The Ark E-Book

Christopher Coates

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

The Earth as we know it is about to end.

Technology has developed to the point where a person can be placed in a Sleep State: a cross between suspended animation and a drug-induced coma.

Just as the trial of the new technology is being completed, an unusual comet is discovered approaching Earth, bringing with it radiation that will wipe out all life on the planet. Soon after, the government builds a sleeper facility to save humankind from extinction, taking drastic steps to maintain secrecy of the project.

But when the sleepers awaken, they discover that something has gone terribly wrong... and that the strange world around them is not the one they fell asleep in.

Leseprobe

THE ARK

CHRISTOPHER COATES

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Epilogue

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About the Author

Copyright (C) 2018 Christopher Coates

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2021 by Next Chapter

Published 2021 by Next Chapter

Cover art by CoverMint

Edited by D.S. Williams

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Prologue

The comfortable looking home sat on a large open lot with a majestic oak tree in the front yard. The siding was faded, but the paint on the trim looked new. The windows all had curtains, and there was smoke drifting from the chimney. The house was located about three miles outside the village limit. That was not uncommon anymore, people had been willing to move out from the safety of the towns for about the last twenty years.

Without warning, the front door flew open, and a young girl raced out of the house and into the morning air. The summer sun was only starting to rise, but the temperature was already in the mid-seventies. Several birds were searching the lawn for food and they took flight as the intruder disrupted their quest. The girl paused briefly to stare at the birds since they were still such an unusual sight. She looked to be about nine years old and wore faded jeans and a plain red tee shirt. Her long blond hair was braided and almost reached the top of her jeans. She wore a small backpack and a cell phone was clipped to the thin belt around her waist. With excitement in her step, she moved quickly to the side of the house and grabbed her bike. Jumping onto it, she tore off down the road. The bike was red, like her shirt, red being her favorite color. The paint on the bike was new, however, if you looked carefully, you could see that the bike had been welded together in several places, clearly the metamorphosis of several cannibalized bicycles. Michelle wasn't bothered that her bike wasn’t new. She'd never seen a new bicycle, and neither had any of her friends. It was generally assumed that there hadn't been a new bike made in the last hundred years.

The road she traveled was compact dirt with hazardous patches of broken asphalt which stuck up frequently. Michelle loved to ride her bike into town. She would usually go a half hour out of her way to ride down Bell Street, the one street on her side of town that had recently been resurfaced, and the first one Michelle had ever seen made of new concrete. Her parents told her that in time all the streets would be like that. Michelle loved to ride on it because it was smooth, and she could go much faster. Her grandma had told her how all the roads had once been made of cement, but that had been before everyone died. Today though, she took the quick route to town and sacrificed the ride down Bell Street. Today was her grandmother's birthday, and she was determined to be the first one to tell her happy birthday. She could have called, but she wanted to do this in person. Even at her advanced age, Grandma Amy had made sure to come and see Michelle on all nine of her birthdays.

When she got to the house, Michelle raced up the stairs and without knocking raced inside. “Grandma, it's me!” she gleefully exclaimed.

Her grandmother was in her chair, reclined with her feet up listening to music coming from a small stereo. The music originated from one of the two radio stations that were broadcasting. “Michelle, come give Grandma a hug,” the elderly woman said, holding out her arms. In truth, the term 'grandma' was not wholly accurate. Michelle was Amy's great-granddaughter.

The young girl gently approached and said, “Happy Birthday, Grandma.”

“Thank you, sweetie. You're the best for remembering.”

“Was I the first?”

“The first what?”

“The first one to tell you happy birthday,” the girl stated with some sarcasm in her voice.

Laughing, Amy replied, “Yes you were.”

“Good. I wanted mom to help me make you a cake today, but she said we wouldn't find one hundred and forty-five candles,” Michelle said.

“Even if you had, you wouldn't have had enough. I'm one hundred and forty-six now.”

“That's old.”

“It sure is.” the old woman admitted.

“Is it true back when you were young, people didn't live that long?”

“That's true. Typically, people only lived to be about eighty. That's how it was then, and how it'll be for you too. Other than the few of us that are left, there won't be anyone else living this long.”

“So I won't be able to be as old as you are? I only get about eighty years?”

“Eighty isn't bad, I was just over eighty when I had my first baby, your mom.” Together they giggled at the crazy sounding fact.

