THE ARK

Day 1075

The large conference table in the center of the room was covered with papers and laptop computers, as well as coffee cups and not just a few soda bottles. There were fourteen people seated around the table dressed in a mix of military uniforms and white lab coats. The whole group was excitedly discussing the events of that morning. Without warning, from the front of the room appeared a tall man. He marched into the room with an air of authority, and he was dressed in a US Army dress uniform. On his shoulder boards sat the silver eagles of an Army Colonel.

The Colonel seemed to be in his late fifties and stood just over six feet tall, he was quite thin and had brown hair that was well on its way to being gray. The nametag above his right breast pocket read “Fitch”.

Following just behind him was a stocky man of medium height who appeared to be in his mid-forties; he wore a lab coat, and sewn onto the front was the name “J. Cowan”.

Cowan walked with a mild limp and was slightly shorter than the Colonel.

No sooner had they entered the room then everyone seated at the table was on their feet. Half the room was standing at attention and the rest of the people were standing casually, which made it simple to tell the difference between the civilian workers and their military counterparts.

Even though he said nothing, the faint nod of the Colonel’s head was all they needed to sit down and get back to work.

Fitch took out a pair of glasses, slipped them on, and quickly scanned the clipboard he was holding. “OK, tell me what went wrong with those two systems,” his voice demanded.

After a brief pause, a short haired oriental man in a lab coat spoke up, but with a slight hesitation in his voice. “Sir, I’ve been reviewing the data from capsule ten. Sometime last year there was an unpredictable hardware failure in the primary cooling system. Three seconds after the failure, the backup system engaged, and has been running without a problem.

“Just to remind everyone, there is also a third tier in this system, an auxiliary cooling system that will come 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, 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 and you’re telling me that it lasted only four years into this five-year test,” shot back Cowan.

Fitch nodded his head in agreement.

The Lieutenant started to open 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 asked. It was more of a demand than a question, but everyone in the room could hear that there was now more frustration in his voice than anger.

A woman of medium height with long brown hair stood up. She was wearing a US Army dress uniform with Captain’s bars on her shoulder boards. She said, with a just noticeable 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 one 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 the computer shorted out, 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. At that time, the main computer for the center cut power to the electronics compartment in her capsule due to the threat of a possible fire.

“The temperature rapidly decreased. But it looks like the main computer was literally 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.”

The initial reaction from Colonel Fitch was a cold stare that slowly melted away as the facts sunk in. Finally, a slow nod was visible.

“Captain Travers, when’ll we know the cause of the seizure, and what created the short circuit?’ questioned Cowan in a more relaxed tone.

As frustrated as he felt he would not vent that frustration on Travers. She had been his right-hand person on this project for several years and was quickly gaining expertise in this field of science. Undoubtedly, she was the only one who understood the artificial sleep processes well enough to continue this work should he decide to move on to one of the more lucrative positions that he had been offered recently.

The woman replied, “We won’t know the cause of the seizure before the autopsy, and 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 in the back of the room spoke up and said, “Bio-contamination scanning is just completing now. If the computers found no problems we should be able to re-enter within the hour.”

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

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

“I agree, let’s hold off and see what we find with Miller, and his capsule and then we’ll start working on group 1,” Fitch instructed.

Fitch and Cowan turned and left the room together.

As they left, Fitch could feel his head pounding. He has been serving as the Project Director for the last several years and was planning on this being his final assignment before slipping away to a quiet retirement. He had begun his Army career as an infantry officer fresh out of the military academy at West Point. His career moved quickly and he had been posted at various locations all over the world. He had even seen some combat during those years.

Matt had developed a reputation for his organizational skills and had been moved to a position as a unit’s Operations Officer. Within weeks of reporting for the new duty, a medium sized mass was detected in his right lung. Two-thirds of the lung had to be removed to ensure that the cancer did not spread. Today he was only 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 being able to ever serve again in a combat unit.

Fortunately, Fitch had made the right connections over the years and one of them was able to get him the assignment he currently held as a Project Director in research.

About an hour later, the heavy steel doors began to move for just the second time in the last five years. This time, however as the technicians walked in, they were not encumbered with heavy air tanks and containment suits. Instead, they were in their lab coats and uniforms. As they entered they brought in medical equipment, including drug kits, portable oxygen tanks, and heart monitors. This equipment was rolled in on four separate wheeled stretchers. There were several technicians in the group as well as two physicians.

As the medical staff began setting up their equipment. A fifth stretcher was rolled up to the third capsule in the first row and a seven-foot-long black, heavy vinyl bag was unrolled and laid upon the stretcher with the zipper facing toward the capsule. A technician at the beginning of the first row began inputting commands into the console. “I can’t open it from here; all the automatic systems are down for that capsule,” he said. With that he walked up to the side of the capsule and removed two small hatch covers near the bottom, using a flat head screwdriver to pry them off. Each opening was barely large enough for him to insert a hand. He reached into the first and after a moment, there was a slight movement of the transparent lid, followed by an audible hiss of a pressure change within the capsule. He withdrew his hand and reached into the second opening and there was a slightly longer delay before there was a loud popping sound. At once, the lid jumped up about an inch.

“Ok, we should be able to lift it now,” he said.

There was noticeable hesitation in his voice. He slowly rose to his feet and with the help of the closest physician, they were able to lift the lid. The smell was not as bad as they had feared, but it was still noticeable.

After the facemask was removed and the tubes and wires were cut loose, the body of Rhonda Miller was gently lifted from the capsule. The irony of the dead woman being lifted from the 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. As soon as this was complete, two safety straps went over the bag and were fastened to keep it secure to the stretcher.

Then two lab-coated technicians and a physician left with the stretcher to begin the autopsy. Cowan and the two technicians began investigating the cause of the fatal failure of capsule three.