Round 3 of the Sci-Fi Smackdown was "surprisepunk." For this round I used pics 8 (half naked guy in shower...yeah...I had too...), 7 (pigs), 4 (lab with several work stations), and 3 (creepy looking microscopic organism)
Enjoy!
----------------
The smell of manure lingered in the air, made worse by the sweltering heat and humidity. Juliette watched with a devilish smile as Jack shovelled slop into the pig's feeding troughs. His biceps bulged and glistened in the sun as he worked her father's farm and it always made for excellent entertainment for Juliette.
"Afternoon miss," Jack tipped his head in Juliette's direction.
Juliette giggled and pretended to blush, "Oh hello."
"Didn't your mother ask you to do something?"
"Oh right," Juliette batted her thick lashes and turned toward the hen house, exaggerating the sway in her hips as she walked.
As she reached the entrance to the coop, she turned to see if Jack had been looking. With a huff and a stomp of her heel she saw that he hadn't torn himself away from his work for even a moment to watch her walk away.
She went about her business, collecting eggs from each hen as she strolled up and down the aisles of squawking birds. When she felt that Jack had probably finished what he was doing, she poked her head out to see that he'd left the pig pen. Juliette knew Jack well enough to know that he'd headed into the small shack that he'd been allowed to live in while he worked.
With all the stealth she could muster, Juliette snuck across the farm and came to Jack's window. She peaked in and saw that he was unbuttoning the denim coveralls that he wore while he worked. He'd started the shower and stepped under the steaming water. Juliette started to feel herself get excited, it wasn't the first time she'd watched him showering and it was difficult to contain herself when ever she did.
She watched Jack run his fingers through his wet hair, admiring the faded tattoo on his shoulder and the way the water clung to his well developed muscles. Climbing up on top of an over turned slop bucket, she craned her neck to get a better view but her makeshift podium suddenly slipped and she lost her footing.
"Hello?" She heard Jack calling and tried to be silent. "Hello? Who's there?"
Juliette heard the window she was crouched beneath slide open. She held her breath and pressed herself against the wall. She closed her eyes, she held her breath, she did all of the things a young child hopes will make them invisible but still she was discovered.
"Juliette?" She heard Jack say and she turned her head to look up at him.
"Oh, hi!" She smiled and bounced to her feet. "I was just, you know, looking for this bucket!"
"Oh were you?" Jack said with a coy smile. "Was it the bucket you were looking for?"
Juliette felt a stirring in her gut as her eyes met Jack's, he was still smiling as he leaned out the window a little further, his large shoulders protruding out into the fresh air. "Yeah," she said. "Just looking for the bucket."
"Cause I could swear you were looking for something else…maybe it's inside?"
Juliette shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She had always wanted Jack, but figured he'd think she was too young. Maybe now was her chance "Yeah, maybe' it's inside."
Jack grinned and went to open the front door of his tiny home for her. He was still completely naked and dripping with water, she blushed for real this time and entered the shack, staring unabashedly at his beautiful body.
Juliette turned away from Jack but he grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her close. She felt the water soaking through her clothing and she tingled all over, "Is this what you were looking for?" He asked, kissing her passionately.
"I guess so," Juliette smiled and let herself relax, she felt her body sinking into his as his arms wrapped around her. He kissed her again, then his lips moved to her neck and she felt his grip tighten.
Jack suddenly tore himself away from Juliette, allowing her to take in his nudity, before throwing her onto his bed. She didn't know whether she was excited or nervous, she'd only been with one other guy before and he wasn't nearly as experienced as Jack.
"I'll be careful," he said as he climbed on top of her. She trusted him and allowed herself to relax again as he pressed against her and kissed her.
She felt his arms wriggling under her body, looping around her again as his kisses trailed down her face and lingered on her neck. His tongue tickled her flesh and she felt goosebumps spreading down her back and arms.
"Oh Jack," she said, feeling her ecstasy rising. "Jack…oh…wait..no…that hurts Jack!" She tried to push him away as he started nibbling on her skin. It felt good at first, but then he started to bite harder. She screamed and kicked against him but his grip was too tight, he was too strong for her to fight off.
Juliette screamed as Jack broke the skin of her neck. Blood spurted across the room as he tore a piece of flesh and muscle away, her exposed carotid artery gushing the hot red liquid all over herself and the small one-room home.