Michelle rested her head on her grandma's shoulder. She missed the days where she could climb up into that same chair and sit together, but she had gotten too big for the frail old woman to hold. As they sat now, Michelle's eyes moved to the shelves with the photos on them. There were pictures of her mom and dad, and some of her great-grandfather and her grandma. Most of them were photos of Michelle and her brothers and sisters and their many cousins. As much as she loved her family, these weren't the pictures that Michelle enjoyed when she visited. The ones she was interested in were the ones from long ago, the ones of her great-grandmother. She especially liked the one of her sitting in the pilot seat of the powerful military helicopter, dressed in her flight suit.

Michelle's favorite thing in the world was to sit with this woman and listen to Grandma's stories from another time. Even the pictures in books and on computers couldn't compare with hearing her grandma describe how people had lived a hundred and thirty years ago.

Grandma was great at telling about the busy cities, dangerous freeways, amusement parks, and traveling to exotic locations. It seemed these ideas were as crazy as some of the outer space TV programs about aliens invading Earth.

Michelle's parents had taken her to Denver last year, but it wasn't the same as her grandmother's descriptions of the city had been. Denver had a cold and empty feeling, the tall and once magnificent buildings seemed dead in this ghost town. There had been no life except for a handful of people, scavenging for useable items. The only other evidence of people she saw were the thousands of skeletons which seemed to be behind every door they opened.

The trip to Denver had been fascinating, and it certainly had made the global destruction seem more real. She was just glad to get home and hopefully would never visit a city ever again.

ChapterOne

DAY 1075

The ceiling must have been twenty feet high, and the square room had walls that were all about fifty feet in length. One wall was completely covered with computer equipment and medical monitors. On the opposite wall was a large steel door, which resembled a giant airlock. There were no windows in the room, but there were twelve video cameras suspended from the ceiling that together covered every inch.

Through the dim glow of red auxiliary lights, one could just make out the shapes of the dozen coffin-sized capsules lined up in four neat rows. The capsules were black, their sides rounded and smooth. Topping each capsule were two transparent sections, surrounded by a black frame, a lid assembly that fit perfectly on top of the capsules. It was almost impossible to see where the sides ended, and the top began. Each capsule was numbered with a three-inch-high red adhesive label on the front. There were also several rows of indicator lights and LED displays at the end of each capsule.

At one end of each row was a console of complex computer equipment. The capsules had several small monitor screens, displaying what appeared to be an EKG readout. Anyone with medical knowledge would have been concerned by the extremely slow heart rate visible on the screens. Ten of the capsules had multiple rows of green lights, some flashing and others glowing continuously. On the capsule numbered 'Ten', two lights weren't green. One was yellow, and the second glowed an ominous red. On capsule Three, there were no lights at all.

Through the transparent lid of each capsule, the form of a nude human was visible. The people were a mixture of males and females from several different races. They all looked to be in good physical condition and appeared to be between twenty and forty years old.

An unusual mask covered the mouth and nose of each person. It resembled a standard oxygen mask but was constructed of heavier material, off-white in color. The masks fastened behind the head and two tubes connected to them. The ends of the tubes connected to ports attached to the wall of each capsule. The masks, along with an odd mix of tubes and wires running in and out of different orifices, made the occupants of each capsule appear almost mechanical. In the available light, it wasn't possible to tell if the people were dead or alive.

Without warning, six banks of overhead fluorescent lights snapped on. Though the change in lighting was extreme, no apparent reaction came from the occupants of the capsules. Seconds later, a bright yellow strobe light began flashing above the long-sealed door, and the activity on several of the computer panels increased.

Following a brief pause, a barely audible hissing sound was heard, and the eleven-hundred-pound door slowly began to open. Four people in yellow biohazard suits walked into the spacious chamber. They'd been packed tightly into the tiny space the airlock afforded and struggled to get out. Their movements were slow, and they glanced from one side of the room to the other. From the way they moved it was evident there was a high level of uncertainty being experienced by them all. As soon as they'd walked into the room, the door behind them swung shut, and within thirty seconds, the yellow strobe stopped flashing.

The four new arrivals each moved to one of the rows of capsules and started assessing the terminals. Each team member glanced up briefly when the strobe light began flashing again, before returning to their assessments. Three similarly dressed people joined them, and these three went directly across the chamber to the wall of monitoring equipment, inputting commands into the futuristic-looking systems.

A curse erupted from the person who'd started examining the row of capsules to the far right. “Major system failure, Capsule Three,” an agitated female voice announced. There was a slightly mechanical tone to her voice, the result of the positive pressure breathing devices in the masks of each team member.

