Dark Energy: The Mortal Fracture

CHAPTER TWO: NOT QUITE LEGAL, BUT INTERESTING

Arctic – Winter 2010

Racing across the Arctic tundra the doctors clung to the snowmobile as shards of razor sharp ice crystals assaulted their bodies. The engine of the snowmobile growled and fought against the load that it carried and the frigidness of the air. The lights from the team’s base camp appeared like dawn on the horizon. It was the only visible light for miles. In fact, the closest city, Barrow, Alaska, was nearly fifty miles to the west. The two didn’t try to talk to one another, as the interference from the snowstorm and the noise from the snowmobile made it impossible to hear anything even on headsets at this point. Instinctively, however, they were communicating about what steps needed to be taken as soon as they reached the camp. Wasi knew he needed to set up an exam room, gather medical equipment, and get the bear moved inside, while Sade knew that she needed to set up the sonogram, gather her supplies, and keep the rest of the team away from what they were doing.

Wasi drove the snowmobile to the backside of camp where there was a small, isolated laboratory. Sade jumped off the snowmobile and rushed to the docking bay. She slammed a button and the bay door lifted allowing Wasi to drive the bear directly into the building.

She entered the building, closed the bay door, and secured it. There were no windows in this building so no one could peer in and see what they were doing. This building was not covert, normally, but it worked in a pinch.

Wasi and Sade rushed around the building, stripping off the most restrictive components of their dry suits, setting up their equipment and preparing for a quick and minimally invasive examination of the polar bear. First they fitted the bear with a harness so that it could be winched up and weighed and then placed on an extra-large examination table.

“It’s underweight.” Wasi said with concern.

“By how much?” Sade asked as she documented the results.

“At least 20 percent.” Wasi said as he continued his examination. Lifting the bear’s lip to expose its teeth and gums he noticed that they were pale and receded. “Severely dehydrated,” Wasi continued to report as he felt the bear’s body, trying to palpate any clues that could explain the condition of the animal’s emaciation. “It’s very thin, its skin is loose, and the liver is small,” Wasi summarized as he stepped back.

“Do you think it’s been hibernating?” Sade asked.

Her suggestion was not off-base, as polar bears were known to enter a hibernation state when food was scarce. This would explain why the bear was thin and dehydrated, and perhaps why it went after Kim instead of the marine animals that were rich in fat and that were active in the area.

“Could be, it’s been a rough year up here,” Wasi replied.

“Do you want to start with blood samples while I set up the sonogram?” she asked, trying to keep their progress on track.

“Sure.” Wasi said shivering from adrenaline and the cold.

As he pulled off the remaining components of his dive suit, he unveiled a large red rash that spread across his shoulders. He scratched at it out of habit, but paid it little attention. He then pulled on a warmer layer of clothing, a lab coat, and a pair of sterile gloves before approaching the bear with a needled syringe. He carefully targeted a vein on the bear’s neck and extracted several vials of thick, dark fluid.

Meanwhile, Sade had also removed the bulky winter dive gear that she had been wearing and had changed into something more appropriate for lab work. As Wasi completed the blood draw, she pulled the sonogram machine into position and looked for an area near the bear’s liver that would provide good access to the desired organ. The bear’s fur and body were both thin. This impoverished condition was a godsend for Sade as it made getting an accurate sonogram image much easier because there was less interference from the fur and fat.

“All set,” she said as she started the scanning process.

Wasi carefully stowed away the blood samples in a mini-fridge and then turned his attention to the sonogram monitor. The image was difficult to read, but both doctors were experienced in this technology and they knew what they were looking for, the outline of a large, fat liver. However, what came on the monitor shocked both of them. The liver that was in this bear was small and misshapen.

“Do you see any tumors?” Wasi asked, as he searched for an explanation for the liver’s condition.

Sade moved the wand over the bear’s body trying to get at the liver from different angles.

“No, it looks clear,” she said as she calibrated the dimensions of the liver and froze the image on the screen. “What do you think?”

“It was starving to death,” Wasi concluded.

Sade looked at the clock on the wall. “Shit, Fish and Game will be here soon. We need to get liver enzyme samples.”

She utilized the sonogram to find the best target and then pushed the thick needle through the bear’s dark skin, sinewy muscles, and into its liver where she extracted vial after vial of fluid and tissue. Wasi collected each filled vial and transferred them to a storage tray.

Commotion outside alerted the two that their examination was over.

“Hurry, put those in the back refrigerator,” Sade directed as she licked her finger and wiped off the blood spots around the needle tracks on the bear’s skin and fluffed up its fur to conceal any indications that the body had been illegally manipulated.

