Song of the Red-Legged Birds: Chapter 25: This way up
The lasting effect of layoffs
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With gratitude, Bill
Last week, in chapter 24, Scott sent us spiraling on a mission, and Seamus’ fate was reported
Chapter 25: This way up
Christo had been alone at the lab for five minutes. The PDCO used to have a full-time lab technician. Due to cutbacks, and maybe as a sign of things to come, that position had been eliminated. Because of that, the lab felt more like a storage room for scientific equipment. Spotless countertops filled with microscopes, test tubes, beakers, centrifuges, and Bunsen burners sat behind what Christo was looking for. The four-foot square wooden crate, stamped with FRAGILE and THIS WAY UP in crimson red, waited. It was lit by a single, swaying, naked light bulb. His inner child recoiled at the dark empty lab containing a mysterious box. So he flipped a light switch to scare away the boogeymen.
He heard a heavy door slam and knew by the footsteps that it was Arthur. The big man came around the corner, breathing hard, sweat pooling on his brow.
“You took the stairs?” Christo said without taking his eyes off the crate.
“Spend most of your day locked up in a mountain, bruddah; you betta get some exercise when you can!” He gasped with his hands on his knees.
“Why don’t you get up early and surf with me? Sometimes it’s just sitting in the water doing nothing, but I still call it a workout.”
“Those days are behind me, my friend.” Arthur was an extraordinary surfer by any standard in his younger years. He’d even competed at The Eddie, a big wave challenge named for surfing legend Eddie Aikau. Arthur never talked about why he didn’t surf anymore. The rumor was that even though he was known for his fearlessness, something had gotten to him one day alone out on the water, and he had just stopped. Nonetheless, he was a local legend whom everyone knew, respected, and loved. Traveling with him in Maui was like hanging out with a celebrity, albeit a humble one.
“Ready to do this thing, brah?” Arthur sang.
Christo grabbed the pry bar left on top of the box. “Can you get some rubber gloves while I crack this open?”
“Yeah, man.” Arthur walked to a storage closet.
“And a couple of respirators too.” He pried up the sides of the box, which screeched as the nails released their grip. Arthur handed him gloves and a mask. They both put them on.
Christo pulled out the straw packing material and tossed it aside. He reached into the crate and turned two levers, releasing a hiss of compressed air. Then he removed the panel by holding the levers and placed it on the floor.
“What the shit, brah?” Arthur mumbled.
The box was filled with black dust.
“The fuck?” Christo snarled.
“I thought they had birds? What is this?”
They stared into the box and noticed the dust start to move. It was slow but appeared to be shifting, diminishing, and melting.
“Dammit! Get an airtight… something… from over there, quick!” Christo yelled. Arthur scrambled around the crate to the shelves that lined the back of the lab. He returned and handed over a container. Christo dug into the dissolving and squirming blackness with it. He latched it shut and depressed the plunger, which removed the air. The midnight black contents stopped moving. They both looked back into the crate in time to see the last of the black dust disappear.
Christo took off the respirator and gloves. “Assholes. Really? They couldn’t have written contents may dissolve when exposed to air?”
“Do you think they knew that when they packed it?”
“Fuck it. Doesn’t matter. This is the price you pay when you lay off the mother fucking lab techs!”
“Yeah, brah,” Arthur sighed while removing his respirator and gloves, “uh, you ever heard of this happening before?”
“Nope. Doesn’t mean it hasn’t, though. One more thing to dig into later.”
Christo took the container to one of the microscopes and set it under the lens.
“Dude, hey… maybe we should take a few minutes to do a little research first?” Arthur said.
Christo, grimacing with frustration, spat through clenched teeth, “I’m just taking a fucking look first. Relax.”
Chastised, Arthur sat down on the edge of the open crate.
Christo looked into the microscope and saw only black. At first, he thought that maybe there was a cover on the lens, and he stopped to inspect it. Finding none, he hit the autofocus button, and the picture became clear. The dust appeared to be made out of tiny round balls, only distinguishable from one another by the light in the room.
He increased the magnification and took a more extended look.
The balls shifted slightly.
He sat back and rubbed his eyes.
When he looked back down, the balls were indeed moving. Christo noticed that wherever he moved his pupil, the balls followed. To his surprise, they seemed to be stacking on top of one another, making a tiny pinpoint. He sat back up again, shook his head, and looked at the container from the side, noting the small emerging bump he had seen at high magnification.
“You okay, boss?”
Christo waved Arthur off and looked back into the microscope.
The balls moved faster, stacking, building a needlelike point. His head swam, and something pulled Christo’s mind away, freezing him in place. Memories skittered across the black dots, his mom rocking him, smiling at a girl in high school biology, drinking beer on the beach with friends, explosions, war, screaming. Sweat dripped off him in a stream, and he could faintly hear Arthur. He relaxed when a voice embraced him from the inside, soothing, whispering, It’s okay, Christo.
Arthur grabbed him by the shoulders and moved him away from the table like he was lifting a doll.
“Huh?” Christo choked out. Arthur was an unfocused blur and the last thing he saw before passing out.
Arthur carried him over to the couch and checked his pulse and breathing. Then he ran cold water on a cloth, placed it on Christo’s forehead, and propped up his feet. The big Hawaiian returned to the microscope. When he got close to it, he observed something forming; black and pointed inside the container. There was a faint hissing before the little container shattered, causing Arthur to jerk away. He turned back in time to see the black contents of the jar disappearing.
This stuff again, I wonder what effect it’ll have on him? Bide your time, Arthur thought.
Next week in Chapter 26, “Spies like us,” Holly sees an old friend drive by