Another voice stated, “Capsule Three – that would've been Miller.”

“Any idea when it occurred?” a third voice asked. This voice sounded different, coming over the headsets, but without echo. Whoever was speaking was not wearing a facemask.

The female had moved to the third capsule in her row and was peering in through the top. The person inside's skin had dried out, and the face was leathery and shrunken, although the mask was still in place. The long blond hair indicated it had been a woman.

“It looks like it was a long time ago, Sir.” A slight quiver was evident in the technician's voice.

Before anyone could comment another female voice, this one with a slight New England accent, called out. “Sir, we also have a minor system failure in Capsule Ten.”

“How minor?” The natural sounding voice rapidly asked.

From the area with wall-mounted systems, a male voice called out, “All vital signs, core temp, and EKG are within normal limits. It seems the primary cooling system failed, but backup systems are at one hundred percent efficiency.”

“Okay,” growled the voice from the headset, “give me a report on the rest of the capsules.”

“Group A, no additional failures.”

“Group B, no failures.”

“Group C, no failures.”

“Group D, no additional failures.”

“Okay, activate the data link so you can get out of there. Then start the bio-contamination scanners. I want a full report in an hour.”

Within ten minutes, the room was again empty. Two minutes later, the lights went out.

ChapterTwo

DAY 1075

The large conference table in the center of the room was covered with papers and laptop computers, coffee cups and not just a few soda bottles. Fourteen people were seated around the table, discussing the events of the morning. At the front of the room, a door opened, and a tall man entered. He strode in with authority, dressed in a US Army dress uniform. On his shoulder boards were the silver eagles which denoted his rank as an Army Colonel.

The Colonel appeared to be in his late fifties and stood just over six feet tall. He was quite thin and his brown hair was well on its way to being gray. The name tag above his right breast pocket read 'Fitch'.

Following behind him was a stocky man of medium height who was in his mid-forties; he wore a lab coat, the name 'J. Cowan' embroidered onto the breast pocket. Cowan walked with a mild limp and was slightly shorter than the Colonel.

No sooner had they entered the room than everyone seated at the table got to their feet. Half the room stood at attention, and the rest stood casually, differentiating the civilian workers and their military counterparts. A faint nod of the Colonel's head was all they needed to sit down and return to work.

Fitch took out a pair of glasses, slipped them on, and quickly scanned the clipboard he held. “Okay, tell me what went wrong with those two systems,” he demanded. Again requesting the information he had asked for over the intercom when his team had been suited up in the chamber.

After a brief pause, a short-haired Asian man in a lab coat spoke up, a slight quiver in his voice when he spoke. “Sir, I've been reviewing the data from Capsule Ten. Sometime last year an unexpected hardware failure occurred in the primary cooling system. Three seconds after the failure, the backup system engaged. Since then it has been running without a problem. Just to remind everyone, there is also a third tier in this system, an auxiliary cooling system that comes online if the two other systems failed. This auxiliary system has never engaged and appears to be completely functional. It looks like the built-in fault tolerance worked exactly as we had hoped.”

“No, Lieutenant,” Cowan snapped, “that isn't how we had hoped it would work. That primary cooling system was supposed to be able to operate, unsupervised for twenty years. Now you're telling me that it only lasted four years into this five-year test.”

Colonel Fitch nodded in agreement.

The Lieutenant opened his mouth to respond but seeing the look on his superiors' faces, decided against it.

“Now will someone tell me what killed Miller?” the Colonel demanded. There was more frustration in his voice than anger.

A woman of medium height, with long brown hair, stood up. She wore a US Army dress uniform with Captain's bars on her shoulders and spoke with a slight New England accent. “Colonel, something shorted out her primary life support computer. Until we get her out and can get to the computer, we won't have all the details. However, the monitors indicate that she suffered some form of a seizure about a year ago. And that she was alive for almost two hours afterward. At that point, for reasons still unknown, her life support computer shorted out. When this happened, there was a sudden increase in temperature in the electronics compartment that houses the bio-computer. Apparently, the temperature was in excess of five hundred degrees for about thirty seconds. The main computer cut power to the electronics compartment in her capsule, due to the threat of a possible fire. At this point, the temperature rapidly decreased. The main computer was seconds away from terminating the entire experiment and sounding a general fire detection alarm. Even though the results were tragic, it looks like most of the systems responded as designed.”

