Protocol 1337 (8 page)

CHAPTER SIX

Double Delta

Once we touch down, I am jolted awake and ready for action. I see a young man motioning to me. I grab my gear and exit the chopper. I hold my head down out of instinct. I follow him to a hangar, about 30 yards out from the landing zone.

“Welcome to the Homestake Mine, head into the main hanger for further instructions.” He directs. I walk into what I think is an aircraft hangar, but am quickly confronted with a series of offices. An attractive young lady, dressed in a blue skirt, informs me that I am to see General Carl Stratton. She walks me over to his office, and I notice there is a gone fishing sign hung on his door. She opens the door and lets me inside. I walk inside and see the walls are decorated with fish mounts. Each is of a different species with a wide variety of sizes. On his desk rests a very large Channel Catfish.

“That’s old Nelly, biggest channel cat I have ever caught. I thought for sure it was a state record, but it weighed in at 54.5 pounds. Come to find out, some guy in 1949 caught a 55 pounder. I tried to argue it with the state, about old scales being inaccurate, but they didn’t listen. Caught that monster just north of Mitchell. My wife was sitting on my lap when she hit the line. Knocked my wife flat on her ass, and in my excitement, I was only worried about landing the fish. She later forgave me once she saw this monster on land.” Stratton explains enthusiastically.

“Well first of all, you can drop the act. I know you are not a real soldier, and I wont even give you credit for trying to pass the part. Reese and I go back decades. On your defense, it will convince the bulk of them that you are some genius invited to an exclusive club. So let us just stick to the story, shall we?” Explains Stratton.

“Absolutely sir, it is your BBQ, I am just bringing the potato salad.” I say.

“Glad you see things my way. You have been assigned to Dr. Richard Cox. You are his personal body guard. I have explained to him, that due to the highly sensitive nature of his research, we are assigning him a body guard. You are to go to his office, pronto.” Stratton motions towards the door.

Upon exiting his office, I am joined by the nice young lady in the blue skirt. She walks me over to the elevator and we descend. The doors open, and she guides me to a room with a placard reading. Dr. Richard Cox. I open the door then step inside.

I see him from across the room. He has brown eyes, and what remains of brown hair, fitted with large circular glasses. His curly hair is almost out of this world. I can see the years claiming his auburn locks into gray nothingness.

“Great, the babysitter is here. As if I don’t have enough to do around here, but I get to have someone look over my shoulder.” Cox shoots a smug look at me.

“Please to meet you too. Should I try to shake your hand or just punch you in the face?” I reply. Cox seems to be taken by surprise. I am very serious about the threat. He reminds me of someone in grade school I used to pick on. The idea of landing a right hook to his jaw would brighten my day.

“Charming, a nitwit, and a brute. I bet your parents are quite proud.” Cox replies.

“Well, this is going to be fun now, isn’t it? You talk a lot of smack for a guy whose first and last name could be words for a penis. Should I call you Richard, Dick, Cox, or Dr. Double Dick? I reply sarcastically.

“The name is Dr. Richard Cox. I didn’t spend a small fortune to be referred to by my surname.” Cox says in an authoritative tone of voice.

“I will just call you doc. SO... What's up doc?” I have wanted to say that since I was a little kid. I sit down on a lab chair, then slowly rotate my-self around to pass time. Doc goes back to playing with some test tubes and other lab equipment. I wonder if he was born with a pocket protector? I bet his parents were really strict. I can picture him as a teenager watching out his window as the cool kids play games. Always wishing deep down inside they would invite him to play. Instead, he spent prom night organizing his next convention trip.

A few very long hours pass as I watch him work. It is really hard to pass time when you literally have nothing to do. I finally reach my breaking point. I gotta get goody two shoes over there to start talking. “Got any kids?” I ask.

“No, I don’t have time for a family. Besides, in my line of work, it is a little tough to get a date. Every woman I have ever met always wants to be just friends anyway.” Doc's admission confirms my theory so far.

“Well, what do you do aside from playing with beakers?” I ask.

