Jupiter's Halo Book Two: The Fall

Chapter Nine

The lab had returned to it’s usual busy quiet after Doctor Bloom-Jutteridge had finished her lengthy vocal battering and retired to her quarters to rest.

Eric had felt quite pleased with the stand he’d made, at first at least. Around eight minutes into her fiery rhetoric, he’d begun to wish he’d simply taken the usual path of smiling, nodding and keeping his real thoughts to himself.

When she hit twelve minutes, apparently without needing to stop for breath, he’d mused on the question of how she’d managed to add the Jutteridge section to her name. He’d read some of her early papers upon finding out she would be a part of their team and at the beginning of her career, she was simply Dr Bloom. At some point, he had to assume, she’d married and added the hyphen with its additional name. How such a woman had convinced someone to accept the bonds of matrimony he couldn’t fathom. Maybe she’d shouted them into it.

By the time she reached a quarter-hour, Eric was pleased and overwhelmingly relieved to see she was starting to tire. Fifteen minutes could pass in the blink of an eye when he was studying the minutiae of cell behaviour, but when being harangued without pause it occurred to him that it was actually a really long time.

When Bloom-Jutteridge had begun to loop back and repeat her earlier complaints he knew he had to take some sort of action. The possibility of her aggrieved voice following him around with its unending monologue of righteous protests was all too likely for him to risk letting her go on.

He’d managed to wedge the briefest of apologies in between her words and the woman’s eyes bulged as her mouth hung open, no doubt searching for an issue with his declaration. Eric had seized upon the silence, but the old rebel in him had made sure the words he used were open to interpretation.

“I’m sorry I upset you,” he continued as she stared, feeling smug at the knowledge that he wasn’t apologizing for what he’d said. “You’re a member of the team,” factual, but not a compliment. “And I should have thought of your feelings before I spoke.”

Eric was particularly proud of that. On the surface, it sounded like he was sorry for upsetting her, but from a different point of view he could be seen to be saying 'I should have remembered you're a self-important gasbag who'll fly off the bloody handle the moment anyone utters even the slightest truth to you.'

His words seemed to be having the desired effect on Jutteridge. He could already see the wobble of her chins reducing and the flush of her wide face was draining steadily away.

“Can you forgive this old man his foibles?” He said pleadingly, playing the ‘frail’ card for all it was worth.

She looked at him hard for a long moment and he couldn’t help but expect her to continue ranting just to enjoy the sound of her own voice. To his continued relief, she took a deep breath, adjusted herself in a few places that Eric hastily turned his eyes from and almost smiled.

“Well, I suppose. Just this once doctor,” she said grudgingly. “We are all human and infallible after all. But please remember in future that I will not tolerate being spoken to in that kind of manner.”

Eric wanted to laugh and ask her how she’d managed to make it through a single conversation in her life with that attitude, but he held his tongue. He had work still to do and as amusing as it turned out this was, he couldn’t waste any more time on Bloom-Jutteridge. At least not today. Maybe next cycle he’d prod her again.

“Of course.” Another phrase that could mean either, ‘I understand and I won’t do it’, or, ‘I understand but I don’t give a damn.’

Bloom-Jutteridge nodded, still looking slightly flustered and muttered that she needed to rest and recuperate so would be in her quarters were she needed. Eric doubted anyone would disturb her; why shatter the peace of her absence?

Walking away she made a great show of holding her head high and the few others in the adjoining labs made it equally apparent that they definitely hadn’t been watching on with glee and most certainly weren’t now pretending to be engrossed in their work and desperately holding in fits of laughter.

The main doors to the labs had been closed for all of two seconds before he heard the first explosive guffaw. Pryce Ardley had been the first in to see him, rushing from his station next to Eric’s to exclaim he thought he was going to burst when he’d heard Eric say what they’d all wanted since the first day.

