This story originally appeared in Alien Dimensions Issue #6
Doctor Luis Calderas closed the airlock at the Practus mining facility and opened the inside hatch. A smiling administrator type awaited him.
Luis ignored the director’s extended hand and asked, “Why do you call them electric zombies?”
“Well, that’s what the miners call them, so the name stuck. The affected men’s eyes glow after the transformation. Most troubling, the condition has an unpredictable progression. A few succumbed within hours, but most of them took weeks to present with symptoms, and a few took a month or more. This facility can’t meet the production schedule at the rate we are losing workers. We mine minerals critical to Earth’s needs. The company pays these people more than they’re worth, but with the loss rate so high, we may not be able to find replacements at any price. That’s why we contacted you. Right now, we’re only grasping for answers.”
Luis rubbed the dark hair of his small chin beard. “Any notion why management personnel didn’t contract the ailment director?”
“Doctor Calderas, management members rarely venture outside the structure. Shields protect us from most radiation, but radiation may be the cause. The answer is, we’ve not a single good idea.” He frowned.
“I asked you to draw blood samples from the deceased workers and track their work locations. Did you prepare the samples as I requested?”
“Exactly. The lab should be sufficient – arrived last week from Lentora Six – all new equipment, but one thing more. The sick workers didn’t die from an illness. Our security teams killed them – standard procedure out here in mining colonies. Protect the product first, the employees later. Our doctor’s contract directs him to perform euthanasia if he thinks the danger is great enough.”
Surprise flooded Luis’ face, his eyes widened, and his forehead wrinkled in disbelief. “What? I never heard of authorized killings. Explain.” He felt contempt for mining company policies. In the name of profits, companies held the power to write whatever rules they wanted to write. Earth leaders didn’t care so long as the products reached Earth. The thought of murdering a sick man made the doctor want to vomit.
“The sick worker’s appearances changed.” the director went on. “They became, uh, distorted. A complete video collection awaits you in the lab.”
#
“Construction engineers built this station by ferrying sections they later connected. This moon is not much larger than an average size asteroid with a fast rotation that produces gravity. Gravity keeps the atmosphere from escaping into space – not a super atmosphere, but enough. Our equipment extracts enough oxygen to keep the facility supplied. Sealed units protect the workers from the harsh environment.”
“Same as many other mining sites,” the doctor muttered.
“Your laboratory arrived in sections as well. Took us three weeks to put all the pieces into their proper positions. Your unit is complete with quarters for staff. Remember to shut and latch each hatch you open when moving about the facility. This one is an older model. We got it from the Kalin cluster mines. Haulers transported the unit faster from there than transporting one from Earth. A new state of the art lab with a six-month delivery schedule would arrive after the haulers. The mineral ships in three weeks.”
Luis acknowledged the director’s comment with a nod and a grunt.
“Each junction throughout the structure has a computerized navigation pad,” Harget continued. “Here, let me show you.” He reached out with his hand and touched a green button with his index finger. Select your destination like this.” He used his index finger to select Dining Area from the list on the screen. “Notice the diagram.”
Luis nodded his head. He spent the last five years studying diseases and epidemics in mining colonies. This station is newer, but very little changes from station to station. He focused his attention on the director to make sure he missed nothing.
“At each junction, you will find another of these,” the director noted. “Make your selection and follow the schematic. The green light on the hatch will flash on the correct corridor to use if you arrive at a point where tunnels connect. Follow the green light. A few times, and you won’t even need the computer assist.”
“Sounds easy enough. I think I will be fine.”
“I’m sure you will. Now let’s go to the administrative area. You’re getting the ten-dollar tour today,” Harget said as he opened the entry hatch. “Now, use the pad yourself. Any questions?” When Luis didn’t reply, he said, “Good. I assume you’re hungry?”
“Yes, the food aboard the transport was mediocre at best. I hope yours is better.”
“I promise you ours is among the best the company can provide. We pride ourselves in serving the best food of all the mining communities. You worked mining operations before, no? Workers only work, sleep and eat. The food better be good.”
Luis located the mess hall area on the pad and pressed to select. Harget opened the hatch. The two men exited the laboratory, closed the hatch and secured the latch with a twist of the locking handle.
The director told him, “You’ll meet your assistants in the dining area. Doctor Wellser, our staff surgeon, and his five medicals are waiting for you. I’ll arrange to fit you with a tracking badge. That way we can find you if you’re not in the laboratory.”
“Do all the personnel wear one of those?”
“Standard procedure.” He pulled off his badge, and waggled it in front of Luis’s face.
