(Still trying to get the last installments of my Swords of St Valentine story ready; while you're waiting, here's a little blast from the past for this week's creature feature. A bite of scifi horror I call "Little Green Men"... If you enjoy, please upvote, comment, and resteem...)
Dr. Aleks Russell, pathologist of Burroughs Dome’s health clinic, sighed and reached a gloved hand to brush through his thinning hair. He caught himself just in time. That was a mistake he hadn’t made since med school and his first autopsy. He smiled a wry smile. One would have thought him long past that stage by now.
He had performed too many autopsies the past month to be running bloody gloves through his hair.
Russell took a drink of water from the glass on his desk, sipping through a straw. He let out a slow breath and then flipped the mental switch that allows pathologists to see a body as an “it” and not as the person it had been in life. He made sure that the chest spreader still held and then coughed to activate the voice recorder.
“All organs are within the norms specified by the Mars Health Institute for long-term residents of the Domes. There is no discoloration of the lungs or liver. No apparent cause of death at all. Just like with the others. I will now remove the brain from the cranium...”
Russell hesitated, in spite of his efforts seeing the woman on the table as she had been. Chanda Vasin, Administrator of Burroughs Dome. She seemed only in her twenties, though from her file Russell knew her to be decades older. Even in death there was an air of authority about her. The authority that had led the Ares 7 mission and later returned to Mars to found its second permanent settlement after Ares City. It was her vision and drive that had transformed Burroughs Dome from a research outpost to a thriving community of tens of thousands of people. It had been her vision that led to the mining of the southern polar ice cap for the Dome’s water.
And when the Madness had hit four weeks ago, it had been she who had taken control of the situation in the Dome. She had ordered Burroughs quarantined from the rest of populated Mars, had established hospices for the ill and dying. And when the numbers of the afflicted had grown, she was the one who had kept order by declaring martial law.
She had also ordered Russell to find a cause for the disease, and a cure. An order that seemed pointless after her own death, but Aleks owed it to her to continue on. He brushed the hair back from the woman’s forehead and turned on his circular saw.
“The brain seems average sight and weight for the victim’s sex and body type. No visible abnormalities.”
Russell closed his eyes and repressed a shudder. Martian Madness. An innocuous, almost flippant name for the condition. The victim was drawn into a fantasy world of his own making, falling prey to paranoia and schizophrenia as his condition deteriorated. With days of contracting the disease, the victim died from violent seizures.
If he did not meet a more violent end sooner. A father of three had died in a shootout with peace officers. He was convinced they were “little green men” coming to probe him. No one knew where he gotten the laser pistol. A female air reclamation worker had died from an overdose of sedative. It had been shot into her to prevent her from shutting off the Dome’s air supply. As they took her down, she had been screaming something about John Carter and the honor of Helium.
Chanda Vasin had been found collapsed at her desk. Under her hand was a signed statement that she had had Martian Madness bioengineered on orders from Earthgov. The hero of Martian discovery and settlement had died believing she was part of a conspiracy to discourage colonization.
There was no conspiracy. She had simply fallen victim to the disease she had fought harder than anyone else. With her gone, the will to enforce martial law broke down. Bands of the afflicted wandered the streets, their divergent manias clashing violently. The well hid in their homes, praying that they be spared, escaping into the virtual world of MarsNet, or drinking themselves into oblivion. Eugene Damian, the wealthiest man in the Dome, had broadcast an offer of a billion credits for safe passage through the quarantine to Ares City. No one had taken him up on the offer.
Russell had not seen a coworker in days. Vasin’s body had been the last brought to the clinic morgue before panic had frozen the Dome. He would stay at his post. He did not believe in an unbeatable disease. There was food in the clinic kitchen, and Burroughs Dome had an endless supply of water thanks to the woman in front of him.
“Prepping a sample not from the victim’s mesolimbic pathway.”
Russell smiled again. With no other doctors in the clinic -- none alive, at any rate -- he finally had unlimited access to the best of the clinic’s diagnostic technology. Including the holoimaging microscope. Dr. Sharif, the small-minded director of the clinic, had always given priority to the clinic’s living patients, begrudging Russell every second on the device. Now he had it all to himself. He places the tissue sample in the device and waited for it to complete its scan.
“Magnify to the cellular level.”
Neurons formed a three-dimensional spider web in the holotank before him. Seventy-two hours ago that web had contained the consciousness of the greatest explorer and visionary ever to touch Martian soil. And now that web was so much gossamer--
What was that? “Magnify, factor ten.”
The scan zoomed in so Russell could see the inner workings of an individual cell. “There seems to be a...retrovirus of unknown origin attacking the neurons. Scan in further.”
Russell watched the virus as it went about its business, changing the neurons into biofactories that replicated itself infinitely. The mesolimbic pathway was connected to a patient’s sense of reality. Damage to the region explained the paranoia and schizophrenia. But where had the virus come from? Burroughs Dome was a ninety-eight percent closed system. The remaining imports of air, food, and materials were tested continually for impurities and contaminants. And the water...
Russell looked at the half-empty glass on his desk. That would explain why the illness had spread so quickly, shortly after the polar taps had gone online. Russell giggled, his legs almost giving way. Life had been discovered on Mars at last, although the scientific jury was still out whether viruses were alive or not. He giggled again.
“The little green men. They’re eating my brain.”
This week they had been scheduled to start pumping water from the cap to Ares City. A self-contained line. The quarantine didn’t enter into things. There was even talk of exporting Martian water to Earth as a novelty drink. Russell giggled a third time. A few months and Martian Madness would be everywhere. He could feel it now, microscopic tentacles tearing into his brain.
He would not let it beat him. He would stop it before the virus finished its work. Russell picked up his saw again, the circular blade whirled...
Chanda Vasin swallowed nausea but kept control of her expression as she studied the mess on the floor. She turned to Dr. Musa Sharif, the clinic director. “And you say that he was fine until a few days ago?”
Sharif nodded. “A few of the other doctors noticed a change in his personality, moments of paranoia.” He gave a wry smile. “People expect a pathologist to be a little crazy. That’s not the strange thing though.”
“Oh?”
“He had his recorder on last night. Listen.”
Silence. The click of the machine turning on. Aleks Russell’s voice crying out, “The little green men. They’re eating my brain.” The saw, and the sound of a body hitting the floor.
Vasin shuddered. “Thank you, doctor. As you know, I take each death in Burrough’s Dome personally. You will have the Administration’s full cooperation in your investigation.”
“Thank you, Administrator. On another note, may I congratulate you on the success of your water mining program. My building hasn’t had to buy water from Ares for a month now.”
“Thank you, doctor. The pipeline to Ares City from our plant will be flowing within a week. I’ve even been approached by a corporation interested in importing Martian water to Earth.” She smiled. “We’ll be invading the shelves within a year...”