Mylo Heatherton and Zhi Teezen had quickly followed and the three of them had peppered him with questions and compared their own thoughts and reactions as they’d watched the scene unfold. There had been plenty of laughs, impressions and more than a few comradely back slaps that Eric had tried not to show were quite painful on his tired old frame.

After another ten minutes, he’d been forced to remind them all that their research wasn’t going to do itself and had felt a moment of pride from the looks of disappointment in their eyes. They’d looked at him like a leader, hell they’d looked at him like a hero.

After they’d dispersed the young research assistant, Zakir had strolled nonchalantly past Eric and stopped to give him a look of what he could only think of as congratulations on a job well done. It was as if the young man’s eyes said, ‘nice job. Now you’re in the big boy leagues, so let’s see what you can do.’ He wasn’t ashamed to admit it made him feel good inside.

The only member of the team not to say anything was their pathologist, Doctor Ipson Galley. Eric doubted her silence was anything to do with any form of sisterly affection for Jutteridge. He was pretty sure she detested the woman just like everybody else. Ipson wasn’t much of a talker on any subject, apart from death that is. She could talk about what happened to the human body after its life fled for hours in her low, monotone voice. It was frankly quite creepy, a fact Eric and Pryce had learned first hand in their first few weeks on assignment. Even thinking of the little sparkle in her eyes as she described, in fine detail, the stages of decomposition, brought a shudder that ran all down his spine.

Ipson hadn’t left her little glass-walled cubicle throughout the entirety of the event. She hadn’t even looked up as far as he could tell. If it wasn’t dead, it seemed, she just wasn’t interested.

Eric turned his eyes back to the display above his desk and tried to focus his thoughts on his work. They’d hit a dead end. Again. He couldn’t fathom why, especially given how successful they’d seemed to be in the early months, but now there was a wall that they just couldn’t seem to get over.

The main work was done. The virus was transmittable in every conceivable way. It could survive for a brief period with no host and burned itself up at an astonishing rate to make sure any mass infection could be contained within a targeted area.

Those were the requirements. That was the brief they’d been given, but there had been one last addendum made six months ago: Slow down its rate of attack.

It was an odd thing to add. The way they’d mutated the strains meant the virus had to attack organic cells quickly to remain contained. If it didn’t it would spread uncontrollably throughout a population before its incubation period was complete. It was baffling to be told to do something that seemed to render so much of their previous work pointless.

But it wasn’t their place to question orders. The Deorum society was not one that tolerated insubordination in any fashion. So with private grumbles and muted questions kept between themselves, his team had set about trying to complete their new task.

Six months down the line they’d reached the point he looked on now; incubation varying from a matter of hours to several weeks. Absolutely no common theme to find on what made it move one way or another and no conceivable way to stabilize it. The end was always the same; fifteen seconds of rapid cell deterioration and then everything was gone. It was dramatic enough to watch through a microscope. Eric had woken in a cold sweat on many a rest cycle as his imagination conjured images of how it would be to see a person go through the process.

He knew what they’d created was a weapon of war. Well, they hadn’t created it as such, more adjusted something already in existence but still…

They were in the process of providing the human race with the most potent and deadly biological weapon it had ever seen and once it was done they had no power over when, where or how it was used. He prayed silently that it never would be. That it’s creation was the source of a threat, a promise of what the future could hold if the war continued. In his most private moments, the fear that this was all just wishful thinking hit him hard.

A movement caught his eye and he looked up to see Lucile standing a few metres from his desk. She jerked her head away as their eyes met, seeming to pretend she had been looking anywhere else than directly at him. She gave a little cough and then turned her head back to face him, a delightful flush blossoming on her high cheeks.

"I'm… er… I'm sorry to disturb you, Doctor." Her faltering speech brought a smile to his lips as it always did. "I didn't mean to."

Eric leaned back in his chair, sure now he would get nothing done while she was here to occupy his attention.

“Nonsense,” he spoke kindly, “What can I do for you, Lucile?”

She took a hesitant step forward and then another, quicker one, to bring her alongside his desk.