“The dead miners wore one as well? I hate to ask twice.”
“Of course. Company policy.”
“I assume the device can track individuals and display a history of their movements?”
“Yes. Enter their ID numbers into the medical system to track a specific person.”
“The medical system may prove valuable, especially if the unit tracks employee locations.”
“If not, I’ll send a Tech to ensure your access. Why the interest in where the men had been? They miners usually stay in their quarters, the dining area. Most hang around in one of the lounges when they’re not working.”
“If we are to determine the cause, points of commonality will be critical to my research.”
“Yes, of course.” He waited as Luis opened the next hatch, stooped, and stepped over the threshold.
In the dining area Harget introduced Luis to the staff medical doctor.
Doctor Wellser rubbed his hand through long grey hair. “What’s your specialty, Doctor Calderas?”
“Call me Luis,” Calderas said.
“My friends call me Needles,” Wellser said with a laugh.
“I specialize in infections, Needles, but I also trained in histology. I also earned a PhD in biochemistry,” Calderas said. Most support personnel at mining operations tend to be overweight and sloppy. Needles physique told otherwise. Luis guessed him younger than the grey hair suggested.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place. You’d be in some kind of Nirvana if you were a psychiatrist. You’ll find enough eccentricity around here to feed a researcher for a couple of centuries – stock stuff out here in the mines. Everyone grows a little crazier every day. You’re here because we don’t have the skills to determine what’s infecting these men. May not be an infection at all. Let me finish this soup and I’ll go back to the lab with you.”
#
The two doctors crowded close to the screen as the video played.
“Observe how the men posture when they’re affected? Every one of them did the same thing. Their hands go above the shoulders and a little higher than their eyes. Their fingers open then close in a grasping manner. The hands resemble claws when they clutch their fingers into the palm and open them again. The staggering gait resembles a drunk man stumbling around,” Needles said.
“Then I guess we should start with the blood work.” Luis shook his head, “Did the explorers who found this moon discover any life forms?”
“I’ve watched all the history videos but found nothing about life forms. If not for the light gravity and thin atmosphere, this place would just be another dead rock.”
Luis motioned for one of the Med-Techs, “Tech please come over here.”
A tall young man walked over to the desk where the two doctors sat.
“Technician,” Luis addressed one of assistants. “Please run a full blood chemistry on each of the deceased men.”
A young man with long hair turned to face the doctor. “Sure, but my name is John. Around here we don’t use titles much. First names or nicknames follow a person from mining colony to mining colony. They stay with you when you change assignments.”
Luis smiled. He didn’t want to tell them the nickname the men at his last assignment used.
The communicator chimed and Needles answered. He raised his head up from the device with a shocked expression. “We’ve got one another near the galley.” He spoke into the device, “Don’t kill the man unless he’s near other people. We’ll arrive in a few minutes.”
“Another one,” Luis’s eyes sagged with regret.
“Let’s go,” said Needles. “I’ll take my bag just in case you need something,” he nodded his head toward Luis and motioned for him to exit the lab.
They found security people waiting outside the entrance to a storage area. The one in charge said, “View the scene through the port.”
Luis obliged by putting his face close to the clear plexiwindow. After a few moments, he asked. “You have no way to take him into custody?” Luis noted the glowing green eyes of the victim. Something affected optic sclera, but was it chemical, biological, hormonal, or something else?
“What? You want me to catch whatever’s got him all screwed up?” the tall security man named Jake asked. “You’re out of your mind, Doc – not in my job description. When I open this hatch, I’ll shoot him. I promise he won’t suffer any more than what’s happening to him right now.”
“Needles,” Luis said, “what other alternatives are available to us?”
“None, and the mining company manuals are specific about that. Nothing we can do. Jake,” he called the security man by name. “Take him out.”
“Sorry Doc, but I got to do this,” Jake said.
Luis shook his head.
Jake opened the hatch, eased to one side, and aimed his weapon. He fired one round into the side of the man’s head. The corpse dropped onto the floor like a rag doll.
Luis jumped and grimaced from the sound of the weapon discharging.
Needles pushed Jake aside with his arm and entered the compartment.
When Luis reached the body, he turned to face John. “Take the liver temperature while I extract a blood sample.”
“The flesh on the face appears withered like the dehydrated hands of a swimmer,” Luis noted. “The hands of the corpse appear normal. Strange.” He placed the index finger and thumb of his right hand onto the eyelids and pushed the lids open. “The green glow has disappeared. A bacterial infection will cause the change in eye color, but shouldn’t change so fast after death. His eyes changed in less than two minutes.”
