The Virus

by Steven Spellman

  The doctor suddenly felt very tired. He felt like butter that was spread too thin on bread that was too large, but the excitement, excessive though it may be, was not to end just yet, or any time soon for that matter. The doctor decided to take a walk around the outer edges of facility—the farthest away from Geoffrey’s room—and try to gather his wits. He had always seen smoking cigarettes as an absurdly heinous practice, but for the first time in his life, he thought he might enjoy a good ole’ cancer stick. He roamed the halls in solitude, muttering to himself, until his legs and feet both protested, then headed back to his office. He thought that he felt marginally better until he entered his office and saw on the monitors that Geoffrey was waving at the camera. The doctor felt suddenly tired all over again.

  “I know someone’s there.” Geoffrey said, “I need to use the bathroom.” He repeated himself a few times, until a couple of Dr. Crangler’s aides knocked on his office door to ask what he wanted done.

  The doctor thought for a moment, and then, heaved a deep sigh. “Escort Mr. Summons to the restroom and tell him I’ll attend to him shortly.” The assistants left to obey the directive and Dr. Crangler buried his face in his hands. It felt like things were closing in on him, suffocating him, but as is usually the case, the most difficult time is also the time when it would be the most dangerous to give up.

  Chapter 20

  By the time Delilah and the doctor met again, a full week had passed since he had delivered the devastating announcement that she would have to get pregnant. Pregnant! Of all things! The very word inspired loathing, disgust, and outright horror like Delilah had never known before, and she wasn’t even considering the real complications of pregnancy. She was thinking more of what it would do to thighs and waistline, and oh God, it would certainly destroy her gorgeous complexion even more than these horrible lights already had. The idea of carrying something foreign, something living, in her belly that would make her look like the latest diet fad gone horribly wrong was just too much for her delicate constitution. In fact, her mother had told her more than once that the only reason she had been born was for ‘insurance purposes’, meaning that Delilah’s mother had deemed her father’s proclamation of undying love insufficient for her purposes, but marriage and a child…

  “Well,” quoted her mother on those occasions, “you know what they say about a three-fold chord. And that’s exactly what I never intended to be again—broke.”

  Delilah’s current situation was definitely not an endearing one as far as she was concerned, but she began to figure that, like her mother, she could use pregnancy as a way out, not out of poverty, as it was for the late Mrs. Hanson, but out of confinement. Perhaps, if she had this child and saved the world, whatever that meant, she could leave.

  It was the first comforting thought Delilah had in what felt like a long time, but still, it was only relatively comforting because the ideas coalescing in her mind of what pregnancy would entail were still ugly and heinous to the very extreme. It was in this limbo that she found herself during the week that she saw nothing of Dr. Crangler, who was being thrown for a loop of his own. He had locked himself in his main office for days. This particular office, which was much larger than the one he normally monitored his two star patients, was equipped with a small sleeping area and a full bathroom, as well as a moderately-sized storage closest. The only thing it lacked was a kitchen because no food was actively prepared in this part of the underground facility for fear of the as yet untested effect it may have on the Cleaning Lights. Other than that, the doctor had virtually everything he needed to remain in his main office indefinitely. Had it not been for the fact that he needed to eat, he may’ve likely done just that. During that time, he had been faithfully locked behind the thick steel door of his office, poring endlessly over Geoffrey’s notebooks, but the subject that occupied his mind most viciously was Geoffrey’s newfound telepathy. Its graveness was awesome beyond the doctor’s ability to fathom, and though there was much to be gained by this new ability, there was also much to be lost. For instance, if Geoffrey could read his fellow humans’ minds, perhaps the aliens could as well, and if that was the case, there was no hope of ever thwarting their assaults. How would humanity defeat an enemy that is fully privy to whatever offensive they may plan against them? Such was the foolishness of Lucifer and the fallen angels, and if such stories are to be believed, then the message is crystal clear.

