THE ARK

Day 1075

As Cowan looked into the now empty capsule, he immediately noticed a large light brown stain on the right side of the capsule. The dried stain was set into the sheet that covered the special gel filled mattress that Rhonda Miller had slept on. There was residue under the sheet and he could see where it had also spread under the mattress. It appeared as if something was spilled onto the sheet.

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

“I’m not sure yet, but 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, and the rest of the capsule was examined. On the flat surface of the inside of the capsule, where the mattress usually rested, was a removable door. This door led to the electronics compartment which held much of the medical monitoring equipment, as well as the capsule’s life support computers.

There was evidence of the same contaminant all around the door to the electronics compartment. As the door was removed, there was a definite smell of burned electronics. The life support computer rested just inside the compartment. It was clear that there had been a large short circuit and a small fire inside the compartment. “Well I guess this is where it all went wrong,” the technician said.

“It looks like the same stuff that was inside the capsule also got in here and shorted it out”.

“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,” Cowan said, as he got up to leave.

“Well, Mr. Cowan, what happened?” Asked the technician.

All Cowan said as he left the room was, “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.” Cowan 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 that there would be no problems, and now this. Please tell me you’ve good news.”

“As good as we can hope for, I guess. I just came from the computer lab, and 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 the mattress and got underneath. It leaked through the door and directly into the power supplies for the life support computer. The power supplies shorted out and started a fire. 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 in a few minutes.” concluded Cowan.

“So, why the seizure?” asked the Colonel. “They all had physicals, and I checked her medical history after our meeting this morning. There was no history of seizures.”

There was genuine concern in the Colonel’s voice. If the seizure was a result of a problem with the Sleep Process that could be disastrous for the entire project.

“When the infirmary notified her next of kin, they spoke to her mother. Apparently she had a seizure three days before the experiment. That was the first one she had ever had. She didn’t say anything 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 answered.

“A brain tumor? So if she hadn’t had this undisclosed medical problem she’d still be alive?”

“There are no indications of any malfunctions or failures in the system that led to this problem. The only system failure occurred after her IV was ripped out and his 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, but a leak in a urinary catheter could lead to the same thing,” explained Cowan.

“All right, I feel better now that I understand the cause of the failure. With this information in mind, how’d you rate the success of this experiment?” asked the Colonel.

“In all honesty, I feel that so far this experiment was a huge success. We expected minor issues that need to be addressed, and that’s what we have,” Cowan said.

“Even though we have a fatality?” asked the Colonel.

“Absolutely! It may sound cold, but Miller failed to disclose that there was a medical issue. The experiment didn’t worsen her situation!”

“I can’t blame the sleep project that she screwed up. The drugs and the hardware performed as designed,” Cowan explained defensively.

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

“Ok, 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 expected. However, we’ve yet to wake any of them.”

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

James Cowan glanced at his watch and was surprised to see that it was already 1645 hours. Normally he would be heading home about now, and the whole wake up procedure could easily take four hours. Reluctantly Cowan admitted to himself that waiting would be best, especially 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’s now, that would probably be the best decision,” admitted Cowan.

“Good, I’m eager to see this through, too, but there is no reason we can’t wait until morning, do you want to make the announcement?” asked the Colonel.

“Yeah, I’ll take care of it and then head out,” agreed Cowan.