Ben Hammott: Siberia

The black blob, the only surviving piece of EV1L, slid from the man's shoe, slithered across the room and hid in shadow while it surveyed its new, pleasantly warm surroundings.

Luka Kupetsky, the animal experimentation controller, cook and maintenance technician, or general dogsbody as he would label his role, stared at the exterior camera feed on the CCTV monitor as he watched the two men who had just arrived drive away. He had been stuck in the security room for three boring hours waiting for them to arrive. As soon as they had passed through the compound gates, he pressed the button to close them, rose from the chair and headed along the corridor.

Aware the scientists, who had also been waiting for the men, would be occupied for a while with whatever had been delivered, Luka decided it would be the perfect time to indulge in a much-needed treat, but first he needed to collect a friend to share it with.

Ten minutes later, Luka peered through the small glass panel set in the door of one of the science rooms. Satisfied it was unoccupied, he entered and switched on the lights. As fluorescent tubes stuttered into life the length of the room, a chimpanzee followed him through the door.

“Shut the door, Boris,” instructed Luka softly.

The chimp Luka had befriended and named closed the door gently and followed his human friend.

Luka halted at the first work bench and from his pocket pulled out two metal forks, a flip-top lighter adorned with a skull, a jar of chocolate spread and a bag of pink and white marshmallows, which he dangled enticingly in front of Boris’s face when the chimp jumped onto the workbench. He yanked them from the chimp’s reach when he grabbed at them.

Luka waved a finger. “Not yet, Boris, you know the drill.”

Boris chattered his lips in reply.

“I’m going as quick as I can.”

Luka opened the bag and breathed in the rush of escaping sweetness previously trapped inside. He placed them out of Boris’s reach, picked up the lighter and looked at his impatient comrade.

“Gas please, Boris.”

Boris turned the small tap set into the worktop.

Luka flicked his lighter and touched the flame to the tip of the Bunsen burner. The hissing gas whooshed into flame.

As Luka adjusted the flame to the desired heat, Boris picked up a fork and held it out expectantly. Luka fished a plump pink marshmallow from the bag and slid it onto the prongs. Boris wasted no time bathing it in the flame. Luka unscrewed the jar of chocolate spread and placed it between them before skewering a marshmallow on his fork and turning it in the flame.

The smell of toasting sweetness filtered through the room.

Boris took his treat from the flame and examined the browned, smoking morsel of deliciousness. Deciding it was ready, he plunged it into the jar and shoved the chocolate-covered treat into his mouth.

Luka smiled at the satisfied look on the chimp’s face.

They had been together for a little over two years now. When the chimp had arrived with five others at his previous laboratory posting, he had realized immediately that this primate was special. They had instantly bonded, and Boris soon proved his intelligence and quick learning ability. To safeguard him against the experiments carried out on the other animals under his care, Luka had falsified an official document reporting that Live Specimen 829PRI was part of an ongoing experiment being carried out by the Experimental Resources Department (ERD) attached to the Defense Ministry. Though ERD was something Luka had invented, there were so many secret organizations in Russia it was impossible to keep track of them all, and few would dare pry too closely and bring unwanted attention upon themselves. The signature he had forged on the document also helped to safeguard his deception. It was of a well-known high-ranking official, someone few would argue with. Assigning himself as guardian and overseer of the ongoing experiment no one was aware of, Luka had been able to include Boris in the list of animals he had been ordered to bring to the remote secret facility.

“How tasty is that, Boris?”

Boris tilted his head, curled his lips back and let out a series of hoots to show his pleasure.

“Shush! You’ll get us caught. You know we’re not allowed in here.”

Boris complied and held out a hand. Luka gave him another marshmallow and smiled as Boris speared it with the fork and held it in the flame. Boris was a quick learner and one of his only two real friends down here. He pulled his toasted indulgence from the flame, dipped it into the chocolate, placed it in his mouth and sighed with pleasure.

EV1L needed to regain its strength and grow. To achieve that it needed to feed on something living. But before it could do that it needed to rest and recover from its ordeal. Its metabolism had been thrown into disarray by the explosion that had almost destroyed it. The warm environment it had been brought to was ideal for the purpose.

EV1L ignored the seven, white-clad humans it couldn’t absorb in its present state and directed its senses around the room in search of an exit. Its attention focused on a vent high in the end wall. Keeping to the edge of the wall, it flowed to the far end of the room and slithered like black mercury up to the slatted grille. It oozed into the vent and headed along the small metal tunnel. Washed by the warm draft blowing through the vent, EV1L hung from the ceiling. It achieved a state of hibernation and rested.

To find out how they worked, what they were made of and the nature of the power source, the scientific team spent the following two weeks methodically running a battery of non-invasive tests on the pistols. They were swabbed for alien containments, tested for radiation leakage, X-rayed, weighed, measured, photographed from all angles and scanned by laser for a 3D computer model. The latest technology they used to discover the makeup of the outer shell was a Micro X-ray fluorescence (micro-XRF) spectroscopy, a non-invasive technique that wouldn’t affect the pistol. It had only been delivered to the facility the day before.

The outer shell, which seemed to have been molded around the inner workings as there were no joints or fixings anywhere over its smooth, hard surface, was, as far as they could tell, a type of tough composite plastic that wasn’t too dissimilar to that used in various earthbound manufacturing processes.

When the team felt they had done all the non-invasive tests they could with the available technology the facility had to offer, they made their report to Director Stanislav Volosheninov, the man tasked to oversee the investigation and the current head of the facility.

After reading through the reports, Stanislav penned his own and phoned his superior at the Kremlin to inform him of their progress and request permission to test the weapon’s firepower before they dismantled one. After a delay of two hours, which was rapid for the Russian hierarchy, his Kremlin contact rang with permission to proceed.

Keen to test the weapons, the scientific team tasked with reverse engineering the alien weapon followed Director Stanislav and the alien pistol he carried from the room. Two floors below their work room, they entered a long room set up as a test firing range.

The expectant group gathered around the table set a short distance from the door they entered through and glanced at the three, simple life-size human-shaped targets positioned at the far end of the room.

Krisztina Zolushka, the team’s technical expert, moved to each of the two video cameras set on tripods, switched them on and set them to record. One focused on the targets, and the other would provide a wide shot of the room that also took in the scientists.