By Eric Choi
Published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, September/October 2023, Vol. XCIII, Nos. 9 & 10, ISSN 1059–2113, pp.36–47.
The young technician held up the methane sensor, running the sniffer probe along the natural gas pipe. Locating the leak at a flange, he put away the instrument and attached a yellow tag as a marker for the repair team. The task completed, he started typing notes into a tablet. At the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a flicker of motion.
He turned, and he screamed.
A pulsating, gelatinous mass of dark crimson swept in, enveloping and consuming him.
§
“May I see some ID, please?”
Monica Najjar showed her driver’s license to the security guard at the Alaska State Capitol building. He checked her name against a list. “Thank you, Dr. Najjar. The conference room is the second-to-last door on your right.”
As Najjar made her way down the corridor, her phone vibrated. She began scrolling through a long and rambling message from one of her more high maintenance graduate students. Still walking with her eyes on the screen, she plowed straight into the back of another person.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!”
“No worries,” said the stocky young man with a round, jovial face. “I’m Jason Leung. I’m a senior physicist from the Department of Homeland Security.”
Najjar was surprised. “I had no idea Homeland Security had scientists.”
“Most people don’t,” Leung said. “I’m here on behalf of the Office of the Chief Scientist at S&T, the Science and Technology directorate. And you are?”
“Oh, right.” She clumsily put away her phone. “Monica Najjar. I’m from the Institute of Arctic Biology at University of Alaska Fairbanks.”
“Nice to meet you, Monica.”
They shook hands.
“I’m really glad were getting some Federal help,” Najjar said.
Leung’s smile suddenly faded. “Well, I’ve been asked to provide some historical context on the current situation, but otherwise I’m just an observer at this point. DHS and FEMA have no formal role unless and until Governor Ford makes an official request for Federal assistance.”
Najjar and Leung entered the conference room. They were met just inside the door by a bald middle-aged man and a dark-haired younger woman. Both wore black-rimmed glasses that might have been fashionable a decade earlier.
“I’m Kaeden Moores,” said the man. “Senior advisor to Governor Ford.” He touched the woman on her shoulder. “And this is Cynthia – uh…Doctor Cynthia Vu, the executive director of the Northern Alaska Center for Innovation.”
“NACI?” Leung raised an eyebrow, pronouncing the acronym “naa-see”. He chuckled. “You mean like the bad guys in World War Two?”
Moores’ face flashed with anger. “By administrative order, Governor Ford has designated NACI as the lead organization for this operation. As the Governor’s senior advisor, I carry his authority here. I demand you show me and Dr. Vu the proper respect!” He grabbed Vu by the wrist and the two stormed off together.
Najjar and Leung looked at each other.
“I guess we’d better respect their authoritah!”
Najjar chortled, recognizing the South Park reference.
There were about two dozen people in the conference room, mostly in civilian clothes but a few in Alaska National Guard uniforms. Najjar spotted a person from the Alaska Office of Emergency Management that she had met the last time she was in Juneau but had since forgotten her name. Everyone else was a stranger.
“All right, guys!” Moores barked from a lectern at the front of the room. “Take your seats. We’re getting started.”
Najjar found a tented cardboard sign with her name at the conference table and took her place. Leung was seated directly across from her.
“Before we begin, I have a message from the Governor,” said Moores. “You’ve all signed non-disclosure agreements and received a summary briefing prior to your arrival. However, Governor Ford wants to reiterate in the strongest terms the need for absolute secrecy.” He scanned the room, his beady spectacled eyes narrowed. “It should not be difficult for you all to realize the potential for hysteria and civil unrest should information become prematurely known to the public. The goal of this Science Advisory Table is to develop the proper messaging while working towards eventual mitigation.”
Najjar blinked, unsure if she’d heard the order of priorities correctly.
“Cynthia? Um…Doctor Vu?” Moores waved her to the podium.
The executive director of NACI arranged her notes at the lectern. “What you are about to watch is disturbing.” Lowering her voice, she muttered, “I’m glad my sister’s not here to see it.”
Najjar turned to Leung, silently mouthing the word “sister?” He shrugged.
The lights dimmed, and a video began to play on a large screen at the front of the conference room.
“This footage was taken two weeks ago,” said Vu, “from a security camera at a natural gas well about twenty-five miles northeast of the town of Atqasuk.”
