Dark Energy: The Mortal Fracture

CHAPTER FOUR: HOME SWEET HOME

Sade’s House – Anchorage, Alaska – Midwinter 2010

The rented truck drove down a long, snowy driveway that led to a small log cabin set among a grove of evergreen trees. The truck pulled to a stop in front of the garage.

“Home sweet home,” Sade said as she unfastened her seatbelt and climbed out of the truck, carrying a bag of supplies. “I have a laboratory in the basement that we can use,” she said as she closed the truck door and walked towards the house.

“Of course you do,” Wasi said as he examined his new surroundings.

It was a small compound of about 20 acres and it was surrounded by a high, chain-link fence that was topped with barbed wire. Outside the fence was a dense forest that stood as a sentinel over the property. Wasi scanned the perimeter and noticed that there were no visible houses that neighbored them. They were completely isolated.

“Are you coming?” Sade called to him.

“Yeah, I’m coming,” he said to himself sarcastically as he gathered his personal items and exited the vehicle.

#

The inside of the house was dark and dusty as it had been sitting unoccupied for a number of months now. The heavy blackout curtains were drawn and the home was still. Sade pulled back the drapes and checked the security of the heavy wooden shutters that had been padlocked from the inside. Wasi gave her a strange look as if to ask, “What the fuck?”

Sade immediately recognized his meaning and explained, “To keep the bears out,” and then went on with her checklist of things to do to get the cabin functional again after its winter abandonment.

“Don’t bears hibernate in the…?” Wasi began to ask before Sade cut him off and changed the subject.

“Just give me a second and I’ll get everything back up and running. I unplug everything before I leave for the winter season up north,” Sade explained as she started plugging in appliances and turning on lights. She rubbed her arms and shivered for dramatic effect, “It’s cold in here, the pilot light must have gone out. Do you know anything about gas furnaces?”

“Yeah, where is it?” Wasi asked as he quickly took inventory of the contents of the cabin.

“In the basement,” Sade replied as she pointed out the location of the stairwell and then went about putting away the supplies that they had brought with them. “I’ll start dinner while you handle it then, okay?”

“Sure,” Wasi said as he followed the half-hearted directions given to him.

He searched the upstairs for a stairwell in the direction of Sade’s gesture and he noticed that despite the initial obscure and disconnected opinion he had come to about the house, it was quite homey and traditional, at least superficially. There were family pictures on the wall, knick-knacks on shelves and colorful blankets and rugs flung here and there. Yet for some reason, these decorative touches didn’t produce comfort, but rather produced the sense of a desperate need to create the illusion of normality and comfort.

Finally, Wasi found the entrance to the basement stairwell, but as he stood in the threshold he found himself resisting moving forward. There was an electrical charge that seemed to permeate up the stairwell. This charge caused the hair on his arms to stand on end and his ears to ring. Despite these physical warning signs, he reached for the light switch and flipped it on before starting down the stairs.

The basement was divided into a number of self-contained rooms. The first door to the right was a laundry room, the next was a bathroom, and the final room was the utility room which contained the furnace. Wasi entered and switched on the light. Placing his hand on the side of the furnace he realized that it was cool to the touch. He scanned the surface of the furnace looking for where the pilot light was locating. Finding its position and confirming that it was out, he fished a lighter out of his pocket and relit the blue pilot flame. Once ignited, the pilot activated the furnace and heat began to pump out of the system.

Wasi left the furnace room and searched for the laboratory. He checked in each of the other rooms that were in the basement, but there were no other doors that led to a laboratory. Confused, Wasi returned to the first floor.

Sade met him at the top of the stairs. “I didn’t see the lab,” he said, fishing for an explanation, “You said it was in the basement?”

“It’s there…if you know where to look. I’ll show you after we have something to eat,” she said as she reached behind Wasi, switched off the light, and pulled the basement door shut with a resonating pfump.

#

The two sat at the table eating a meal of canned stew, cornbread and beer.

“Do you want to start working on the samples tonight after dinner?” Wasi asked.

Sade took a bite of stew and mulled it over in her mouth for a while before swallowing, as if to give herself time to figure out the best response to that question. It was already nine o’clock and neither of them had had any sleep for nearly 48 hours. While her desire to test out her new hypothesis was tempting, it was too risky to attempt the biochemical processes that were necessary to produce a pure antibody sample while sleep deprived.

“No, I think we both need a good night’s sleep before we start. We don’t have a lot of material to work with and I really don’t want to make any mistakes with what we have.”

“Okay, so we’ll start in the morning?” Wasi asked, clarifying the plan.

“Yes.”

“What about Kim? Aren’t they bringing him out of the coma tomorrow?”

Sade rubbed her eyes and rested her forehead on the table. “Shit,” she said upset by her memory lapse. She thought about her options and then replied, “Okay, in the morning I’ll get you set up in the lab to conduct the antibody extraction, and then I’ll go to the hospital and check on Kim. Once I know he’s okay and have had a chance to talk with him, I’ll pick up the remaining supplies that we need and come back to help you.”