Colonel Fitch's initial reaction had been a cold stare which slowly melted away as he listened to the facts. He nodded slowly.

Cowan, in a more relaxed tone, asked, “Captain Travers, when will we know the cause of the seizure and what created the short circuit?” As frustrated as James Cowan felt regarding the failure, he wouldn't vent that frustration on Amy Travers. She'd been his right-hand person on this project for several years, quickly gaining expertise in this science. She was the only one who understood the artificial sleep processes well enough to continue this work, if he should ever decide to move on. He'd been offered more lucrative positions recently, but was committed to seeing this project through.

Travers replied. “We won't know the cause of the seizure before the autopsy. Until Miller is removed from the capsule, we won't be able to get under it to see the electronics compartment.”

“When will we be able to go back in the chamber without the biohazard suits?” Cowan asked.

A short, balding man spoke up. “Bio-contamination scanning is just finishing now. If the computers found no problems, we should be able to re-enter within the hour.”

“Sir, what about the wake-up?” Travers said.

“That should probably wait until we get the body out,” a voice from the back of the room suggested.

“I agree, let's hold off and see what we find with Miller and her capsule and then we'll start working on Group One,” Fitch instructed. With a nod to those around the table, Fitch and Cowan left the room together.

Fitch could feel his head pounding from the stress and frustration of the morning. He'd been serving as the Project Director for the past several years and he'd planned on this being his final assignment before he slipped away to a quiet retirement.

Matt Fitch began his Army career as an infantry officer fresh out of the military academy at West Point. His career moved quickly, and he'd been posted to various locations all over the world. He'd even seen some combat during those years.

He'd developed a reputation for his organizational skills and been promoted to the position of Operations Officer in his unit. Within weeks of reporting for his new duty, a medium-sized mass had been detected in his right lung. Two-thirds of the lung had to be removed, to ensure the cancer didn't spread. Nowadays, he was minimally aware of the decreased respiratory function, and it was only annoying when he exerted himself. However, the impairment was enough to keep him from ever serving again in a combat unit.

Fortunately, Fitch had made the right connections over the years, and one of those connections got him the assignment he currently held, as a Project Director in Deep Sleep Research.

* * *

About an hour later, the massive steel doors started to move again, only the second occurrence in the last five years. Now the technicians and a pair of physicians weren't encumbered by heavy air tanks and containment suits. They brought in medical equipment, including drug kits, portable oxygen tanks, and heart monitors, rolled in on four-wheeled stretchers.

While the medical staff began setting up the equipment, a fifth stretcher was rolled up to the third capsule in the first row. A black, heavy vinyl bag, seven feet in length was unrolled and laid on the stretcher with the zipper facing the capsule.

At the beginning of the first row, a technician began inputting commands into the console. “I can't open it from here. All the automatic systems are down for this capsule.” He stepped over to the side of the capsule and crouched down. He removed two small hatch covers using a flat head screwdriver to pry them off.

Both openings were barely large enough to insert a hand. The technician reached into the first, and after a moment a slight movement of the transparent lid could be detected, followed by an audible hiss as the pressure changed within the capsule. He withdrew his hand and reached into the second opening. After a slightly longer delay, a loud popping sound echoed in the room, and the lid jumped up about an inch.

“Okay, we should be able to lift it now,” the technician announced.

He rose to his feet, and with the help of one of the physicians lifted the lid. The smell of death wasn't as bad as they'd feared, but it was still noticeable. After the face mask was removed and the tubes and wires cut loose, the body of Rhonda Miller was gently lifted from the capsule. The irony of the dead woman being lifted from a coffin-shaped container was not lost on any of them.

Miller was laid flat on the stretcher, and the black body bag was zipped shut. Two safety straps went over the bag and were fastened to keep it firmly secured to the stretcher, and Captain Amy Travers and a physician left with the body to begin the autopsy.

Once the body was gone, James Cowan moved in to begin investigating the cause of the fatal failure of capsule three.

ChapterThree

James Cowan was, by far, the most knowledgeable person when it came to the inner workings of the sleep program. Fourteen years before, he signed on to assist Dr. Henry Sullivan, who was the world's leading expert in the concept of long-term sleep programs at the time.

Over the years, they'd had many successes and only minimal failures. Eventually, their experiments led to a need to progress from animal experiments to placing humans in a sleep state for long durations. The original idea had been to use this technology for lengthy space exploration. As the project progressed, other suggestions for the technology were discovered, including possibly putting a person to sleep until a cure for a specific disease they were afflicted with could be found.

