Brian Evenson - Dead Space - Martyr

Altman, on the other hand, had been in Chicxulub only a year. His girlfriend, Ada Chavez, an anthropologist, had gotten funding to study the contemporary role of Yucatec Mayan folktales and myths. He’d managed to pull just enough strings and call in enough favors to get a small grant so he could follow her to Mexico. He was supposed to be profiling the underwater portion of the crater, providing a map of likely geological structures beneath the half mile or so of sea muck by gathering data from both satellite imaging and underwater probes. It was, in theory, a strictly scientific project, but he knew that whatever information he gathered the university would sell to an extraction company. He tried not to think about that. The work was slow and not very rewarding, but he tried to tell himself it wasn’t quite as pointless as what Field was doing.

He looked at Field’s holoscreen carefully. It looked normal to him, the gravity readings typical.

“What am I looking for?” asked Altman.

Field furrowed his brow. “I forget you’re new,” he said. “I’ll zoom in on the center.”

The center of the crater was in deep water, about a half dozen miles from their laboratory. Altman leaned toward the monitor, squinted. A darkness at the heart of the crater revealed a gravitational anomaly.

“Here’s what it looked like a month ago,” said Field. “See?”

He flashed up another profile. In this one, the darkness in the center wasn’t there, Altman saw. He checked the first profile. The readings everywhere but the center were the same.

“How’s that possible?” he asked.

“It doesn’t make sense, does it?” said Field. “It wouldn’t just change like that.”

“Probably just an equipment malfunction,” said Altman.

“I’ve been working here a long time,” said Field. “I know an equipment failure when I see one. This isn’t one. The anomaly appears both on the satellite images and the underwater scans, so it can’t be.”

“But how could it change?” asked Altman. “Maybe a volcanic eruption?”

Field shook his head. “That wouldn’t give this sort of anomaly. Plus, the other instruments would have sensed it. I can’t explain it. There’s something wrong,” he said, already reaching for his phone.

As he got closer, Chava became more and more nervous. It wasn’t a fish or anything like it. It wasn’t a sea turtle or a dog or a jaguar. He thought maybe it was a monkey, but it was too big to be a monkey. He crossed himself and then crossed two fingers for protection, but kept moving forward.

Even before he could see it clearly, he could hear it breathing. It was making a strange huffing noise, like someone trying to retch up something he was choking on. A wave pounded in and for a moment the huffing stopped, the creature swallowed up by the water and foam. Then the water ebbed and left it panting on the damp sand. It flopped over and swiveled something like a head in his direction.

It was like the creature in his dream, but much worse. It was not human, but seemed as though it once had been human. Its neck looked like it had been flayed free of skin, the reddish pith underneath flecked with white splotches, oozing slowly. What looked to be eyes were only empty sockets covered with veined, opaque membranes. The jawbone seemed to have vanished entirely, leaving only a flap of loose skin and a hole where the mouth should have been. The huffing noise came from that opening, along with a bitter, acrid smell that made Chava cough.

The creature was hunched over, its fingers webbed, a thin leathery membrane running between its elbow and hip like a bat’s wing. It tried to stand, then fell back again into the damp sand. There were two large red lumps bigger than his fists on its back. They were growing.

Mother of God, thought Chava.

The creature gave a sound like a groan, the lumps on its back pulsing. The bones in its arms cracked, the arms themselves twisting, becoming less human. It coughed up a milky liquid that hung in strands from the hole in its face. The back split open with a loud cracking sound, spraying blood, and exposing spongy gray sacs that filled and deflated; filled and deflated.

Chava was unable to move. The creature suddenly swiveled its head, staring at him with its eyeless face. Its muscles tightened and the gaping hole pulled back into a poor imitation of a smile.

Chava turned on his heel and began to run.

A few minutes later, Field had spoken to Ramirez and Showalter, two other geophysical scientists working in the area. They had confirmed it: they were getting the same readings as Field. It wasn’t an equipment problem: something had changed at the heart of the crater itself.

“But why?” asked Altman.

Field shook his head. “Who knows?” he said. “Showalter thought it might have to do with seismic activity focused directly at one of the sensors, but even as he suggested this was already talking himself out of it. Ramirez is as confused as we are. He’s talked to a few others, none of whom seem to know what’s going on. Something’s shifted, something’s different, but nobody knows why it’s changed or even what it could be. Nobody has ever seen anything quite like it.”

“What should we do?” asked Altman.

Field shrugged, thought for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. He sat running his fingers through his thinning hair, staring at nothing. “Nothing much we can do on our own,” he finally said. “I’ll file a report with CASRC and see what they advise. Until I hear back, I suppose I’ll just keep on with the readings.”

With a sigh, Field turned back to his screen. Altman just stared at him, disgusted.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked. “Are you even curious?”

“What?” said Field, turning back. “Of course I am, but I don’t know what to do about it. We tried to figure it out, and everybody else is just as confused as we are.”

“And that’s it? You’re just going to give up.”

“Not at all,” said Field, his voice rising. “I told you: I’m filing a report with CASRC. They’ll be sure to have some ideas. That seems the best way to handle it.”

“And then what, you wait a few weeks for someone to read the report and then a few more weeks for a response? What goes on in the meantime? You just keep taking readings? What are you, a company man?”

Field’s face flushed dark. “There’s nothing wrong with following protocol,” he said. “I’m just doing my job.”

“This could be huge,” said Altman. “You said yourself it’s not like anything you’ve seen before. We’ve got to try to figure it out!”

Field pointed one shaky finger at him. “You do what you want,” he said in a low, quavering voice. “Go ahead and be a maverick and see where it gets you. This is a big deal, and it needs to be handled properly. I’ll do my job the way that I know it should be done.”

Altman turned away, his lips a tight line. I’m going to find out what’s going on, he vowed, even if it kills me.

Hours later, Altman still hadn’t gotten any further than Field. He called every scientist he knew in or around Chicxulub, anybody at all with an interest in the crater. Each time he hit a wall, he’d ask the person on the other end who else they thought he should call and then called them.

By a quarter to five, he still hadn’t gotten anywhere and had run out of names. He ran back over the data and correlated it with what he could get his colleagues to send him. Yes, there definitely was a gravitational anomaly. Something had shifted with the electromagnetic field as well, but that was all he knew.

Field, who like any good bureaucrat quit promptly at five every day, had begun to transmit his data and to pack up.