“I’m a microbiologist. I work with tiny little organisms, and sometimes I can make them do cool stuff. Like genetically alter them to eat sulfur from waste collection ponds, tweak their genes a little here and there, make them reproduce faster, or tolerate extreme environments. My specialty is in extremophiles.” Cox explains.

“Oh, you mean like those bugs that eat arsenic? Like the ones in a lake in California? I saw something about that on the internet.” I reply.

“Yes, exactly! That’s what I am working on here. Take a look at this screen, you see the small gray blobs next to black there? Those are microbes I found in a sample. They are really special though. I thought at first it was surface contamination, but I harvested a sample from a non-handled area.” Cox starts to get very excited as he points at the microbes.

“So what makes them so special?” I ask.

“They are literally not from this planet. Completely alien and possibly the first confirmed case of extraterrestrial life.” Cox says.

“No freaking way! Aliens like little green men kinda stuff? Now that is really cool, more than cool, that’s mind boggling.” I exclaim.

Cox went on a long winded rant for quite a while. He got so caught up in his excitement, he wouldn’t let me get a word in. Some of the stuff went over my head and some of the words were hard enough to hear, let alone repeat.

According to an Aztec legend, a long time ago the Aztecs saw a meteorite crash into a hill. They retrieved it and held it sacred. They referred to it as the tear of the fire god. They placed it on the high altar during festivals. When word spread about the bad dealings of the Spanish false gods, the Aztecs hid the rock deep inside a sacred cave sealed inside a golden box. The legend also mentions that if anyone besides a holy man were to touch it, they would soon find death. The illness they received was said to turn one's body into fire. Scientists speculated that it was a form of radiation sickness. After it was found recently, there was a bidding war for it, and it found its way to Homestake. So what started out as a possible nuclear device became a rock containing alien microbes.

“So aren’t you worried about this sickness?” I ask.

“Hardly. First of all, the rock is hermetically sealed in that chamber over there. Second, the microbes are all dead. Lastly, I think the Aztecs were suffering from European diseases and passed the blame to the rock as a way to explain it. We don’t even know what the microbes do yet. They could be totally harmless or the next black death.” Cox explains.

“Well, at least they are dead, and I feel a lot better now.” I say.

“For now anyway, I am in the process of isolating its DNA so I can clone it.” Cox says. I may not be the brightest crayon in the box, but every time humans try to mess with something, it never ends well. Hopefully, I will be very far away from here before he clones them.

It has been a really productive day on my data collection mission, and I hope the good doc here quits at five. Then again, he is a career centered geek with nothing better to do. Great, I think to myself, I'm gonna be here till midnight.

“Hey doc, are you ready to call it quits for the day?” I ask.

“Not a chance, I still have a lot of work to get done. If you want to leave, that would be fine with me.” Cox replies.

“I don’t wanna bail out on you early, but I got a phone call to my special lady I need to make. So if it is cool, I am going to bounce out of here.” I say.

“Go right ahead, I will be fine here by myself.” Cox says.

“You know doc, I know we got off to a bad start there. I really did enjoy talking to you today. You are working on some cutting edge stuff, and I can understand why you are so dedicated.” I say.

Cox turns away from his fume hood and looks at me curiously. The expression on his face is very different from before. Maybe this was the first time someone tossed him an olive branch by apologizing. Or maybe he was surprised that I actually wanted to hear what he had to say. Either way, I felt that tomorrow would be a radical change from today’s tone. I might have even misjudged him as well. Maybe I didn’t even give him a chance like so many people before me. Is it possible that I just rat holed him into a stereotype nerd? At that moment, I vowed to myself I must help this man learn to relax.

“Thank you... Since you never introduced yourself I would assume it is alright to call you Haus. That is how the army boys address each other, is it not, supplementing the surname as the first name? See you in the morning Haus, and have a good night's rest.” Cox says.

“Yeah, that’s how it works. Anyway, I gotta run and see you in the morning.” I scramble back above ground, and then realize I don’t know where I am supposed to go. Luckily, my little friend in the blue skirt is still around.

