A Bad Day Gets Worse

Part 6

The biologist had not been acting right for some time. He was always looking to find time alone. Even now that the six of them had reunited. The physicist was stuck in the computer lab waiting on calculations of the trajectory of the meteor's impact. Everyone else was stuck in the mess waiting for their ride. It took seven hours to get out and come back to the impact site. They had taken three-dimensional photos of the site to go along with the three-dimensional photos taken by the original team of the intact meteor. They just called for the helicopter which would take time to reach the Antarctic base camp they were waiting inside of. If the weather got too bad, too fast this could end up being the six strangers' graves. They had three hours to wait as the bad weather loomed on the horizons.

The geologist and security guards were playing cards. The chief of security transferred the outside cameras to a tablet he was watching to keep an eye on the weather. But the biologist just kept leaving the mess every so often.

After the fifth time the head of security decided to follow him. What he saw was the biologist checking on some kind of large egg. As the biologist left the area, he was startled by the chief.

“Oh...I...Uh....”, the biologist stammered.

“What are you doing?”, the chief asked.

“I'm checking on a specimen I came across.”, he admitted blatantly.

“Is that a sample of what we've been looking for?”, the chief asked.

“I'm not certain. If it is, it has a larval stage.”, the biologist confided.

“How can we take this home safely?”, the chief asked.

“We could freeze it like the original crew did, but we don't know if the cold will affect this phase. But most of the albumen seems to be gone. Perhaps we could freeze it in its pupae or adult phase instead? But I need to keep an eye on it.”, the biologist said.

“You should have told us that you found this. Stay here! I'm sending a guard in case things get out of hand. We know two people are dead due to one of these things, and it drove the third insane. Keeping this secret wasn't a smart idea. I might think you were turned insane by that bug.”, the chief sneered as he went back to the mess. But before he got back to the mess the physicist screamed.

By the time the chief got there, both security guards and the geologist had already arrived. There was no sign of the physicist, but it was clear she had been in a struggle.

“Was this the biologist, sir?”, one of the guards asked.

“No, he's in the biology lab. I want one of you to guard him and his specimen. Kill them both if you need to.

“Great, the hard drives are gone too. We need that data to find out what's really going on here. Whoever did this is in here with us. You two stick together and search this place.”, he ordered the remaining guard and the geologist.

“No thanks?!”, the geologist mumbled as they searched the outpost again. Nothing had been found the first three times the station was searched, but maybe the fourth would be the charm.

The chief examined the computer. Whoever did this wasn't trying to steal it but destroy it as the cords to three hard drives had been striped apart from the console. Luckily, he had already made copies which made him check the equipment for extraction when their ride arrived. He verified his copies were intact. It was a good thing they called in for extraction early.

The security guard arrived in the biology lab. The biologist had retrieved the multi-spectrum camera from the geology lab and set it up to film what he was observing as the bloated grub started eating the yolk.

“What's that thing?”, the guard asked.

“It's an egg with a life-form.”

“Where did you get the egg?”

The biologist never questioned it until now, but it was strange how he found it alone in the corridor. “My best guess is that it's a penguin egg discarded due to this... parasite. And I think the egg comes from an Emperor or King Penguin given its size.”

“So, they found it?”, the guard questioned him again.

“I guess?'”, said the biologist. “I found it near the entrance.”

“Did you tell the chief?”, the guard demanded.

“No. He didn't ask. “, the biologist said nonchalantly. “ Why what's going on?”

“Sir, over.”, she said into her walkie.

“What now? Over.”

“Be careful up there, seems like something didn't just go missing up there. Something appeared near the entrance too. Over.”, the guard warned him.

“I'm looking around now. Over.”

“Do you have a weapon?”, the guard asked the biologist.

“I don't....” the guard interrupted him by pointing at the life-form

“If that thing attacks you, you'll wish you had this.”, she threw her Colt at him, and he caught it awkwardly.

