Cross-post

  • Ceedoestrees@lemmy.world
    4·
    7 days ago

    Day 1: Each plane I boarded was smaller than the last, until I crouched into a cesna, outfitted with pontoons, at the edge of a river. Pilot grinned at me, blazing white teeth set against her skin. “No boss, those bullet holes are old. That fighting is done. The new fighting moved north, you are safe.” She rapped the side of the fuselage with her knuckles, “She’s a lucky plane, I promise you.”

    The air around the river was thick and rich. A new soundscape erupted when the engine stopped and and the smell of a different kind of green filled my nostrils. Two men, paste-white on the bottom and bright red on top, greeted me at the fresh wooden dock. They handed my pilot an envelope, and she stopped to count the bills. Satisfied, she clasped their hands, close and strong, one at a time, then saluted me. “Remember me. Your best pilot, no? Good luck.” She tapped her temple.

    Day 2: I passed out as soon as I hit my cot, until I felt a prod through the bug net and pulled out my earplugs. The jungle was even louder than before. I ate a breakfast of strange fruit and lentils in the cargo-container-turned-mess hall, where spotted Ellison, who was a few semesters ahead of me back in Philadelphia. I moved my tray over to his table, “Hey, heard you were here. I sent you an e-mail? Didn’t hear back, figured you were busy or the data sucked.” He looked at me long and hard, like we’d had a fight I fogot to apologize for. “Oh, yeah, of course” He said, finally. “I don’t have enough bandwidth to go through all my messages, sorry.”

    “Right, yeah,” I smiled. “Must be overwhelming, what with Patricia back with the kids. How old’s Octavia, now?” He gave me that same look. “Oh, uh. Three.”

    “Really? I thought…”

    Another man, one I didn’t know, came to get Ellison, taking his tray and walking him out of the hall. Reminded me of the nurses in my dad’s home.

    An hour later, I was marching in a line through the thick jungle. It quieted as we approached the enclosure. High, fresh cement walls surrounded a two-kilometer stretch of jungle. Inside, in juxtaposition to the refugee-camp aesthetic of the base, were clean acrylic walls separating the observation platforms that extended the entire perimeter. A barrier against dense folliage within. Above the trees were a mesh of wires that crackled when brushed by leaves from fresh growth.

    As we walked by an office, I heard shouting. “What do you mean? These number you gave me estimate a 20% increase in mass, and puts it at over two-thousand kilos. Last measurement was three hundred.” “No. That was the first report. We’ve had successive weigh-ins since…”

    Day 3: I thought I’d awoken from a dream. I was in the lab, analyzing a section of shed skin. I’d just been brought up to date on PCR read-outs that never gave the same results twice, even using the same batch of enzymes, so I tested the enzymes. While I sat near the centrifuge, looking over blood levels, I heard the whine and crack of branches bending. A slow hiss of sand against metal. A wall of scaled black moved through the trees on the other side of the acrylic panes. I didn’t remember the walk back.

    Day 4: I waved to Ellison in the mess hall, he waved back. I asked him when he and Patricia were expecting their first, he told me in a few months.

    Back at the facility. The enzymes. I was sure I tested them, but the new readouts gave different results, again.

    I heard shouting in the halls. “It will break out of this enclosure in less than a month if we don’t expand.” “What do you mean? This place can hold an animal six times it’s size.” “No, it’s increased, see? I gave you the chart.”

    Day 5: Ellison came to the facility to explain his reports on the genotype process, but couldn’t remember typing them. I asked him about his PCR tests, he said he didn’t do any. I showed him his own notes. Behind him, I couldn’t see the jungle. Black scales pressed against the windows.

    Day 6: I saw Ellison off at the docks, where I asked the pilot why there were bullet holes in her plane. She shook her head and patted my shoulder. “Old fight, boss.” She saluted me, “good luck.”

    I couldn’t go to the lab today, something about a break in the enclosure.

    Day 7: A crew was sent out yesterday to fix the facility. Today, we went back. Construction materials were piled on pallets outside, untouched. I found scattered tools in the lab and twisted bolts where the pannels snapped off. No crew. I tried to run another analyses, avoiding the great, shining wall of our subject, coiled into the lab.