CHAPTER TWELVE
Emergency
Alex barged into the conference room outside the med bay like a house of fire. He was visibly agitated, and his uniform was a mess. His pant legs were not properly folded up into the usual military cuffs, nor were his sleeves bloused correctly. In fact, the left one wasn’t rolled up at all. His hair was unkempt, and he had dark circles under his eyes.
Major Alcheck regarded him as he entered the room and before he could get a word out, Alex beat him to it.
“What’s going on? Why won’t they let me see her?”
“Calm down, Captain, and I’ll bring you up to speed."
He noted that Alex hadn’t saluted him upon entering the room, and part of him wanted to make sure Alex knew that it had been noted. But, given the circumstances, he fought his usual urge to assert authority and was prepared to cut Alex some slack. He decided that his uniform problems were also something he could let slide, this one time.
Alex looked at Major Alcheck and began to visibly relax just a little, seemingly realizing that his appearance had been noticed by his commanding officer. Major Alcheck took his calming as his cue to begin.
“She’s in isolation. Right now, the doctors are trying to figure out what’s going on with her.”
Alex pounded his fists on the conference room table.
“Yeah, but it’s been almost five hours, Brendan! FIVE FUCKING HOURS, and not a single god damn word! This is fucking bullshit!”
Alcheck regarded him silently for a moment, and Alex realized what he had done. He knew his friend would cut him quite a bit of slack regarding military etiquette generally, and especially given the current situation Alex expected he’d have even more. But there were four other officers in the room now, and so Alcheck would have his limits, even now. Alex caught himself and tried to correct the situation, which he knew would be testing those limits now, if not bursting past them outright. He straightened his body, not standing quite at attention, but up straight now.
“Sir. Sorry, sir.”
Alcheck waited a few seconds and then nodded.
“Alex, it’s not as simple as letting you see her. There’s been some… complications.”
Alcheck grabbed Alex’ elbow before continuing, apparently in an effort to comfort him.
“Doctor Wakeman… Melissa… she has some sort of… growths… all over his body. The doctors haven’t been able to identify them.”
Alex visibly gulped.
“When I brought her in there was just the one. Are you telling me there’s more of them now? Are they tumors? Is it cancer?”
“No, well, not exactly. The doctors tried to cut one off, but… Alex, it grew back in about five minutes flat, back to the same size it was before. They say they’ve never seen anything like that, certainly not any kind of cancerous tumor they know of.”
“Do they have any idea what’s causing it?”
Major Alcheck released Alex’ arm and stood up straight. He adjusted the sleeve of his right arm a bit before answering.
It was his turn to gulp visibly now.
“Alex, have you ever heard of Nanotechnology, or nanotech?”
“Yeah, Melissa used to talk about it a bit. That’s microscopic machines, little robots that can create more of themselves using material they find in the environment, right?”
“Yes, that’s basically it, although being self-replicating isn't a necessary component of nanotech, and in fact typically isn't in most work on it. We actually have projects working on that sort of technology, mostly for medical applications, but some more military in nature. One project is using nanotech to create a camouflage for uniforms that can morph between patterns so one uniform can be used in multiple environments. Another project is trying to create a sort of shielding that would act as a kind of bullet-proof vest, but one that can be switched on and off, so it’s as soft as a shirt usually but can instantly turn into to something hard that can stop a .45 caliber bullet. Another project is working on…”.
Alex was at once fascinated by what the Major was saying and frustrated because he didn’t see how this related to Melissa’s condition. Alex interrupted, forcefully but respectfully.
“I’m sorry, but Major, with all due respect, what the hell does this have to do with Melissa?”
Major Alcheck paused for a moment, a look even more serious than he had been wearing all this time edged across his face.
“Melissa has some sort of nanotech in his body.”
Alex’s mouth involuntarily opened as he backed away from Major Alcheck a little bit, as if he was the one carrying the technological disease he was being told Melissa did.
Was it a disease, he wondered? What exactly would an infection of nanotech be referred to as? Was it even an infection? Hell, it crossed his mind that it might be more like a computer virus than a biological virus, he just didn’t know.
This was science, and so was Melissa’s turf, not his.
“So, what, are you saying? Melissa was exposed to the nanotech from one of those projects you were talking about?”
“No, she’s been nowhere near any of those projects. They’re all being developed at sites far away from here, and because of compartmentalization, Melissa doesn’t even have access to or knowledge of them. And even if she had Alex, we’d know she didn’t pick them up from those projects for sure right now.”
“How would you know that for sure? And if they didn’t come from contact with those projects then how exactly did it get inside of her then?”
“Alex, the fact is we don’t know the answer to that for sure. We have… some theories. But, there’s something else, Alex.”
“Besides microscopic robots in my wife causing monstrous tumors?! What is it?”
