Even mo' NaNoWriMo!
Adrian
Adrian could see the anomaly even in the middle of the night. Even in the few days he’d been studying it, it had grown tall enough to blot out a huge swath of the sky, and so there was a looming section that stood out stark against the city lights that remained. To the right of the thing there was light, then as though cut clean, there was nothing. Cloud cover would have reflected light back down, thus blocking out the stars, but not this.
Currently he was riding passenger in a large van laden down with his research gear and what few personal possessions he’d taken along on his assignment. The National Guard had advised his team that the thing had gotten too close to their base of operations, and so they were being escorted to a new site. In the middle of the night. After having been, essentially, dragged out of bed.
With a sigh, Adrian leaned his head against the glass and let his eyes close. He was too old to be chasing after new discoveries. He should be teaching science to a bunch of unappreciative twelve-year-olds, not trying to ferret out the truth about a giant blob of nothing. For all intents and purposes, that was what it was. It didn’t emit any energy on any spectrum his team could measure, it didn’t react in any quantifiable way to signals being broadcast at it, and any sensitive, delicate, expensive tools they used to try to gain information from it with physical contact... well, they were so much scrap by the time the test was run. The only thing the blot did was envelop what was before it as it expanded.
It didn’t even grow at a predictable rate. They’d been trying to judge if terrain played any part in its advancement, but between the move and the extreme difficulty in traveling around the thing to garner data, well, they didn’t have enough information to go on yet. Sam had been saying something about the federal government getting involved, and of course if they did that they’d appoint some other scientist to oversee the team. He hoped they did take over. At least then they’d be able to fund the means necessary to monitor the anomaly appropriately.
“How much further, Jack?” Adrian surprised himself by speaking. More than anything he wanted his bed. Not just any bed, his bed at home with his wife in it. Failing that, he’d take any bed so he could manage some sleep. He wasn’t as young as he used to be and the prospect of falling asleep in the van left him fearing stiff muscles and a sore neck.
“I don’t know, Doctor Nass. I’m just following them. Haven’t told me anything, ya know?” Jack spared him a grin before turning his attention back to the road. He was a young man, old enough to have a family if he’d wanted one, but young enough that most wouldn’t expect it. He was young enough to be excited about this project, still, to have enthusiasm over it, to be sure that they’d find out something with the scientific process. A moment of pitying disgust spiked through Adrian, but he bit his tongue and looked away until it passed.
He didn’t have anything against Jack. He was a fine assistant and had been more than happy to drop his classes when Sam had asked him to be part of the team. Normally he juggled data and filled spreadsheets with daily atmospheric readings. Occasionally he got to compile the findings of other groups’ tectonic readings, but they usually left that to Sarah since it was closer to her focus.
The drive continued in silence and their mini convoy turned off onto a stretch of road with trees growing up close on either side. Adrian hadn’t been paying attention to the drive so he had no idea where they were now. He didn’t even care outside of being happy that the thing was out of sight.
“What do you think it is, Jack?” Adrian studied the young man for a moment in the dim light from the console. Jack always struck him as an athlete, and thus as the sort who didn’t go into meteorology, but he’d never asked, never wanted to get to know the lab assistants that well.
“The anomaly? I don’t know.” He didn’t look away from the road, but he could tell Jack was thinking about his answer still. “We haven’t been able to get any conclusive findings or anything.”
“You must have some thoughts about what it is, though. They don’t have to be scientific.” Adrian leaned into the seat and stared out the windshield at the tail lights Jack was following. There was another van behind them with Sam and Sarah, and a hummer taking up the rear. Maybe they did qualify as a convoy. He wondered absently if there was a specific number that had to be met to actually be considered one.
“I’m not sure, sir,” Jack finally said, pulling him out of his thoughts. “Some of the people the news has been interviewing, they think the government’s got something to do with it. Like they tested a new weapon and there was an accident.”
Adrian looked back over at the driver. He’d never taken Jack to be a conspiracy theorist. But then why not? X-Files had been a pretty popular show. Maybe it made conspiracies popular, too. “So you think the government’s trying to cover up an accident?” He wasn’t sure if he’d managed to keep the skepticism out of his voice or not.
“Hey, like I said, Doctor Nass, I don’t know. See, if it was, why are we studying it? Where’s the team that was working on it in the first place. I know that thing goes way beyond anything I’ve read about before, though, so why couldn’t it have been produced by some top-secret research group?”
Despite himself, Adrian found himself nodding. There was a certain charm to the logic. It would mean there was an explanation somewhere for whatever the damn thing was, and even if he himself didn’t find it, it would be reassuring to know that someone knew what it was.
“So if it were a big government mess-up, why haven’t they stepped in yet?”
“Maybe they are? You do remember we’ve got military escorting us to our new base, right?” He flashed a grin at Adrian and he couldn’t help but grin along with him.
“And we’re following along like eager little puppies.”
In front of them the taillights disappeared over a hill.
“They must like it when nosy scientists follow along all blinded by their work.” Jack kept grinning as he kept up his joke, and Adrian couldn’t help but chuckle. “I bet we meet the real team and they start feeding us things to tell the media.”
Something about the drive started to nag at Adrian, but he couldn’t place what it was. Probably that whole distrust of the government from his college days. “If they don’t just kill us to keep us quiet, right?”
That sally got a laugh from Jack. “Yeah. Love my country, fear my government.”
Adrian had just started laughing along with Jack at that when what was bothering him clicked into place. They weren’t going up a hill.
“Hit the breaks!”
