by David Nadas
They were college pals from Stockton in South Jersey; MARS majors taking a surf break between classes when they met on an empty street in the north end of Atlantic City back in the late nineties. It was a November day just like this, west wind, ebbing tide and shoulder high barrels peeling off the jetty. Matt and Dan had arrived at the same time, racing to pull on their wetsuits, when a squad of police cars flooded onto the street, the officers jumping out, guns drawn, running toward them. Matt and Dan faced off, reasoning the other was the cause, only to see the officers rush between them and up the stoop into the building, shots firing. They grabbed their boards and coolly walked to the beach, like this happened every day, neither willing to show they were scared shitless. By the time they hit the water they were the best of friends.
Back in the lab, Dan led Matt to the negative pressure hoods with several glass slides scattered about.
"I need you to check this out. I've got a live culture going, but have no idea what I'm looking at. I'm hoping you've seen this before.” Dan said as he ushered Matt to the scope.
"How long have you been here?" Matt asked, reluctant to surrender the warmth of the mug as he placed it onto the table; his hands were just starting to warm.
"Oh, I don't know, Saturday morning?" Dan responded, not sure himself. All Matt could do was gesture with a nod and peer into the eyepiece. He was confused by what lay before him. Highly magnified were parallel rows of crystalline structures, resembling marine plankton. Unlike plankton, these intricate structures were replicating with agility and no sign of mitosis; the way a 3-D printer forms something, layer by layer. Lifting away from the eyepiece, Matt looked at the magnification setting. The structures were just under 1 mm wide. He returned to the scope and observed the elongated horns of the crystals locked into one another like an Escher drawing. There was a latticework of filaments weaving through the hollow cavities, as if they were nerves passing through vertebra. Matt pulled away from the eyepiece to look at Dan.
"Dude, I have never seen anything like this? Where did this come from and what's the petri medium? It looks like blood!"
Dan handed Matt a pair of gloves and a mask. "Here, put these on. And it is blood." That got Matt's attention. He led Matt to the far section of the lab and walked him through the necropsy of a pair of American Bitterns, common along the estuaries of the east coast. They were splayed out on dissecting trays under a set of hoods. Each bittern had a twig-like growth, attached to the base of the cranium, just below the occipital plate. Each twig curved outward along the skull, then shot straight up, like antenna with elaborate branching, each unique. Dan pointed out the small bladders at each bifurcation of the twigs. He had carefully cut away one of the skulls to reveal the growth inside. There was no mistaking that the twigs had punctured the cranial cavity, from the inside out, while a chord of tendrils had branched into specific areas of the brain.
"I see that the cranium is intact." Matt said tapping the area around the base of the twig with surgical tongs. "Where the twig comes into contact with the bone, it looks dissolved, fused to the twig itself." Matt continued to describe, turning the skull slightly from side to side. "No visible bloodstains on the epidermis. No trauma to the surrounding brain tissue."
"Good catch. I hadn't noticed that." Dan commented. "Keeps the host alive for some time. Nice."
"What do you notice about the tendrils?" Dan asked.
Matt could tell Dan already knew the answer, but answered anyway. "The tendrils originate in the superior sagittal sinus and reach into the motor cortex." Matt replied.
"Exactly. The rest of the tendrils seem to be distributed throughout the cerebellum and optical plate. So, this thing makes its way up the arteries and settles into the sagittal sinus where it begins its gametic lifecycle. Whatever this thing is, Matt, it controls the vision, motor skills and reasoning areas of the brain. That is mind blowing."
"What’s in the bladders?" Matt asked. "The crystals I saw under the scope?"
"Yeah."
“Where did you get the birds?"
"This is the weird part." Dan began. "I found them together at the end of the dock late Saturday afternoon. I was waiting for the interns to return from my sampling grids, when I saw these two bitterns. One male, one female. At first I thought they were mating, but when I started toward them, I saw the weird antenna. Then I thought, ‘wow! I discovered a new species.’ The closer I got I realized they were not moving. Both were alive when I found them, barely. I went back to the lab and got some gloves and a mask. Something just didn’t look right— aside from the antenna, I mean. They had their bills clamped onto the dock cleat. Weird, huh? Have you seen anything like that before?" Dan asked.
