by Lynn Donovan
Director Stettler lifted a phone. “This is Director Stettler. I’m initiating Emergency Omega Q86.” He slammed the phone down. ”EVACUATE THIS BUILDING, PEOPLE!”
The vapor oozed over the twisted toroid as the fog crawled across the floor and stretched long fingers up the wall, toward the observation windows.
“This shouldn’t have happened!” Holly stammered. “This is terrible!”
Joseph skipped sideways, motioning for the people to move toward the stairs. “¡Vámonos! We must evacuate!” He turned to the broken window. “Axel! Get out of the lab!” Then Joseph turned back to the stunned faces standing near him. “¡Ándale! Come people, come! Move! Get out of here!”
Stettler did the same with the Ops Center personnel. “Let’s go, people! Get out of here!”
The people moved slowly, like cattle, confused and meandering through narrow shoots toward slaughter.
At that moment, the steam, or fog, or whatever it was, oozed over the broken glass. Instantly the fragrance of jasmine, or maybe gardenia blossoms— Abbie sniffed— definitely a hint of orange blossoms, and thick, moist humidity filled the room. But she didn’t feel heat. Condensation collected on the panes that had not shattered. Tears of moisture ran down, obscuring the view below. How could fog condensate so fast? This was definitely not ordinary mist.
A strange buzzing sound, Abbie could only think of the South American jungle in Brazil where she’d been on a month-long excavation of a unique outcrop. Could it be a swarm of insects she heard?
She squinted, trying to see through the condensation, then moved to her left to look through the windowless frame. Something huge, but obscured by the fog, lifted from the heavy mist. It hesitated as if pausing to gain its bearings. Lumbersome and thick in its movements, it left the lab through the broken concrete wall. Abbie found her voice. “What on Earth—?”
“I don’t think that came from Earth.” One of the scientists said with so little emotion Abbie had to turn her head to see if he was in shock or awe. Abbie turned back to the lab, the creature was gone. She spun around to face Holly.
“How’s that ‘negligible effect on photon entanglement’ working for ya now, Dr. Teak?”
Chapter Six
Joseph hurried Abbie into the stairwell. The strange, thick mist hadn’t filled the observation area as expected, but hung back as if it had reached its maximum expansion point. Abbie rushed down the stairs. The huge, dark —whatever it had been— that seemed to have crawled out of the sparkling quartz strata, had disappeared through the fog. Surely it didn’t literally disappear, like a magic trick, but when she turned back from the scientist, it was gone.
Had it returned to where it came from or had it wandered out where the hole seemed to have blown through the mountain? Oh Lord, was it loose in the facility? Abbie hurried to get outside and check the damage. How far had the explosion reached? Would the lab be exposed to the exterior woods?
Joseph pressed his hand into her back, pushing her through the corridor. Their hurried pace took them in and out of the twirling stream of red emergency lights every twenty feet as they scurried down the tunnel-like hallway. Security checkpoint guards stood on either side of the passage, waving people through like traffic cops. The exodus bottlenecked but continued to press forward. The air grew hot and stale. Fear saturated Abbie’s senses, befuddling her mind. She touched her throat, gasping for breath. Joseph pulled her back by her shoulders from the smothering crowd. “It’s alright.”
He leaned in near to her, forcing her to look into his face. “Abbie. It’s alright. You’re safe. We can wait for these people to get through and then we’ll go.”
Minerva plowed into Abbie’s back, shoving her into Joseph. He wrapped her arms around Abbie, holding her steady against him. Minnie shrieked, “Oh God! I’ve gotta get outta here!” She darted around them only to be halted by the mass of people.
Panic slammed into Abbie’s heart again. She panted desperately. Stars sparkled in her peripheral. Joseph put his forehead against hers. “Listen to me. Te tengo. No dejaré que nada te pase. Tu estas seguro conmigo.”
His silky-smooth voice penetrated her run-away fear. Calm washed over her like warm water. Her lungs slowed. She could breath— no idea what he had said, but its effect was amazing. The clot of people oozed through the gate. Abbie moved forward with Joseph.