The subject of the first human experiment had been a graduate student named Randy Rominski. He and eight other students answered an ad, offering them one thousand dollars to take part in an unusual sleep experiment. After physical and psychological examinations were complete, Randy was selected, and the test began.

This first human experiment involved a simple sleep capsule and a crude version of the sleep-inducing formula (SIF) which was continuously infused into the sleeper's body through IV lines. A unique mix of gasses was administered by face mask, while the subject remained asleep. The breathing gas, in conjunction with the SIF formula, created what was known as the Sleep Effect. During this experiment, continual monitoring and adjustments to the dosage of SIF were required. A physician or specially trained nurse needed to be on duty twenty-four hours a day, prepared to make the necessary adjustments. That first human experiment lasted two weeks and was considered by most to be a success, even though it took almost twelve hours for the young volunteer to regain consciousness.

Randy Rominski began forceful vomiting six hours into the waking process. While vomiting, he aspirated and later developed a severe case of pneumonia. After regaining full consciousness, Randy remained delirious for the next twenty-four hours and needed to be restrained. It took a full week before he was back to what could be considered 'normal'.

Further test results showed nearly all body processes had stopped during the sleep cycle. Food he'd ingested before the experiment remained undigested in his stomach. There was also evidence that skin and blood cells hadn't died off as they usually would have had the subject been awake.

These facts and others led Sullivan and Cowan to believe they were on track to find a method for stopping the aging process in a controlled sleep. However, the side effects of the SIF were considered a significant problem. Randy later made it clear he would never agree to be given SIF or be placed in a sleep capsule again.

After several years of additional work on the SIF formula and with the introduction of a new drug that was administered at the time of awakening, most of the side effects had been eliminated.

The subsequent two-week-long test went much better; the test subject woke swiftly but was still briefly confused. He experienced two episodes of vomiting but was free of symptoms within two hours.

Additional tests further indicated the severity of the symptoms increased as the time subjected to the SIF increased.

Longer duration tests came next and it became necessary for anticoagulant to be added to the SIF formula. This was required to prevent blood clots from forming in the extremities while the sleeper was immobile for several years.

At this juncture, the team agreed it was time for more extensive tests of the system. Under Sullivan's supervision, Cowan re-engineered the sleep capsule so that urinary catheters were built in and tied into a central waste disposal system. A positive pressure face mask replaced the standard oxygen mask which had been used up until this point. The new mask was designed to increase the depth of respirations, which had been almost non-existent with the SIF in the occupant's system. By increasing the depth of respirations, it was hoped the pneumonia that often set in with poor ventilation could be avoided.

The plan had been to put four occupants to sleep for one year, using a central source of SIF for all test subjects, and have all systems monitored and controlled by computers. A twenty-four watch was established once the occupants were placed into the capsules.

The experiment proceeded as planned for the first two months, until early one afternoon when an alarm was sounded by one of the medical computers. The blood pressure of the subject in Capsule Four had suddenly crossed beneath the safe limits. The decision was made to remove the subject from the experiment, but before his capsule could be opened another alarm sounded because he'd gone into cardiac arrest. He was swiftly removed from the capsule, and resuscitation efforts continued for half an hour, but they were unsuccessful.

The autopsy which followed showed he'd died from a massive infection. By nightfall, the occupants of Capsules One and Three were also dead, passing in the same fashion. The experiment was immediately terminated, and the female subject in Capsule Two was rapidly removed from the capsule and awoken.

The woman woke up slowly but remained confused. Twenty minutes after awakening, she developed a fever which rose to 105 degrees Fahrenheit. Intravenous antibiotics were administered, and she was diagnosed with a massive systemic infection. Two days later, she too, was dead.

The subsequent investigation showed the shared supply of SIF had become contaminated with a common and usually harmless bacterium. While in a sleep-like state, the body systems which would typically combat such a minor problem were inactive, and by the time anyone was able to intervene, it had been too late.

Questions were also raised regarding the competence of the medical staff in their handling of the crisis. Due to massive public pressure and the threat of legal action, the private funding for the project rapidly dried up.

While devastated by the failure and loss of life, Sullivan was encouraged because one thing was clear – almost all body processes were suspended during the sleep period.

After a year of failed efforts to obtain new funding, Henry Sullivan was contacted by the Department of Defense and given the opportunity to continue his work under the auspices of the US Army Research Laboratory.

