“Winston, that directive is to protect us all. We have to have rules and we have to follow them.”
“I don’t like who makes the rules and I’m going to do something about it.”
“Winston, you keep on pushing and there will be a point where you will slip through and then there will be no way back, I promise.”
“Carl, you don’t scare me. You and your off world buddies sure think you’re special.”
“Let’s get back to the point of this conversation. We are dealing with the unknown, and, as I have tried to explain before—”
“What if the major vehicle had been involved?” interrupted Winston.
“No comment.”
“You’d just leave them too.”
“The main vehicle is not under discussion. 18A3C pertains to Donald right now, and if you want to discuss that fine.”
“I see, but why this silly directive in the first place?”
“Silly! An unknown brought back into the atmosphere could run wild.”
“An unknown what? All you space nuts are the same, seeing little green men around all the corners.”
“It’s a possibility Winston, don’t overlook that thought.”
“I’ll tell my viewers the story next time I’m on. I like to keep things on the light side, the public expects it. You know how popular fairy tales are these days.”
“Don’t poke fun Winston; these things are done for a purpose.”
“What purpose dictates leaving a man in space, dying all alone?”
“Donald was killed instantly,” Carl stated emphatically.
“Are you sure?” Winston returned quizzically.
“Yes, of course!” Carl was indignant. “Do you think this agency wouldn’t do everything possible to rescue one of its own?”
“Donald just might be trying to contact you,” Winston said in a hushed voice, “and you don’t want to listen.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Winston. I have to run, I’d love to chat, but I have to earn my pay.”
“You’ve got a real mess for sure, Carl, but you should be able to sweep it under the rug because I have a lot of faith in you.”
“Adams, we put out what we know, when we know it. Besides, I wouldn’t put anything under the rug because that’s where you hang out.”
“Do I make you nervous, Carl?”
“You do bother me Winston.”
“Ah, I love to match wits with you Carl; it makes me feel so superior.”
“Good-bye Winston!” Carl let his hand hang down, the phone still in it as he leaned back against the couch next to Amy. She put her arm around his back and leaned her head on his shoulder.
“Winston getting you down?”
“No.” Carl sat thinking, comfortable for the moment with the closeness. “It’s Donald that’s the tough one.”
“What was Winston being ridiculous about?”
“Oh, he’s just trying to piss me off, I guess.”
“Sounds like he got somewhere. What kind of devious statement did he come up with?”
“He said Donald was trying to make contact, or something like that.” Carl threw the cell phone at the back of the couch. It bounced from the back and dropped to the seat cushion and began to ring again. Carl just looked at it.
“You must be perturbed,” Amy remarked. “I’ve never seen you not answer your phone.”
“I’m going to hang his ass,” Carl growled.
“Why do you let him get you so mad?”
“So I won’t forget, so when the time comes I won’t go soft.” Carl took a deep breath. “I am gonna nail his ass!”
“You’re scary.”
“You just don’t understand because you don’t have to deal with anyone like Winston.”
“Yeah, you’re right there; there are no ambitious or jealous people where I work.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Carl pushed off from the couch, thinking, “You get to work with people that got there on their merit?”
“Most did, but you know better.”
“I guess. Why am I so afraid of this Winston character?”
“Well, Carl, as long as I’ve been with you, I have learned one important thing.”
“And what’s that?”
“Sooner or later you’ll figure it out, all by yourself.”
“Oh hardy har, har, har,” Carl said, putting his arms around Amy. The cell phone started to ring again.
Carl snuggled his face into Amy’s hair for a moment, then said, “Shit!” He let go of her, reaching for the phone. “Yeah,” Carl answered.
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” Mac sounded peeved.
“I was fuming about Winston.”
“You talked to him then?”
“Yeah, we mostly spat at each other, though.”
“You gave him 18A3C?”
“Yeah, but he was very critical of the entire concept.”
“Oh, I’m sure he was delighted with the all the drama he’ll be able to attach. Listen, Carl, we’ve got some strange things going on up there,” Mac added excitedly.
“The shuttle?”
“Yeah, specifically Donald.”
“Donald? I thought he was dead?”
“Sort of.”
“Sort of!” Carl shouted, looking at Amy, a stunned look on his face. “What the hell are you getting at, dead is dead?”
“Possibly! Look, this is not the way. See you in my office in thirty.”
Carl stared at the phone after Mac hung up, and after a moment turned to Amy, “I have to go see Mac,” he said, finally hanging it up. “I’ll be thinking of you.”
“Not so fast.” Amy rushed and blocked his path to the door. “Donald?” she didn’t say anything more, just stood looking at Carl, waiting.
“You’re not supposed to be listening.”
“Oh right Carl!” She still stood there, still waiting.
“What?” Carl said, trying to get around her, but she backed to the door completely blocking the way.
“Dead is dead, or is it?” Amy asked.
“Donald is dead!” Carl pointed up, his finger tip almost reaching the ceiling. “The conditions out there guarantee that, trust me. He can’t possibly be alive.”
“Then what’s Mac calling about?”
“That’s what I’m headed down there about.”