Frank, at the building’s front guard station, waved people through the vestibule. Both sides of the security check were open for quicker egress. People rushed through and gathered in the garden between the buildings, waiting for further instructions. About a half dozen security guards trotted into the building. Frank calmly but sternly waved them through.
The guard known as Sarge paused for a briefing.“What are we up against, Frank.”
“Sarge, I don’t know!— the stories coming out of QL1 are— unbelievable. All I know for sure is ‘use extreme caution.’ We don’t know what we are dealing with down there.”
“It’s not down there.” Abbie called to them. “It escaped.”
Joseph touched her back. “We saw something rather large come out of— somewhere, and it stepped past the damaged wall. We couldn’t tell where it went from there.”
“What did it look like? A bear? A mule deer? A mountain lion?”
Joseph shook his head. “No. Es imposible! Trust me, es enorme y peligroso…” He shook his head and cleared his throat.
Frank interpreted Joseph’s lapse into Spanish to the sergeant. “It’s impossible. He said, ‘it was enormous and dangerous.’”
“You’ll know when you see it!” Joseph continued. “But listen to me, it’s not a bear, or anything you’ve ever seen in real life!”
“You last saw it in QL1?” Sarge verified.
“Yes. But I’m telling you. I saw it go through the east wall.”
The guards nodded and ran down the hall despite Joseph’s insistence that the creature was no longer in the lab. He turned to Abbie. “Come on.”
They joined the hundreds of other people standing in the garden. It was unclear what they were supposed to do next, yet everyone waited.
“Where is that… thing?” Abbie stared at the east side of the building where the elevation rose with the mountain. The gardener stood dazed. Had she seen the huge thing move into the woods?
“Did you see anything?” Abbie called to her.
She just turned shocked eyes toward Abbie, but said nothing.
The facility had been built into the mountain, if the explosion destroyed the lab wall, exposing the quartz strata, maybe the force had also taken out the side of the mountain. If that were true, that creature might be in the forest.
Abbie pulled Joseph with her, as she hurried to the side of the Quantum Laboratory building. The indigenous garden followed the natural contour of the mountain, rising with the elevation. The front of the building jutted out of the mountain like an outcrop. A forest of natural foliage, aspens, and pines covered the elevated grounds. The excavation line rose at a sharp angle along the side of the building. Fresh dirt scattered the ground and clung in the trees. Could this be from the explosion?
Her professional curiosity overrode her lizard brain’s self-preservation. She stumbled but climbed the rising expanse for several yards, following the loosened dirt and unearthed foliage. Finally, she found it. The gaping hole in the mountain. She lifted her eyes to search for the huge creature they had glimpsed in the lab. Nothing, no footprints, no broken tree limbs, no evidence of it going this way could be seen. Yet, the explosion had shoved through the mountain and made a cavernous opening to the outside. A faint smell of the sickly-sweet flowers and humidity lingered in the exposed aperture.
Then she saw it! She froze in place, not daring to get any closer.
Fingers of the strange fog from which they had escaped, with scintillating colors and the aroma of a rainforest, crawled out of the exposed earth like a gargoyle’s breath released in the dead of winter.
She turned to Joseph. “Get
Security!”
He nodded and patted his pocket for his cell phone. “My phone! It’s locked up.”
She turned back to the billowing mist. A silvery mass undulated, like a flight of swallows at dusk, just inside the opaque vapor. “What on earth, Joseph! Wait.”
Then… voices. Tiny voices, high-pitched and fast, but clear, just inside the fog. “What is that?”
The tiny voices echoed her question. “What is that?”
But then the voices went on to say things that made no sense. “Look at her energy!” “It’s beautiful!” “He has it, too.” “Look! The energies match.” “Yes. It’s the same prism stream.” “Is she a warrior?” “Should we squash that energy?” “It’s not allowed!” “Quick, make mad!” “Yes, make them mad.” “Are you sure?” “I want to get closer.” “Me too!” “Can we get closer?”
