When I woke up, I was sore all over. The rest of the team was standing by me, and congratulated me for bravery. They had identified several mutations of the pathogen and it was remarkable in its diversification. It would seem I am a hero. The predicted place where the colony of the Andromeda Strain was over Los Angeles, but nothing happened. The threat was gone.
I checked to see if the Scoop program would continue, but it seems NASA took this a step too far. All spaceflight was to be stopped for a time. They said the failure of Scoop VII was a technical one, and they needed time to fix the problem. I have decided to remain here for a time, to study the mutations. This was an amazing week, but I hope nothing like this ever happens again.
-Hall
Friday, December 9, 2011
Day 4 Part 2
When the alarm went off, I ran. Towards the lab it came from, I hurried to. I passed by Leavitt on the way, who was staring into the light, the flashing light, when I realized what was happening. I caught him when he fell and laid him down. Leavitt has epilepsy, and I wonder why he never told us. When I got to the lab, Burton was in there, and Stone was there at the door. The pathogen broke out of a test chamber and was with Burton in the room. Pure oxygen was pumping into the room, but Burton was still scared. Scared... I went to thinking to what I might be doing now, normally, coming back to work. The speed limits maximum 65 minimum 45 seemed mockery at rush hour, maximum and minimum... It was here I saw through our first mistake. I quickly punched in the command, and confirmed my thought. The pathogen grew badly at the wrong pH of blood. The man was acidic. The baby, he cried, losing acid.
I ran back to the lab, stopped the oxygen and told Burton to breathe fast. He had to go into respiratory alkaltosis. Burton breathed faster and faster, when Stone saw through our worst mistake. A rat was in the room. It was normal. And it was exposed to the pathogen and had not died! The organism mutated. Perhaps it now ate rubber gaskets, like the in the plane... As if to confirm our suspicion, a gasket started to degrade in the central core, and quickly, the whole base was contaminated. The sector that I was trapped in had no substation. The base would explode in 3 minutes, spreading horrible mutations of the Andromeda Strain into the atmosphere, and we'll never be rid of it. Stone told me to climb through the core to Level 4 to get to a substation. I climbed, while the computer shot ligamine darts toward me, and I was hit in the shoulder. I don't know how, but I inserted my key into the substation and turned off atomic detonation. But then, everything faded to black...
-Hall
I ran back to the lab, stopped the oxygen and told Burton to breathe fast. He had to go into respiratory alkaltosis. Burton breathed faster and faster, when Stone saw through our worst mistake. A rat was in the room. It was normal. And it was exposed to the pathogen and had not died! The organism mutated. Perhaps it now ate rubber gaskets, like the in the plane... As if to confirm our suspicion, a gasket started to degrade in the central core, and quickly, the whole base was contaminated. The sector that I was trapped in had no substation. The base would explode in 3 minutes, spreading horrible mutations of the Andromeda Strain into the atmosphere, and we'll never be rid of it. Stone told me to climb through the core to Level 4 to get to a substation. I climbed, while the computer shot ligamine darts toward me, and I was hit in the shoulder. I don't know how, but I inserted my key into the substation and turned off atomic detonation. But then, everything faded to black...
-Hall
Day 4 Part 1
Today was exciting. I actually have so much to say about it, I had to split this up into two posts in this online journal. Anyway, everyone was productive. The culture results were in. The pathogen, evidently, grows best in pure carbon dioxide with UV radiation as light and worst in oxygen and no light at all. In fact, it seems that it will grow in the presence of sunlight and carbon dioxide. It doesn't need a growth medium... Then we all saw our mistake. We immediately got through to the President's top advisor on science and told him no atomic bomb should ever be detonated anywhere near that organism. It would give the perfect growth medium.
Luckily, the President still hadn't called a directive 7-12. I was heading toward the patient's room when I was thinking about something the man had said last time but I had ignored. He said one woman, before she died, had said 'Oh god my head!' before death. Perhaps, if there was no clotting, brain hemorrhage occurred. I told this with Burton, and his eyes lit up and he said, "The anti-coagulated rats!" He went and ran to the cold storage and took a dead rat out and quickly split its head. The was massive hemorrhage. So that may be how it kills so effectively. It doesn't directly cause clotting, but it attacks the blood vessel's walls! I was thinking of this when the alarm went off.