Judging from the perspective, Najjar thought the camera must have been mounted on the tower of the rig looking down. A man wearing a hardhat and a yellow field jacket was standing just offset from the center of the frame. He dropped his equipment, and an instant later a dark red tide swept over the ground like a crimson wave washing over a beach. The man tried to move, but his feet were stuck as if in tar or quicksand. After a few seconds of futile struggle, he fell over onto his back. The crimson fluid engulfed his legs and arms, and then his chest, and finally his head. His terrified, desperate face was the last to disappear.
Najjar rubbed her eyes, as if trying to un-see the horrific scene. She looked around the table, gauging the reaction of the group. An older man with a thin gray moustache and yet another pair of unfashionable glasses appeared to be asleep. His sign identified him as the chief medical officer for the state of Alaska.
“Is this the first victim of this…phenomenon?” Najjar asked.
“It’s the first to have been investigated.”
Najjar turned to the new voice. The sign on the table identified him as Thomas Aglukuk, a senior NACI scientist.
“At least nine, and possibly fifteen Native Americans have disappeared in that area over the last three months,” said Aglukuk.
“Fifteen people?” Najjar was shocked. “Why weren’t –”
“Let’s move on,” Moores interrupted, looking at his phone. “The next briefing is from –” he sneered “– our Happy Buddha from Washington!”
Appalled by the remark, Najjar turned to Leung. The physicist from Homeland Security got up from the table and hesitantly made his way to the front of the room.
“I…um, before I begin, I…” Leung struggled to get started, obviously unsettled by the slur. “I want to thank…acknowledge, the teams at the Air Force Research Lab and the NASA Astrobiology Institute for their help in putting this briefing together.
“In…um, in July of 1957, a meteorite fell outside the town of Downingtown, Pennsylvania. Contemporary investigations concluded the meteorite had brought a dangerous alien creature – this…um, ‘glob’ if you will – to Earth.” Leung fumbled with a remote, and grainy footage began to play on the screen showing a gelatinous red mass oozing out the front doors of a movie theater as people fled in terror. “The creature killed fifty people – consumed them, just like we saw with the poor technician at the gas rig – before it was finally stopped.”
“Doctor Leung, how was this creature stopped?” Najjar asked in a loud voice. She had no idea if Leung actually had a doctorate, but she deliberately used the honorific anyway as a show of support.
Leung’s eyes met hers, and when he spoke again he sounded more confident. “Incredible as it sounds, it was actually a high school student who discovered the creature’s weakness.” He put a black-and-white yearbook picture on the screen. Najjar thought the guy looked way too old to be a teenager.
“The student discovered the creature was vulnerable to cold,” Leung continued. “He and a number of townspeople, including local law enforcement, used CO2 fire extinguishers to freeze and immobilize it.” Leung brought up another picture in which the creature appeared as a dull gray mass in front of a diner, enveloped by white mists of sublimating carbon dioxide. “The military was called in, and a refrigerated Air Force Globemaster dumped the creature at a site about thirty miles northeast of Atqasuk.”
“Why there, Dr. Leung?” Najjar asked.
“Temperature,” he replied. “At one point, this high school student was able to escape the creature by taking refuge in a walk-in freezer. Meteorological records at the time showed the average temperature in that area of the North Slope never exceeded thirty-seven degrees in the summer. Based on the events in Downingtown, this temperature profile was deemed sufficient to keep the creature permanently immobilized.”
“The area was also uninhabited at the time,” Moores added.
“Uninhabited…by whom?” Aglukuk muttered.
“I see the problem,” said Najjar. “They figured that everything would be fine as long as the Arctic stayed cold. But that’s not true anymore, is it?”
“No, it’s not,” said Leung.
“So,” said Monica Najjar. “Climate change has unleashed the glob.”
§
The Cessna Caravan carrying Najjar and Leung touched down on the gravel runway at Burnell Memorial Airport just south of Atqasuk. It pulled up beside a C‑130 Hercules transport of the Alaska Air National Guard. Najjar and Leung disembarked and made their way to a dark green military command tent at the edge of the apron.
“Dr. Najjar? Mr. Leung? Welcome!” A silver-haired woman in a camouflage uniform greeted them. “I’m Colonel Amanda Carter, Alaska Army National Guard. May I offer you something? Coffee? Water? A sandwich?”