A bang on the bay door echoed through the metal building. Sade motioned to Wasi to open it. The door lifted and exposed two Fish and Game officers and Datz.

“Everything okay in here?” Datz asked trying to determine if the doctors had finished whatever they were doing before F&G arrived.

“Yes, we were just taking some basic data for the tag program,” she lied as she pointed to the tag on the bear’s ear.

“How does it look?” Nanoq, the Fish and Game officer, asked as he approached the bear scanning it for any signs that Sade had manipulated it.

Sade circled around Nanoq pointing out a few of the problems that Wasi had picked up on during his examination in an attempt to keep his attention away from what they were really doing with the carcass.

“It’s underweight and looks like it has been starving for a while,” Sade explained.

Nanoq took a closer look at the bear’s carcass, examining the wounds that it sustained from the gunshots. “So how is your research going up here, Doctor?”

Sade hated the way he called her “Doctor.” It always sounded like he was calling her “bitch.” On the other hand, when she called him “officer” he knew she was really calling him “asshole.” There was a tension that existed between the two, but Sade never knew the origins of his hostility towards her. All she knew was that he seemed to dislike her from their first encounter.

“Good, we’re making real strides in understanding how this ecosystem works,” she said through a forced smile and as she bit her tongue. “Is there a reason why you ask?”

“I just like to keep up the social niceties with people up here. It helps keep everyone civilized,” he explained condescendingly.

Nanoq passed his hand over the neck of the bear and uncovered the mark where Wasi took blood from its neck. His glance became more intent as he bent down and pushed aside the clear hair shafts that surrounded the small hole.

“You said that this bear was shot in self-defense?” Nanoq asked in an accusing manner.

“Yes, why?” Wasi asked.

“Well, there is a hole in this bear’s neck that looks a lot like a dart wound. You weren’t darting bears today, were you, ‘Doctor’?”

“What are you insinuating, ‘Officer’?” she retorted.

Wasi saw that Sade and Nanoq were about to come to blows if he didn’t intervene in the conversation soon. He stepped between them and blocked their flow of hostility. He knew that Sade could have the temperament of a rabid terrier if provoked and Nanoq knew exactly how to push her buttons.

“The team was collecting data underwater when the bear came through the ice and pulled our man out,” Wasi intervened.

Wasi’s size and calm demeanor had its advantages in situations like this. It was very effective at putting other dominant males in their place quickly and without a fight. Nanoq backed down, deflating his chest and retreating to a more submissive posture.

“Can I talk to your man then, the one that was attacked to get his side of the story?” Nanoq asked as he pulled out a notebook and pen.

“That’s going to be difficult as his throat was crushed by the bear,” Sade said hostilely as she pointed to the Medivac crew that had moved out of one of the buildings on the other side of camp. “But he is over there if you want proof that this was a case of self-defense.”

Nanoq looked over at the evacuation scene and could see a mangled body being moved onto a helicopter.

“We have pictures of his wounds if you have any doubts?” Wasi said, guiding the officer away from the bear. As they reached the bay door Wasi asked, “Do you need help moving the bear to your truck?”

“No, my team can handle it. Have a nice day, Doc,” Nanoq said tipping his hat mockingly to her.

Sade watched with a heated glare as the bear was loaded onto the F&G truck and carted away. It all seemed like such a waste to dispose of the body without allowing her to study it. Her mind spun as she thought of the tragic historical event that stimulated her interest in polar predators in the first place.

#

Antarctica - January 1913

It was supposed to have been an exciting polar adventure of new discoveries and personal triumphs. Xavier Mertz, his two companions, and 50 Greenland sled dogs all anticipated the best outcome. Unfortunately, tragedy struck early and often, and within weeks of the onset of this adventure the exploration team was in real trouble. One team member, Ninnis, had been swallowed by a huge crevasse in the ice cap and with him the strongest and most experienced sled dogs and most of the food for the journey.

The remaining team members, Mertz and Mawson, were left with little hope of making it to the nearest place of rescue, some 300 miles away. However, they pushed hard to escape their doom.

The harsh pace and conditions that they faced took their toll on the dogs and many fell dead in their tracks. As each dog perished, they were consumed as food by the two men. The dogs were bred for pulling sleds and were muscular and sinewy. Their meat was gamey and, even when boiled down, was tough and stringy; however, the dogs’ livers did offer something more palatable in terms of texture and richness. These characteristics made the dogs’ livers the two survivors’ favorite morsels.