“The safety is on, switch it off, and don't shoot yourself. Take my walkie too. I'm going to check on the chief. I have an idea about this place. But I'm serious, if you can't trap that thing, kill it before it kills us all.”, she said as she headed back toward her boss.

“So, you come here often?” the geologist asked the other guard.

“Excuse me?”, she said.

“Sorry it's just you ladies seem so stern; I'm just trying to break the ice a little.”

“Well, you're barking up the wrong tree.”

“Damn, I'm just trying to make friends not make out.”

“You're just a little too familiar too soon, I guess?”, she said sternly.

“I don't understand this younger generation. Contracts for dating, sex waivers, using an algorithm to choose a partner, and using a DNA decoder to have a child. I like the old days where we ignored the algorithms, just used looks to find mates and made stupid mistakes too often. Sure, women can decide when to have a child better today, but I miss the chase, and live interactions to get to know people. Sure, some people might be uncomfortable, but life is not comfort or we'd all be sittin' around doin' nothin.”

“You're deeper than you appear.”, she said.

“I don't let algorithms tell me who I am, or who I'm attracted to. Besides I don't think that they are accurate enough to figure out a guy like me yet.”

As her radio squawked the conversation of her colleagues, they continued searching the crew quarters and labs. They watched as the other security guard ran toward the entrance. “Check the walls people!”, she yelled as she passed them. “Be on alert!”

“Shit, inside the walls? How do we get them in there?”

The guard reached the head of security and put a finger to her lips. He looked at her quizzically and realized she was being quiet for a reason. She walked toward him and whispered, “It's in the walls.”

“That makes sense!”, he marched straight into the computer lab, flipped the desk to the ground and found a flap with blood on it.

“I'll flush, you rush.”, he said as he disappeared behind the flap of plastic before she could respond.

As he walked through the narrow corridor made between the nylon walls on the inside and the hard plastic shell that protected them from the elements, he hit each nylon wall with his Colt as he passed. His subordinate watched from the outside to view his progress. As he left the room through the corridor the guard shot her silenced M-16 into the nylon walls of the room, but nothing was hit.

The woman entered the chemical lab and ran into the geologist and the other guard.

“What was that shooting?”

“We're clearing rooms. I suggest you check the crew quarters. Those rooms are clear.”

They split up again and using the same strategy they cleared each room one by one. The geologist used a sawed-off shotgun to tap the nylon though.

As they approached the geology lab, the chief of security found an open flap. The chief poked it with his gun but was startled by a scream. As he pushed through the flap, he was nearly struck by the miter saw. The physicist was holding it trying to cut the chief. A man was holding the security guard hostage.

“Let her go!”, the chief said, as the man pushed a scalpel into the woman's throat.

The physicist tried to hit him again, but he pushed his way across the room to get away from her as the geologist and other security guard entered the room. The man turned toward them all. He threw the guard at them as he and the physicist disappeared through the flap.

“Go get them!”, he ordered the guards

They took off to follow them. He pointed toward the geologist, “You're with me.”

They stormed into the garage, and watched as the physicist and the man, who had no shirt on, went out into the windy Antarctic dawn.

“Good thing I never took off my snow gear.”, the geologist said as he trudged into the snow.

The security chief just pulled up the top of his overalls and was nice and toasty. The other guards were too, in their black down jackets. They jumped on the only skiff that was left, picked up the geologist and chief, and caught up to them as they prepared the missing skiff.

As their skid came to a stop the geologist and chief jumped off of it but missed their quarry as they took off in their skiff. The chief waved the guards to follow, and they did. Where the other skiff was hidden a few more eggs with several bloated grubs hanging out of them were found. They unloaded their weapons on the gag inducing sight.

The guards pursued the skiff easily now that they had real tracks to follow. Both boats traveled the same speed, but the women's warm coats weighed them down a little. The guard not driving the skiff fired some shots from her own Colt at the skiff being chased. A large creaking noise shot up across the snow laden ice field they were speeding across.

“What was that noise?”