“Considering a bacterial influence?” Needles asked.
“I think we should draw fluid from the eyes,” said Luis. “The change in eye color may be chemical influences in the aqueous or vitreous humor fluids. Bacterial? I don’t know. May be fungal. I’ll leave that to the test results.”
“Good idea,” said Needles. “What else should we do? The hazardous material removal crew will pick up the remains.” He pulled a syringe out of a case and inserted the needle into the victim’s eye. He drew aqueous humor fluid from the chamber in front of the iris. He inserted another needle into the rear chamber of the eye, and extracted vitreous humor fluid. “That should suffice for now. What’s the body temperature John?”
“Normal,” John said. “Hm. Warm to the touch. Not any fever Needles, and the body isn’t cold or clammy. Flesh tone is pretty good, too. Except for the face.”
Luis did not expect normal body temperature. A fever or a cold body would show where the investigation should start. All he had at that point was nothing but a dead body.
“The hazardous material team will bring the corpse to the lab,” Needles said. “I think we’ve done all we can for the moment.”
Luis replied, “Make sure they destroy all the cleaning equipment in the incinerator.”
#
“We need to setup a cross reference board.” Luis pointed to the only open wall space in the lab. “Then, as we get the blood sample results, we will assign an alpha numeric identification to each. Retest the blood from the corpses. I want complete blood analysis. Cross match the samples and correlate with the areas where the victims worked. The complexities of this case are enormous. We need a large computer screen to overlay the mining work areas.”
“Here’s an idea,” John said. “Let’s assign color codes. Try using a different color for each work location. Then we visualize clusters by work areas. That should help, right?”
“Yes, John you’ve earned a new job. You’re the board keeper. Be sure to enter all the references into the computer system as well. I want to run some statistical calculations.”
“Aaron can do the entry work. I’ll ask one of my friends in the Tech section to help,” John said. “Maybe he can come up with a computer screen large enough for your purposes.”
Aaron glanced up from his worktable and remarked, “More work to do right now.” He frowned. “I like the idea of computerizing the process.”
“Let’s settle this. Anyone who is not assigned to a specific task should use that unscheduled time to do the data entry. The testing devices will send some of the data into the main computer system anyway. Let’s not make the process too difficult for any one man. How’s that?” Luis asked.
The entire team agreed.
“Aaron, please contact your friend in the Tech section right away.” Luis understood the tedious and complicated nature of the work. Necessity meant delving full force into the tasks. The haulers left their bases weeks ago.
Needles came into the lab with a smile. “Good news! Security did not kill one of the casualties. He fell into a machine outside of the facility. His entire brain is intact.”
“Where is the body?” Luis inquired.
“We keep them in body bags inside in the cold storage units outside the complex. I will deliver the body whenever you’re ready.”
“Let’s setup the reference board first. Our focus should be on blood work.”
“Good idea. I guess I should begin,” Needles said as he went to the hematology analyzer. He pressed a switch and the machine hummed to life.
Luis left the lab and went to talk with Director Harget. “Security should not kill the infected men. I demand the security teams capture one of the affected individuals. An infection is unlikely because infections became progressive. I must have a living specimen. Based on body temperature they weren’t zombies, electric or otherwise. I intend to analyze everyone in the complex, but I lack personnel with training. The medical staff will train any individuals you spare from mining work. The trainees should be intelligent enough to do the work.”
“Anything that helps to solve the problem is fine by me. How should we choose the trainees?” Harget stood up from his desk, ready to take action.
“Company hiring records should identify those with abilities to learn complex tasks.”
“We keep the IQ results for everyone we hire. Standard company procedure.”
“Send five or six of your best to me. When may I expect the first ones to arrive?”
“As soon as I can access the database. I’ll inform you who the candidates are and let you pick. We also maintain personality profiles. You’ll receive them in less than an hour.”
“Excellent. Thanks for the help.”
“The first of the finished products from this facility will ship in ten days. The initial refining stage of the mineral is close to completion. The haulers usually arrive on time. The company does not like delays.”
“We’ll try to do our best,” Luis said. But he knew he was facing one of the biggest challenges of his career. The data lacked solidity.
#
To Luis’s surprise, five women entered the lab. One of them called out, “Which one of you is Doctor Calderas?”
“That would be me,” Luis said. “I guess you are the new lab rats.”
“Beats operating a loader all day,” the heavy woman with short hair said.
The others nodded their heads.
“No time to check your credentials,” Luis muttered. “Any of you study medicine or nursing?”
