The Virus (8 page)

“Cleaning Lights?” Geoffrey
asked.

“The lights you passed in
the hallway leading here. You couldn’t have missed them. Didn’t you
notice that they were much brighter than any lights you’ve ever
seen before?” Geoffrey had noticed that the corridor’s lights were
incredibly bright, but after the whole hidden entryway thing, he
didn’t take as much note of the phenomenon as he likely would have
otherwise.

“What about them?” Geoffrey
asked.

“Well, what they are,”
answered the doctor, with the same faint rise in enthusiasm as had
been witnessed in the lieutenant general a few moments ago, “is the
best sterilization agent the world has ever seen. When you came in
here and passed under and through those lights, your body was
nearly instantaneously purged of most of the potentially dangerous
microbes, spores, bacteria, etc., that live on your skin…as well as
in your body.”

“Potentially dangerous?”
asked Geoffrey with a noticeable tone of alarm.

The doctor quickly
answered, “No, nothing that we did: Nature, Son. You see, you
already have literally hundreds of millions—maybe more—living
microorganisms that call your body home. Your mouth, your skin,
your eyebrows, even that full head of hair you young people are
usually unworthily blessed with, is all saturated with hordes of
bacteria, and yeast. Now, most of these microorganisms are good for
you, but some aren’t. As far as we can tell, the vast majority of
them are fatal to alien life forms that haven’t had millions of
years’ experience in the hostile environment of our planet to build
up an immunity.”

“Are you
saying that you have…real life
aliens
…
here
?” Geoffrey asked, astounded. He
hadn’t used the phrase ‘real life’ for anything since he was a kid,
but now he felt sort of like a kid: A confused, helpless
kid.

The doctor looked at the
lieutenant general before he went on. Lieutenant Dan just answered
his look with a gruff grunt. “Hey, Doc, you’re the one thinks he
has a right to know.” Was all he said.

The doctor turned back
toward Geoffrey, “Yes, Son, we do, but not alien
s
. We have only a single foreign
entity housed at this particular facility at the moment, and we’re
not sure yet that it’s from the life forms that sent the fragment.”
With that, Geoffrey’s assumptions were confirmed. He knew, he just
knew, that that meteorite fragment was much more than it appeared.
Up until this point, there was no way for him to know for certain
that all of this wasn’t because of his alleged assault of Mr.
Reynolds. If that were so, he’d be in big trouble, but with this
new information, there arose a new, more vibrant fear. Was Earth
under attack by alien life forms that could hurl incapacitating
glowing rocks into our atmosphere whenever they wanted? If they
were—which seemed to be where things stood at the moment—then he
was, in fact, still in huge trouble…and so was the rest of the
world.

The doctor’s voice, as he
continued his harrowing narrative, was the only thing that helped
usher Geoffrey back to reality. “We’ve had others at less
technologically advanced facilities, but it would seem that their
housings, their bodies if you will, cannot bear to be in close,
unguarded proximity with the microorganisms that I spoke of
earlier, that are associated with virtually all human beings. A few
days in any human’s presence, no matter what we did to prevent it,
and they all eventually ceased to function.”

“They died?” asked
Geoffrey.

“Yes, and turned to dust
like nothing we’ve ever seen…radioactive dust. Those lights in the
entranceway corridor that you and Lieutenant Dan traveled through
to get here, effectively killed or vaporized at least 85% of the
harmful microorganisms residing on or beneath your skin, and
especially a flora of microorganisms residing within your
respiratory system.” The doctor’s tone took on an introspective
air, as he continued, “My team and I were already making great
strides in the practice of bloodless, laser-aided surgeries, but it
wasn’t until we were fortunate enough to have some of this alien
technology fall into our hands that we discovered how to unlock
more of light’s, how shall I say, greater potentials. We still have
some ways to go, but with time, I’m sure we can do even more
unimaginable things with what we’re discovering.”

“So, those lights can kill
germs and things…
inside
my body, from the
outside
?”

“Precisely.” The doctor
nearly shouted, jabbing a finger into the air.

“And you developed
them?”

“Yes.” The doctor answered,
then as something of a side note, “Well, I had some help, but yes,
I developed them.”

It would seem that the
purpose of most of this oration was to draw attention to the fact
that it was the doctor who had authored this great stride in the
field of medicine. Geoffrey thought about Mr. Reynolds wanting his
name attached to some new discovery so desperately that he was
willing to put himself in the kind of danger that got him where he
was right now. It would seem that even aged and seasoned
professionals were still just children at heart, trying to secure
the shiniest toy and claim it for their own. At the very least
though, Geoffrey was getting some valuable information, so the rest
mattered little.

The doctor continued to
laud his latest achievement and its vast implications until he said
something else that piqued Geoffrey’s interest. He explained how
the lights made the entire underground facility essentially a huge,
high order clean room, when he noted that all this was done in
addition to the fact that the lights never needed to be changed or
repaired. When Geoffrey asked how that was possible, the doctor was
more than happy to explain, “…and that’s the fascinating thing!”
The doctor was almost giddy. “There are no lamps in these lights,
as you can see if you look at them closely enough. They have only
what we call containment units. And, also, they have no cords,
because they don’t use electricity. Why would you think that
is?”

Geoffrey shrugged his
shoulders. He opened his mouth as if to answer but then closed it
without a word. He had no idea how the lights could operate without
electricity.

