Arcturus Syndrome Ch. 03

Author's Note: All sexually active characters are over the age of 18. Similarity to persons living or dead is pure coincidence. Philipsburg PA is a real place, but this is a purely fictional imagining of it. Readers have noticed a similarity to Michael Crichton's Andromeda Strain . Yes, good catch! Arcturus Syndrome is intended as an erotic sequel to that science-fiction classic.

>>> 04:28, Wednesday July 27, Philipsburg PA

The scientists would never confirm or deny his hypothesis, but Carl Newman later came to the conclusion that it was really the doritos that saved his life.

He had been on an epic porn binge, unable to relieve a monstrous and insatiable erection. He didn't know how long he had been down that rabbit hole, but the wifi went dead just before four, and his cell data cut out a few minutes later.

Carl came out of this strange late-night trance to discover he was as thirsty as he could remember being in his life. He pounded the two powerades from the fridge and started to feet marginally better. There was a half-open bag of doritos on his counter, and some impulse led him to scarf them down. Between the energy drinks and the doritos he started to feel like a human again.

And that's when things got weird.

Still thirsty, he poured himself some water, but it brought on nausea, and by the bottom of the glass, he had a spiking headache.

He decided to go to the 24 hour minimart at the gas station for more energy drinks. The night was dark, pleasantly warm, and quiet. Somewhere in the distance he heard a helicopter. There was one car pulled up at the pumps, with a nozzle in the tank. Carl saw the shadowy forms of a couple in the back seat. It looked sexual, and his erection came raging back.

He turned away and went into the minimart. Which was empty. Nobody behind the counter. Usually there was a pimply, chubby woman there this time of the morning. He couldn't remember her name.

"Hello? Hello?" he called out. The silence had a dull, oppressive quality. He pulled out a blue powerade and drank it down nearly straight. The headache subsided after a couple of breaths. He grabbed a couple more bags of chips and a small rainbow of energy drinks. He helped himself to a bag and went back out.

The couple in the car were hunched in an unmistakably sexual shape, but not moving.

Carl cautiously approached and saw that they were, in fact, completely motionless. He shielded the mirror-glare from the window. It was the gas station girl, looking a lot more fit and buxom than he remembered, and she was riding an older man with unkempt long white hair. And they were both frozen in position, sheathed in glittering crystals. Carl noticed that the crystals seemed to extend in a strange pattern from around the orbit of her head, reminiscent of the statue-of-liberty crown. One of these spikes zigged to the roof of the car, and seemed to be growing along that fabric.

Carl backed off. He checked his phone for news, but there was still no data. He called 911, but the call went immediately to a message:

"Emergency Services in your district have been suspended. Please congregate at the Philipsburg Osceola Senior High School for further instructions."

Never in Carl's 35 years had he encountered anything like this. This was not an ordinary Wednesday.

>>> 05:54, Alexandria VA

The last of the seven scientists had proven the most difficult to get on the phone, but he turned out to be the most enthusiastic.

Dr. McKinnon flipped back from his C.V. when the phone clicked through. Dr. Jeffrey Kettleman, the only actual medical doctor in the group, answered the phone.

"Yo! What's up?"

"I need to keep this brief, Dr. Kettleman. Do you recall your assignment to the Wildfire Program?"

"Alien shit, right?"

"That's right, Doctor." She left it at that, letting his mind catch up.

After the pause...

"No way! For real?"

"To be perfectly honest, we don't know yet. There appears to be some unexplained medical condition taking place near the site of a recent meteor impact. The meteorite itself was not found. Rural Pennsylvania. We are activating the protocol out of an abundance of caution."

"Holy smoking fuck!"

The file noted that Kettleman was young, with somewhat questionable politics, but also that he was one of the top three infectious disease experts in the country. She breifly wondered who the other two were.

"We are setting up a research command center in State College, PA. Penn State labs supplemented by additional equipment and facilities we are flying in now. I understand you are on vacation. Where are you currently, Doctor?"

"Yeah, not that far actually. Appalachian trail in New York State. You're lucky I found some signal for this. I'm a three hour hike from the nearest arterial, but there are some back-country tracks."

"Can we get to you with a helicopter?"

"Oh, yeah, no problem with that! Got a few fields nearby. Text you a GPS spot?"