“My name is Myrna, and I was pre-med,” the short blond-haired woman said. “That is, before I ran out of money. I did complete my undergraduate work.”
“Degree?”
“Chemistry! I guess that’s why I am here. Do we earn extra pay for working in here?”
Luis ignored the question. He was too busy reading the questionnaires Harget sent. Loraine, the heavy woman, had the highest IQ. She will be easy to train, he thought. The others had better than average intelligence. The blond with medical and chemistry training would be ideal to run the blood work. Her participation would free up the medical team for more difficult assignments – if he were lucky.
“Ok,” he remarked. “Myrna, join Aaron at his workspace.” He called out across the lab to Aaron, “Make sure she is capable of performing your tasks. Ready her by tomorrow morning. Nobody sleeps much until our work is stable and under control. Understood?”
Everyone nodded. Not one of them complained. Lab work was gravy compared to the tough work out in the mining area.
Luis turned again to face Needles. “How many female victims?”
“Why none, but I didn’t think about sex as a component. None. They were all men. Now I understand why the company sent you to investigate.”
“No. I should have asked that question three days ago. I must be getting old,” Luis laughed. “Our first real clue is in hand.”
The third woman named Harlow jumped into the conversation. “We women work alongside of the men but none of us got sick. How did we avoid contact with whatever causes it? How is it possible that only men changed?”
“Exactly!” Luis’s voice faded away into a whisper. “Exactly.”
#
“Myrna, did you complete the blood analysis on the women?” Luis asked.
She turned her head over her shoulder and grinned a quick grin, “Almost, Doc.”
Luis went to his terminal to cross-reference the results with the existing data. One thing became immediately evident. He found no differences between dead male and live female blood samples. He did not expect the results to yield nothing. “Needles?”
“Yes.”
“Someone should test urine samples. Be especially attentive to pH. Draw specimens from the bladders of the corpses first, then do a random check among the workers. Fifty samples should be enough. Two thirds male and one third female.”
“Prescott,” Needles called out to another lab worker. “Start drawing urine samples. You heard Luis. We need them yesterday.”
Luis stood up from his terminal and went to one of the workbenches. He examined eye tissue from a corpse. The retinal tissue had a thin layer of translucent film covering the entire sample. “Needles,” Luis called out. “It’s film! A film like substance covers the retina.”
“Film?”
“I’m sure you’ll appreciate this. Appears to be a thin opaque substance.”
Needles peered into the view port of the electron microscope. “Sure enough. Appears to be a film. I’ll take a sample for analysis. Another clue.”
Luis thought for a few moments then said. “I must examine the brain of number twelve.”
Luis removed the head from victim number twelve from storage and proceeded to open the skull with an oscillating saw. He extracted the brain, moved the mass to the dissection block, detached each of the major parts, then laid them in a line on the workbench. He put the frontal lobe into the nitrogen flash freezer and went back to the brain. He removed the larger veins and arteries using a laser scalpel. Insignificant obstructions went to the side. He put the lobes into the freezer. When frozen, he sliced thin pieces and examined them under the microscope.
“Silicon,” Needles called out. “The film is almost pure silicon.”
Luis went to where Needles stood. Together they viewed the display from the mass spectrometer. The spikes in the digital chart showed silicon. Where did the silicon originate and how did it come to cover the retina? The clues did not show much promise.
“Check the other organs for silicon, Needles.” Luis whirled around and returned to the flash freezer to retrieve the frontal lobe. A few more minutes and the sample would be ready. Luis sat down on his lab chair to think.
#
The first cut into the frontal lobe tissue sample revealed something astonishing. Small black dots veiled the area between the occipital lobe and parietal lobe. The dots formed a thin band that covered the sulcus between the two lobes. The results were obvious. The presence of a barrier on the sulcus causes visual hallucinations. Infiltrates on the sulcus explains the erratic movement of the limbs, especially the hands.
“Needles, please come here,” Luis called out. “Everyone please come here.”
The group gathered to peer at the brain tissue sample.
“Stone fleas,” Lorraine said. “They’re all over this place found in everything.”
“Fleas?” Luis face contorted. Lorraine’s comment didn’t make sense to him.
“Sure. That’s what we miners call them. Some of the geologists worked with them for a while but gave up. They told us they were small flakes of mixed minerals, but not much else.”
“Take the samples and run a spectral analysis,” Needles said. “Lorraine, you’re in charge. Myrna,” he turned around to face her. “Get these into the microscope and let’s find out what we can.”