  Then again, perhaps Geoffrey could hone his telepathic ability to actually eavesdrop on the alien intelligence, light years away. It was an extreme stretch of the imagination to be sure, but the things that had taken place already had proven that virtually anything was possible. These and many other musings plagued Dr. Crangler so thoroughly that he went without food, water, or a bath, even though such things were at his fingertips, for three solid days before he at last left the confines of his messy and smelly (thanks to his recently declined hygiene) office. Once he did leave, he roamed the halls on his way to the exit as vacuously as if he wasn’t present at all. A blank gaze had replaced the scientific sparkle that once characterized his eyes. His hair was dirty and disheveled, and the thick stubble shadowing his face was in desperate need of attention as well. He shuffled along aimlessly through the hall. If there had been anything in the way, he would’ve certainly made tripped many times over.

  Oddly enough, all this was part of the plan…sort of. Along with his complete lack of rest, he was stretched well beyond his limits, but he realized that Geoffrey may likely be able to read his thoughts even now. Until he could get a grip on himself and figure out what his next move would be, he didn’t want that type of intrusion. So, besides the fact that the doctor was genuinely distraught and worn bare, he employed his last remaining mental energies to try to avoid any coherent thought, other than the need for food, to enter his head where Geoffrey may be probing. Somehow and for some reason, (perhaps it was a movie he saw) he believed that his thoughts were safe while he was in his office, protected behind the thick, steel door, but out here in the open...well, hadn’t Geoffrey heard what his assistants were thinking while they were in the halls? And so, Dr. Crangler was, at the moment, a man doubly lost, lacking the presence of mind to gather his wits, and alternately trying not to gather his wits. Dr. Crangler was in a truly wretched predicament indeed, and he certainly looked the part as he cut his slow, lumbering path through the labyrinth of well-lit hallways leading to the ground level exit of the facility. Once he reached the exit and was outside in the open, he was so enthralled with his literally thoughtless tasks that he completely failed to notice the cool, late evening breeze washing in waves across his skin and through his white garb, or the gorgeous sight of the sun’s rays making its final retreat beyond the horizon across the way.

  It was late evening now and would be completely night very soon. The doctor welcomed the impending darkness, but other than that, all the other privileges of being able to quit his confinement at will—unlike Geoffrey or Delilah—were completely lost upon him in his distraction. There were three identical industrial-sized kitchens that serviced the entire gated and heavily-guarded complex that housed the underground facilities. These kitchens were scattered at strategic places across the premises. Dr. Crangler walked to the nearest one, about fifty feet away, with his head still bowed in anti-thought and his feet shuffling roughly through the cool grass. It would seem that his outing had been as equally ruined as Delilah’s. Karma is usually a slow shuffling bitch, but obviously she can keep in quick stride when it suits her fancy. The kitchen that the doctor was approaching, like its sisters scattered across the premises, didn’t serve chef quality food, but the grub was hot, edible, and quite tasty once one got used to it. The vast majority of Dr. Crangler’s professional career had been spent at this facility, so he had had plenty of time to ‘get used’ to the food, and by this time, he quite liked it. But not this evening. Once he ordered a plate from the kitchen’s buffet style set up and found a seat in a far corner where he could hopefully
be alone, he also found that the food was as good as grey matter in his mouth. His mind was overwhelmed and would allow for no rival sensations, including enjoyment. His plate was filled with Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, and some mixture of steamed vegetables, all piping hot from spending more than ample time beneath abusive heat lamps, but it could’ve been sawdust-flavored steamed rice cakes and Dr. Crangler wouldn’t have noticed the difference. In fact, the only thing that tasted as it should, was the generic bottled water that stood beside the meal tray.