--------------
Catherine sat quietly at her microscope. She could hear the sounds of dozens of other researches performing their menial tasks around her. A heavy sigh rolled over her red lips as she examined the slide of pig's blood for the millionth time that day, nothing seemed to be wrong with it, it seemed like every other slide of blood she'd ever looked at but her boss would never except that as fact. George would always just send her back to her work station and tell her to look again.
She didn't know what the others were working on, there was very little communication amongst the researchers of Dynacon. Everyone was assigned their specific jobs and they were done with no questions asked. It was frustrating, she could smell the bunsen burners and hear the clicking of tongues as people recorded their findings but were never allowed to talk about them.
"Damn it!" She yelled as she adjusted her microscope and it pressed too hard against the slide. It cracked open and she pulled it away, tossing it away in the sealed container of biohazardous materials which would be incinerated at the end of the day.
Climbing back onto her tall stool she pulled out another slide, slipping it under the lens of the microscope. With a deep breath and hunching shoulders, she put her face close to the eyepiece and flicked on the small lightbulb that allowed her to see in better detail what was on the slide.
"Whoa!" She leapt backwards as the cells on her newest slide came into focus. She checked the source of the blood then quickly began to record what she'd seen, knowing that George would not send her back to look again with these results.
As soon as she was done scribbling down her observations she shot up from her seat and quickly made her way to George's lavish office. "Excuse me sir," she said in a sheepish tone as she slipped her head around the door.
"What do you want Catherine! I told you not to bug me unless you've found something," George barely looked up from his paper work as he spoke.
"I know, I do," Catherine struggled with a knot that had suddenly formed in her throat. "I just…I think I've found something you might be interested in."
George looked up from his desk and cocked a brow at her. He waved his right hand in the air, enticing her to go on but she stumbled over her words, "Oh for God's sake spit it out woman!"
"I…I can't even describe it, you should probably come look for yourself."
George huffed and stood up, following Catherine to her microscope, mumbling under his breath the whole way about wasting his time.
"Well?" George said as he peered into the microscope. He saw nothing but oblong red blood cells.
"Well?" Catherine said, eyes wide. "What do you mean 'well?' Isn't this something you'd like to see?"
"Catherine," George said, rolling his eyes. "I've seen blood cells before, you're job is to look for abnormalities, not regularities."
"What? But…but it was abnormal. There was this thing, it looked terrible, like no organism I'd ever seen."
"There is no organism now, just regular pig's blood," George huffed and started walking away. "Next time you feel the need to waste my time, don't."
Catherine sighed and peered into her microscope again, the thing that she'd seen was gone, lost in a sea of regular, everyday blood cells. But, to her amazement, she watched as a particularly large looking white blood cell burst open. From inside the cell wall came a vicious looking little creature, it looked like it had vicious claws and a ring of sharp teeth lining its mouth, but Catherine knew that on this scale that was nearly impossible.
"If George doesn't want his time wasted," Catherine whispered and slipped the slide from under the stage clips. "I'll just keep this one for myself."
After slipping the slide into her purse she prepared to leave for the day. She drove home with her bag on the passenger seat, glancing over at it every minute or so as if she was surprised it was still there. She'd never stolen anything before, especially not from her work, and it gave her a strange feeling of being free but trapped at the same time.
At her house she pulled out the microscope she'd kept at home, it was not nearly as impressive as the one that Dynacon had provided her with but she figured it would do the trick. She put the slide onto the stage, carefully placing the flattened drop of blood over the small hole that allowed light to shine through it and she looked into the eyepiece.
Catherine spent all night staring at the microscopic organism. She decided it was most likely some sort of parasite, but she'd never seen anything so small work so quickly. It easily devoured white blood cells, growing larger and larger as it did until it split into two.
As the night dragged on, Catherine began to drift off. She felt her head growing heavy and actually managed to fall asleep with her eye against the eyepiece, only for a moment though as the weight of her head caused the microscope to cascade to the floor.
"Shit," she muttered as she started to clean up, slicing her finger on the broken bits of glass that were once the slide she'd been looking at. Instantly she began to dread the implications of what had happened, she'd have to go to work, she'd have to explain to George that she'd stolen the slide, and potentially contaminated herself with what ever it was that was living in the pig's blood.
---------------
"George we're running out of time," The deep voice on the other line said.
"I know, I know!" George sat at his desk going over the same papers from earlier in the day, his phone was on speaker so he didn't have to tear himself from his work.