Was the fog toxic? Was Abbie hallucinating from whatever chemical was disbursed from the mist? Just then the silver, glittery mass broke free of the fog and swarmed Abbie.
“We are free!”
Abbie backed away. Would they bite or sting? Were they poisonous like wasps or flying scorpions? She looked back at the fog. Was there anything else coming out of it?
There were a dozen or so dragonflies swarming her head. Fear swamped her senses, and yet she was fascinated. She cocked her head back to get a better look. They didn’t seem to be going after her, to sting her. She looked more carefully. They were not bugs.
Tiny… people hung gracefully from four iridescent wings like a dragonfly’s. The “people” were a little taller than a dragonfly’s body, too. Crystal spikes topped their heads like anime hair, and their skin looked… translucent, or iridescent, like rice-paper-thin layers of mother-of-pearl.
They hovered in front of her face. She stared at them, trying to make sense of what she saw. Or what she thought she was seeing. She glanced toward Joseph. Did he see them too?
A delicate, thin cloth wrapped their bodies. Was that their clothes? It was opalescent like their wings and flowed around them like a tiny silk sari. Their voices passed smoothly between them like a drifting stream of water.
This had to be delirium.
Abbie turned to Joseph with an uncertain smile. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
His mouth gaped with disbelief. “¡Sí, Y hablan Español!”
“What?”
He cleared his throat and dropped his eyes to meet hers. “Do you hear them speaking—?”
“Yes… In English!”
His brow wrinkled over his roman nose. “No, in Spanish!”
They stared at each other. Abbie’s head twitched. “You hear them in Spanish?”
“Yes. Don’t you?”
“No, I hear them in English. How can this—”
The creatures darted and dove around her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. They entangled themselves in her hair, curling themselves in strands of the pink tendrils as if it were strips of cloth. Her smile faded as her breath stifled in her lungs. Fear saturated her mind. She couldn’t draw air. She couldn’t breathe! They were suffocating her!
Help!
She backed away, tripping over a small brush oak. They swept down with her as she fell, still swarming. She couldn’t get away from them. Turning her head from side to side, she struggled to get some distance between her and them. Panic swelled in her chest, like a water balloon filling too fast. Her arms and hands flailed at them, trying to make space for her to breathe. They flew around her hands, landed on her arms, and leapt from her shoulders to her face.
There was no oxygen! Blackness veiled her peripheral. She screamed, “NO!” Crawling backward and thrashing against their attack.
The creatures fell away.
She sucked in air, gasping for the oxygen that had been stolen. Her hand splayed across her sternum, as if that would comfort her desperate lungs. Tears ran down her cheeks.
Her scream had scared them… or something. They flew away from her. All of them seemed startled by her outcry. Then as if a switch had flipped, they fell to the ground. Had she killed them? Perhaps it was they who couldn’t breathe in this atmosphere?
Abbie closed her eyes and let the tears flow. Confusion filled her mind. What had happened? What were these creatures? They looked like her beloved Tinker Bell, only they were a shimmery, silvery-white, and Tinker Bell had never terrified her like these creatures had.
But Tinker Bell was a Disney character…
Joseph leaned over her, touching her shoulder and rubbing her back. “That’s it. Breathe.” He cooed.
“What. Are. They?” Abbie managed to utter.
“I don’t know.” He leaned away as if to study the creatures writhing on the ground. “Why do they look like they’re… hurting?”
“Her pain!” They groaned in a high-pitched sort-of-way. “So much energy!”
Karole’s voice from a short distance down the mountain washed over Abbie. “Are you okay?”
Abbie took Joseph’s proffered hand to stand. How did anybody know they were here?
A security team trotted a few yards ahead of her sister. They paused near Abbie. “You alright, ma’am?”
Abbie glanced at the creatures writhing on the ground at her feet. Something in her mind indicated she should hide them. She turned back to the guards. Their bullet proof uniforms, their guns at the ready, their big heavy boots, would they stomp the creatures to death and be done with the menace? Quickly nodding, she angled herself to obstruct their view of the winged creatures. “I’m fine. I-I tripped.”
