Dark Energy: The Mortal Fracture

CHAPTER THREE: ADVANCEMENTS & SETBACKS

Alaska – Winter 2010

The plane dipped and pitched as it fought its way through the Arctic wind and snow. Flurries of snow danced around the engines of the twin-prop plane searching for a way to rob the engines of their heat. Inside, Sade sat buried under a pile of files, notes and charts, oblivious to the violent struggle that was taking place outside. Her mind spun, trying to find a solution to their antibody source problem.

The polar bear was the best option for extracting the enzyme because its light spectrum sensitivity was the most developed of all polar predators. However, finding a polar bear that was legally and ethically accessible was an issue. While Sade had connections at the Anchorage Zoo, which had a polar bear exhibit, she was reluctant to tap this source as it was limited and it always produced a red flag for those that were trying to steal her research.

Her paranoia was well-founded, as the potential value of extending human light spectrum sensitivity was astronomical, even with marginal success. This meant that she had to continue to press forward with whatever sources she could accumulate, and the Anchorage Zoo not only had access to Arctic predators that were used to being handled and examined, but they also had an amazing collection of veterinary equipment that she could use to propagate the biological components that were needed.

Wasi moved into the seat next to her carrying his own files, notes, and charts. “Did you call Martin at the zoo?” Wasi asked as he thumbed through his materials.

“No,” Sade responded, not looking up from her work, “I didn’t want to wake him. I’ll call when we land.”

“Do we have a plan of action yet?” Wasi asked trying to extract information from her.

“We have to find sources of the antibodies.”

“Sources? How many nursing polar bears can there possibly be at this time of year in an institutional setting?”

“Polar bears are not the only Arctic predators that have extended light spectrum sensitivity.”

“You want to move away from the Ursus maritimus? To what? Pagophilus greenlandicus or Pusa hispida?”

“No, I’m not interested in seals either. We need a source that is more reliable and easier to manipulate.”

“Like what?”

A husky in a dog crate tied down in the back howled drawing Sade’s gaze up to Wasi’s face. “Remember Antarctica?”

Wasi turned his attention to the Alaskan sled dogs in the back of the plane. “Antarctica.” A smile crossed his face, as he knew that what they were after was going to be much easier to find now that they were to focus on a domesticated source.

“Do you know anything about dogs?” Sade asked as she returned to her notes.

#

Anchorage General Hospital – Operating Room – Winter 2010

The operating room glowed with a sterile white light as Kim was rolled in on a gurney and positioned on the operating table. His wounds had been cleaned and his skin prepped for surgery by shaving away the dark hair that normally covered his neck, chin, and around the circumference of his mouth. What was revealed by this prep work was a young face that had been prematurely aged by the cold of the Arctic and extreme personal stress. The wounds that were produced by the polar bear’s chewing and crushing were severe and gory and Kim’s normally round and friendly face had been distorted into an almost alien-like appearance due to the protective swelling response initiated by his body.

The doctors worked on Kim as they directed the actions of the rest of the medical support team. As they orchestrated the technical dance of his surgery, Kim floated in a twilight state of consciousness that muted his memories of the attack, but that did not fully detach him from the rumination of his experiences. The operation took three hours and when everything was done Kim was bandaged and moved to a recovery room.

The sound of a soft voice trickled into Kim’s awareness as his eyelids cracked open just enough for him to see light and shadow through his eyelashes. The breathing tube that was positioned in his throat kept him from being able to talk, so Kim attempted to reach out with his hands to identify who was at his bedside.

Despite his mind’s urging for his arm to raise off the bed, it remained heavy and stationary, weighted down by his medicated state. No matter how he urged his senses to help him identify who was in the room, they did not comply. Then a soft pressure slid down his arm as he lost what was left of his consciousness.

#

Sade exited the hospital and walked through the parking lot searching for where Wasi parked. Finding the rented vehicle, she climbed in next to him and closed the door. Wasi concluded his cell phone conversation and turned his attention to her. He waited silently for her to give him direction on what was to be done now that they were in Anchorage.