Working for the military wasn't the ideal situation for Sullivan because he'd wanted to avoid the political issues related to working for the government. He'd also been concerned about how much control over the project he would lose. In the end, agreements were made, and he'd accepted. The only demand Sullivan did insist on was that his assistant, James Cowan, be allowed to come along as his partner.

Once arrangements had been finalized, Sullivan and Cowan set to work immediately. Now they were armed with a budget many times larger than what they'd been working with before and they quickly began making improvements to their systems. After a year, they were ready to repeat the test which had gone so terribly wrong.

Four volunteer subjects were placed in the sleep capsules, with the plan of keeping them asleep for a year. It had been decided to continue using a shared source of SIF, purely for manageability reasons –this time, however, it would be better monitored and frequently exposed to specific low doses of radiation to kill any intrusive organisms.

The following night, a large blood vessel in the base of Henry Sullivan's brain ruptured. The hemorrhagic stroke left the brilliant scientist in a vegetative state. A ventilator was needed because the part of his brain which controls respiration was dead from the moment the blood vessel ruptured. Two weeks later, with his children and grandchildren at his bedside, the life support system was disconnected. Henry Sullivan was pronounced dead ten minutes later.

James Cowan suddenly found himself in charge of the project. He was almost as knowledgeable as Sullivan, and after some debate, it was decided the experiment would continue. By the end of the year, all four volunteers were awakened and experienced minimal effects from the SIF. That had been six and a half years ago.

Now in its sixteenth variation, SIF had officially been renamed SF016. From the moment when James Cowan took over responsibility for the program, efforts had been made to further automate the systems in hopes of creating an entirely automated sleep process.

There had been no further failures – until today.

ChapterFour

DAY 1075

Cowan stared into the now-empty capsule, noticing a large, light brown stain on the right side. The dried stain darkened the sheet covering the gel-filled mattress Rhonda Miller had slept on and further investigation revealed residue under the sheet had also spread onto the mattress, making it appear as if something had been spilled onto the sheet.

“Mr. Cowan, what's that on the sheet?” asked one of the technicians.

“I'm not sure yet. It certainly wasn't like this when the experiment started,” Cowan answered.

The sheet and mattress were removed and sent to the lab for testing, while the rest of the capsule was carefully examined. On the flat surface inside the capsule, where the mattress had rested, was a detachable door. This led to the electronics compartment where much of the medical monitoring equipment, and the capsule's life support computers were installed. There was evidence of the same contaminant all around the door to the electronics bay and when the door was removed, there was a strong smell of burnt electronics. The life support computer rested just inside the compartment. Clearly, there'd been a serious short circuit and a small fire inside the compartment. “Well, this appears to be where it all went wrong,” the technician said. “It seems the same contaminant that was under the mattress got in here and shorted it out.”

Cowan got up to leave. “Get the computer to the lab and have it checked, I want to know exactly what caused this. I'm heading to the infirmary. I think I know what happened here.”

“What are you thinking?” asked the technician.

Cowan turned back to glance at the other man. “I think that stuff is blood.”

* * *

Two hours later, James Cowan stepped into Colonel Fitch's office. “Hey Matt, have you got a minute? I want to give you the preliminary report.” He was the only one in the center who would even consider calling Colonel Fitch by his first name while in the office.

“Sure James, come in. What a crazy morning. I was so sure there would be no problems, and now this. Please tell me you've got good news.”

“As good as we can hope for. I just came from the computer lab. Before that, I was in the infirmary observing the autopsy. The first assessment was correct – Miller suffered a seizure during the experiment. During the seizure, the IV catheter that supplies the SF016 was ripped out of her arm. A mix of blood and SF016 leaked out and ran off onto the mattress. Because of the anticoagulant we have in the formula, she bled a bit more than usual. It leaked through the door and directly into the power supply for the life support systems. It shorted out and started a fire.”

Cowan paused to make sure Matt was following the chain of events and when he saw the man nod his head, he continued. “The main computers for the chamber detected the heat and cut power to the capsule, including the computer. Then the fire burned itself out. With the power out to the capsule, the SF016 pump stopped. With the life support off Miller died quickly,” concluded Cowan.

“So, why the seizure?” asked the Colonel. “They all had physicals, and I re-checked her medical history after our meeting this morning. There was no history of seizures.” Anxiety was evident in the Colonel's voice and Cowan could understand why, if the seizure was a result of something to do with the Sleep Process, it could be disastrous for the entire project.