“Works for me,” Wasi replied hesitantly as he placed his dishes in the sink. He was reluctant to leave her alone in Anchorage, but he rationalized that her concern for Kim would keep her out of trouble. “Can I see the lab now?” he said leaning against the sink.

Sade smiled with covert pride, “Sure.”

#

Wasi followed Sade down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairwell Sade deviated from the path that he had taken earlier and gone behind the stairwell to what appeared to be a dead end. However, there was a hidden door that was paneled to match the rest of the walls in the basement hallway. Sade slipped her thin fingers between the panels and pulled. This popped the hidden door open and revealed a hydraulically sealed security door with lock and keypad that had been recessed under the stairs. Sade fished out her keys, entered a code and unlocked the first stage of security locks. This allowed the two to open the first metallic door, but they were still prevented from entering the laboratory as in their way there stood a two-stage clear, clean-room barrier door.

“Here it is,” she said as she opened the portal to the laboratory.

Wasi peered in and saw a fully equipped lab with cold and dry storage, computer equipment, and tables. “How much did this cost you?” he asked as he took a step forward.

Sade put her hand against his chest to stop him.

“We can’t go in. I haven’t entered your biodata into the security system yet and it will take a while for the cleanroom equipment to charge up. We can go in tomorrow.”

“Can’t I just take a quick look around?” Wasi asked as he scanned the room trying to identify all of the equipment that was available to him. His eyes systematically dissected the room identifying the most valuable pieces of equipment and creating a mental note of the things he would still need. Then his eyes locked in on a pile of ash near the threshold of the cleanroom barrier door. His brain tried to make sense of what this ash was and why it was where it was.

His contemplation was cut short by the touch of Sade’s hand on his arm and the warning in her voice, “You can’t go in until you are registered with the security system. Trust me. There is a reason why I can’t just let you in.”

“What is it?” Wasi asked as he stepped back into the main part of the basement and Sade closed the door.

She didn’t answer his questions but instead started to walk towards the stairwell. He grabbed her arm and pulled her back towards him. “I’ve been patient with all of your secrets and I haven’t been overly inquisitive, but if I am going to be your partner in this, I need to know what some of the secrets you are having me guard with my life are,” Wasi demanded as he searched Sade’s eyes for some hint of why she was so obstructive with simple facts. “Come on. I’m not asking for your life story. I just need something.”

“The security system won’t let you into the laboratory unless your biodata is in the system.”

“It won’t let me in? If you’re in the system and you get in, can’t I just follow you through the open door?”

“There is more than one way to secure a door. My system doesn’t need a lock. It only has one as a courtesy,” Sade said pulling her arm free of Wasi’s grip.

#

Back upstairs Sade led Wasi to his room as if she was leading him to a solitary confinement cell in a high-security prison. She opened the door and offered him a quick survey of what it contained. The room was small, but comfortable, and it had its own attached bath.

“There are towels and blankets in the wardrobe. You’ll need to let the shower run for a couple of minutes to heat up the pipes before you get in, otherwise, the water will be a little chilly. If you need anything else let me know.”

“Okay, thanks,” Wasi replied as he took in the character of the room.

“We need to get up at about 6 tomorrow, if that’s all right with you?”

“That’s fine.”

“Good night then,” she said as she closed the door and left Wasi alone in his room.

He almost expected her to padlock the door from the outside, but when this didn’t happen he turned his attention to unpacking his bags and settling in for the night.

#

Sade walked down the hall and entered her room. This room was slightly larger than Wasi’s and it had its own bathroom as well. She placed her duffle bag on the bed and could hear the water running in the guest bathroom. She opened her suitcase and removed five capped syringes and placed four in the top drawer of her nightstand and one under her pillow.

#

Antarctica – 2003

The darkness of the polar winter was in full effect and the landscape was draped in cold, black emptiness. A large snowcat vehicle sat in the middle of an open ice field, far away from the makeshift scientific settlements that had been erected decades ago. While the ice was devoid of life, the snowcat was occupied. The thick windows were fogged up and the machine rocked slightly in response to the strong winds that blew across this vast polar wasteland. The wind’s howling was deafening and it drowned out any sound that was being produced by the machine or its occupants, but then stillness thundered down on the scene and everything seemed to freeze in place, even time.

Inside the vehicle, Sade and Martin laid half-dressed in each other’s arms. The change in the exterior conditions intruded upon the moment and forced Martin to shift his attention to the predatory premonition of the silence. He sat up and cleared away the moisture that had fogged up the inside of the window so that he could see outside. Pulling on his clothing and fastened them, he leaned forward so he could search for the source of the disruption. A bright-colored stream of light flashed by the side window of the snowcat and rocked it with its wake.

