by Malcolm Rose
Actually, she was talking to Lexi and Kofi, as two technicians helped them into their positive-pressure protective suits. Troy was eavesdropping in the observation and control room. He could also watch what was happening on a large screen. When all three of them were totally sealed inside their suits, Troy listened as they used their microphones to keep in contact with each other. He could hear their breathing as if they were in the same room and uncomfortably close to his ears. The effect reminded him of a rasping TV commentary from an underwater scuba diver.
The two technicians came into the same room, sat at the controls and announced into a microphone that they were ready.
‘Okay,’ Julia said. ‘They’re going to shut off your air supply for a few seconds and increase the pressure of your suits. You’ll hear a strange hissing noise and it’ll feel like you’re being squeezed all over. Your ears will feel the extra pressure most. It’s part of the procedure to check there’s no punctures. Here we go. Hold your breath.’
After ten seconds, one of the technicians said, ‘All three suits intact and holding pressure. Air back on. You’re free to get started.’
‘Thanks, guys,’ Julia replied. ‘That’s Blaine and Fern,’ she told her two new companions. ‘They’re looking after us for the duration. From now on you have to remember we’re going into enemy territory. Deadly territory. You don’t get impatient and you don’t rush. Blaine and Fern aren’t going anywhere. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. The procedure’s in place to keep us all safe, so we put up with it. Before we go into each chamber, we have to disconnect our air supply from one place and then reconnect it in the next. It’s simple. Just follow what I do. First door opening. This is where you get drenched – on the outside, that is. It’s a very powerful power shower. Just stand up straight, arms and legs spread out, and let the disinfectant do its job.’
When it came, Troy heard the clatter on their suits like hail on a roof.
‘Next we’re going to be dried off, put under vacuum and bathed in ultraviolet light. It’s okay. Your visors have got a uv filter. You won’t get blinded.’
Blaine Twenty-Two leaned towards his colleague and, out of range of the microphone, whispered, ‘The girl – Lexi – she’s amazingly cool under the circumstances.’
With a smile, Fern replied, ‘Not like the pathologist, as it turns out. His heart rate’s increased. He’s sweating as well, but he’s within normal range. He’s not exactly enjoying himself, though.’
The whole screen turned bright blue as ultraviolet light enveloped the three cloaked figures, killing off any remaining germs.
Troy jumped out of his chair and said, ‘What was that?’
‘A burst of uv, that’s all,’ said Fern.
‘No. I mean, there was a mark on the heel of … I don’t know who’s who. The person on the right.’
‘That’s Julia,’ Blaine said. ‘What sort of mark?’
‘It was a darker blue patch on the back of her left heel. Didn’t you see it?’
Both technicians shook their heads blankly.
‘If you’re both outers, I’ve got better eyesight. A slightly wider range of wavelengths. Maybe that’s why … ’
‘As it happens, I’m a major,’ Fern Mountstephen said.
‘Didn’t you see it?’
‘No, but I have to say I wasn’t staring at anyone’s heel. I was monitoring life signs.’
Worried, Troy watched the screen, where it seemed that three astronauts were taking ungainly steps on another planet. In reality, they were only a few metres away from the control room but it could have been another world. A dangerous world. ‘Any chance of them repeating the ultraviolet stage so we can see it again?’ Troy asked nervously.
‘No. They’re going through to the fumigation chamber. The last one before they enter the lab.’
‘So, any second now, it’ll be too late to recall them?’
‘Yes,’ Fern answered.
‘And if there’s a fault in Julia’s suit … ?’
‘We’re not getting any negative feedback,’ Blaine said. ‘Everything’s normal and intact. All systems green.’
‘But I’m giving you feedback. I’m telling you what I saw. Something weird.’
‘It was probably just something harmless sticking to the PPPS.’
‘After a power shower and everything?’
The two technicians glanced at each other.
Blaine said, ‘If there was an issue, the system would register it as a problem.’
Fern announced, ‘Fumigation nearing completion.’
Troy shook his head. ‘I think you should recall them before it’s too late.’
‘On what grounds?’