“Thanks Carl!” Amy declared, hands on her hips and an angry look on her face as she stepped aside. “Don’t come to me for comfort if you can’t at least confide in me.”
Carl took Amy by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “When I find out what the hell is going on, I will tell you, I promise.”
“Okay,” Amy moved close, “as long as you promise. Think I’ll get to see you, at least a little bit?”
“If you don’t, blame it on Winston.”
“Now I hate him too.”
Chapter 4
CARL AND MAC WERE IN MAC’S OFFICE - “Dammit Mac, I don’t give a damn who’s going to win the Super Bowl, and my third cousin on my mother’s side is okay, so don’t bother asking.” Carl was sitting across from Mac who was at his desk. “I want to know what the hell’s going on? What is happening with Donald?”
“I can’t say,” Mac shrugged his shoulders, holding his hands out apologetic. “I don’t know. They haven’t told me everything yet.”
“You know more than you’re telling me,” Carl said leaning forward, “correct?”
“Yes, but I don’t know enough to explain it.”
The phone rang and Mac picked it up. “Hello, yes, Dennis.”
“I see.” Mac listened. “No, I wouldn’t know how to define that.” Mac listened some more. “Look, all that’s expected from you is statistics.” Mac listened again. “We have people that are responsible for solutions, but don’t feel that your suggestions aren’t welcome.” Mac sat rubbing his temple with his free hand, listening again. “Yeah, yeah, I’m wondering too,” Mac jumped in. “Feed me any info when you get it and tell e
veryone to stay calm.”
Mac turned to Carl and let out a small whistle as he replaced the phone.
“Okay, if I’ve been boring you, I’m going to make it up to you, right now. Donald is dead. An object, judged to be one-tenth of a millimeter, struck Donald in the left upper buttocks at an estimated velocity of 18,000 feet per second. The object punctured his suit, traveled down through Donald’s gluteus, exited the other side of the suit and went on its merry way. The doctors are in agreement that the object wouldn’t have done much damage to him. More than likely, he wouldn’t have felt much more than a sizable sting considering the size of the hole it would have made. But, because of the loss of pressurization, resulting from the explosive expansion of the two holes caused by the entry and the exit of the particle; Donald lost consciousness almost immediately. The decompression took two-seconds, at which point his life signs were lost.”
“Then what’s this stuff about him still being alive?”
“I’m coming to that. Breathing stopped the same two-seconds after impact, obviously because there was nothing to breath. His heart stopped at five-seconds, clinically dead. Most brain functions continued for a little over six-seconds, which is reasonable, considering the conditions his body was being subjected to.”
“You said most brain functions. Is this the strange part that’s got everybody upside down?”
“Bingo! Donald’s beta waves ceased after six-seconds. The alpha waves are still very strong.”
“Part of his brain is still functioning, according to the sensors?” Carl was incredulous.
“That’s it! The unconscious part is still ticking away. As a matter of fact, as I said, the alpha waves are strong, stronger than anyone’s ever seen before.”
“Can anyone make anything from it?”
“Nada! Hey, I’ll tell you right now, plenty of our people are plenty nervous. This is beyond anything that anyone could have imagined. Every situation had been figured in, directives decided, then wham, the unexplainable. The computers are baffled, nothing even close to this on any of the programs, and no way to write a new program. We’ll just have to start at the beginning and muddle through.”
“What’s the decision on retrieving Donald, after this development?”
“No change for Christ sakes. This is definitely an unknown, and that was the purpose of 18A3C in the first place.”
“Can this be kept under wraps?”
“I wouldn’t want to guarantee anything. Many people might have to be brought into this thing, unless we get real lucky and an answer pops up real quick.”
“Maybe the waves will cease.”
“We’d still have to figure out why they went on so long, wouldn’t we Carl?”
“Ah yeah. I know this is a dumb question, but I have to ask.”
“There are no equipment failures, so don’t bother. That was the first thing we checked. Donald has been out there over nine hours. His oxygen would have run out long ago, even if his suit hadn’t been punctured, and we have confirmed the damage to the suit visually.”
“What about a malfunction in the sensors?”
“They’re sensors; if they don’t work, we get nothing. If they do work they send us data. They can’t make up their own and right now they’re sending us a lot of detailed information coming from Donald’s brain.”
“What’s the information say?”
“No one knows, we can’t read it.”
“Oh great! Your secretary said Winston had another special while I was on my way, anything exciting?”
“No, I thought you were going to give him 18A3C?”
“I did, you mean he didn’t use it?”
“No, what do you think he’s up to?”
“Oh,” Carl sat thinking, “I’ll bet he didn’t have time to doctor it enough to suit his needs.”
Mac smiled. “You’re expecting a real production then?”
“What else? I doubt if Winston is going to let everyone down on this one. Anyway, we’ll know in about an hour, his regular broadcast is on then. Geez it’s getting late, Amy is going to be wondering.”
“She’s a nice lady, how’s it going with her?”
“Oh pretty good; we ‘were’ getting to be real friends.”
“Were?”
“You don’t think there’s going to be a whole lot of time for friends with this major fuck-up on our hands?”
