Jupiter's Halo Book Two: The Fall

Chapter 11

Eric felt his heart stop and his skin prickle with the cold tingle of fear as he watched the vials drop.

The world seemed to fall into slow motion, the delicate glass cylinders turning gently as they made their inexorable journey to the floor of the lab. His mind turned just as slowly, caught in the grip of fear and the all-encompassing shock that anyone could even conceive of committing such an act.

They had condemned them all to death. Not just death, but the most agonizing, terrifying end any human had ever endured.

The vials completed their journey, the thin casings no match for the surface they faced. They crumpled, splitting and shattering, depositing their lethal cargo in tiny droplets.

That was it. He was dead.

Fingers grabbed at his sleeve, pulling hard to drag him back inside the glass-walled room that formed his section of the lab. He teetered back, thrown off balance and half stepped, half fell against his desk. Items scattered under his waving arm, their value forgotten as they broke with expensive-sounding tinkles on the floor.

Lucile pushed past him, hammering her hand against the large, red alarm button beside the doorway. Sirens sounded immediately and the glass panel that took the place of a standard door slid shut with a reverberating thud. The cry of the siren became muted. Eric could see the others, trapped in isolation behind sealed glass walls, just as he and Lucile now were.

The figure in the bio-suit had disappeared. He hadn’t seen them leave, his entire focus taken by the journey of those vials to the floor.

“Doctor Bramley, are you alright?” Lucile had turned back from the alarm and was patting his face gently.

He looked up, his eyes unfocused and bleary.

“Who would do that?”

The question wasn’t meant for her. He couldn’t understand, couldn’t bring his thoughts in a line without voicing them. The questions were too big to keep inside his head.

“I don’t know,” she replied quickly with another glance around. “I think we got inside in time. Now please tell me you’re okay.”

Eric didn't understand the question. Of course, he wasn't okay. None of them were. They were all dead. How could she not know that? All he could do was continue to stare at her.

“Doctor, I need you to snap out of this.”

She slapped him across the cheek. It stung and he lifted a hand to his face in habitual reaction. The blow hadn’t cleared his mind, but the pain that flared hot across his face served to bring part of him back to the present.

“I’m sorry,” she said with worry plain in her voice. “I didn’t mean to hit you hard. I just need to know you’re okay.”

Eric shook his head slowly.

"No, my dear. No, I'm not okay. None of us ever will be again."

He looked out into the wider lab, seeing with more clarity this time the faces of his colleagues through their glass walls.

Mylo was pressed against the glass of his lab, frantically waving gestures that Eric didn’t understand. Zhi had his back turned, working at the console in front of him, but attempting to do what, Eric couldn’t guess. Ipson looked strangely calm. The pathologist was sitting, still and serene at her desk and although he couldn’t be sure over the distance, it looked for all the world like she had her eyes closed. If it weren’t for the wailing alarm and the sudden craziness of the situation, he could almost believe she was asleep.

He turned to see Pryce, his lab being the closest to Eric’s. The man was waving and pointing. It took a moment for Eric to realise he was mouthing words as well. He turned his head, seeing the single bio-suit folded across the top of a low cabinet in the corner of his section.

He looked back to see Pryce gesturing to it with urgent movements before he leaned down to pull the suit Eric could now see he had his feet inside, up the length of his legs.

He looked back at Lucile.

“You should take the suit, Doctor,” she said before he had a chance to speak.

Eric shook his head furiously.

“No! For all we know I’ve been exposed. The suit won’t help me now. You take it. You’re young, with a future. I’m just a used up, tired old man.”

Now Lucile shook her head. She reached out a hand, placing it lightly on his chest.

“You’re so much more than that,” she said quietly and looked deep into his eyes.

Eric felt the stirring in that connection and wished for a moment he was a hundred years younger and they were both anywhere but here.

Wait, had Pryce been there before the figure in the bio-suit dropped the vials?

“Everything you know, everything you’ve done. You’re worth so much more than me.” Lucile’s words snapped his wandering attention back.

Eric put his hands on her shoulders, shaking her to dislodge such thoughts.

“Never say that. Never even think that.” He continued to hold her while his eyes strayed to the bio-suit. “Get the suit on. I’ll help you fasten up, but we need to hurry.”

Lucile followed the line of his eyes before turning back.

“If you’ve been exposed, then I guess so have I.”

“No,” Eric didn’t want to think that. “You were further away, still inside this room. You should be fine, but only if you suit up now.”

“But if you’re exposed, we’re so close. Surely by now… ?” She left the words hanging.

She was probably right. He didn't want to admit it, but the virus was built to spread as fast and as far as possible. It could adapt to be transferred in any way, but it started as an airborne contagion. He might have been lucky, maybe, but if he hadn't been then by now he would certainly have transmitted it to her. The thought broke his heart. He wanted to cry at the injustice of such a beautiful young woman, inside and out, having her life cut short in such a horrific fashion.

“If I’ve been exposed, you could still have a chance. Just get in the sui-” His words were interrupted as her lips pressed against his.

Eric pulled back, shocked speechless by the move.

“What… why would you… ?”

Lucile gave him a shy smile, her shoulders rolling close to her slim neck and a blush filling her cheeks.

“No question about it now,” she said, her eyes staring down at the floor. “Either we’re both exposed and we die together, or we’ve been lucky and we live together.”

Eric’s mind blanked for the second time in as many minutes. What was she doing? What in all the worlds did she think she was doing?

“I… you… “ He stopped to take a breath and gather himself.

His head was full of questions, his imagination already filling the space left over with flashes of an impossible future. His libido tried to add its voice to the chaos.

“No!” He bellowed and Lucile’s face snapped up, her eyes wide with shock and fear.

Eric softened now his head was clearer.

“I didn’t mean, look, what you did was foolish.” He looked around the lab, seeing Pryce and Mylo now both fully suited while Ipson still sat immobile.

“But,” he continued. “You do have a point. If we’re not infected we need to think of a way to get out without exposing ourselves.” He looked around again. “And the others too.”

Lucile simply watched him as if she were waiting for him to reveal his brilliant plan to get them all safely to freedom. He wanted to satisfy her need to hear it would all be fine, but the first problem with was that he didn’t have a single clue how they might escape the present danger.

The entire lab would now be quarantined and given the virility of the pathogen released, it was likely to stay that way, or more likely, be cleansed. He wasn’t sure if the young researcher knew what that would entail, but the two options he knew of didn’t leave any room for human survivors.

Any would-be rescuers would come to save the rest of the station’s crew from exposure. That meant either fire or vacuum. He tried to keep the rising fear from showing on his face.

“I know you can get us out,” she said almost too quietly to be heard. “I believe in you.”

Eric opened his mouth to speak, unsure of what to say. A new noise burst into hearing, saving him the trouble of coming up with a reply. The glass around them began to turn white as thick smoke billowed down from above.

“The halon system?” Lucile asked as they both looked up to the wide jet set into the centre of the ceiling above them. “Why?”

In Eric's mind, the bigger question loomed. If the halon system was on, somebody had turned it on. It would suck the air from the labs, leaving them to suffocate, but more importantly, taking the virus with it. The question of who would willingly commit homicide on such a scale as well as suicide was knocked from his mind. It was replaced by the more self-serving 'how could they ever escape now?'

Eric opened his mouth again as, above them, the jet whirred into action and fired a freezing cloud of gas directly downward.

"Oh, fu-"