Troy hesitated, his heart beating far too fast. ‘When you’re dealing with something unknown, you assume the worst. That’s how you work. I think you should assume the worst here as well.’
‘When you get this far into the system,’ Blaine said, waving towards the monitor, ‘you don’t want to be called back on a whim. It’s so long-winded and stressful. They won’t thank us.’
‘You’ve already had three die in there today. Why take the chance? Maybe they had something wrong with the backs of their heels as well.’
‘That’s a bit far-fetched.’
Troy watched Lexi, Kofi and Julia detach their air supplies and shuffle forward, waiting for the door to the lab to open.
‘No!’ Troy shouted. ‘Blame me, but get them out of there. Something’s not right!’
Blaine threw up his hands. ‘Okay. It’s your call. They’re going in for your investigation, not our research.’ He leaned towards the microphone. ‘Sorry about this. I’ve locked the door. Detective Goodhart wants you back out. He thinks something’s wrong with your suit, Julia. We need an inspection.’
Julia groaned. Her voice said, ‘Are any of the monitors telling you I’m compromised?’
‘No.’
‘So, what did he see?’
‘A patch of colour on your left heel. Only under uv lamps, apparently.’
‘Did you see anything?’
‘No. Maybe it’s not visible to outers.’
‘Did you see it, Fern?’
‘No. But, to be fair, I wasn’t really looking.’
‘Was there anything on the other two suits?’
The technicians both glanced over their shoulders at Troy. He shook his head.
‘No,’ Blaine said into the microphone. ‘Do you want to override his decision?’
The breathy sound from the loudspeaker became a sigh. After five seconds, Julia replied, ‘No. It’s his show, after all. We’re coming out.’
They had not gone into the high-security lab, so they didn’t need to decontaminate themselves on the way out. Even so, they had to traipse back through each compartment. When the three cumbersome figures finally emerged from the last stage, Fern turned to Blaine and pointed at one monitor. ‘Look!’
The green light above the screen turned bright red and a siren sounded.
Astonished, Blaine and Fern both turned towards Troy. Above the noise of the alarm, Blaine said, ‘Julia’s moon suit’s not maintaining pressure. It’s got a leak!’
‘Which means … ?’
‘You just saved her life.’
SCENE 4
Monday 14th April, Evening
Lexi had taken over a corner of Shallow End Laboratories to perform an analysis of the remains of the sticky tape that had been firmly attached to the left heel of Julia Nineteen’s blue suit. She shone radiation from a hand-held ultraviolet lamp on the cloth and looked quizzically at Troy.
He nodded. ‘Yes. It’s faded and not much left, but I can still see it’s a deeper blue.’
Julia shrugged. ‘I can’t.’
Lexi smiled, ‘Nor me, but I know what’s happened – and it’s sheer genius. Cunning. When ultraviolet light falls on the tape – on the way into the lab – it reacts. It releases an acid. I don’t know which yet, but it attacks the tape itself and the cloth und
erneath. Slowly.’
‘You’re thinking the same stuff was on Konnie’s, Brandon’s and Tyla’s?’ said Troy.
‘Yeah. None of them would have seen the colour development – even if they were looking at the back of each other’s heels – because it’s beyond an outer’s visual range. The reaction produces a small amount of corrosive goo that takes minutes to eat through the material. Hey presto, the suit would be registering as fine when they went into the hot zone. That means – if it’s any consolation, Julia – you couldn’t have done anything to save them. By the time they’d gone into the lab, apparently protected perfectly well, the acid would have already begun to make a small hole.’
The lab supervisor did not look comforted. ‘Forgive me if I don’t share your enthusiasm for how my friends were killed.’
‘Sorry,’ said Lexi. ‘But you’ve got to admit it’s really clever chemistry. The hole would get bigger until the positive pressure wasn’t enough to keep the poison out.’ She hesitated before adding, ‘And that’s it. There’s nothing else for me to analyse on the material. The power showers have removed any fingerprints, fibres or DNA.’
As always, Troy’s mind was racing. He shook his head.