“Carl, there’s always time for friends, and this isn’t a fuck-up. Nobody made any mistakes, it was just bad timing.”
“Adams is going to do his best to make it look like somebody’s fault.”
“Sure he is, he gets ahead that way, but you know, he might just be necessary on this one.”
“You dislike him more than I do, I’d love to hear your explanation for that last comment.”
“He’s going to make us work and think like hell, and, I predict that he will either sink his own ship, or give us a good enough excuse to blow him out of the water.”
“God, I would love that!” Carl exclaimed, getting up.
***
Carl was back on his couch, working on his computer and talking into his cell phone.
“Mac, I’ve gone over the material you gave me, and I am in full agreement. It is certain that no human or mechanical error was to blame for Donald’s death, correction, suspected death.” He paused as Amy walked into the apartment. She walked directly behind Carl and continued into the bedroom. “My original questioning of 18A3C has been rethought,” he continued in a quieter voice, “and I have to concede; it is entirely possible that Donald is indeed contaminated.” He looked toward the bedroom door, making sure that Amy was still in there. “I can think of no other reason for the present situation concerning him. We must proceed with 18BC4 and 5 because to possibly allow whatever might be contaminating Donald into the atmosphere could be catastrophic. That would constitute a screw up.”
Amy walked out of the bedroom heading for him.
“I would like to have you present all that tomorrow at the press conference. Change the ‘a screw up’ part though,” instructed Mac.
“Winston is getting ready to go on the air,” Carl told Mac, as Amy curled up next to him on the couch. “You going to watch?”
“Yeah, I had them bring a TV in here.”
“Mac, I remember once that you said that could never happen.”
“Got a cot in here too.”
“You know Mac; turning into a blubbering burnout isn’t going to help much.”
“There’s nothing at home to take my mind off this thing.”
“Get a puppy.”
“There you go,” Mac snarled, “scooping up runny poop will solve all my problems.”
“Hum, probably just remind you of Winston.”
“No doubt,” Mac sighed, hanging up.
“Mac getting stressed out?” Amy asked.
“No more than usual, he’s got a lot on his shoulders.”
“I can imagine!” Amy snuggled in closer. “With one of his astronauts up there dead,” Amy flipped her head skyward, “sending signals down.”
“I should never have told you a thing.” Carl punched her in the shoulder. “Why don’t you like Mac, anyway?”
“I don’t trust him,” Amy said quickly, then hesitated, “I don’t know, we just clash.”
“You’re not his type of woman,” Carl agreed. “Hey, here comes Winston Baby.”
***
“Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Winston Adams with the ADS late evening news. In all my life, I never expected to have to report something as disturbing as what I have to report tonight. This afternoon we reported the death of Astronaut Lieutenant Colonel, Ronald Curtis Donald, who was the science officer aboard the Space Shuttle Reunion. According to official reports, Colonel Donald was struck by an unnamed object while outside the shuttle. This reporter can accept that. What this reporter cannot accept is the behavior of TSA following this tragedy. Two hours ago, Reunion left Colonel Donald floating
in space and continued with its scheduled reentry, sighting a directive 18A3C as the reason for this unbelievable decision. 18A3C supposedly was devised to protect us from killer organisms from outer space. I am reminded of the Blob, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and The Andromeda Strain to name a few of the fantasies that come to mind. A Special Mission, scheduled at least a month from now, will retrieve Donald. Surely our professionals that were capable of sending men to the Moon and bringing them back safely could come up with something better than this. Equally disturbing is the report that Colonel Donald is not dead at all. I pray to God that this latest report is just someone’s sick joke. If it is, it’s a poor one, but it would be better than it being the truth. Please, we want the truth. What went wrong up there? Or maybe we should be asking, what is really happening up there? Is this some sort of secret mission too absurd for us to handle? We have the right to know!”
***
“Oh man did he cream us!” Carl said, slowly getting up from the couch. “Mac is going to crap. We have got to plug up that leak. Adams is making this real difficult,” Carl growled, turning to Amy. “I can’t believe it, the Special Mission that we haven’t announced yet, Winston just did.”
“How does he get away with it?”
“Free speech darling, it’s in our constitution, remember.”
“I know that! But how can he fabricate stories on his own like that? Isn’t there a law against that sort of thing?”
“Which story are you wondering about?”
“Carl sweetie, are you getting dense or something? Your buddy Mr. Adams just insinuated that Astronaut Donald is still alive, and this is all some sort of secret mission. Is that a story or not?”
“He’s not my buddy!”
“Is it just a story, or is there something to it?”
“I can’t comment on that.”
“I suppose if you told me, then you’d have to kill me.”
“Something like that.”
“Carl sweetie, it was just on TV, nationwide, no, international. That probably means that more than a few people realize there is a problem. You can probably tell me without getting into too much trouble.”
“Donald is not alive, he is quite dead. But there is a problem.”
“What’s the problem?”
“I can't really say.”
“Oh, come on Carl.”
“No seriously, you know how tight security has to be. Besides, I’m not entirely sure what the problem really means.”
The telephone rang and Carl answered it.