  Even so, the doctor forced himself to finish as much as he could tolerate (he didn’t want to make another trip out here if he could avoid it), and by the time he reentered the underground facility, he was as despondent as ever. Now, replenished with a hearty meal (even if it was discouragingly tasteless) he managed to bathe and shave. Then, he returned to the notebooks and his own frustrations. Of the many things he had deciphered in his feverish marathon study was that the alien intelligence was, indeed, a global community, a singular consciousness perpetrated among many entities, and that Geoffrey’s sudden telepathy was a byproduct of sorts of how this singular consciousness communicated. The doctor rightly surmised that when Mr. Reynolds opened Geoffrey’s mind for telepathic communication, he had also opened his mind for communication with other humans as well. The telepathy was one-way at the moment, but perhaps his ability to would spread to others as it had been spread to him. Only time would tell. One thing was for sure, though, this was how the alien intelligence communicated. The notebook indicated that the more the alien consciousness communicated to its host subordinates, the stronger that communication became. One of many things that was eerily unsettling was that the aliens shared many similarities with the human masses of Earth.

  Just like us, their bodies were comprised of the same material as their home planet, though that planet was of different material than ours. There were millions of them, but they had infinitely more in common than otherwise. They had already shown that they were intelligent beings, but, the way information was spread was a major difference. The doctor wanted to believe this, but his logical mind advised otherwise. The most abundant amount of information today was spread by light, spanning limitless gulfs via endless miles of ever increasing technologies like fiber optic cables. Also, the doctor remembered learning somewhere that the structure of houses, trees, the very earth itself, everything, absorbed energy, even the energy of speech. Long ago, it had been proven that sounds, music, words; all were comprised of notes that had actual physical properties. One need look no further than the proverbial song-shattered wine glass for proof of physical properties of sound waves. Only fairly recently, someone had discovered that such energy could also be captured in physical objects. With the right instruments, ones, unfortunately, that current technology was insufficient to produce, the words of every human being throughout the ages could be ‘recaptured’ from tree bark or mountain stones, and every single word ever spoken could be replayed for all to hear.

  By the same vein, it was nearly proven among scientists, some of them astronomers like the late Dr. Reynolds, that the origins of the universe could be traced back to actual sound waves. Dr. Crangler mused over this until he finally fell asleep on the simple pull out bed in his office.

  A full week after he last visited her room, Dr. Crangler, with an equally haggard look and gait as he had before, went to check on Delilah.

  “Wow…you look horrible!” She exclaimed to him when he entered. “Man, you really do look…” Delilah’s eyes were wide and her mouth was pulled slightly to the side in a grimace as she looked the doctor up and down. She had been at least as sullen as Dr. Crangler for the last week, but the good doctor really did look awfully…“bad.” Even though shooting for something less dramatic, it was the only word Delilah could think of to describe how Dr. Crangler looked at the moment. He looked so bad, in fact, that she was tempted to feel sorry for him, but the temptation was very brief and paled in comparison to her own anxiety. Her spirits had been broken since their last meeting. She had resolved some time ago that though she would go through with this pregnancy—the idea still tied her stomach in knots since it looked like her only hope of escape.

  Her lips and jaw muscles were set like her mother would’ve approved of, her arms were folded in defiance, and her eyes drawn and sparkling with intensity that was anything but affection. She was prepared to concede defeat, but not without inflicting some mortal wounds of her own if at all possible. Still, for all her insolent posture, she and Dr. Crangler were both broken people trying to appear whole. Even though they were both shielded from the plague ravishing the outside world, it was clear that the effects of this alien invasion were taking their toll on them as well, and just as harshly. Meanwhile, Dr. Crangler gazed around Delilah’s room. It was, by far, more colorfully stocked than any of the other rooms in the facility, but by the looks of things, not much new had been added since the doctor last visited. It was something of a shock to the doctor because, though he by no means condoned it, he had fully expected Delilah to have summarily converted even his newest assistants into her fretful minions by now.