“Not good!”, the geologist exclaimed, “We better get into that ice buggy.”

The security chief ran in and grabbed the copied data and went to check on the biologist.

“We need to get out of here!”

“But my specimen?”

“Freeze it or I kill it, it's your choice?”

“We better be able to reanimate it in our labs.”, he said as the biologist blasted it with liquid helium.

He picked it up with tongs and packed it in a thermal case and packed snow around it.

“We can learn so much from this.”, the biologist said giddy as a schoolgirl.

“But should we?”, he asked as he followed the biologist to the buggy.

The two skiffs were still speeding across the ice. The ice quake barely registered to them due to the bouncing off the ice as they went. Since they had not felt it, the guard fired two shots, and a louder crack rang out, this time with a larger quake that was felt.

“Don't do that again!”, yelled the driver.

“Too late!”, said the gunman.

In front of both skiffs the horizon was disappearing. They had triggered an avalanche on this large ice shelf sitting above an ancient lake. The women turned their skiff to try to avoid the fall, but their momentum still carried them forward, and they watched as the man with a large grin on his face dove into the lake below. The women and both skiffs plunged into the lake after him as the ice they had been traveling on followed.

Back at the base camp a pond of ice-cold water made it hard to get back to the buggy, which was now floating due to its chain covered inflatable wheels.

“What's going on?”, asked the biologist.

“I Think the glacier is falling into the lake.”, the chief informed as he plunged into the icy water carrying the data, he collected along with the sample bags that were collected.

The biologist had samples of his own and eased a foot into the freezing cold water. The sample bag he had was insulated and floated on the surface, as he tip toed toward the buggy in waste deep water.

“Sorry, this thing has no traction in water, but floats in case of a water hazard.”, the geologist greeted the two soggy compatriots. “Looks like we're losing ice across the northern coast meaning we're in the water soon. That's just water coming from the bore holes they drilled. The ice is shooting it up like a geyser outside.”

Outside three geysers of water were glowing green thanks to the Southern Lights, meaning they were now on a large iceberg in the lake. They could also now see the ice on the horizon breaking up, just as the guard pushed the buggy outside of the garage and the chief got inside of it, their ice broke up too. Now the entire lake surface was carved in half by the firing of one gun. This would have repercussions for decades to come as a large part of the western ice shelf began to fully calve into the sea.

Floating in their buggy they just hoped the helicopter could find them. Shortly after they plunged into the lake, one of the women showed up passed out on their skiff. The other woman was hit by ice and lost her life to Davy Jones's Locker. There were no signs of the other skiff or its occupants. Luckily all of the vehicles have emergency beacons, and the disaster was large enough the helicopter pilot knew right away that they would need to use it. Within an hour they found the four weary people and brought them back to the ship.

Upon returning the chief started examining the data. He had left a jump drive on the computer while the physicist was working on it before she was taken and found an anomaly about the impact. It wasn't from space but originated from within six miles above the ground similar to a failed rocket attempt. This wasn't very good news, and neither was the news from the captain of the ship.

“We'll be heading back. We're leaving a smaller vessel behind to track those beings. We've already sent the biologist and his samples back to the lab via the helicopter. You can do your research on board, correct?”

“'Those beings?”, he questioned.

“We think they no longer live, so being seems appropriate.”

“I can do my work here by getting the physicist back. This data doesn't make sense. I can't do this on my own.”

“Well, it will take three days to get back. You can contact anyone you need to. In the meantime, enjoy the cruise.”, he said nonchalantly.

How could he enjoy anything? He just lost two members of his own crew and three colleagues, one of which he had been intimate. He could have lost them all including himself if not for luck. “Focus on the good.”, he thought. We succeeded in collecting data, four of six is good numbers in combat against an army of possibly many, I can work with that biologist again, and my wife will be happy that I'll get paid a small fortune for helping out with this project. The physicist must be scared, are there more than just three of those things left? What kind of effect will they have on the birds if they eat eggs? His thoughts always go to the worst unless he focuses on the good.