“Nothing for me, thanks,” Najjar said.
“At least you’re not offering MREs,” Leung quipped, referring to the packaged “Meal Ready-to-Eat” field rations that were generally acknowledged by military personnel to be nothing of the sort.
Colonel Carter smiled. “Don’t worry, we have real food here.” She led them to a partitioned area of the command tent with uniformed people in front of computers and large screens that resembled a miniature version of Mission Control at NASA. A dark haired middle-aged man in civilian clothes rose from his seat as Najjar and Leung approached.
“Hello, Mr. Aglukuk,” said Najjar. “It’s good to see you again.”
“I see you already know Thomas Aglukuk from NACI,” said Carter. “Officially, he’s the on-site authority for this operation.”
Aglukuk nodded.
Carter turned to a young woman at a computer. “Private, please pull up the feed from the RQ‑7, if you would.”
The video feed from the uncrewed aerial vehicle appeared on the screen, showing an undulating red mass roiling over the tundra. Numbers at the bottom-right indicated local time as well as the altitude, airspeed, and remaining flight duration of the UAV.
“How big is it?” Najjar asked.
“The dimensions vary as it moves,” Carter replied, “but it’s roughly three to four feet thick, about forty to fifty-feet wide, and between sixty to sixty-five feet long. It’s grown quite a lot. I guess it’s been eating well since it thawed out.”
“How fast is it going?” Leung asked.
“Depends on the temperature,” said Carter. “It moves fastest around local noon, when it’s warmest. Average speed is about two hundred and forty feet per hour, but one day when the temperature got up to fifty-five degrees we briefly clocked it at three hundred and fourteen feet per hour.”
Najjar did the math. “That means it will reach Atqasuk –”
“In about four weeks,” Carter finished for her. “Three in the worst case.”
“When will you start evacuating the town?” Leung asked.
Carter’s expression hardened. “We have an evacuation plan.” She shot a glance at Aglukuk. “But we need the go-ahead from NACI and the governor.”
“There are almost three hundred people in Atqasuk,” said Leung, “plus dozens more at the natural gas sites in the area. I know that’s not a lot of people, but still, you can’t leave something like this to the last minute.”
Najjar turned to Aglukuk, whom she realized had not said a word since her arrival. “I want to speak to your boss, right now.”
Aglukuk led Najjar to another part of the tent that housed the secure communications equipment. A large-screen computer was hooked up to an encryption unit and the stubby antenna of a satellite modem.
“What do you want, Najjar?” asked Cynthia Vu, her annoyance obvious even on screen.
“Why haven’t Colonel Carter’s team been allowed to evacuate Atqasuk?”
“The Governor has ordered Sirhan Reid to be moved to a secure location,” said Vu, referring to the mayor. “Otherwise, we see no need for a general evacuation at this time.”
“You’ve evacuated the mayor and nobody else?” Najjar exclaimed. “Colonel Carter’s team estimates the creature will reach the town in three or four weeks!”
Vu shook her head. “I’ve corrected the estimate from Carter’s team. NACI estimates it will take four months for the creature to reach Atqasuk, or early November at the earliest.”
“Four months?” Najjar was incredulous. “The creature’s estimated speed from Colonel Carter’s team is based on photogrammetry analysis of the UAV video. What’s the data behind your estimate?”
“The creature is likely analogous to a slime mold,” Vu said. “Slime molds can only move a fraction of an inch per hour. We have conservatively assumed a top speed of two inches per hour, so as you can see, we’re being careful here.”
“Colonel Carter’s team has observed speeds of more than two hundred feet per hour!” said Najjar. “How can you say you’re being careful?”
“I’m the most careful person in the world,” Vu replied. “I even wear a mask when I’m having sex.”
Najjar gagged. She really did not need to know that.
“In any case, the Governor’s office concurs with NACI’s estimate.”
“This is an alien creature we’re dealing with here,” said Najjar. “We cannot draw conclusions based on analogy with terrestrial biology. You’re basically conducting a population-level experiment with the people of Atqasuk.”
“I resent that!” Vu learned closer to the camera. “Look, evacuations are a big deal. They’re chaotic and people can get hurt and it’s bad publicity. If my sister was out there and there was an unnecessary evacuation and she got hurt or died, I’m not sure I could live with it.”