“Do we have one?” Sade asked as she joined Martin near the portal. Buttoning up her shirt she saw another stream of light flash by the other side of the vehicle lighting up its interior. The couple shifted to the other window and cleared it of its opaque drapery of condensed moisture.

“I don’t know. Do you see anything?” Martin asked as he frantically looked for the path or the source of the light.

“No. I don’t see anything? Which way did it come from?”

Martin shifted to the front of the vehicle and wiped the windshield clear with his shirt. He searched the sky. “From the Southeast, I think.”

Sade picked up a pair of binoculars and searched the horizon for a clue as to where the lights landed.

“Anything?” Martin asked.

“I don’t see anything. Wait, over there about five miles,” she said as she handed the binoculars to Martin.

He looked through the binoculars and saw the tail tale signs of something hot hitting the ice, a plume of steam.

“Let’s go,” he said excitedly as he dropped the binoculars and drove the snowcat towards the steam.

The pair arrived at the scene and quickly pulled on their protective outerwear. Martin was first to climb out of the heated cab and into the cold. As he landed on the ice shelf he reached up and collected a selection of basic equipment which included two large neodymium magnets and a plastic bucket. After placing these items on the ground he helped Sade out of the vehicle and onto the ice. They then moved with the equipment towards the scatter field.

Approaching the plume, they watched as the steam rose up about a hundred feet and then fell back down to the earth as snow. “You go left and I’ll go right,” Martin instructed as he pulled down his goggles.

Sade nodded in agreement and then they swept the ice and snow with the magnets. As they moved forward, small black dust particles floated from the ground to the base of the magnets producing a half-inch layer of debris. At the end of their sweep, they brushed a sample into a bucket and tossed it from side to side to test its weight and consistency. As it sloshed about it made a metallic whoosh.

“What do you think?” Martin asked optimistically.

Sade looked into the bucket at the inch of dust-sized particles that had been collected. She removed her glove and dabbed her finger into the material and pulled out a sample. She then tasted it cautiously.

“Definitely iron-based,” she concluded, “but there is another mineral as well.”

“What the…?” Martin asked as he moved the flashlight away from Sade’s face.

“What?” Sade asked as she studied Martin’s curious expression.

“Your mouth is glowing,” he said as he looked inquisitively at the neon blue iridescence emanating from her mouth.

“It’s doing what?” she asked as she wiped the phantom invader from her tongue.

The wind returned in a violent thrust downward and blew the dust from the bucket back into the air. Martin handed Sade her gloves, “Put these back on!” he yelled so that she would hear him over the roar of the wind. “We have to get back to the CAT!”

Sade nodded as they stood up and fought their way towards their vehicle. Martin climbed up onto the treads and reached back for Sade. However, at that moment, a brilliant blue light lit up the black sky and blinded them. The intensity of the light was so severe that its radiation soldered through the subzero climate and created a flash flood that carved out huge channels in the ice and morphed the landscape. Once the superheated water went beyond the lens of the light, however, it froze into sculptures of flowing waves of ice.

“What is it?” Sade screamed as she tried to find Martin’s hand in her blindness. “Martin!”

The snowcat shook and rocked from the climatic trauma. Martin fumbled for her hand but he couldn’t find it.

“Where are you?” he shouted. “Eisla, where…?”

At that moment, the neodymium magnets exploded in the bucket from the heat of the light sending shards of ceramic and metal flying through the air. Martin was impaled by these shards which gashed his face and drew blood which quickly flowed over his eyes freezing them shut.

“Eisla! Where are you!” His calls for her were cut short by another blast of energy that propelled him into the air.

#

Sade’s Cabin – Midwinter 2010

Outside the cabin a dazzling spectacle of eerie colored light danced across the sky, beckoning the dead to new hunts and battles in the afterlife. Inside the cabin, the stillness of the night woke Sade from her noisy nightmare. She rolled over in her warm bed and looked at the alarm clock on her nightstand. It read 3:00 a.m. She pushed the clock’s face away from her to shield her eyes from the red light that the numbers illuminated and she tried to go back to sleep.

This was not going to happen though, as the sound of the floor creaking under the weight of footsteps triggered her eyes to shoot open and her heart to race. The footsteps approached her door and then stopped. She fumbled for the capped syringe that was under her pillow but her fingers pushed it over the side of the mattress and it fell to the floor, breaking the glass, and spilling the protective serum that it contained.

“Shit,” she said as the doorknob jiggled as if someone was picking the lock from the outside.

She reached for the nightstand drawer but her attempt to retrieve another syringe was cut short when the door flew open and Wasi broke into the room and restrained her in her bed. Sade struggled against his powerful body, as she pushed and groped at his arm to keep the gleaming knife poised in his hand a safe distance from her throat.

“There is no other way,” he said in a trancelike tone.

“Wasi, please wake up,” Sade pleaded, but Wasi seemed to be deaf to her voice. He drew back the knife and poised it for a death blow. “Wake up!” Sade screamed in desperation.

#

To be continued...