-Hall
Luckily, the President still hadn't called a directive 7-12. I was heading toward the patient's room when I was thinking about something the man had said last time but I had ignored. He said one woman, before she died, had said 'Oh god my head!' before death. Perhaps, if there was no clotting, brain hemorrhage occurred. I told this with Burton, and his eyes lit up and he said, "The anti-coagulated rats!" He went and ran to the cold storage and took a dead rat out and quickly split its head. The was massive hemorrhage. So that may be how it kills so effectively. It doesn't directly cause clotting, but it attacks the blood vessel's walls! I was thinking of this when the alarm went off.
-Hall
Day 3
Today the other scientists were very productive. Stone had isolated the pathogen on the satellite, and begun cultures of the organism. Burton had figured out that stopping clotting does not prevent death. I have been able to get nowhere: the baby is perfectly normal. That's all there is to it, the baby is normal and it survived. But how is the question. How did a perfectly normal baby and a old man with too much acid in his blood survive? What do they share in common?
I went into the room with the old man and the baby inside, and I found something. The man was awake! He said he was Peter Jackson, and was a bit confused. He also explained why he had health problems. He had an untreated stomach ulcer, which explains the loss of blood. And to deal with the pain, he took aspirin, and, of all things, drank Sterno, which is basically oil. No wonder his blood was so acidic.
-Hall
I went into the room with the old man and the baby inside, and I found something. The man was awake! He said he was Peter Jackson, and was a bit confused. He also explained why he had health problems. He had an untreated stomach ulcer, which explains the loss of blood. And to deal with the pain, he took aspirin, and, of all things, drank Sterno, which is basically oil. No wonder his blood was so acidic.
-Hall
Day 2
Today was horrible. We came to the lab yesterday, and Stone and Burton greeted us there. We had to then make our way down to level 5 of the lab, the most secure one, where, evidently, I had two patients waiting. The first tests and sterilizations weren't so bad, as we only had to take a few shots and a basic physical to pass onto level 1. After that, it only got worse. Baths for immersing, complete physicals, medical history, destroying our skin's outer layer, and even a pill to empty our digestive system.
Overall, the twelve or so hours it took were miserable. When we arrived on the floor, we had to meet in a conference, where we discussed plans. Evidently, I am the most important person here because of the Odd Man hypothesis, which was that an unmarried scientist like me should make decisions concerning the destruction of the base via atomic bomb, and I was given a key that was the only thing that could stop an atomic blast from destroying the facility if the pathogen were to escape. After the meeting, I immediately headed to my patients and did a quick checkup. There was a baby and an old man in the room. I had to get in a suit attached to the wall but still mobile to interact with them. The baby seemed fine, but the man was losing blood and was in acidosis. He looked to be in a coma, and wasn't going to wake up soon.
-Hall
Overall, the twelve or so hours it took were miserable. When we arrived on the floor, we had to meet in a conference, where we discussed plans. Evidently, I am the most important person here because of the Odd Man hypothesis, which was that an unmarried scientist like me should make decisions concerning the destruction of the base via atomic bomb, and I was given a key that was the only thing that could stop an atomic blast from destroying the facility if the pathogen were to escape. After the meeting, I immediately headed to my patients and did a quick checkup. There was a baby and an old man in the room. I had to get in a suit attached to the wall but still mobile to interact with them. The baby seemed fine, but the man was losing blood and was in acidosis. He looked to be in a coma, and wasn't going to wake up soon.
-Hall
Day 1
Today I was wrenched from my normal life into a completely new one. I was about to conduct surgery on a patient when Dr. Leavitt comes in and demands I stop and come with him, as it is the most urgent of reasons. I agreed once he promised another surgeon would take my place, and we left, and went towards Nevada, of all places. Evidently a Wildfire Alert has been called and the team is needed. Stone and Burton are investigating the site, Leavitt told me, and there is a strange story accompanying the incident.
The satellite in question, Scoop VII, crashed in a desolate area of Arizona, near the town of Piedmont. Someone there must have taken it back. The military moved in to recover it, and the signal was inside the town. But when they entered, there were bodies in the streets, tons of them. It must have been horrific. Anyway, the military's two operatives died suddenly, and then Wildfire was put on alert, and here we are.
-Hall
The satellite in question, Scoop VII, crashed in a desolate area of Arizona, near the town of Piedmont. Someone there must have taken it back. The military moved in to recover it, and the signal was inside the town. But when they entered, there were bodies in the streets, tons of them. It must have been horrific. Anyway, the military's two operatives died suddenly, and then Wildfire was put on alert, and here we are.
-Hall
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