National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, MD – 11AM
On the late morning of September 6th, Catherine Mueller entered the BSL-4 laboratory after having performed a double check of her one piece pressurized air suit. The door gasped as it opened onto the laboratory floor. Before her were tables of lab instruments, test tubes and computers for analytics. Being rated a bio-safety level four lab, the space was completely isolated from its neighboring labs in the NIH and sectioned off by a steel encasement, lining the walls of the lab. Covered head to foot, she stepped out into the top laboratory in the country. A curling oxygen hose connected the back of her suit to the ceiling, providing her with uncontaminated breaths and a pressurized atmosphere. Catherine's head, enclosed in a cylinder of plastic, turned to the older man already at work on a contagion brewing in the test tubes lined before him.
"Alright! Alright! You were right!" Catherine's English-accented voice muffled through her headset and into the headphones of the elderly man's. Her blue gloved hands waved off the impending I told you so...
"Catherine, you are the brightest young scientist I have ever met. You are so brilliant no one will be able to quantify the lives you will save within these walls.... But your taste in men sucks!" the old man's quaking voice targeted. Dr. Woslowski was the most experienced lab technician on staff at the NIH. With 40 years of experience under his belt, he developed a reputation for being the Einstein in biology, a nickname his explosion of long grey hair only added to. He turned from the table with his pipetting device still in hand. As his soft green eyes met his apprentice, he could see her short, honey colored hair held back like curtains by her large dark glasses. The hook of her nose kept her glasses up even as she stared down through microscopes all day. Despite her plain complexion, lack of upkeep and bagging eyes, her playful personality ignited an irresistible spark.
"I should just look here, every time I go on a date with someone in DC, I always wind up with some doctor type--" The elderly man laughed, cutting her off.
"A doctor type? The only doctor I could see you ever getting with is Dr. Bones!"
"For God Sakes, Jim, I'm a Scientist not a super model..." He always found her obsession with Star Trek hilarious. It was one of the dorky qualities about her that fueled his typecasting of her.
"Well, I have the perfect guy for you then... he's right over there, he's just contagious... he's clingy and will love you from the inside out...." He said nodding over to the other side of the laboratory.
"It came?!" Catherine perked up.
"Just came in from West Africa, I haven't touched it yet. I know you tracked it down yourself..." The only thing that made Catherine Mueller more excited than Captain Kirk in his tight yellow uniform was a fresh bacterium ready for dissecting. She spun on her inflated heel and proceeded to her workstation where a refrigerated drawer slid out, releasing the fumes of dry ice.
There inside was a cell cultivation flask, containing the sample ready for dissection. It was labeled HCL-238, although it remained an anonymous visitor in their laboratory.
"It's finally here..." She gazed upon the viles, as if it were a candy store.
"As you know, it has killed thirty people down in Ebola country? Symptoms are not consistent with Ebola, though. So, of course we get the task of figuring out what it is and saving the world from it. How'd you find this thing again?" Dr. Woslowski spoke through their headset communication.
"I heard a rumor about this while I was down there with Doctors without Borders. It had struck a few towns over. They asked for aid, so I went over and saw that whatever was brewing there was like nothing I had ever seen..." Catherine explained.
They both retreated to their own thoughts and procedures as each of the scientists worked on the samples before them. Two hours went by without a word from either of them. Catherine, only 32 years of age, had been mentored into the world of biological research by Dr. Woslowski. Although she had quickly distinguished herself as a rock star in all things contagious, today was her first attempt at processing a biological profile of an unknown substance. Dr.Woslowski entrusted her with the task, as he was able to train her ardently in the necessary procedures to perform. They had worked well together through three and a half years. The lack of questions over the headset left Dr. Woslowski comfortable that Catherine had finally found her footing in biological profiling. The ominous quiet of the laboratory always had a disquieting impact on him.
"You believe in ghosts?" He asked over the headset.
"No, why?" Catherine asked.
"You know those samples were scraped from its victims, part of them are still in it," he reminded her.
"Geez, Dr. Woslowski, could you be any more morose?" She asked as her instruments combined two liquids into one blue test tube.
"I'm just saying..." His concentration zeroed back on his work.
But then.... It broke.
Red sirens sounded off through the laboratory. A piercing alarm rang out.
"What the hell is that?!" Catherine asked over the comm.
"Hide now, Catherine!" She heard her mentor order from the other side of the laboratory. She immediately dropped to her hands and knees and crawled behind a cabinet. Impossible to effectively take cover in an inflated suit, she hoped a cabinet could offer the most help.
"What is going on, Dr. Woslowski?!" She whispered over the headset, in a yelping terrified tone. Then she heard a hushed voice come through her ears.
"An armed man has just entered the laboratory, keep your cover and listen to me...." it took a shocking moment to register, as it computed, her limbs began shaking uncontrollable. She squatted to the floor to find more cover.
"Catherine! He is coming your way, stay still!" Just as she heard this, a sight stopped her dead. It was a leg stepping in front of her line of sight of the laboratory. She saw the tip of a bloody knife dangle at the man's side. A drop of blood formed heavy and free-falled off its tip, splashing on the flashing red lab floor. Her eyes followed the man as he approached Catherine's workstation, step by step. He rummaged purposefully through her station of viles and chemicals until he came upon the blue test tube – the new bacterium Catherine had been working on. He placed a plunger in the top of the test tube to secure the liquid and then pocketed it in his assault vest.
"Do you have any idea what that is?!" Catherine jumped out from her cover, squaring up the exposed man confidently.
"Apollo is upon us..." He hissed, illuminated in red. His teeth snarled at her as he began approaching her slowly with short, heavy steps. Catherine Mueller's breaths shortened and her heart pounded in her chest. Her eyes darted to the intruder's hand, gripping around the handle of his knife. As he inched closer, Catherine backed into the corner and cowered down onto her knees. He flipped a lab cart over sending instruments scattering across the floor.
She awaited death.
The bloody knife drooled.
She closed her eyes. She felt a tug from behind her and immediately she felt the thinning of the air she breathed. Her pressurizing hose had been cut. The knife drew in closer to her – she could feel its presence. She began to feel faint as her body adjusted to the depressurizing of the suit.
Then, a voice cried out over her comm, breaking the scream of the alarm siren.
"Get away from h—" In one twitch, the man spun on a dime and flung his knife. End over end it soared across the room, slashing through Dr. Woslowski's protective face guard and straight into his right eye. His eyeball exploded on impact, the blade carved its way into the brain.
He dropped.
Catherine screamed as she listened over her comm, unable to open her eyes. She felt everything beginning to fade as she battled to remain conscience. Disarmed now, the man fled out the airlock, skipping the decontamination shower, and out of the laboratory. Catherine, paralyzed in terror, whispered through her comm mic.
"Dr. Woslowski? ... Dr. Woslowski?... please answer me...." Her clenched eyes could not see the cadaver lying motionless across the room. Her paralysis began to melt as the oxygen she breathed continued to thin. The darkness began to swallow her. She remained huddled over her knees, whispering for contact over and over until the depressurization hijacked control. Then her mind reached its twilight and she too fell limp on the laboratory floor. Their dormant bodies lay, illuminated in the red of the alarm, alone and waiting to be discovered.
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