Lorraine and Myrna whirled around and went to set up their tasks. Luis scraped a few of the specks from the parietal lobe and put them into a small plastic sample container. He placed one container on Lorraine’s work area near the spectrometer. The sample he put on Myrna’s station.
“Good luck,” he said to her like a prayer. His confidence dwindled
If these small mineral flecks caused the illness, Luis doubted he had time to solve the mystery before the hauler arrived. Time was short and his resources limited. Despite his medical training, he could research symptoms and never find the cause. How did the stone fleas migrate from the moon’s surface into a brain? Their mobility increased the probability of life forms. I cannot rule out bacteria or a virus. Mobility raised more questions. Perhaps the human body absorbed them then deposited them at random sites in the body.
“Not much here,” Myrna called out over her shoulder. “I ran a cross check against the mineral we’re mining and the sample is almost a perfect match.”
“Nothing. That’s all we’ve discovered. Nothing.”
“Well, not nothing,” Lorraine said. “The microscope tells us something new.”
Luis rushed to her side, “Aha. tiny things, but now we learn something about movement. What magnification is this?”
“One and a half Pico meter,” Lorraine said. “You told us to be accurate. Turning them over to show the bottom side was difficult. You should try it, Doc.”
“The striations remind me of ribs,” Luis pointed out. “Let’s change the setting to one Pico meter.” He adjusted the settings. “Once again, we learn something, but we cannot see the motion because the specimen is so tiny. Place several on a slide, measure their locations, and return after a half hour. The specimen might be animal – impossible to tell. No eyes or other body structure. Only the little ribs, if that’s what they are. Determine motion or motion rate, please.”
“Needles, anything yet on the urine samples?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Most important. We must learn the pH. If the fleas are animals, they might prefer a particular type of environment, like parasites.”
“Yup,” Needles nodded.
“The day is getting late. I suggest you all rest; most of you have been working for sixteen hours or more. If we are to solve our mystery, we must be at our best. Thank you for your work today. Now go rest yourselves,” Luis announced. “I appreciate your help. Thank you.”
One by one the workers tidied up their work areas and left the lab. Luis remained in the lab alone. He required solitude to think and review the findings. For hours, he studied the lab results and returned often to the microscope. “What are you?” He asked the tiny stone flea image on the microscope view screen. “What are you?”
Hour upon hour he poured over the findings, but still had no definitive answers. He began to feel fatigue weigh heavy, but he forced himself to remain awake. His eyes hurt, and his legs became weary. He didn’t eat all day and went to his quarters to search the refrigeration unit. Not much inside. He found an energy cake, gulped the thing down in three bites, and slurped a cup of coffee before he returned to his desk. Time became critical with the hauler’s arrival so near. He went back to the microscope images.
Sleep tried to come, but as he fought the urge to close his eyes he saw something like a vision. He experienced these before when studying for university exams. The mind dropped everything except body function and thought.
Luis understood, but did not know his realization came too late. Images from the creatures, not words, flooded his mind. They’re communicating! He understood everything. The wanderers clung to a barren rock as the nomadic space debris floated through a dozen solar systems. The creatures evolved from necessity and consumed anything available – ultimate omnivores. When the rock hit Practus long ago, they found plant life and small creatures in abundance. Over many millennia, they ingested anything their systems would accept. The moon’s indigenous life forms became extinct. The fleas wasted nothing. Their consumption produced nothing but progeny. They are intelligent and communicate by embedding themselves into the neurons and brains of the host. Once inside an organism, they became part of the host and continued to feed until nothing remained. Long ago the fleas found more organic material beneath the moon’s surface and migrated there. Mining operations exposed the layer inhabited by the creatures and released them onto the surface.
Luis lost track of time but turned his head up from the work when Myrna came into the lab. Exhausted, he stood up unsteady on his feet and waved to her, but she turned and went back into the passage. He almost stumbled but supported himself by grasping the edge of his desk. He must warn Earth about his findings.
When Needles and Jake returned, they remained hidden behind the half-opened hatch.
Luis stumbled toward them and shouted a warning, “Earth is in great danger. Quarantine this moon immediately. Listen to me. No cure exists. They are life forms, not a disease or virus. They will kill off the entire population of Earth if they are not stopped here. Listen.” Luis begged Needles and Jake.
He slumped to the floor. Dead when the bullet pierced his brain.
I wonder what he was thinking, if anything,” Jake said to Needles. “He was growling – almost a howl. The others didn’t make any sounds.
“We’ll never know, but this I can tell you. We will continue his work until we find a cure. Our first shipment departs for Earth next week, and we must meet the production schedule. Back to work.”