"Do it, I'll let you know our ETA."

McKinnon checked the notes from Gebre and Andrew and switched straight to the ConCall, which was short and to the point.

Gen. Buckley: "We have the national guard assembling, and state police have blocked off all roads at a 30 mile radius. We'll have the triple ring in place by noon. We're putting together a supply drop for the survivors. I have the blankets you asked for."

HomeSec: "We shut down landlines at 03:17. We began shutting off internet and cell data at 03:10, and completed at 04:21. There was some social media activity, which we have eradicated. There is no indication that anything is still in the wild, at least on Insta, Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube, or in outbound email. We're ready to shut down the cell signal completely, pending completion of McKinnon's canvas of the region."

McKinnon: "We wrapped that up within the last ten minutes, so let's isolate comms five minutes after this call. I want to have a final chat with Melissa. Would be great to drop in a sat-phone or two that are locked to the command center."

Buckley: "No problem."

HomeSec continued: "We have sat imagery. There are a few scattered traces of IR activity in town; we've tracked the general convergence on the High School, and possibly some other human activity, but negligible. We're still reconstructing historical data from encrypted archives. We're tracking all regional data for any signs of anomalies outside our quarantine ring. Question: do we think this is airborne? Wind is about 5mph westward."

"Unknown, but it seems probable. We know nothing about range or durability of the infectious agent."

"For what it's worth, the president would rather napalm the shit out of this town than nuke it. Is there any data suggesting that would be less effective?"

"Unknown," McKinnon said. "We just don't have data. We're setting up shop at Penn State as we speak."

Gonzales: "We don't have a location on the coroner. His one and only call was from the field. He didn't show up at home, or at the morgue in Bellafonte. We expect he is within the quarantine zone, and unresponsive, but that's not confirmed."

"What's he drive?" Fenton asked.

"Uh, good question."

"Find out, and give me the plates as well. We'll find it. We have clear skies until about 14:00, longer with luck."

"Ok. Also, we do not have any other signals coming in, so containment may be viable."

McKinnon shook her head. "Maybe, but if it is airborne, and if it's at all hardy, anyone driving through town in the past 36 hours is a potential vector."

HomeSec said: "We're working on that. The good news, this town isn't on a major route. There's a state route 322, busiest when Penn State is playing at home, so thank God we don't have that to deal with. We have the capacity to track every vector within the time period, but it will take a few more hours to fully model the window."

McKinnon concluded: "We have contacted all members of the Advisory Panel. General Buckley, I have one more to add to my prior list, a helicopter pickup on the Appalachian trail, GPS to follow. We should have them all on-site by mid-afternoon. Our canvassing did turn up some patterns, and I'll have a provisional report on that in the case folder within the hour. Everyone has access to the case folder, right?"

Heads nodded.

Glenn adjourned: "Next check-in is 09:00. Please review Dr. McKinnon's first report, and Buckley, we're going to want to confirm that quarantine is solid."

>>> 06:22 AM, Phillipsburg PA

Melissa answered her phone.

"Hi, Dr. McKinnon."

Melissa always felt uncomfortable with Dr. McKinnon. The woman had a harshness to her. It wasn't any worse than the others she had been talking to, but somehow she thought a woman should be... softer.

"Everything is ok, I guess. I... we had to turn some people away. Because they were older, like you said. Everyone here is scared, and kids are crying, and I don't know what to tell them. When is help coming?"

McKinnon offered no comfort: "We don't know yet, Melissa. And we don't expect the cell phones to work for much longer either, so we are sending in another care package by helicopter. This one will have blankets and one or two satellite phones that will keep you in touch with us after cell phones go dark. It's also going to have a shelter for the older survivors. We'll be dropping it on the football field this morning."

"Can I ask... what is going on? Do you know what's causing this yet? And why are children unaffected?"

"We don't know any of that yet, Melissa. But here's how you can help: if anyone else over age comes by, and we expect there to be some more in time, I want you to give them instructions. The first order of business is getting everyone nearby we couldn't reach by phone. So they should find and gather everyone else. Give them one of the sat phones. Second, there's a motel in town, right? Our first response team checked into that hotel, but we haven't heard from them. So I want you to send one of the older survivors to that hotel, to report on what they find."