The link was abruptly disconnected, and the screen went dark.
§
Monica Najjar, Jason Leung, and Colonel Carter sat together at a table with coffee and sandwiches. They were the only people in the mess tent.
“That’s what she said? That evacuation would be chaos and people could get hurt or killed?” Carter shook her head.
“And it’s bad publicity,” Najjar added.
“I’d like to know what’s this business with her sister,” said Leung.
“She said she thought the creature is like a slime mold,” Najjar continued. “I’d like to put that hypothesis to the test.” She threw up her hands. “Actually, I’d like to do more than that. We need hard data. We need to examine this creature. We need to work the problem and not make things worse by guessing.”
“What do you have in mind, Dr. Najjar?” asked Carter.
“We need to get a sample of the creature,” she replied.
The group fell silent. “How do we do that?” Leung said at last. “And safely?”
Najjar thought for a moment. “We’d have to do it at night, when the temperature is coldest and the creature is least active.”
“What can I do to help?” asked Carter.
“Well, ideally we’d use something like a bomb disposal robot that we could operate from a safe distance and –”
Carter held up her hand. “Let me back it up a bit here. I want to help in any way I can, but this all has to be on the QT while NACI’s in charge. So any big ticket hardware or logistics are a non-starter right now.”
“How about a small drone?” Leung suggested. “Nothing like an RQ‑7, of course. But maybe something like those toys you can buy for kids online.”
Najjar snapped her fingers. “That could work! Natalia Guzman’s group at the College of Engineering and Mines in Fairbanks has developed a touch-and-go sample acquisition device for Mars helicopters. They’ve demonstrated a prototype to Technology Readiness Level 7.”
“If you can get this device to Eielson,” said Carter, “I’ll make sure it gets here.”
Leung smiled. “I love it when a plan –”
Thomas Aglukuk entered the mess tent.
Three pairs of eyes followed Aglukuk as he made his way to the coffee machine and poured himself a mug. With agonizing slowness, he added cream and sugar and laconically stirred. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he threw the stir stick into the recycling bin, picked up his mug, and started toward the exit.
Halfway there, he stopped and turned. “You didn’t have to stop talking when I came in.”
Najjar nodded. “You’re right. That was rude.” She gestured to an empty chair. “Would you like to join us?”
Aglukuk thought for a moment, then took a seat, cradling the mug in his hands.
“I’ve been with NACI for more than twenty years,” he began. “First and only full-time job I’ve ever had, straight out of college. I can’t tell you how proud I’d always been to be a NACI scientist, the things we’ve done. The Qaluyaarmiut vaccination campaign. Getting the consent of the Iñupiat for a genomic study. The Native American astronomy program. Shutting down methane leaks in the natural gas fields.”
Aglukuk shook his head, taking a sip of coffee. “It’s all gone to hell in the last four years. First Governor Ford slashed our budget, and then he purged scientists from the leadership and replaced them with political appointees. At least Vu is an immunologist. Our last director was a lawyer, and the one before that a graphic designer. It like NACI’s job nowadays is to collude with Kaeden Moores to provide pseudoscientific cover for Ford’s policies.”
Najjar, Leung, and Carter looked at each other.
“How would you like to do some real science again?” Najjar asked.
Aglukuk answered immediately. “What did you have in mind?”
§
The problem with the drone Najjar bought online – with her own credit card – was that unlike the military models it could only be flown by line-of-sight. So rather than piloting it from the safety of the command tent at Burnell Airport, she found herself directly in the oncoming path of a dangerous, roiling alien creature.
Najjar zipped her jacket, and she and Aglukuk got out of the Land Rover. The midnight sun straddled the horizon, still providing ample light to see.
Their driver, a bespectacled young corporal named O’Reilly, pointed. “Is that it?”
A pair of binoculars hung by a strap around Najjar’s neck, but she had no need for it. The creature was less than two hundred yards away, resembling a spread of dark raspberry jam smeared across the tundra. She felt a frisson of fear.
“What’s the air temperature?” she asked.
Aglukuk looked at his phone. “Thirty-eight degrees.”
Najjar took a deep breath. “Let’s get this done and get the hell out of here.”