"The girl's dead, and we've had to hospitalize the officers who arrested the guy, as well as her parents and even the doctors who have been working their case. This is getting out of hand and we need answers!"
"I'm trying Gerry! It's not my fault I've been given useless employees who can't tell the difference between a virus and…" There was a call waiting beep and George took a deep breath, "Gerry I'm going to have to ask you to hold."
Without waiting for a response George clicked over to the other line and Catherine started talking before he could even say hello. "George, I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have done it but I did and now I might be in trouble."
"What?" George's voice was rising and he felt blood pumping in his ears as he flushed with rage, "What did you do!?"
"I took that slide, I swear I saw something on it! I took it and I brought it home to get a closer look but it broke open! I cut myself George and-"
"Get over here, now!" George said with urgency in his voice and went back to Gerry. "Gerry I'm going to have to let you go, one of my most incompetent researchers might have exposed herself."
"George, do I have to remind you of the implications of that?" Gerry said after a moment of silence.
"No, Gerry, you don't need to remind me!" George huffed and hung up, then started pacing his office. It was a good thing he'd decided to stay so late, not that he had much of a choice. Ever since the CDC had commandeered his lab two weeks ago he hadn't seen his wife, hadn't seen his children or even slept in his own bed. Every waking moment was spent trying to solve this mysterious case.
"George? George!" He heard his name being called and he yelled out for Catherine to join him in his office. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I knew I shouldn't have done it."
"Oh shut up would you!" George snapped and rubbed his forehead, "Tell me what you saw, tell me everything."
"Well, I brought my notes. Will these help? Will I be okay?"
"Frankly, I don't even know if you deserve to be okay," George said as he grabbed her notes. "That was a stupid thing you did Catherine. A very stupid, inappropriate, unethical, stupid stupid thing!"
"I know, I'm sorry," Catherine looked away as George skimmed her notes, whispering about how stupid she was.
"You could have just compromised the entire lab you know that?" George reprimanded her while he read. "I should fire you for this, I should press charges for stealing lab property! If I have my way you'll never work in this town again after this you hear me?"
"SHUT UP!" Catherine screamed at the top of her lungs. She could feel her rage fuelling her and tried to stop herself. "Shut up shut up! You sad, sorry little man! You think you can just talk to me like this and get away with it?"
"Well what will you do about it Catherine?" George asked, crossing his arms. "You're nothing, you're an entry level researcher with no clout in this organization!"
"Clout!?" Catherine yelled, unable to control her anger anymore. "You think your meagre middle management position gives you clout? You're nothing but an annoying bug in the Dynacon soup. You toss your weight around like you mean something but when it comes down to it you're still here this late at night because someone's ordered you to be."
"Yes, well it's good they have isn't it? Otherwise you'd be left to deal with this monumental mistake all on your own you incompetent woman!"
Catherine let out a snarl as she felt her temperature rising. She threw herself over George's desk and started beating him, tearing at his clothing and pounding his head against the floor. An overbearing urge to rip into his flesh came over her and she tore pieces of his neck and face away with her teeth as he screamed a terrible scream without a single soul to hear it.
------------
"So we're sure this drug will work?" Gerry asked Paula as she prepared the shots that had arrived in unmarked coolers that morning. Paula had been assigned to George's position after he was torn apart by Catherine and she wasn't made aware of the situation until after she'd accepted the position. Now she spent everyday sweating bullets and every night crying herself to sleep.
She and Gerry had set up in a clinic not far from her office and now they could see the huge line of people outside growing anxious as they started pounding on the door.
"It's all we've got isn't it?" Paula said, checking the last few syringes to ensure the proper amount of yellow liquid was in each. "According to what we know, this parasite is somehow causing people to lose their inhibitions, it's what's making people crazy isn't it? And this drug is the only thing we know that will beat it."
"Okay," Gerry wrung his hands together, knowing that there was nothing else to be done. He stepped toward the door and poked his head out, trying hard to prevent the rush of people from storming the place. "Everyone! Please! There is plenty of this drug to go around, if you could all just line up and wait patiently we will get to you all!"
The crowd instantly grew angry and flooded into the clinic. Gerry tried to hold them back but felt himself become carried away with the crowd, he called for help but was suddenly on the floor. He felt feet pounding against his body and tried desperately to be free, to no avail.
