Robert Walker - Titanic 2012

Declan joined them, and all three stared at the ooze bubbling up from the Y incision begun by Thomas. “Maybe there’s something to your theory, after all, Declan. I mean if this—O’Toole’s got some residual fluid—whatever it is.”

“Residual fluid, yes. Whatever’s devastated McAffey, O’Toole lasted longer. He managed to get out of the mine… was found behind a bulkhead in the ship. Perhaps something in his makeup, resisted the disease more vigorously than did McAffey.”

“Something in his blood perhaps?” asked Thomas.

“Blood is not the answer to every bloody question,” countered Declan.

“What about the heart? The other organs?” asked Ransom. “Are they in any better shape than McAffey’s?”

Declan shook his head. “No… wish we had time to look at the brain, eh, Thomas?”

“No time as it is.”

“Do be careful not to touch the leaking fluid to your exposed skin, Thomas.” Declan had taken a step toward his friend to emphasize the danger.

“Thank God I used the leather gloves.” Thomas had backed off, not wanting to get even the odors bubbling up from the body in his nostrils. Still, he returned to his surgical instruments and continued his incision while suddenly ordering Declan around. “Keep calm, Declan and don’t snatch away those gloves you have on.” He indicated the elbow-length gloves on Declan’s forearms and hands.

“You too, Detective Wyland.” Declan tossed Alastair a pair. “I refuse to bury you, too.”

Alastair willingly took the tight-fitting surgical leather gloves that went up and over the forearms. He’d seen similar gloves used by cattle butchers in Chicago, and while they did encumber the fingers of a surgeon, they were deemed a far safer form of defense against noxious and infectious organisms than the typical white cloth gloves surgeons preferred during an operation.

Again Thomas continued cutting, and as he did so, the dry cordwood of the exterior of the corpse cracked, crinkled, popped, and came wide, popping again as it did so. The noise alone was disturbing, but the sight proved worse yet.

He soon could see the condition of the organs, and like McAffey’s before, the organs had dried and shrunken to the point they were nearly unrecognizable, despite the soupy, bubbling brackish fluids they floated in.

“What now?” Thomas asked.

“Check the bone and the spinal cord to make the comparisons, but take care. Don’t get that unnatural fluid on your skin.” Declan made more notes in his ledger. His meticulous care with his records impressed Ransom.

Thomas swallowed hard, and took the bone cutter handed him by Ransom. With his leather bound hands literally in the soup, in a matter of minutes, Thomas snapped one of the ribs open, cut out a section, dried it of superfluous fluid, and held it up to the light for all three of them to inspect. “Bone dry inside—no fluid, no marrow,” muttered Thomas.

“I’m surprised,” replied Ransom.

Declan kept silent council on this finding. He then urged Thomas on, saying, “Now the spinal column, just as we did with McAffey. It’s vitally important that we duplicate each step.”

“It’ll be the same, Declan; I know it, and so do you—and this fluid, this is not natural… not supposed to be here, not in a body in this condition.”

“You’d think all three were dead for a thousand years,” added Ransom.

“This unusual dehydration of the body, coming as it has before decay… it’s as if all the natural process of breaking down was somehow sped up!” said Declan, chewing now on a piece of beef jerky he’d found in one of the freezers. The snack likely belonged to one of the faculty members. He took a moment to share it with Thomas, but Ransom declined the offer.

Thomas next found a spot on O’Toole’s spinal column, and the cutters sent up the snapping sound that Ransom was beginning to detest. Then came a second cut. With forceps, Thomas lifted out the section he’d taken and held it up to the overhead light.

“Again nothing… dry as desert air.” Thomas placed the section of spine the length of a thumb onto a metal plate for later tagging.

“We need a sample of the brackish fluid pooled in the body,” said Declan, and Ransom grabbed up an empty small jar and handed this to Thomas. Declan then lifted a slide, “and I want a look at this muck under the ’scope.”

Thomas scooped some of the brownish-to-black gruel from where it had bubbled and pooled; he captured a heaping specimen in the jar. Declan, leather gloves still in place, took a smear of the stuff for his slide. He rushed over to the microscope and began working the scope to get a clear magnification. With his eyes still on the lens, he moaned, “My God, Thomas, have a look.”

Thomas stepped to the scope, hesitated a moment, and then examined the slide. He said nothing but looked up at Thomas and the two medical men exchanged a look of deep, abiding concern.

“What the hell is it?” asked Ransom, pushing between the young men—a veritable bull in a china shop here in the lab area of the surgery. Ransom took a long look at what was beneath the slide which was magnified five seven-hundred and fifty times. When Ransom looked up again, he repeated, “What in hell is that?”

“Who bloody knows,” cursed Thomas.

“It’s nothing we’ve ever seen before, but thankfully, whatever it is, the good news is its dying before our eyes.”

“Whatever it is… it doesn’t appear well adapted to oxygen and light, now does it?” asked Thomas. “Whether dying or not, we have to culture it… keep it alive, Declan.”

“What?” asked Ransom. “What’re you saying—keep it alive?” He watched Thomas who’d set about the lab in search of what he needed.

Declan held up a hand to Ransom. “Thomas is correct; to learn from this thing, to understand it, this is the only way, and besides, we can prove its existence to others far easier if it wiggles under the scope.”

“And the only way we can defeat it,” added Thomas. “It’s no use to us dead if we’re ever to find a cure.”

“We need to place it in a culture that will support its life, you see…”

“And at the same time keep our distance from it.” Declan went about the process of finding a culture that the organism might either flourish in or go dormant in yet maintain life.

“Where did this thing come from?” asked Ransom, pacing now, thinking what might happen if this organism were to spread. “Is it a form of the Black Plague?” “No… I don’t think so,” replied Declan, covering his mouth as he coughed to one side.

“I wish it were the bloody Black Plague,” muttered Thomas, who appeared more knowledgeable in disease organisms than Declan, who was obviously the better surgeon. “Black Plague, now there’s a condition we’ve had some experience with over the years, and we know it.”

“Aye, the enemy you know,” muttered Ransom.

“We know next to nothing of how this thing, whatever it is, is transmitted,” began Declan.

“And we know even less about what kind of defenses we can place up against it,” added Thomas. “With smallpox, the greatest scourge and killer of the ages, at least we know it when we see it. But this… no, we haven’t a clue what it is, nor how to treat it—much less how to defeat it!”

“All the same, it begins in the lab with brilliant young men like Thomas Coogan,” said Declan, dropping into a metal chair for a moment’s respite.

“And yourself, Declan,” Thomas, blushing red, returned the compliment.

“So how long before a cure is found?”

“How long indeed.” Declan laughed.

“Years quite possibly, if at all.”

Ransom didn’t care for the sound of that. “There’s still a fourth missing man out there, the agent, Tuttle.”