As the weeks went by, the men began to experience symptoms that were telling of the systematic poisoning. The symptoms started out as stomach cramps, nausea and visual impairments, but within weeks their symptoms encompassed hair loss, weight loss, and renal failure. By January 1913, less than two months into their expedition, the leader of the team, Xavier Mertz, was dead.

#

Arctic Research Center – Winter 2010

This was the first documented case of fatal hypervitaminosis A caused by the consumption of the livers from polar predators, and it was this story that ran through Sade’s mind as she studied the images from the polar bear’s liver sonogram. She knew that polar bears, like other Arctic predators, were able to absorb and store a much higher concentration of Vitamin A than humans. As a result, these predators had visual advantages that enabled them to see in an extended spectrum of light.

The military was desperate to learn if the Tolerable Upper Intake Level of Vitamin A could be extended through some sort of chemical supplementation so that soldiers would have better night vision. While the military interest in this quandary funded Sade’s research, her obsession for this information stemmed from her desire to see what the dark really concealed.

Research conducted by military organizations around the globe indicated that increasing Vitamin A consumption in humans did improve their night vision. Unfortunately, there was a fatal threshold that could not be crossed. This was because humans lacked an unknown biochemical element that reduced the toxicity of Vitamin A, and that enabled the retinol to feed their visual acuity more voraciously. The result was that once the Vitamin A absorption threshold was breached, the stellate cells in the liver that stored Vitamin A ruptured and caused systemic toxicity. Victims of this condition started out with benign symptoms such as indigestion and blurred vision, but the symptoms intensified if the over-exposure to the vitamin was chronic or if the initial overdose was significant. In these cases organ failure and death were inevitable.

#

Wasi spun his vials of blood, separating out the various components of the samples. He also ran a Biochemical Evaluation Serum Liver Enzyme Analysis on the fluid removed from the bear’s liver. The laboratory was whirling from these tests, yet the two doctors remained quiet, locked in their own thoughts about what they were looking for and what they were going to find.

Sade reviewed the test results from previous liver samples that had been taken from a polar bear in the Anchorage Zoo. The liver biopsy and blood samples were taken when the bear was being treated for a benign tumor on its liver. Sade had a number of ties to zoos around the country, as she needed legal sources for biological samples. These samples were usually taken from animals that were undergoing a normal medical examination or when they were being treated for an illness or injury. This eliminated ethical concerns that she had about stressing an animal just for a bio-sample.

The test results from the Anchorage Zoo bear were basically what a healthy polar bear’s results should look like. What she was hoping for was to find some difference between the normal results and the results from the starving bear. These differences in enzyme levels would hopefully reveal what combination of enzymes and proteins were responsible for maintaining Arctic predator night vision capabilities and for enabling a higher Vitamin A tolerance.

“How are they coming?” she asked as she approached Wasi.

Wasi looked up from his machines and nodded, “They are almost done. I just need a few more minutes.”

The first machine sounded a completion alarm and whirled down to a stop. Wasi removed one vial and piped out a sample. He then placed one drop on a slide and ran a sequencing process. The results showed what proteins and enzymes were in the liver sample. A graph came up on Wasi’s computer screen.

“So what do we have?” Sade asked.

Wasi reviewed the graph looking for points of variation from the print out of the healthy bear’s liver graph. “Lower levels of retinol, as we expected.”

“Anything missing from the graph?”

“I don’t know, wait just a second.” He typed on the keyboard and superimposed the healthy bear graph onto the starving bear graph. Disappointed, Wasi pushed away from the table. “Nothing that we didn’t expect from the condition of the bear.”

“So what is the link? We know that high Vitamin A concentrations in the liver are linked to extended light spectrum sensitivity,” Sade stated.

“Yes.” Wasi responded exasperated by his frustration.

“We know that polar bears that are malnourished have lower levels of retinol stored in their livers and that these bears have a decreased visual sensitivity to the extended spectrum of light,” she continued.

“Yes.”

“So there has to be something that is metabolizing the extra Vitamin A in the predator’s system and turning it into something that is impacting the visual acuity of the animal. What did the plasma samples show?”

“I don’t know yet,” Wasi said turning to the blood samples that he processed. Wasi rubbed his eyes and then scanned the report for the missing link. “Normal, normal, normal…there is nothing here that…”

“What is it?” Sade asked with peaked interest.

Wasi highlighted a concentration of a hydroxyl PCB metabolite. “Take a look at this.” He handed the reports to Sade. “In the healthy bear the levels are nearly twice as high as they are in our bear.”

“Isn’t this the metabolite that binds to TTR?”