"No. Never. Any idea of the vector?"
"Possibly," Dan replied."
"Is this where the Phragmites come in?" Matt reasoned.
"That's what I was trying to tell you on the phone earlier this morning. Here, follow me." And he led Matt back to the hazmat hood. Putting his arms into the sleeves, Dan placed a slide onto the stage of the scope and set the focus.
"Have a look." Dan said, removing his hands from the sleeves and stepping aside.
Matt leaned in and looked down at a sample of Phragmites. A single plume, each floret encased with crystal beads in the upper and lower glumes.
“You're telling me that inside of these beads is the contagion that produced those twigs?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying." Dan said. "Now look at this one." And he replaced the slide and adjusted the magnification.
"Collected yesterday morning by the interns, from one of my sampling grids."
Under the scope, Matt could see a highly magnified view of the black dots within the beads. They were geometric in shape, transistor-like. Dan replaced the previous slide back into the scope.
"Look at the seed stems. They're close to releasing." Dan commented. "I think we got lucky with this weather clamping things down these past few days, but we have a day or two at best. They're ready to release, Matt. As soon as the weather breaks, off they go. November Seed."
Matt stood up and rubbed his eyes. "What are the chances this thing can jump to humans?"
"I thought about that. I am thinking the probability is very high because of exactly what we see here. These pathogens do not look like something nature can kick out. So I can't imagine they would be selectively going after bitterns." Dan stood there, arms crossed and hands folded neatly under his armpits. A posture Matt knew well when Dan was absolutely convinced of something. Something you would not want to bet against and expect to win.
"What do you make of the twigs?” Matt asked. “That they remote controlled the bitterns to the metal cleat?"
"Exactly."
"Any idea why?"
"That I don't know.” Dan replied.
It would be another three hours before the sun came up. They sat on stools, the red leatherette worn thin at the edges. Dan spread out a large marine topographical map before them with a series of overlapping red circles. The largest was approximately one hectare, with three smaller circles, two of the three overlapping. The epicenter of the largest circle was in one of the tributaries off the Tuckahoe River where the river flowed into the bay.
"Why does the pattern look so familiar?" Matt asked as he studied the circles Dan had mapped out.
"Promise you won't wig out on me man? I think alien ships came in and seeded this area." Dan stated, connecting his hypothesis to each of the circles. Matt rolled his eyes.
"See! You just wigged out on me." Dan said defensively. "You saw those things! No one on this planet has the bioengineering skill to pull off something this advanced. Those beads are structurally integrated into the seed’s glumes.“
"You’re going to have to show me the little green men before I buy into that Dan. I admit, what I am seeing here is— well— I've never seen anything close to this. I’ve studied a lot of marine pathogens in dinoflagellates, which these seem to re
semble, but nothing like this. I need to use the NIRS to run some tests on the crystals. The things in that petri dish look inorganic, but what has me confused are the twigs; they're organic, alive, and I have never seen a pathogen that is inorganic."
"There you go. Alien!" Dan surmised.
Matt returned to the scope and isolated some crystals from the petri dish and placed them between a set of salt plates in preparation for the NIRS. After the sample was run, Matt retrieved the printout and brought it back to the bench.
"This makes no sense." Matt stated. "Is the NIRS working correctly?"
"You're the only one who knows how to use that thing." Dan replied. Matt logged into the NJFW site and pulled up the lab's maintenance logs. The NIRS had been recently calibrated with no reported errors on this unit. He retrieved a new set of salt plates and ran a sample of Dichloromethane. The calibration was perfect. All the overtones were exactly where they should have been, indicating the NIRS was working correctly.
He ran another sample on the crystals, and again, the graphs made no sense. The transmittance and wavelengths were like chicken scratch.
Matt looked back at the circles on Dan's maps. They reminded him of a shotgun pattern. He got up, walked to his desk and retrieved a surgical magnet used in removing metal slivers from the eye. It was something his father carried in his medical bag. Holding