“I got caught up in the all the excitement today, and I don’t know what area my quarters are assigned to.” I am failing at my act of being a soldier and luckily she doesn’t catch on. I seriously need to learn my lingo if I can pull this off.

“You mean your bunk. It is 44d and located at the west end near the mess hall. This might help you, it is a map of the area. I will mark your bunk for you and a few areas to help you find your way.” She doodles on the paper for a bit and hands it back to me. I take the time to look at her desk placard for her name.

“Thank you so much, Shirley, you have been more than helpful. I owe you big time for this. I love your perfume, it smells divine and fits your personality perfectly.” I add in my best gay guy voice for bonus points. Personally, I think her perfume is way too strong and smells like burning tires in a salvage yard.

I follow my new map and soon I am in open territory. It's starting to get dark outside. I see a group of people talking. I decide now is a good time to try to over-hear any gossip I might receive. In the distance, I see a woman shouting at a group of young men. She paces back and forth, chastising them for some unknown discretion. She leans forward into the face of one, and then uses her boot to force his face into the mud.

“Those boys were talking about how hot Commander Trixie is. About the time Murphey called her a cougar, Trixie walked out from the shitter. Guess she overheard the whole thing.”

“Guess I will watch my mouth around here.” I reply. I continue on to my bunk. I can hear a female voice behind me still screaming as I walk away. It's a one room log cabin but at least it has a double bed. There is nothing for furniture in it just a few shelves, a closet, and a well-worn rug. I kick off my boots and fall asleep. Around three, I wake up and step outside. As expected, there isn’t a soul around and now is the perfect time to update Reese.

I find a dark secluded spot and do a quick walk around to make sure I am not within earshot of anyone. I press the call button on my Dlink watch. Reese is my only contact so it automatically connects. After a few short beeps, the small green hologram appears in the air. I can see Reese had been sleeping, and I am not all that excited to see him in his bed. He doesn’t seem too upset to be woken up in the middle of the night.

“I was beginning to feel like a one night stand, Agent Haus, sitting around waiting for you to call. I gave up and went to bed. What news do you have for me?” Reese sleepily replies.

“Very good day, SIR, and sorry for the late call. I didn’t find myself in a secure situation to call you so for future contact, it will most likely be late. To make a long story short, the military purchased a meteorite believing it to be an ancient nuclear power source, but that is not the case at all. It actually has alien life on it, more specifically, alien microbes. The microbes are all dead, and their lead scientist is in the process of cloning the DNA he found. He has no idea if the microbes are harmful or not.” I explain.

“That in itself is worth a fortune. So what you are telling me, agent that the army fully believes they are in possession of alien life? Worse yet, it's microbial, and the scientist involved has no idea whether it's harmful or not?” Reese replies.

“Yes, sir, that’s exactly the situation from what I gather of it. I had some trouble with the scientist at first, but I believe we are past that now. I think he will open up even more as time goes on.” I say.

“Good work agent. Keep me informed on any updates, and for god's sake, don’t blow your cover.” Reese says.

With that, the conversation was over. I head back to my bunk to get a little more sleep. It takes me a bit to get back into my sleep groove. Then, I am once again dreaming and, as of lately, everything has been static dreams. The kind associated with weak sleeping patterns. They call them static dreams. Basically, a lot of random events get mixed together and the dreams never make any sense.

I awake the next day and head down to Cox's office. I arrive well before he does, so to lighten the mood, I draw smiley faces on each of his marker boards. I even opt to add some comic relief to the situation and draw a large mushroom on his main board. Under it, I write I am a fun-guy. If that doesn’t brighten his day, I don’t know what will.

Around 11, Cox strolls in. He obviously hasn’t slept for very long. He is unshaven and outfitted with bloodshot eyes. Given all of that, he still seems to cast a determined look in his eyes. I can see years of pent up sexual aggression painted across his face. I really need to get this guy out of here for a bit. A little R&R might do him some over-due good.