"Ok, I understand. Why, uh... why are the cell phones going to stop working?"

"To be honest, it's to prevent a larger panic. Whatever this condition is, we need to contain it, and cure it, where it is. We can't let it get bigger than this. And in order to have all our resources focussed in exactly the right way, we can't let this become an international panic. That's the whole truth. I hope you understand."

"Yes, Ma'am. I guess so."

As soon as the call went dark, Melissa had an impulse to dial Fox News right away. She wondered if anyone would take her seriously. She doubted it. She put the cell phone away and went to talk to the other "leaders." Robby was her age, they had graduated together the month before. She had never cared for him; he was a nerdy type, always being annoyingly literal about everything, as if that was funny. But things were different now, and he had stepped up. There was also Janet, from their graduating class. Janet had always been a kind of trouble maker, and Melissa didn't like the way she seemed to think everything was some kind of dark joke. Everyone Melissa knew thought she was for sure going to fail out, but apparently she had gotten into Swarthmore. Melissa didn't like that about her either. Their fourth was a boy named Thorvald, who was actually a year older than Melissa, but had gotten to the gym before her, and she didn't feel right about kicking him out. He had a smooth, calm confidence. Melissa had for a moment been ready to hand the phone over to Thorvald, but at the last moment had thought better of it. She had to admit, he was really good at calming down the others, and he showed no interest in taking over the role of contact with the authorities. He was, however, always nearby.

"What did she say?" he asked.

Melisssa sourly relayed the news, adding: "It doesn't really sound like they're coming to help."

He shrugged. "Wouldn't help much if they all start... you know."

Melissa blushed, and felt an alarming blossom of heat in her belly as she interpreted Thorvald's suggestion.

"I'm super thirsty," she said. "Let me go get a drink. Can you keep an eye on the doors?"

>>> 6:55AM, Philipsburg PA

As the morning grew bright and the heat of the summer began to assert itself, Katherine found herself uncharacteristically energized. Normally she would be happily asleep at this time of day, waking up at noon if anyone let her sleep that long. But the sun on her skin gave a delicious tingle, and the colors of the morning trees seemed unusually vibrant.

She ended up going from house to house. The town was eerily silent. No cars. No people. Just birds and squirrels. She had avoided plundering people's wallets and jewelry boxes. It didn't seem like that would make much difference now, although she had a few moments of temptation.

What she did find was scene after scene of debauchery.

Mostly husbands and wives. Most frozen in their moment of ecstasy, but not all. Some had crawled a few feet. Some had died in their bathrooms, possibly trying to drink water. More than a few faucets were still running.

All these strange scenes of depravity only served to stimulate her imagination, and more than once she paused to fantasize over a frozen couple, giving herself enough pleasure to satisfy her ongoing craving.

But then she heard a baby crying.

She didn't know whose house it was. She had wandered away from the streets where she knew everyone. She had to break a window to get into the house, and it set off an alarm, which she didn't know how to turn off.

So she made her way to the baby, who was in a crib in its own room. Katherine was no expert, but she did what she could. Changed the diaper, doing her best to clean the kid up, and tried to find some milk for him, studiously avoiding the master bedroom. She wasn't sure if a baby could drink milk out of the fridge, so she just brought it with her.

She took child and milk back to the gym, banged on the door.

She looked up at the guy who answered it.

"Hey, Thorvald, right?" she said. Thorvald was in her class. And a fine looking specimen. "How'd you get in there?"

He shrugged. "In out, does it matter? They're bringing in some shit. There's going to be a drop on the field. What do you have?"

"Huh, this shit is fucked up," she said. "But I found a baby. You all better take care of it."

"Oh shit, ok. Just, uh, put it down ok? We'll bring her in."

"Him."

"Ok, and, uh, thanks. And, uh, I'm sorry."

It was Katherine's turn to shrug.

She made it her mission to find any more infants. By the time she ran into Nancy, she had found three more, and brought them all to the gym.

>>> 6:58 AM, Alexandria VA

"Dr. McKinnon... we found something."

Andrea had sent a priority interrupt.

McKinnon got off the phone with the most problematic of her scientists, one Dr. Frances Rigaud, Professor of Molecular Biology at MIT, who was refusing to sign the necessary paperwork for Code Black clearance.

