Douglas Preston - Mount Dragon

Carson fumbled with the bulky suit, drawing it over his clothes with difficulty.

“This thing weighs a ton,” he said.

“It’s fully pressurized. See that metal valve at your waist? You’ll be on oxygen the entire time you’re inside. You’ll be shown how to move from station to station. But the suit itself contains ten minutes’ worth of air, in case of emergencies.” He walked toward an intercom unit, pressed a series of buttons. “Rosalind?” he asked.

There was a short pause. “What?” came the buzzing response.

“Could I trouble you to give our new scientist, Guy Carson, a tour of BSL-5?”

There was a longer silence.

“I’m in the middle of something,” the voice came back.

“It’ll just take a few minutes.”

“Aw, for Chrissakes.” The voice cut off immediately.

Singer turned to Carson. “That’s Rosalind Brandon-Smith. She’s a little eccentric, I guess you could say.” He leaned toward Carson’s open visor conspiratorially. “Actually, she’s extremely rude, but don’t pay any attention. She was instrumental in developing our artificial blood. Now she’s wrapping up her part of the new project. She did a lot of work with Frank Burt, and they were pretty close, so she may not be too friendly to his replacement. You’ll be meeting her inside, no reason for her to go through decontam twice.”

“Who’s Frank Burt?” Carson asked.

“He was a true scientist. And a fine human being. But he found conditions here a little too stressful. Had something of a breakdown recently. It’s not uncommon, you know. About a quarter of the people who come to Mount Dragon can’t finish their tour.”

“I didn’t know I was replacing anyone,” Carson frowned.

“You are. I’ll tell you about it later. You’ll be filling some large shoes.” He stepped back. “OK, finish up the zippers. Make sure you close and secure all three. We’ve got a buddy system here. After you suit up, someone else has to check over everything.”

He did a careful inspection of the bluesuit, then showed Carson how to use the visor intercom. “Unless you’re standing next to somebody, it’s very hard to hear anything. Press this button on your forearm to speak over the intercom.”

He waved toward the door marked EXTREME BIOHAZARD. “On the far side of the air lock is a chemical shower. Once you’re inside, it starts automatically. Get used to it, there’ll be a much longer one coming out. When the inner door opens, go on through. Be especially careful until you’re used to the suit. Rosalind will be waiting for you on the far side. I hope.”

“Thanks,” said Carson, raising his voice to make sure it carried through the thick rubber of the suit.

“No problem,” came the muffled response. “Sorry I won’t be going in with you. It’s just ...” He hesitated. “Nobody goes into the Fever Tank unless they have to. You’ll see why.”

As the door hissed shut behind him, Carson walked forward onto a metal grating. There was a sudden rumble, and a yellow chemical solution spurted from shower heads in the ceiling, walls, and floor. Carson could feel the solution drumming loudly on his suit. In a minute it was over; the next door opened, and he stepped into a small antechamber. A motor began to rumble, and he could feel the pressure of a powerful air machine blowing at him from all directions. Inside his suit, the drying mechanism felt like a strange, distant wind: He was unable to tell whether the air was hot or cold. Then the inner door hissed open, and Carson found himself facing a short woman who was staring at him impatiently through the clear faceplate of her visor. Even compensating for the bulkiness of the suit, Carson estimated her weight at 250 pounds.

“Follow me,” a voice inside his helmet said brusquely, and the woman turned away, moving down a tiled corridor so narrow that her shoulders brushed against both walls. The walls were smooth and slick, with no corners or projecting apparatus that might tear a protective suit. Everything—floors, wall tiles, ceiling—was painted a brilliant white.

Carson pressed the left button on his forearm, activating the intercom. “I’m Guy Carson,” he said.

“Glad to hear it,” came the reply. “Now, pay attention. See those air hoses overhead?”

Carson looked up. A number of blue hoses dangled from the ceiling, metal valves affixed to their ends.

“Grab one and plug it into your suit valve. Careful. Turn it to the left to lock it in. When you move from one station to the next, you’ll have to detach it and plug into another hose. Your suit has a limited supply of air, so don’t dawdle between hookups.”

Carson followed her instructions, felt the snap as the valve seated itself, and heard the reassuring hiss of airflow. Inside the suit, he felt a strange sense of detachment from the world. His movements seemed slow, clumsy. Because of the multiple pairs of gloves, he could barely feel the air hose as he guided it into the attachment.

“Keep in mind that this place is like a submarine,” came the voice of Brandon-Smith. “Small, cramped, and dangerous. Everything and everyone has its place.”

“I see,” said Carson.

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Good, because sloppiness is death down here in the Fever Tank. And not just for you. Got that?”

“Yes,” Carson repeated. Bitch .

They continued down the narrow hall. As he followed Brandon-Smith, trying to acclimate himself to the pressure suit, Carson thought he could hear a strange noise in the background: a faint drumming, almost more sensation than sound. He decided it must be the Fever Tank’s generator.

Brandon-Smith’s great bulk eased sideways through a narrow hatch. In the lab beyond, suited figures were working in front of large Plexiglas-enclosed tables, their hands stretched through rubber holes bored into the cases. They were swabbing petri dishes. The light was painfully bright, throwing every object in the lab into sharp relief. Small waste receptacles with biohazard labels and flash-incineration attachments stood beside each worktable. More ceiling-mounted video cameras-swiveled, monitoring the scientists.

“Everybody,” Brandon-Smith’s voice sounded in the intercom. “This is Guy Carson. Burt’s replacement.”

Visors angled upward as people turned to get a look at him, and a chorus of greetings crackled in Carson’s helmet.

“This is production,” she said flatly. It wasn’t a statement that invited questions, and Carson didn’t ask any.

Brandon-Smith led Carson through a warren of other labs, narrow corridors, and air locks, all starkly bathed in the same brilliant light. She’s right , Carson thought, looking around. The place is like a submarine. All available floor space was packed with fabulously expensive equipment: transmission and scanning electron microscopes, autoclaves, incubators, mass spectrometers, even a small cyclotron, all reengineered to allow the scientists to operate them through the bulky bluesuits. The ceilings were low, heavily veined with piping, and painted white like everything else in the Fever Tank. Every ten yards Brandon-Smith halted to hook up to a new air hose, then waited for Carson to do the same. The going was excruciatingly slow.

“My God,” Carson said. “These safety measures are unbelievable. What have you got in here, anyway?”

“You name it,” came the response. “Bubonic plague, pneumonic plague, Marburg virus, Hantavirus, Dengue, Ebola, anthrax. Not to mention a few Soviet biological agents. All currently on ice, of course.”

The cramped spaces, the bulky suit, the stuffy air, all had a disorienting effect on Carson. He found himself gulping in oxygen, fighting down an urge to unzip the suit, give himself breathing room.