‘What’s up?’ Lexi prompted.
‘Why sabotage only four named suits? The ones you and Kofi used were fine.’
‘We checked,’ Julia said. ‘None of the reserve suits had been tampered with. The other named suits were okay as well.’
‘Whoever did it was after four specific people,’ Troy deduced.
‘Or he just went for the suits that were the most used,’ Julia suggested. ‘That’d be the four of us.’
‘There’s something else, though,’ said Troy, still puzzled. ‘Having a hole in your suit isn’t good, but it’s not enough to make you die. If SUMP had been where it was supposed to be – inside a sealed safety cabinet – it wouldn’t have come into contact with them. No deaths.’
Julia didn’t reply. She simply nodded.
‘The lab was sabotaged as well,’ said Lexi.
Troy agreed. ‘Someone let SUMP out of the bag.’
‘We’re not going to find out now,’ Julia said. ‘Saul’s about to start the emergency protocol and that’ll destroy the evidence. He won’t let anyone in because he doesn’t trust the suits any more.’
Struck by a thought, Lexi shook her head. ‘There is a way. I’ll get onto Terabyte and the technical crew. We’re going to send in a drone.’
SCENE 5
Monday 14th April, Night
The drone looked like a child’s toy, like a miniature helicopter, no bigger than thirty centimetres in any direction. But it was much more sophisticated than any toy. It could be manoeuvred precisely and its cameras had super-high resolution. It couldn’t carry out a post-mortem on the victims like Kofi Seven but, under the circumstances, it was the best option for extracting information from a crime scene that was tantalisingly close yet inaccessible. Of course, the remote-control device was sacrificial. Once it had beamed its pictures to Troy and Lexi, it would remain in the BSL4 lab for the decontamination process. Crime Central would be able to salvage it only after it had been exposed to the highly corrosive fluid that would destroy any living and organic matter.
The drone had been designed originally to take detailed aerial photographs and collect air samples from hard-to-reach places. Lexi would have loved to analyse a sample of the air from the BSL4 lab, but the risk was far too great. She would have to be content with the robot’s high-quality imaging capability.
Lexi, Troy and Julia sat in front of the screen in the control room while Terabyte – the best computer geek in Crime Central – operated the flying drone. ‘Is this the last door?’ Terabyte asked, as he allowed the drone to hover in the fumigation room.
‘Yes,’ Julia told him. ‘Vacuum on to clear the fumes.’ After a few seconds, she reported, ‘Returning to atmospheric pressure now.’ She flicked a switch. ‘Door to BSL4 opening.’
Terabyte drove the drone forward into the toxic environment. As a machine, it was immune to any poisons in the air and it didn’t need a PPPS. ‘Where do you want it?’
‘The nearest body,’ Lexi replied. ‘I want a close-up of the back of the heel.’
‘Which heel?’ Terabyte asked.
‘Both.’
The drone hovered a few centimetres over the body nearest to the door and zoomed in on Konnie Five’s right heel. Showing off the device’s camera, Terabyte said, ‘Do you want to see the whole of the heel or an individual thread?’
‘I just want to see if the material’s damaged.’
‘There’s your answer,’ said Terabyte.
On the monitor, the clarity of the image was amazing. The protective material had disintegrated over an area of two or three square centimetres. Some small fragments of shiny tape were still adhering around the edges of the hole.
Lexi nodded. ‘That’s how the poison sneaked in, then. Don’t bother with her other heel. There’s no point looking for anything else on the rest of her suit either. It’ll be spotless after the treatment on the way in. Move on to the next body.’
It was Tyla Three, and the back of her right heel was flat against the floor. The drone was able to focus only on her left heel and it showed the same damage: an almost rectangular flaw with corroded fabric and flecks of tape around it.
Both of Brandon Six’s heels were in view and his left had been sabotaged.
‘You are recording all this, aren’t you?’ Lexi asked.
‘Of course,’ Terabyte answered. ‘What else?’
‘I want to look at the safety cabinets,’ Troy said. ‘Is one of them damaged? Is there any evidence of SUMP getting out?’