There was a flash of confusion on his face, but despite that Jack complied. The van swerved on the road, and ahead of them Adrian could see where their lights just stopped. Jack must have seen it, too, since he started swearing and hauled on the wheel. It only made the vehicle fish tail and they ended up skidding sideways at the wall of the anomaly. They were slowing, but not enough. Adrian closed his eyes and tried to think about his wife and Jack kept on swearing.
Sarah
Doctor Altschule had always unnerved Sarah. He had this tendency of staring intently at something just over the shoulder of whoever he was talking to, and he never seemed to realize he was doing it. She considered it lucky, then, that she had been in his van instead of Doctor Nass’s since she’d been watching the road instead of trying to talk.
When the hummer had disappeared she’d started watching the road further ahead, and about the time the van hit the breaks, she saw what they had seen--a looming wall of nothing swallowing the headlights. She’d managed to scream something like “watch out!” or “stop” or something similar. Luckily Doctor Altschule had been surprised enough by her sudden outburst that he’d slammed on the breaks, stopping a good fifteen feet shy of the edge of the anomaly.
Jack and Doctor Nass hadn’t been so fortunate, though, and half their van had been engulfed. Sarah climbed numbly down from the van and gravel crunched under her hiking boots. She didn’t even notice the cold as she walked slowly towards the edge. It was closer than they’d let her get before, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it.
“Jack? Doctor Nass? Are you okay?” Doctor Altschule had climbed down and was hurrying across the gap ahead of her.
Behind her, Sarah became aware of skittering gravel and the heavy tread of several people running. Right, the reservists. Or were the National Guard just the National Guard and not reservists? She wasn’t sure. Slowly she turned and watched three men come around the rear of the van, then skid to a halt, one of them swearing, another just staring, the third seeming to be speaking into a walkie talkie.
“Miss, don’t get any closer to it, okay? Can you come back over here with us?” That was the one who had been swearing.
She nodded slowly and walked towards them, but she kept looking over her shoulder at Doctor Nass’s van. He motioned for her to move faster, then crossed over to her and lead her by the arm back around her van towards where their hummer was idling.
“The other truck drove right into it. I’m sorry.”
She wasn’t sure why she said that, but she looked up in time to see the man nod once then look away.
“Do you know if Doctor Nass and Jack are alright?”
The man stopped at the rear of the hummer and turned her around to face him.
“I need you to wait here, okay?”
Sarah nodded once and hugged herself, the wind finally cutting through her sweater and lifting her short hair into her face. Something tiny and cold struck her face and she flinched before she realized it must be snowing. It was past time for it, after all, but why did it have to start now? She pulled the hood of her sweater up over her head and briefly mourned the fact that she’d only worn a vest instead of her parka.
When she finally started looking around she realized she was again standing by herself, but she could hear people talking. Sarah couldn’t make out what they were saying, and without realizing it, she started edging forward, a couple steps at a time, stopping each time to see if she could understand what was being said. The wind gusted fitfully and the flakes swarmed ticker, only to swirl away to nearly nothing, only to surge back in.
The van headlights were still on and she could see movement beyond it so she eased up to the driver’s side and peeked over the hood. Through the blowing snow she could see the door was opened on Doctor Nass’s van and the three reservists were clustered around it with Doctor Altschule. They seemed to be arguing with Jack who was perched on the driver’s side seat.
“You think he lost his mind just becau-“
That had been Jack. The wind carried the rest of his words away from her, but she could tell he was getting angry.
“Jack, Jack, we’re not saying that, but can you think of-“
Doctor Altschule. What were they getting at? Where was Doctor Nass, anyways?
Before she could think about it further, one of the reservists was grappling with Jack and was trying to haul him out of the cab of the van. Sarah could hear Jack cursing at them, and then Doctor Altschule started getting into it, only the other two reservists hauled him away from the van.
That was when Jack screamed. She flinched and clapped her hands over her ears and stumbled back from the van. Still she watched, though, and saw Jack finally get hauled out of the van. The man dropped him on the ground and Jack thrashed around, finally rolling onto his stomach and folding his arms beneath him.
Everyone was yelling now, and for some reason it looked like the National Guard were getting into a fight of their own. At least two of them were. The third managed to drag Doctor Altschule back away from the van and towards the hummer. One of the fighting men finally shoved the other off and back away from Jack. They weren’t paying attention to him, so they didn’t see Jack pull himself up off the road and stagger out of the light of the headlights.
Sarah fell back along the side of the van, away from the men. She didn’t want to be anywhere near them now. The whole situation just struck her wrong... and that left her with only one option. She could hear the men moving around the hummer and she finally took her chance. The gravel gave her away, but they weren’t listening, and she was in and out of the headlights before they noticed her. Jack would need help more than Doctor Altschule, anyways, she was sure.
As she stumbled into the underbrush along the side of the road, she heard the hummer shift into gear and lights swept over the swath of woods she was in. They might have seen her, but then why would they stop if they had? Any sane person would be trying to get away from the anomaly, after all. So what did that make her? Good question. She was probably in shock... but from what? She shook her head and pushed her way further through the brush until she broke free into the relatively clear breaks between trees in the established forest.
Hunching her shoulders, Sarah tried not to think about the cold and tried to concentrate on finding Jack. The sound of the hummer dwindled behind her then cut off entirely. It would only take a few minutes for her eyes to adjust, and the wind wasn’t so bad under the trees, so the snow wasn’t such a problem, either. Right. She’d keep telling herself that, anyways.