Sade sat, not talking and not looking at him. This was unnerving as Wasi had become too used to following orders, and not knowing what was expected of him put him in a torturous limbo of uncertainty. Wasi’s face grew strained with anxiety and Sade could sense that he needed her to do something, anything, so she broke the tension with a simple question, “Did you talk to Martin?”

“Yes,” Wasi sighed with relief. “He’s at the zoo and we can stop by anytime this morning.”

“Okay, so I guess we can start there.”

Wasi turned the key, kicking the engine to roar into motion, and they pulled out of the parking lot. The traffic in Anchorage was light this morning. It was a weekend, in the middle of winter, and still very early in the morning. This absence of people on the streets made it feel like the world had ended and they were the only people left. This was not the case, however, and both Sade and Wasi would quickly be made aware of the other people that shared their world.

“How is Kim doing?” Wasi asked in an attempt to quell the tension in the cab of the truck.

“The prognosis is good and he was stable when I left. His doctor is going to keep him in an induced coma until tomorrow so that the swelling in his brain can work itself out before he is brought around.”

The scream and squeal of brakes locking up tore through the conversation and caused Wasi to slam his foot down on the brake pedal. This sent the truck into a spin and banked it in the snow that had been pushed to the side of the street by a plow truck. Multiple cars slid past them and crashed into one another, creating a pile-up of vehicles in a tragic collage of broken glass, shards of colored plastic, and twisted metal against the backdrop of snow-packed asphalt.

“Are you all right?” Wasi asked as he reached for Sade.

Sade felt her head and satisfied that she was still all in one piece, unfastened her seatbelt. “Yes, what about you?”

“I’m all right.”

The two exited the truck and walked through the accident site. The sound of sirens broke through the stillness of the winter morning. People moved through the scene clumsily and dazed. Wasi helped a man out of his car and assisted with minimizing chaos as the first responders appeared.

Sade’s attention was drawn away from the commotion of the initial accident by the sound of a horn blaring. As she turned to see what the problem was, another vehicle struck a large wolf-like dog that was crossing the road. The dog’s body was knocked to the icy street and it flipped head over tail several times leaving behind a trail of swirled and smeared blood that traced the violent acrobatics that the animal had been thrown into before its body final slid wantonly over the edge of a ditch. Sade rushed towards the resting place of the dog, crossing in front of the car that had struck the animal without any notice of the distraught driver who was trying to wrestle his way out of the vehicle.

Wasi, engrossed in the rescue effort at the first accident scene, did not notice when Sade wandered away. However, as the commotion died down, he realized that Sade was not at his side or anywhere to be seen. He stepped away from the wreckage and looked around scanning the area for her. He felt a rush of panic wash over his body as his job was to keep her out of trouble, and he broke the first rule of security, he lost sight of the assignment. His nerves sizzled in response to seeing her struggle out of a snow-laden ditch.

He rushed across the street to her position but before he could ask what happened, she interjected, “Quick, bring the truck around. We need to get her to Martin.”

Wasi saw the mangled body of the dog lying at the base of the ditch and knew there was urgency in the situation. Without exchanging a word or a thought with Sade he returned to the truck and pulled it around quickly to the ditch.

The driver responsible for the dog’s condition had finally made it over to Sade and was trying to escape blame for the situation by diverted it to her.

“You should keep your dog on a leash. I could have killed someone,” he proclaimed.

Sade took off her jacket and wrapped it around the dog. The man stood over the two and wrung his hands and pulled at his neck. “Is he okay?”

“It’s a she, and I don’t know.”

“There’s a lot of blood,” he said as the gore of the scene impacted his stability.

Sade pushed him out of the way as Wasi climbed down to her. “You better go sit down before you pass out,” Sade told the man, castrating him for his behavior. “Wasi, do you have her?”

“Yeah,” he said grunting under the weight of the large dog as he picked her up and carried her to the truck.