“Because
these fixtures,” the doctor gestured to the ceiling, toward a set
of lights that were identical to the ones in the corridor, except
that they weren’t as bright, “don’t produce light, they
store
it.” The
creases in Geoffrey’s forehead as well as the way he simultaneously
raised an eyebrow and squinted said that all this made no sense to
him. The doctor went on with the explanation, growing more excited
like a kid showing off his shiny new toy. “It is accepted among
scientists that light exhibits both wave
and
particle properties. Now, I’m
sure you understand the wave properties of light, as it’s the part
of light that you can see,” The doctor’s energy was reaching a
peak. “but you’re probably not familiar with the
particle
properties of
light. That’s the part of light that, under the right
circumstances, you should be able to
feel
.” Geoffrey’s eyes lit up in
understanding.

“We’ve,” Here, the doctor’s
tone suggested that he actually meant
I,
“f
ound a way to synthesize light into a physical
presence!” The doctor sat back in his chair silently, satisfied to
let Geoffrey awe at his fully-revealed, shiny new
plaything.

And marvel, the intern
did. This latest revelation cast light—quite literally—on a lot of
other things, and Geoffrey was trying desperately to take it all in
as fast as it was coming. After a few moments of enjoying the stark
amazement plastered on the intern’s face, the doctor continued,
“Now that we’ve found out how to make light a material presence,
there’s no limit to the things we can do with it, including sending
information by it. That’s what we think happened with your
astronomer friend in there,” the doc gestured toward the one way
glass, “That fragment he touched was covered in light, you said,
right?” Geoffrey nodded. “Well, we believe that information about
whoever sent that fragment may be contained in that
light.”

“So, what’s happened to
him, then?” Goeffrey asked.

“I
believe his body is absorbing that information. One of those
machines in there will wake him out of his daze, at least that’s
what we’re shooting for. If it works and he comes to without severe
brain damage, he may be able to give us all the information we need
about this alien life force and its home planet, or perhaps even
galaxy.” The doctor lowered his voice conspiratorially, “Your
friend in there may hold information that is the key to
understanding the entire universe…but more importantly, to help us
avoid the complete and total annihilation of all life on our
planet.”

Chapter 9

“I need a heart monitor in here right
now!” the doctor yelled.

“And get me an oxygen machine!”
another demanded.

The scene was chaotic, nurses and
assistants rushing in every direction, struggling to gather
machines and medical materials that were being screamed for much
more quickly than they could be produced. Meanwhile, Delilah gazed
on at the entire scene with an unusual mixture of pleasure and
panic. She was well-used to being fussed over. Her father always
made sure that she had a virtual army of chefs, beauticians, maids,
and even surrogate shoppers to do just that, but the chaos that was
ensuing over her now—the only thing she had done was alerted the
doctor that she was feeling a little out of breath—was quite
alarming. Just outside her monotonously white room, she saw white
suited professionals stumbling over each other to retrieve the
things that were being yelled for.

In her room, three male doctors were
doing the yelling. One stood beside her bed checking her pulse,
another stood at two large windows that faced the hall in the front
of the room, from which she watched an intermittent haze of white
uniforms rush to and fro. A third stood at a large mirror recessed
into a side wall of the room. He was mouthing something to the
mirror, but in the blur of bodies and voices surrounding her,
Delilah didn’t think too much of it. One of the scrambling white
suited people rushed in with a machine that had been yelled
for.

“Get the hell out of here!”
the doctor near the window yelled savagely. “
No
one
is
to enter this room except us!”

The bewildered orderly,
looked as if he was about to ask where the doctor wanted the
machine then, but he didn’t get a chance, because the doctor
interrupted by roaring, “I said, get the hell out of here,
now
! And tell the others
to leave whatever we call for out in the hallway!
No
one
is to enter this room except us!” Once the
unfortunate, and confused, intruder backed out of the room, the
doctor turned to Delilah. The smile on his face looked forced. “I’m
sincerely sorry about that, Ms. Hanson.” The doctor said. He spread
his hands in exasperation. “Help. I’m sure you can
relate.”

Delilah didn’t open her
mouth to answer. The only thing that was going through her head
was,
What the hell is going on?
Meanwhile, the first doctor continued to check
her pulse. The second, the one who was talking to the mirror,
walked over as well. He looked at the first doctor questioningly.
“Pulse is slightly higher than normal.” The other answered the
silent inquiry.

“I thought so,” said the mirror
whispering doctor. “I think we should step outside for a
moment.”

“But…” the other began to
reply.

“I think we should step
outside for a moment
.” Interrupted the
first, through bared teeth. The pulse checking doctor finally got
the hint and all three headed to the door. Neither of them bothered
to answer a single question plaguing Delilah’s mind, as they did
so. The door didn’t shut all the way after they exited and Delilah
heard them talking just outside. “We
cannot
upset this patient in any
way, form, or fashion. We all know that, so what the hell is going
on here?” Delilah listened on, excited at the prospect of getting
some questions answered. “We need machines and supplies, but I’ve
already told these damned orderlies a hundred times to never
enter…”

“Well, first of all,” returned the
first voice. Delilah felt dreamy and slightly tired and couldn’t
tell who was talking to whom, “they’re not orderlies, they’re
government certified security clearance worthy nurses.” Delilah
couldn’t tell which of the doctors was talking, but she could tell
by the thick, insubordinate tone, that this latest bit of
information was fodder that the doctors had been reminded of
countless times. Delilah could all but see eyes rolling in disgust
even as the words were spoken. She knew the look well. It was often
her own.

“Well, I have to record that her pulse
has risen and the big wigs will want to know why.” Came the
reply.

“I know, and we can’t sedate her any
more while we get these machines set up. If we can synthesize a
vaccine, it’s going to have to come from her blood, so we can’t
afford to keep drugging her.” Before she could stop herself,
Delilah let out a brief, but reverberating squeal of horror at
hearing that she had been drugged…again.