  Just goes to show how utterly discombobulated I’ve been lately, he thought to himself. Even though he had her, Geoffrey, and virtually every square inch of the facility on his monitors for round the clock observation if he desired, he had been paying no more attention to them than if they were a million miles away. His mind was too occupied with other things, and what’s more, he craved freedom from the stress associated with both Geoffrey and Little Miss Obstinate sitting here before him with her arms and legs crossed. He walked around the room, sighing deeply, as he feigned disapproval at the small but new assortment of products, hair care, and makeup vials that populated a dresser and night stand. He feigned disapproval as eloquently as his face would allow, but in reality, he was exhausted, mentally and physically, and he didn’t want to be there. If he quit there would be serious disciplinary measures. Years of time and perhaps hundreds of millions, of secretly-allotted taxpayer dollars had been funneled into this facility as well as Dr. Crangler’s training.

  His entire career, his schooling, his knowledge of highly-classified matters, none of it would ever be allowed to be made public. If he was ousted, he would drop instantly from one of the most preeminent and privileged doctors in the world, to a middle-aged nobody. He would be forced to start from less than scratch. More importantly, he would be ousted from ground zero of one of the most important times in human history. Though Dr. Crangler knew this well and needed nobody to tell him, his superiors had made their position—as well as his own vulnerability—very clear. There was no time for nervous breakdowns, not now, not with everything dangling dangerously in the balance. If he couldn’t do his job, then those superiors would damn well recruit someone who could, and he’d pay the price for it for the rest of his life. It was this express truth that encouraged him to leave the messy, musty solitude of his main office and get back to work. Right now, he needed some blood from Delilah and to run some simple tests to verify again that she was healthy.

  This constant testing was superfluous really, but again, his superiors wanted to make certain that she wouldn’t fall over dead from anything that could’ve been prevented if it had been detected earlier. After Dr. Crangler displayed his disapproval at Delilah’s apparent expertise at rule breaking, he summoned a few of his assistants to draw the necessary blood, measure vital signs, and do whatever other simple tasks needed to be performed. Usually, he would’ve done this himself, but right now he was thinking about how best to approach the real issue at hand. Before, the subject was a barb that he used to bludgeon Delilah into broken spirited submission, but now, it was just another lengthy and arduous hurdle that he hated to scale nearly as much as she.

  “Miss Hanson,” the doctor said wearily after his assistants had finished and left the room “I spoke to you last time about…”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know Doctor Crangler,” she hissed, “I need to get pr
egnant. I know you know that I heard you last time.” She tried to give the doctor the most fiery gaze possible, “Well, I’ll give you what you want,” she sounded as if she was bequeathing some dirty, unbecoming favor, “but afterwards, I want the hell out of here, is that understood?” The doctor’s gaze temporarily flared. Who does this…this…spoiled little girl think she is, leveraging demands on me like I’m one of her obedient little servants from back home? He decided he didn’t have the energy for a pissing contest, at least not right now.

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever, Miss Hanson. Whatever you say.”

  “You’re damn right, whatever I say.” she countered, pressing her perceived advantage, “And another thing, I choose who I get pregnant by. I’m not having just any fool’s baby. You won’t go out there, wherever you go to, and pick just anybody you want to for me to…Ugh!” She couldn’t even finish the thought. It was more than obvious that she would’ve been a real pain in the ass had she been born when arranged marriages were the accepted norm. “Anyway, I choose the guy.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Hanson,” the doctor said, though his tone didn’t match his assertion, “but I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that. You’ll be artificially inseminated with…” he paused. He didn’t want to risk another outburst. “a specimen from a donor that has been thoroughly tested and is completely free from disease or defect.”

  “What? You must be crazy. You tell me I have to get pregnant and then you think that I’m gonna let you in...in…”

  “Inseminate you, Miss Hanson.”

  She scoffed. “Whatever. You actually think I’m gonna let you do that to me with somebody’s sperm,” well, so much for the doctor’s earlier tact, “that I don’t even know.” She looked appalled at the idea. “Well, you’re highly mistaken. If I do this, I choose the person, or I at least get to see who’s chosen…” she thought about it for a moment “no, you know what, I choose the guy altogether.”