This Green Hell

‘As long as there’s available moisture, you probably have about twenty minutes of high-speed delivery. There are backup pellets — and one more thing.’

Hammerson pointed his arm towards the dummy again and made a fist. This time, when the projectile stream started up, he opened his hand, fingers up in front of the stream. It immediately cut off.

‘Sensors. Got some pretty smart technology built in to control the speed of delivery and make sure each part of the manufacture-to-delivery process is working in harmony. Also ensures you don’t take your hand off by accident.’

Hammerson lowered his arm and rotated his shoulder.

‘Drawbacks, other than the obvious recoil?’ Alex asked.

‘A few, but I doubt they’ll affect you. The other users, maybe. The technology has been miniaturised, but you still need a wrist-to-elbow length of at least eleven inches to support the carriage — can’t pack it down any smaller than that. Also, the recoil is tough. The projectiles are pushed out at approximately 3000 feet per second, and once you have a firing stream in motion the pushback is significant. The lab boys recommend short multisecond bursts rather than long streams.’

Hammerson slid the gauntlet off and handed it to Alex. He weighed it in his hand for a moment before pushing it up his arm and strapping it into place. He turned his arm over and then back again.

‘What’s the trigger?’ he asked.

‘You are — brachioradial muscle extension.’ Hammerson smiled and stepped back.

Alex nodded and turned to face the half-dozen ballistic gel torsos at the end of the room. He raised his arm flat-handed as he’d seen the colonel do, then made a fist. The hiss of the ice gun filled the room and a white stream of needle-sharp darts flew at the target dummies. Alex destroyed the first two rapidly, then moved on to the third — this time he just removed the head. Then the next, and the next, until they were all just piles of shredded gel on the floor. As Hammerson had expected, the recoil didn’t affect him in any way.

Alex relaxed his hand and smiled broadly at the damage. ‘Oh yeah, very nice indeed.’

He concentrated his gaze on one of the ravaged torsos. Hammerson realised he was using his extraordinary vision to study the trapped darts before they melted. Each was about an inch and a half in length, and a bit thicker than a toothpick. In another second they would all be gone without a trace.

There was a slight chemical smell in the air and the room was a few degrees cooler, but, other than some water on the floor, there was no debris around the men.

‘No casings, no evidence left behind, very tidy,’ Hammerson said as he helped Alex to remove the gauntlet. ‘You get three — one each for you, Sam and Mak. And you get the fun of telling Franks there isn’t one to fit her.’

Alex pulled a face of mock horror. ‘Oh, great. That’s going to be one pleasant conversation.’

Hammerson raised his eyebrows. ‘I didn’t pick you as one to be afraid of girls, Arcadian.’

‘Sure I am, and for lots of good reasons,’ Alex laughed.

Hammerson replaced the gauntlet on its stand, slapped Alex on the shoulder and they headed for the door.

‘Any more news from down south?’ Alex asked.

‘Nope … and no news is good news. Say hello to her for me, will you?’

Hammerson’s tone was light, but, as he looked at Alex from the corner of his eye, he felt a knot in his belly. Alex was worried for Aimee, but he didn’t know the walls were rapidly closing in around himself. He wondered if he should simply tell Alex to grab Aimee and just keep going. Not to return to USSTRATCOM and its Medical Division.

Maybe next time, he thought, as the door slid closed behind them.

EIGHT

Aimee lifted the small glass tube that contained the sample and shook it. The fragment of flesh she’d collected had totally degraded into a viscous black liquid. She frowned, both horrified and astounded at the speed of the decomposition.

With something this corrosive, she knew she should have the sample under glass and be wearing some form of bio-suit. But here in the jungle, the best she could muster was two pairs of gloves, overalls and a surgical mask from Francisco’s medical stores. The extra clothing was only moderate protection, but made her so hot that the headband she wore was already sodden with perspiration.

She dipped a thin glass rod into the putrid liquid and smeared it onto a slide, then quickly placed it under her microscope viewer. This time she had the computer ready to accept the image, and as soon as she tuned back to the screen the dark pool was already in focus.

‘Whaaaat?’ Aimee softly breathed out the word in confusion.

She typed some commands and the screen split: half showed the live images from Ramon’s sample; in the other she called up earlier pictures from the drill head. In the drill sample there had been a community of different life forms whirring, whipping or floating in the tiny sea she had created for them. But in Ramon’s sample there was just one life form: spherical and joined in chains like a segmented worm — unmistakably the same bacteria she had extracted from the drill head.

Aimee knew it was far too soon to be postulating any theories, but this organism definitely should not have been in Ramon’s body. Other than in her own samples, this sub-terra lifeform shouldn’t have been anywhere else on the surface of the Earth. She sat back and mopped her eyes with her sleeve. It was impossible. Only yesterday this microorganism only existed solely a mile underground, and now it was in abundance in what remained of the man’s flesh. She went to place a hand on her chin, then changed her mind. Somehow, Ramon must have got some of the black material on his body and become infected.

She held up the glass tube again and swirled the liquid. How did it manage to degrade the flesh so quickly? Maybe there was something else at work; something she couldn’t see with this microscope’s level of magnification. As well as the bacterium, there could be some sort of underlying viral bloom, or perhaps even a unique chemical interaction occurring. Could be a hundred things she hadn’t even thought of yet.

She placed the tube in a rack and sat back for a moment, folding her arms and biting the inside of her cheek. She felt like she was digging for gold with a spoon. She needed help — from someone with a lot more scientific knowhow than was available to the local authorities. I need the big guns, she thought. I need the CDC.

Problem was she didn’t know anyone at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the thought of spending hours wrestling with government bureaucrats, trying to find out who she should really be talking to, and being put on hold time and again, was overwhelming when she was already so fatigued. But although she didn’t know anyone there, she knew who would.

She swivelled to her computer and started typing. ‘Always nice to know someone with connections.’ She finished her quick message to Alfred Beadman, attached her images and pressed send. The message took several minutes to be dispatched as it had to pass through a relay booster station the mining crew had brought with them. This deep in the jungle, even satellite uplinks needed a springboard.

* * *

Aimee opened the screen door of the cabin that had been hastily converted into an isolation ward. Thick industrial plastic sheeting hung over the windows and down in front of the doorway. She pushed the sheeting aside and entered the room where three men lay on cots, their arms and legs tied to the railings to stop them trying to flee. Each man’s exposed skin glistened in the artificial light of the cabin. One seemed to be asleep, perhaps unconscious. Another stared blankly at the ceiling. The last wept softly, black tears streaming from dark-veined eyes to stain the pillow under his head.

‘I think there is no doubt that they are now also infected,’ Francisco said from behind his paper mask. His eyes were red and drooped with fatigue and sadness. Even his proud little silver moustache had lost its vigour. ‘As a general practitioner, I am lost on this, Dr Weir. Do you, perhaps, have any ideas?’

Aimee pursed her lips tightly behind her mask and gave a half-nod, half-shake of her head. ‘I have a few thoughts, but they’re too way out to share just yet. I’ve sent some images back home. Hopefully the experts can