showed no signs of consciousness.
The Virus Page 2