“Is this where the explosion came through the mountain?”
Abbie stood between them and the faeries. “I believe so.”
“Did you see any… anomalies come out of this hole?”
She forced herself not to look down at the faeries on the ground. “Uh. No.”
“Okay. Who are you, ma’am?” The lead officer looked at her badge hanging from her lanyard. He wrote in a small notepad.
She held her badge out for him to get a better look. “Dr. Abbie Crossan, QuESO, I’m environmental.”
“Okay. We advise you to clear this area. The auditorium is where everyone will be de-briefed, you should go straight there and let us secure this area.” He turned to his team. “Let’s set a flag here and see if there are any more explosion sites along this elevation. Hank, you hang back and make sure nothing else comes outta this hole.”
“Officer. I’m the geologist for VEIL, I’d like to examine this site, if you don’t mind.” She held up her hands. “I promise I’ll scream if any anomalies come at me.”
“Well, I— alright. We’ll check up here a little ways and be back to secure this area. Make it quick, Dr. Crossan.”
“Yes Sir.”
The security team scurried up the mountain.
Abbie angled her head to see her sister still climbing toward her, medical bag in hand. Abbie’s panic drained with her sister’s presence.
Karole’s eyes leveled on Abbie, scanned her face, and swept down to her feet. “What happened? You’ve got cuts and bruises.” She turned to Joseph. “You too.”
Karole touched the areas of concern on Abbie’s face. Then she spotted the dozen or so creatures rolling over to their hands and knees on the ground, slowly recovering from whatever had happened to them. “What… in… the… world?”
She knelt next to them, sliding an examination glove over her hand and gingerly lifting one in her palm.
The creature struggled, terror obvious in its every movement, then it settled down and gazed at Karole. It was as if fear waned to curiosity. The others continued to rise to their feet, recovering from whatever overwhelmed them a moment ago. They watched their comrade being lifted away from them. One bent its knees, its wings twitched out taut and it sprang into flight, following Karole’s hand. The others joined the one and the swarm hovered just inches beyond Karole’s palm. She turned to Abbie with wide, fascinated eyes. “Where’d they come from?”
Abbie pointed to the fo
g. “There was an explosion, or implosion really, and this fog—!” She swallowed. “I was right. Lord help us all, I was right.” Huge tears pooled and then spilled down her cheeks.
Karole looked at the creature in her hand. “You mean to tell me, this creature came from that fog? But— how?” She assessed what she held. “You don’t mean to tell me they came from— as a result of the entanglement experiment?”
Abbie shrugged. “I-I don’t know, yet.”
Her sister turned back to the swarm, taking in each one. “They— they look like faeries.”
Abbie nodded. Her sister was right, but she still was unsure what they were. The one in Karole’s hand looked worried. Abbie almost felt sorry for it.
“They… tried to suffocate me.” Tears spilt down Abbie’s cheeks.
The creature on Karole’s palm vehemently shook its head. “Not suffocate. Fascinate!” Then it furrowed its brow and glared at Karole.
Karole turned to Abbie with an irritated roll of her eyes. “Oh, you’re just having one of your panic attacks. Look at this!” She held her palm out to Abbie. “Look how cute this is.”
Voices rose from the swarm, like a breeze. “She doesn’t have that energy.” “No, she doesn’t.” “How fascinating!” “Her energy is different.” “What is that?” “I don’t know.” “It feels like… something different.” “I know what this is!” One bobbed in the stream of the swarm. “Attraction threads?” “Look, their lining up! “Oh, but look at this one.” The swarm swung over to Joseph. “Yes.” “This is the one.” “He has the same prism stream.” “The same attraction threads.” “Remarkable!” “Squash it, before Mother Righteous finds out.” “No, wait!”
Karole smiled at the one now standing on her palm. It looked at its feet and then bounced, as if testing the effect of the tight glove stretched across her palm. Karole grinned wider. “What are you?” Karole barely breathed the question.
The swarm halted several inches from Karole’s face. Collectively they spoke, “Crystal Faeries.”