She called Andrea. "What do you have?"

"Alvin kicked off a cloud job - without using the proper request procedure, by the way - early last night."

"I'm listening."

"Pretty extensive data from two handhelds, run through composite, aggregate, and anomaly detection map reductions, and fed through that ML program he was working on."

"And?"

"Well, I don't know how to read the results, but it's there. It looks like they have about five hours of data, across the two devices."

"And why am I only hearing this now?"

"Because you had me calling three thousand phone numbers, and because Gebre has been running all your other errands."

"Ok, fine, who knew Al's work best?"

"Jane?"

"Christ. Where's Lem?"

"We have activated the Seattle team, but Dr. Lembic and Mr. Gupta are waiting on direction. It's, ah, about 4am there."

"Get Lem looking at it. Immediately. Make sure he understands the urgency. I want a summary before nine. Also, Andrea, who can get me to this place in Pennsylvania quickest?"

"Phillipsburg?"

"Hell no. State College."

"We've had the military collecting the Wildfire team. Gebre's been handling the logistics, he can probably get you in on that."

"Yeah, good, thanks. Call Lem right now."

McKinnon hung up and dialed Gebre.

>>> 7:29 AM, Philipsburg PA

Carl had been scarfing sun chips, pounding blue PowerAde, and jerking off. Something was clearly fucked up. This was not a normal Wednesday.

And then he ran out of his blue bottles.

He left the relative safety of his apartment, and brought enough reusable cloth bags to do his best at clearing out the energy drink aisle. The local supermarket was a place called Weis. Your standard small town supermarket. Open at seven. Except it wasn't.

The doors were closed, the lights were off.

Carl checked his phone one more time. No signal. No cell, no data.

This was definitely not a normal Wednesday.

He rattled the door, he could probably break in if he had to. He didn't want to be the guy who started looting during a disaster, but... he needed his juice of life. And he was salivating at the thought of an apartment full of potato chips, doritos, cheese curls, crunchy pretzels. He could hole up for a long time on a grocery market's worth of snacks.

He walked around the perimeter of the store in search of a less visible spot to break in, which is where he met her.

She was carrying a box out the back door of the supermarket. The hatch on her SUV was open.

"Whatcha doin?" Carl asked casually.

She looked up, startled and afraid.

He held up his hands. "I come in peace."

"Why aren't you at the high school?" she asked.

He shrugged. "My policy is, when people in authority tell you to do something, it's best to do something else."

"How's that work out for you?"

He laughed. "Well, I'm holed up in a small town five clicks from the center of nowhere, keeping to myself, so maybe it's not the best policy, but I've gone this far with it. How about you?"

"I am bringing supplies with me."

"To the high school?"

"I generally believe that when experts give you advice it is best to listen to them."

"Hey now, I got the vax when the pandemic came 'round. I'm not a moron. But this, this doesn't feel right."

She stacked the box in the back of the car.

"So," Carl asked, "Do you have any idea what's going on?"

She suddenly blushed. "No, no idea."

"You're lying. Why are you lying?"

"Do you know what's going on?" she asked.

"I've seen some weird shit." And remembering the figures in the car, Carl felt a pulse of arousal wash through him. He took another look at the woman. She was younger than him, mid-twenties he would guess, and very shapely. Big curvy hips stretching her yoga pants, bulges suggesting breasts several sizes too large for her bra, full, pink lips. Her lips were parted a little. She was breathing hard.

"Me too," she said.

"Why don't I help you out," Carl suggested. "I can carry a few boxes."

"I thought you weren't going to the gathering point."

"Doesn't mean I can't help out a pretty lady in distress."

Her flushed pink color darkened. Carl felt his cock hardening.

"No," she said weakly. "It's not a good idea. I... don't know if I can..."

"What?" he asked.

"Did you kill anyone?" she asked suddenly.

"Huh. No, if it's truth or dare time, I might or might not be wanted in a state down south for some financial mistakes, but I'm not the killing type."

"So... you don't actually know then, do you."

Carl felt suddenly unmoored. The conversation was getting away from him. This woman was looking at him with big cornflower-blue eyes. She was maybe tearing up a little.