“When the infirmary notified her next of kin, they spoke to her mother. Apparently, she experienced a seizure three days before the experiment. The first seizure she'd ever had. Rhonda didn't say anything to us, because she didn't want to get kicked out of the program. During the autopsy, they removed a golf ball size mass from her brain,” Cowan explained.

Matt lifted an eyebrow. “A brain tumor? So if she hadn't had this tumor, she'd still be alive?”

“There are no indications of malfunctions or failures in the system which led to this problem. The only system failure occurred after her IV was ripped out and her blood and the SF016 shorted out the computer. I already have the team working on a redesign of the interior access door to the electronics bay, to prevent things from leaking into the electronics. This is something we never anticipated. A leak in a urinary catheter could lead to the same thing,” explained Cowan.

“All right,” Fitch said. “I feel better now that I understand the details. With this information in mind, how would you rate the outcome of this experiment?”

“In all honesty, it was a huge success. We expected minor issues would need to be addressed, and that's what we have,” Cowan said.

“Even though we have a fatality?”

“Absolutely!” Cowan said defensively. “Miller failed to disclose that there was a medical issue. The experiment didn't worsen her situation! You can't blame the sleep project because she screwed up. The drugs and the hardware performed as designed.”

“Easy, James,” said Fitch calmly, “I completely agree, I just need to be sure that we're on the same page here.”

Cowan took a deep breath. “Okay. Sorry, I got a bit excited. I kinda feel like an overprotective parent when it comes to this project. In my opinion, there were far fewer issues than I'd expected. Though we've yet to wake any of the others.”

“True, and I know how eager we all are to do that. With all that's happened today, I think we should hold off until tomorrow to begin the wake-up. Do you agree?” asked Fitch.

Cowan glanced at his watch, surprised to see that it was already 1645". Usually, he would be heading home now, and the whole wake up procedure could easily take four hours. Reluctantly, Cowan admitted to himself that waiting would be best. Especially since, if problems arose, he would need everyone quick and alert.

“Well, I'm quite eager to begin, and I know the whole team will be unhappy about waiting. But considering how late it is now, that would be the best decision,” admitted Cowan.

“Good,” said the Colonel, “I'm eager to see this through, too. But there's no reason we can't wait until morning. Do you want to make the announcement?”

“Yeah, I'll take care of it and then head out,” said Cowan, and he turned to leave.

ChapterFive

DAY 1074

Several weeks before anyone outside the Sleeper Team knew of the unfortunate fate of Rhonda Miller, and over a thousand miles away, the Hubble Space Telescope was just completing a study of a distant comet. The Hubble and several land-based radio telescopes had been assigned this task after West Coast University requested the government to confirm the results of studies they'd recently completed. The results of those studies had been so shocking and unbelievable, they wanted confirmation from agencies with more powerful equipment available.

The data had been collected over time, and sophisticated computer algorithms applied. After years of testing, these methods have proven their ability to accurately chart the path and determine many attributes of objects that moved through space.

Thomas Williams was the current Administrator of NASA, a position he'd held for the last six years and a role he took great pride in. Having come from an unstable family background, Thomas was not only the first person in his family to graduate college, but also the first to graduate high school. No one was sure who his father was. The best answer he'd ever gotten from his mother was that he was 'gone'.

His mother had worked as a waitress in a dark, dingy bar for many years. When Thomas was a freshman in high school, she'd met Darryl, a drummer in a small band. Not long after meeting him, Thomas' mother went on the road with the band and she never returned.

Fortunately, Thomas had grown up close friends with Andrew King, a boy he attended school with and whose parents were both financially stable and sympathetic to Thomas' plight. When they found out that he'd been abandoned, the King family took Thomas in, with only one stipulation – he was to excel in school and break the chain of failure that formed his family’s history.

With only the briefest of hesitations Thomas agreed, and seven years later graduated with honors from the University of Michigan.

Now he was married with three adult children of his own, who'd all excelled in school and gone on to graduate from college. Thomas was satisfied he'd kept his promise to the late Mr. and Mrs. King, and had in fact broken the chain of failure which had blighted his family's past.

Thomas was a little confused this particular morning. It was unusual for a deputy director to request an urgent meeting with him. It was even more uncommon that anyone other than his wife would insist he cancel something as important as his lunch meeting with the two senators from New Mexico.