The rioting crowd tore into the coolers full of the mystery drug they knew nothing about. Some people grabbed only what they needed for their families, others greedily snapped up as much as they could, intent on selling their left overs or hoarding them in case of emergencies.
Paula managed to slip away from the crowd, though not entirely unbruised, and closed herself up in a storage locker. She watched the mayhem through the slats in the metal door and cried to herself, unsure of how to quell the riot.
------
"There was a riot at yet another clinic today," The news caster said as Paula watched from her bed. She hadn't been outside in days, too distraught by the things she'd seen to leave her bedroom.
In the course of this mysterious outbreak, she'd seen infected people tearing each other apart, she'd seen riot after riot as those who weren't infected fought for the right to seek medical attention first. Now, even though most of the population had been injected with the murky yellow cure, they still fought.
People were hoarding resources, shooting each other for straying to close to food supplies. There had been a stabbing at the gas station down the street from her house just yesterday as panicked citizens struggled to provide for their families.
Just as she had decided to go back to sleep, the phone rang. She rolled over and lifted the receiver with some effort and put it to her ear. "What?"
"Paula, we've got an emergency on our hands," Paula's assistant Ashley said, sounding even more nervous than ever.
"No shit," Paula put her hand to her face.
"No, I mean…a new emergency."
"I know what you meant," Paula said with a sigh. "What is it now?"
"Well…it turns out we may have jumped the gun."
"What does that mean?"
"Maybe you should come in for this."
Paula struggled to get to her office, the streets were packed with panicked people trying to ensure the safety of their families and their possessions. She tried not to piss anybody off during her commute, knowing that everyone was quite high strung in these difficult times.
As she parked her car she felt a sense of dread seeping through her body. She entered the building and decided to take the stairs, longing for another moment or two where the fate of so many people didn't rest in her hands.
She came into the lab and found Ashley working furiously with several other researchers.
"What is it?" Paula asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Take a look at this," Ashley offered a microscope to Paula and she peered through the eye piece. She wasn't surprised to see bloated white blobs of cells floating around in the blood, each one burst open as the angry parasite causing all this mess chewed its way out.
"So?" Paula shook her head as she backed away.
"This disease, we don't know much about it," Ashley said. "Except for the fact that it attacks the immune system first, and that this parasite has been present in every infected victim to date."
"Yes?" Paula tapped her toe now.
"Well, I was wondering, if the parasite came from the pigs on that farm, why are none of the pigs effected like we are?"
"As if you're the only one asking that question?"
"But then why am I the only one who came up with an answer?" Ashly said with a smug grin.
Paula stayed silent for a second. She continued to tap her toe and sucked her teeth, "What's the answer?"
"It was so simple, really," Ashley tried not to smile, "Every time I've ever observed this thing, it's been destroying these white blood cells that always seemed a bit peculiar."
"Yes, because there's a microscopic parasite growing inside of them."
"Wrong!" Ashley lifted her finger into the air and pulled a sheet of paper from a file folder on her desk. The others who had been with her when Paula arrived seemed hushed now and solemn, even though Ashley was quite proud of her discovery.
Paula looked over the paper and her mouth dropped open. Her eyes grew wide and she looked at Ashley, "What does this mean?"
"It means none of those blood cell were ACTUALLY blood cells!" Ashley couldn't help but smile now, "Or at least, not blood cells from the subjects we tested. They were foreign, they came from somewhere else."
"So…?"
"Don't you see? Here we've been fighting the parasite, when really it's been working to our advantage," Ashley was bubbling with joy. "These foreign cells, they mask themselves as part of their host's immune system when really they're destroying us from the inside out! The parasites are like…a natural born enemy of the foreign cells which, in most people, keep the disease in check!
"When I put the parasite in with regular white blood cells, it stayed dormant, it didn't do anything but float around. I put it in with these foreign cells and it jumped into action!"
"So…all of those people…everyone who's received a shot to kill these parasites…"
Ashley stopped bouncing with joy. Her excitement about solving such a mystery seemed so inappropriate when Paula put it that way.
From outside there came a terrible scream, which was echoed up and down the street. Paula moved to the window and peered down at a frightful scene. Everywhere she looked there were mother's yelling at children, lovers tearing each other's clothes off in the street. Windows were being smashed and as the mayhem reached a boiling point Paula saw skin torn by teeth, hair pulled out in clumps and blood was everywhere.
"Dear God…" She said, putting her hand to her mouth, "What have we done?"