“Yes. The reason we know they didn’t come from those projects… Alex, the devices that are in her… that’s what they are, some sort of particle-sized devices… they’re constructed in a way that we’ve never seen before. I had all of the teams working on our nanotech projects examine the data we’ve collected, and they all said the same thing: these devices are unlike anything they have ever seen before, or even dreamed possible. They have a level of complexity that, they tell me, we aren’t even remotely capable of creating. Far more advanced than anything we’re developing, unimaginably so. Alex, it took them a full two hours to even realize they were looking at nanotech, that’s how far out there it is.”
Alex’s face scrunched now, and he was done even trying to pretend to understand what Alcheck was saying.
“Ok, so what are we talking about here? Russian nanotech? Chinese?”
“No, Alex, you don’t understand. All the projects I mentioned earlier? None of it is real yet. It’s all theoretical, on-the-drawing-board stuff right now. Some basic, low-level prototype stuff at most - the nanotech that we have even managed to create is so rudimentary compared to what we’re seeing here that it’s not even remotely in the same league. It’s like comparing a kite to the space shuttle. So, when I say we aren’t capable of creating them, when I say what we’ve managed to create is exceedingly rudimentary in comparison, I don’t mean the U.S. military. We doesn’t mean our scientists.”
Alex’ confusion multiplied in an instant.
“Ok, so, what then? Some sort of private sector technology? Some biotech company’s crazy experiment? Some asshole scientist’s latest experiment run amok What the hell-”
“Alex, when I say we, I mean humans. The human race. The human race isn’t capable of creating this level of nanotech. Nobody anywhere is, not governmental, not private sector, absolutely nobody. These devices did not originate on Earth.”
Alex just stood in stunned silence, mouth agape. He had to process this, but his brain was not in the mood to cooperate. Was Major Alcheck actually telling him that Melissa was infected with some sort of advanced alien nanotechnology?
“How is that possible, sir? How can that possibly be true?”
“Alex, we don’t know. We just don’t know. But, to help us find an answer, we need to take a sample of blood from you to confirm a theory some of our people have.”
Alex didn’t understand why his blood was relevant, but he was a good soldier, so he simply replied: “Yes, sir.”
“Once that’s done I know you want to see Melissa. She’s conscious, although in a lot of pain even with all the medication they have her on. We’ll get you in with her right after we draw your blood. I’m sorry it’s taken so long, but hopefully, now you understand why we needed to give our people time to investigate. We had to stabilize her, then figure out what we were dealing with, and most importantly, know if it’s something that can spread. We believe we’ve got that last issue in particular taken care of now, so we can get you in to see her shortly.”
Alex nodded as Major Alcheck waved for a nurse who had been waiting outside the room to enter. As she did, Alex began rolling up his sleeve. He wanted to get the blood drawn as quickly as possible so he could get in to see Melissa as soon as possible. The nurse obliged by hastily preparing the needle and vial to receive his blood and quickly jabbed the needle into his arm haphazardly without even the customary swabbing with alcohol or rubber band around his arm.
“Make a fist, open and close it. Yes, that’s it, good.“
She snapped the vial onto the needle. Alex barely registered the pain, although he was aware that his arm would be sore as hell in a little while. He had never been a big fan of needles and giving blood, but this time he didn’t really care about any of it, he just wanted to see Melissa.
The nurse pulled the needle out when the vial was completely filled and hastily stuck a cotton swab over the still leaking hole. It quickly began to fill with blood.
“Put pressure on that. It’ll stop bleeding shortly.”
Alex could only chuckle at the ridiculousness of her comment. He’d had more than his share of experience bleeding. He didn’t need to be told to put pressure on a bleeding hole in his body!
She took the vial of blood and placed it inside some sort of metal case that Alex noticed she had brought in with her and put on the table next to him. It almost looked like an old-fashioned metal lunch box that construction workers were often shown bringing to work sites on old television shows. There was one big difference though: after she put the vial of blood in it and quickly closed the lid she pressed a red button on top of it and pulled away quickly as a faint green glow washed over the metal surface of the lunch box. It pulsated like an aurora, which Alex had seen a number of times during test flights at high northern latitudes. It did this for a few seconds and then stopped. The red button flashed rapidly as the nurse picked it up. It was only then that Alex noticed that the nurse was wearing what looked like metallic gloves. He hadn’t noticed them earlier for some reason, probably because they were like latex gloves, which he’d expect a nurse to be wearing, but as she reached for the lunch box he realized they weren’t ordinary latex gloves, these were clearly made out of some sort of very flexible metal. He thought maybe some kind of aluminum, but even that he knew would be too stiff for her to be moving her hands like she was, which is to say pretty much regularly.
She quickly left the room, that mysterious glowing metal lunch box with his blood inside of it in hand, and Alex turned towards Major Alcheck again as his thoughts of the lunch box were quickly replaced by an urgent need to be with his sick wife.
Before he could say anything, Major Alcheck spoke.
“I’ll take you to Melissa now. But Captain, I caution you to be prepared. What you’re going to see… it’s not like anything you’ve ever seen before. It’s hard enough for me to see it so I can only imagine how hard it’s going to be for you.”
Deep down, Alex knew he was right and that he probably should take a minute to prepare, but before he could really consider that he instead instinctively and instantly replied:
“I’m ready. Let’s go.”