‘SUMP?’ Terabyte queried.
‘Substance unknown – and very poisonous – from Mars probe.’
‘Cool,’ he muttered as he manoeuvred the drone towards the first sealed unit. ‘Are you two specializing in crazy cases?’
Under Terabyte’s command, the drone’s camera scanned the enclosed transparent compartment. Heavy-duty gloves were fixed into the front of the unit, so that one of the scientists could place their already gloved hands into them and work on something hazardous inside the compartment without ever breaking containment.
‘Does it look okay, Julia?’ Troy asked. ‘Nothing unusual or broken?’
‘No, it looks fine. Zoom in on the gloves. They’re the only weak point.’
But after a thorough close-up inspection, Julia did not spot any damage.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Everything’s as it should be.’
‘Move on to the next one,’ Troy said to Terabyte.
Carefully and slowly, the drone glided back and forth, photographing every part of the glass-fronted cupboard. The fine images allowed them all to examine its exterior and, because of the transparent pane, its contents. There were several pieces of equipment lying on the spotless work surface, a lot of animal corpses – mostly mice and white rats – in cages, and bottles of chemicals, both solids and liquids.
‘That’s the same,’ Julia told them. ‘Nothing out of place. The seals are fine and I can’t see any tears in the built-in gloves.’
Troy sighed. He was about to ask Terabyte to scan the final safety cabinet but the drone was already on its way across the laboratory. This time, Terabyte started the imaging at the top of the compartment and moved the drone from side-to-side as it descended.
Troy didn’t see any faults, cracks or holes. When he glanced towards Julia, he also realized from her expression that she hadn’t noticed anything that could cause a leak either. He sighed. If there were no defects, how had SUMP polluted the laboratory, worked its way inside the scientists’ blue suits and killed them?
Abruptly, Julia leapt to her feet. ‘Hang on. The vial of SUMP has gone!’
‘What?’
Her face had turned white. ‘There’s a bottle of it in each cabinet. At least, there should be. The other two had their vials. I saw them. But the one from he
re is missing!’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure,’ she snapped.
‘Photograph every surface, Terabyte,’ Lexi said. ‘In case it’s on the floor or somewhere else in there.’
‘Okay,’ he replied. ‘But if one of these bodies is lying on it … ’ He shrugged. ‘No go.’
‘How much soil would be in it?’ Troy asked.
Stunned, Julia replied, ‘A little less than five grams. Easily enough to wipe out every outer on Earth, I should think.’
SCENE 6
Tuesday 15th April, Morning
Troy watched as both Lexi and Julia Nineteen guzzled beer for breakfast. As a major, he didn’t drink alcohol because it would quickly intoxicate him. Outers didn’t have the same metabolism and they knocked it back without a care. Out of the window, Troy could see a solitary crane on the skyline. It was putting the finishing touches to the sports stadium that would host the coming Integrated Games.
In the early hours, the high-security lab had been thoroughly cleaned, disinfected and fumigated by Saul Tingle’s emergency protocol.
‘Our forensic team’s been through the lab,’ Lexi said to Julia. ‘Nothing useful’s left. It’s like it’s been scorched. Glass vials would have survived, though. But there were only two. No sign of the third, whole or in pieces.’
Julia took a deep breath. ‘That’s what I feared.’
‘It means the motive might have been to get hold of some Martian soil,’ Troy said. ‘Have you ever heard of anyone wanting to do that?’
‘No. It’d be … suicidal.’
‘For an outer,’ Troy remarked. ‘Any ideas why someone might want it?’
‘No.’ She put down her beer. ‘Unless they had some sort of grudge against outers. Or scientists. Or the work we do here.’
‘Mmm. Why would anyone think like that?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replied.
‘Well, my guess is someone grabbed the third vial, sprinkled enough SUMP around the lab to kill the next lot of scientists to go in, and took the rest,’ Troy said. ‘The same person who sabotaged the blue suits. But even if we’ve got no idea where the poison is and who’s got it, at least we know it’s safely sealed. Because outers aren’t dropping like flies.’