#

The two sped to the zoo hospital entrance where Martin was waiting for them. Martin brought out a circular stretcher and the two men carried the badly injured dog into the operating room. She was placed on an examination table and Martin quickly assessed her injuries. As he palpated her abdomen he noticed something that caused him great alarm.

“What is it?” Sade asked.

“She has a crushed pelvis…and…she is in labor,” Martin said as he sprang into action. “We need to get the pups out now.”

“Is there anything I can do?” she asked.

“Suit up and you can assist me, if you remember how?”

“It’s been a while, but I think I can handle it,” she said as she pulled on a pair of scrubs and rushed to wash up. Wasi also “suited up” and stood in the background watching the action of the scene.

Martin was an interesting man to watch in action. His moves seemed so trained and natural that it was difficult not to be mesmerized by his skill and finesse. He was still a young man, in his mid-thirties, and in the prime of his professional career. The way he and Sade worked together and communicated without words made it apparent that they had once had very close personal and professional relationships, but like nearly every aspect of Sade’s life, Wasi had not been given insight into this relationship, at least not directly.

#

Antarctica – Research Station 2003

Sade moved through the research center laboratory dressed in protective gear. She opened a large stainless steel door and revealed a frozen interior that was stocked with mineral and ice samples that were kept in long metallic cylinders. She scanned the options that were available and selected one marked XTerra 657. She removed the cylinder and closed the freezer door.

As she crossed the floor, Martin watched her. Despite his attempt to not be noticed by the other researchers, Sade noticed his line of sight had been firmly focused on her actions. Her heart raced in response to this realization. She cracked a smile knowing that it would be concealed by her mask, but the extent of her smile raised her ears moving the mask in a way that Martin recognized as a positive sign of her reciprocal affection for him.

Sade removed the mineral sample from the cylinder and prepared it for electroanalysis. As she applied the electric current to the sample all the power in the station went out.

“Shit, now what?” said one of the other researchers. “Come on, let’s go check the generator.”

As the others left the laboratory, Martin remained behind so he could be alone with Sade. When the others were gone he approached her. There was a special magnetism between the two, something innate about their coupling, like it was predestined, but, there was also a premonitory pain that accompanied their attraction that both felt, yet both ignored.

“What are you working on?” Martin asked trying to break through the erotic tension introduced by the darkness.

“Just an electroanalysis of the mineral XTerra 657. We’re trying to figure out if it is…you know? What are you working on?”

Martin stared at her eyes through the plastic shield, entranced by his attraction to her. He found her allure strange as he had never really seen all of her at once because her laboratory equipment usually obscured some part of her face or body. But in his mind’s eye he had assembled the pieces into a whole and he was curious if his guess at what she looked like was close to the real being that stood before him.

“Martin?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you working on?” Sade asked as she took off her mask revealing her face to him for the first time in its entirety. “Is there something wrong?”

Martin reached for her cheek with his gloved hand, but stopped before he was able to touch her flesh. A pale blue light illuminated her skin. He traced the source of the light with his eyes and realized that it was coming from the mineral sample XTerra 657 that had been electrically stimulated.

“My god,” he said as he turned his entire attention to the mineral. “You’ve found it.”

#

Zoo Operating Room – 2010

Within minutes of suiting up, the dog had been sedated and prepped for the surgery. The clicking, beeping, and wheezing of the supportive medical equipment was the only sound that filled the operating room. Sade maintained control of the electronics while Martin performed the emergency C-section on the dog. His blade cut through the exposed skin of her abdomen revealing layers of tissue, fat, vessels, muscle, and finally the uterus, or what was left of it. During the accident the uterine wall had ruptured and amniotic fluid, blood, bone shards, and tarry feces filled the cavity.

“I need suction,” Martin said instructing Sade to clear the body cavity of the pollutants.

