Contamination Event (Short Story #1)

by Adam Wasserman

an emergency like this.

  They would wait and see if Dalia or myself had been infected before allowing either of us off the surface of Zarmina. Even then, we'd have to go into quarantine. For how long? A month? A year? It would depend on subsequent analysis of the alien life form, I supposed.

  I knew without even trying that they had disabled our ship. Not that there was any way we could get to it.

  My thoughts turned again to the bodies we had seen, chests cracked open and riddled with fungus.

  What if the fungus had indeed mutated? What if it had incorporated some of the genetic material from the terran microbes and now we were an adequate food source?

  It didn't matter, I told myself. It's just a stupid fungus.

  Or was it?

  What if Sergei was right and it was intelligent? What if it had figured out a way to get just a single spore inside a Biological Safety Zone?

  I thought of the ultraviolet treatment. It was designed to kill organisms like that. Air currents ensured that every surface was exposed to the harmful rays.

  But at any given time there were always places shielded from the treatment – the underside, for example, or deep folds. If a malign intelligence was guiding it, a spore could keep moving and remain in safety.

  Had we been infected, too?

  I looked through the window again and saw Dalia. She had pulled out a mirror and was examining her face.

  I knew what she was thinking. That splotch there, that slight blemish. Was it blue? Had it been there yesterday? The week before?

  I had to get her attention. There was no way to know if we'd been infected, but it would surely take more than a day to find out. And in that time I'd need food. And water.

  “Dalia!” I called and banged on the door insistently. “Open up!”

  But somehow I already knew that however long I banged she would never let me in.

  Thank You For Your

  Cooperation

  the Bunker Series, #1

  Welcome to the Bunker, an orderly, underground utopia where everyone's needs have been satisfied.

  As far back as he can remember, Terry Renfield has been digging up uranium ore in the mines and getting into the occasional drunken brawl. Until one daystretch on the Loyalty Stretch, he and the rest of the Bunker see someone who looks eerily like himself commit a heinous act of treason. Terry is fired on the spot.

  He turns to his girlfriend, Sally Xinhua, for help. Detained and then unexpectedly set free, Terry comes to realize that his misfortunes are no accident. His tiny, insular world shattered forever, he is determined not to be anyone's unwitting pawn – least of all his own.

  Sally pulls him into the orbit of more privileged citizens with security clearances – including Van Johnson, the host of Ten Things I Hate About Treason, and Felix Tubman, the head of Homeland Security. What follows is an unlikely adventure spanning the Bunker, the reaches of space, and the forbidding outside.

  Now the focus of a grand conspiracy to take down Control, the principal guiding force in the Bunker, Terry is ultimately faced with an identity crisis of epic proportions. Who is the real Terry Renfield? And what is it to actually be a specific person anyway?

  Gyges the Terrible

  Welcome to the United States of the not-so-distant future. Our Republic has given way to a new form of government, Freemocracy. The President rules virtually unopposed. Congress is a rubber-stamp institution, and society has fractured into the permanently privileged and the permanently working. The Supreme Court is the only alternate center of power, and the tension between the President, Samuel Judas Epstein, and the Chief Justice, Xiling, is set to boil over into open conflict.

  The Earth, too, has changed. The nation has become a patchwork of restricted areas, security screens, and military checkpoints. Water is tightly rationed. The world powers vie with each other for territory on the lunar surface. Although the mines there are incredibly expensive to operate, the moon has become the only source for most of the natural resources consumed by an ever more ravenous industrial complex.

  It is in this setting that a group of ordinary hooligans led by Marcellus Gyges storm the halls of empire. Possessed of a magic ring that confers the power of command, spurred on by his friends, Marcellus is in a unique position to depose the President.

  At the same time, Marcellus is being tutored by his Guardian Angel. For it is the choices that we make in this life that determine what becomes of us in the next.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Adam Wasserman took to writing at a young age and has never given it up. He has authored a number of short stories and plays but prefers the longer format and deeper potential of the novel.

  Mr. Wasserman spends part of the year in Europe where he does most of his writing. During the spring and summer months, he can usually be found in Rhode Island. There, he attends numerous festivals and open markets – such as Providence ComiCon – where he enjoys engaging with readers. An avid swimmer, he also spends considerable time at the beach.

  Topics that interest him include ancient history, power, and the nature of being human.