"I heard you had a bit of a run-in with Doctor Jutteridge-Bloom.” She looked sympathetic, her eyes wide and soft.

He had to remind himself that she wasn’t interested in a spent old fool like him. The affection, if that’s what it was, was as a child would look upon an elderly relative. Very elderly in his case. That was it. That must be it. He tried to push the other thoughts from his mind. A man could dream, but he shouldn’t be dreaming things like that while the object of said fantasy was standing right in front of him. It was improper. Extremely so in this case.

“Are you okay?” She added with a tenderness that set his heart racing and Eric swallowed hard before he was able to make a reply.

“Yes. Yes, oh yes!” He forced the words out with false confidence. “It was nothing really, just a little professional dispute between colleagues.”

Lucile smiled in a way he hadn’t seen before and twisted to lean an arm on his desk. As she bent forward the high neckline of her suit bent and he saw a flash of the curves beneath before hurriedly pulling his eyes away.

She must have seen the redness marching across his face, but her smile stayed unchanged.

“I heard it was something else.” She leaned forward further and Eric had to fight to control his desire to stare down at her body. “I heard you put her in her place and sent her away crying.”

Eric coughed, trying to speak and hearing his own bluster as the words muddled.

“Well, no, I mean… ahem, no it wasn’t… well that’s not-”

Her eyes bored into him and everything around them seemed to fade into nothing.

“I think that would have been a sight to see,” she purred and he felt his blood pressure spike so hard he worried he would keel over. “I think a man being in control like that is really sexy.”

Eric fought for breath. He thought he was going to faint. This couldn't really be happening. He dragged his eyes away, searching for some kind of distraction as his mind raced to find an alternative that it could cope with.

A joke. That was it. It must be. A prank played on him by Pryce or Zhi. They’d put her up to this. Of course, they had!

He scanned the lab, seeking to find the half-hidden grins of his fellows as they watched on and waited to reveal the punchline. No one was looking. Both Zakir and Pryce seemed to have disappeared during his moments of reverie and without the presence of Jutteridge that only left Zhi, Ipson and Mylo. Not an eye in the place was on him, save for those in the beautiful and suddenly confusing face of Lucile.

He looked back at her, still staring at him with a look of hunger that both aroused and terrified him at the same time. He opened his mouth to speak and the words failed as another movement drew his attention.

“Have I upset you?” She asked.

He heard the words and the sudden worry in her voice, but neither really penetrated his mind. Over her shoulder, dressed in a full-body hazard suit, a figure had entered the lab. It was impossible to tell from the mirrored visor and bulky design who stood inside and Eric watched with increasing bewilderment as they stepped confidently towards the chryostore and entered a code to swing the heavy door open. That they could have access to the lab alone meant the suit’s occupant had to be one of a very limited number and knowledge of the access codes to reach the virus specimens shrunk that number again.

“Who is that?” Lucile asked, turning to follow his gaze.

"I don't know," Eric said distractedly as he stood from his chair and made his way past her.

His eyes were still fixed on the figure as it walked through the door and disappeared from sight.

“Excuse me,” he called hesitantly. “Excuse me. Stop that! Stop right now!” His pace quickened as a terrible feeling began to pervade him. There was no reason for anyone to enter the specimen vault inside the store and certainly none for them to hide their identity while doing so. Inside that store strains of the most deadly viruses, diseases and contaminants known to mankind were held in delicate, frozen stasis. Anyone entering had to do so within strict safety protocols and never without oversight. The simple fact that someone had chosen to breach those rules frightened him in a way Eric couldn’t voice.

The figure emerged, stepping back into the narrow corridor that ran the length of the lab and turned to face him.

“I demand to know who you are!”

Eric stopped dead. His eyes fixed on the thin vials held in each hand.

“Whatever you’re doing here—” His words faltered as he watched the fingers open and those small, delicate vials drop fast towards the lab’s hard, unforgiving floor.