The Science Prophet (Complete)

Chapter 1: Discovery

“What’s up, Nurse Darwin,” he grunted. Despite his obviously pained state, he still managed to pronounce his irreverent salutation with his usual heavy dose of sarcasm.

She had greeted him with an icy stare and watched silently as she stumbled into the console room.

A moment later, a frowning Lucy Chang darted out of the same room. Lucy was one of Darwin’s star students, but much of her valuable time was wasted filling in for Rob. Lucy’s frown was probably a mix of contempt for Rob and disgust at the stench of alcohol his body carried with it.

Darwin smiled and shook her head, and Lucy composed herself, rolled her eyes and walked over to the seat in the main lab office where she did her real work, running analyses of brain scan results.

Their subject for the day, a 20 year old student who was being paid $25 for her contribution to science, was already set up in the scanner, ready to begin. While waiting for Rob, Lucy had already carefully set several parameters that determined what frequencies and intensities of energy and radiation the BrainCleaver would emit and search for. These parameters were set from the console where Rob now sat, but he was strictly forbidden from changing them. His job was limited to hitting the “Scan” button.

Darwin called into the console room. “Rob, we’re all set and calibrated. Go ahead and start.”

There was no response. “Rob?” she called, a little louder.

Still no response. She shook her head and frowned. This is really ridiculous, she thought as she marched into the tiny room. Lucy studiously peered at her computer screen, pretending not to notice the situation.

Darwin walked through the doorway and saw Rob slumped over the console keyboard, his hand over his head, and the coffee balanced precariously on the edge of the desk. She could smell the stench of alcohol, almost strong enough to mask the residue of cheap perfume that his body also gave off.

“Rob,” she said, placing her hand on his shoulder.

“What, huh?”  Rob half yelled, half groaned, as he turned around in his swivel chair to glare at her with bloodshot eyes.

As he moved, his elbow caught his giant coffee cup and spilled the near-boiling contents. About half spilled into the fan vent of the CPU of the console, and the rest poured into his crotch.

“Shit, look what you made me do,” he blurted, standing up and stumbling backwards and trying to pull his suddenly scalding pants away from the flesh of his legs and groin.

Darwin ignored Rob. She heard a loud hissing sound and smelled burning plastic and rubber. She stared at the computer console’s screen. The calibrations that Lucy had carefully set were shooting up and down as the computer malfunctioned. The BrainCleaver was emitting all kinds of radiation into the research subject’s brain.

She spun out of the room. “Shit! Shut it down! Lucy, shut it down and get the subject out of the scanner!”

Lucy looked up from her screen, frozen in panic.

“Shut it down!” screamed Darwin. She was about to run to the subject room when she saw smoke out of the corner of her eye.

“Goddammit, fire!” she cried. The computer console was burning, and the control room was already full of an acrid white smoke.

In the background, she heard Rob cursing in pain in a high pitched falsetto.

“Where the hell is the –“ she saw the fire extinguisher before she even finished the question. It was set behind a breakaway glass screen. Without thinking, she punched through the glass and seized the fire extinguisher, pivoted back towards the console room and sent a torrent of foam spray at the burning computer.