“Yes,” Wasi said with a smile as he pulled out other reports on samples taken over the last ten years from dozens of polar bears. Scanning the other reports a puzzled look crossed his face as he reviewed the data.

“What’s wrong?”

“None of the other bears are showing this elevation in the metabolite. Why would it be high in this bear but not the others?”

Sade took the report of the baseline bear and read the patient’s description.

“She was a nursing mother.” Sade said as she sank back in her chair and thought for a moment. “Do you think that whatever is responsible for metabolizing Vitamin A and turning it into a sensory enhancer is immunochemical and not enzymatic? If it were, it would be higher in nursing mothers, as she would be passing it to her infants through her milk?”

“That would also mean that when she was not nursing that the levels would be lower.”

“Right…so maybe the starting culture for the antibody is a fat-soluble compound that is passed from mother to cubs through milk.”

They both sat quietly staring at each other sifting through the hypotheses that they had been spitting out all night.

Wasi sat back in his chair, “It’s definitely possible. So how do we test that hypothesis?”

“We need a colostrum sample,” Sade said.

“Do you know of any nursing polar bears?” Wasi asked.

“No.”

The tension in the room was shattered by the buzz of the intercom.

“Dr. Sade, call from Anchorage General Hospital line 1.”

Sade’s attention was quickly occupied by the phone call. “It must be about Kim,” she said as she rushed to answer the phone. “Dr. Sade…Yes…I understand…” She exited the room with the phone.

Wasi listened at the door to see if he could make out the severity of the situation. He could hear in the tone of Sade’s voice that things were serious. He was fond of Kim. They weren’t what you would call close, but he was a valuable member of the team and someone that always pulled his weight. They occasionally talked over a beer after a long day in the field, but they never really pried into each other’s pasts. They both felt that a person’s past was a private possession, and one that didn’t have to be shared for the sake of camaraderie, but now with the possibility that he might die, Wasi wondered if there was a family to be informed about his condition or special religious observations that would need to be made in his honor. Sade would know, he thought. They were close and she would know what Kim wanted to be done.

#

Hamilton, Montana – 1988

Sade floated in the cold, dark fluid, drifting in and out of consciousness. Some moments she felt isolated and terrified, but there were other moments when she could feel the warmth of something else cradling her and holding her up in the water. As her body became paralyzed from exhaustion, the grip of death pulled at her soul, trying to drag it into the desperateness of the dark abyss. Her eyes opened and she could see a figure of man next to her, watching over her. She was unable to move or speak even though every cell in her body ached for some sort of movement or expression.

The presence of whoever, or whatever, was with her made her feel safe. She couldn’t make out many of his characteristics besides the shape of his body and the smell of his breathe, which was salty and smoky. She could feel his gaze on her, but he remained a phantom. Then she felt as if she were being lifted up into the air on a cloud. She strained to reach out to her savior, to touch his skin to prove to herself that he was real, but as her weakened hand approached him she felt her body falling into the dark oblivion away from his presence.

As she plunged once again into the water, she felt hopeless. She had been left alone with nothing to turn to but her terror. Sade closed her eyes and prayed for death. This prayer was not answered, at least not in the manner that she understood. She drifted out of consciousness and entered a dreamscape that was filled with the terrors of her torment. The sounds, the pain, and the mysterious figure that had protected and then abandoned her, all of these things haunted her and kept her prisoner in an endless loop of indignity. Then her eyes opened and there was light, however, this awakening was to be the beginning of her journey back into the darkness.

#

Arctic Research Center – Winter 2010

Wasi heard Sade hang up the phone, but she didn’t enter the lab. He peered out the portal in the interior door and saw that her hands were covering her face and she was slumped up against the wall. He felt immediately uncomfortable and moved away from the window as if he had caught her undressing. He had never seen her show a vulnerability, at least not emotional, and he thought that this trespass, if found out, would damage their professional relationship. That he didn’t want, so he would pretend that it never happened. He quietly went back to reviewing the data in the files and made notes about the new leads that were discovered that night.

A few minutes later Sade returned to the lab. Her eyes were still puffy and red, so Wasi kept his eyes on his work.

Sade moved like a hummingbird around the room, agitated from her anxiety and grief. As she organized her briefcase she announced, “Kim is going into surgery first thing in the morning so I called in the plane.”

Sade turned and looked at him. Wasi just sat quiet and frozen in his chair. He could feel her gaze on the back of his neck as she waited for his response. Finally he replied, “How long will we be gone?”

“We’ll be in Anchorage for a few days…maybe a week…maybe longer. We’ll have to just play it by ear,” she said as she exited the lab leaving Wasi to contemplate what was to happen next.

#

To be continued...