Sade cleared the debris from the cavity allowing Martin freer access to the remaining contents. He inserted his hands into it and began to fish out the pups’ limp bodies. As each one was removed, he handed it to Wasi who wrapped it in a clean towel and brought it to a second table. Unfortunately, once the pups were in his hands he could feel the bones of their little bodies moving freely around in the skin, and he knew that there was no hope of resuscitating them.

Sade watched as Martin removed the last pup and then closed the incision in the dog’s abdomen. Martin looked up at Sade’s face as if he remembered something painful from their past. She returned the look indicating that she too shared the haunting memory, but neither wanted to acknowledge it beyond a silent melancholy glance.

“We’re all done, there is nothing more I can do for her. I think it’s best if I put her down,” he said as he searched through his medical supplies for the correct sedative medication used for euthanasia.

The blood drained from Sade’s face as she positioned her body between the operating table and Martin.

“You can’t do that. I need her alive.”

“Look at what that monitor says, she will not survive once the machines are turned off. She’s already dead.”

“I need to keep her alive.”

“For how long?”

“A few hours, I want to collect her colostrum.”

“Why?”

“Please, I just need you to do this.”

Martin pulled Sade out of the room so that they could talk in private.

“It is inhumane to keep her alive,” Martin rationalized.

“Who are you to say what is humane, especially in this situation? This time it is my turn to make the call, my turn to be selfish, and I need her alive.”

Sade left Martin in the hallway and returned to the operating room. She made a few adjustments to the life support equipment and then looked over at Wasi.

“I need you to pick up a few supplies,” she stated.

“Okay, what do you need?”

“There is a maternity shop down the block, I need you to pick up a couple of breast pumps.”

“Breast pumps?” Wasi asked.

“Unless you wanted to do it by hand?” Sade said raising her eyebrows in a sarcastic arch.

Martin watched as Wasi left the room leaving Sade alone with the dog. She stroked its head tenderly and then looked sadly at the dark stitches that crossed its abdomen. Slipping her hand over her own stomach she felt the raised scar that commemorated a dark secret.

#

Antarctica Interior Ice Sheet – Midwinter – 2004

“Hang in there, baby. You’re going to be fine,” Martin stammered as he carried Sade’s limp body into an abandoned metal barrack. “Hurry, get in here!” he yelled to a second man who was gathering medical supplies.

Martin laid Sade down on a bed. She grasped at her abdomen feeling the sharp piece of metal that was protruding from her body. She shook from the shock of the trauma and the cold. Martin peeled back her clothing exposing the severity of the injury.

Sade reached for his hand and gasped, “I haven’t told you…I haven’t told you…”

“I know…I love you too. Just relax you’re going to be okay. I promise, you are going to be okay,” Martin said as he stroked her hair and tried to calm her down.

“No, Martin, I haven’t…told…you…” Sade whispered as she lost consciousness from the injection delivered to her system.

“I can’t do this. I’ve changed my mind,” Martin said to the other man. “It wasn’t supposed to be this bad. You said…”

“We have to now or she’ll be lost.”

The man pushed Martin out of the way and cut the wound around the metal shard. As he pulled the metal from her body, the man suddenly stopped and looked over at Martin. “Did you know?”

“Know what?” Martin asked as he looked into the open wound.

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

“We don’t have a choice. We have to continue, it’s the only way.”

#

Three days later Sade awoke in the hospital ward of the Antarctica Research Center. She looked around and noticed that she was alone. As she realized where she was, a flood of memories came back to her about the accident. She frantically pushed down the sterile covers that were concealing her body and pulled up her hospital gown to reveal a large row of dark stitches that crossed her abdomen. She ran her hands over the stitches and wept as she realized that her secret no longer needed to be kept.

Martin entered the room with a concerned look on his face. He pulled her hospital grown down over the wound and pulled the covers back over her body. “You need to stay warm,” he said softly.

“Why?” she asked as she searched his face for some justification for her hollowed condition.

“It was the only way,” he replied as he fought back his agony.

“Then why didn’t you just let me die?”

“It was the only way,” he said as he turned away from her and left the room. “It was the only way.”

#

To be continued...