Carbon

“What?” Mona sleepily slurs into the dark. 

Why on Earth would they wake her up right now? They all knew how long she had been working. After all, they were there too.

“Are you going to ask your question?”

In the darkness, backlit by the flashing red alarm light spilling in from the hallway, a form started to build from the floor. It looked to be made of pieces of shadow, slowly crawling up from the floor at the base of the figure, and piling on top of one another to create a humanoid shape. The shape raised an arm and pointed at the door.

“Absolutely not.” Mona rolled over, facing away from the large glass window of the containment unit. There was no way in hell she was opening that door. She saw what they had done to her coworker, let alone the plants that were vital to the oxygen flow in the underground lab. And also the pencils, table legs, and most of the plastics around the lab. In the containment unit, she was safe. This unit had its own ventilation system so as to not contaminate the lab with whatever it was housing, however, now she was using it to keep breathing herself. Another good thing about this unit: it was made completely of metal and glass. No carbon in sight.

The shadow figure melted back down to the floor. This time it moved closer to the containment unit. It built itself up again and softly bumped into the glass window, making a small, repetitious thudding noise.

“Ugh, will you please stop?” Mona groaned, refusing to roll back over. The seat cushions she was laying on were not the most ideal place to sleep, but she really didn’t have a choice. It was this or the cold hard floor.

Thud, thud, thud, thud…

“God damn it! Please! Let me get some rest!” she yelled, sitting up and turning to look at the figure. This time it had chosen to take the shape of her dog, Ripley. 

“Nice try. You obviously got that from the photo on my desk. You’re missing one thing though: my dog isn’t made out of a pile of bugs.” The light coming from the containment unit glistened on the bugs’ colorful carapaces. They crawled back to the floor and scattered into the shadows.

What am I going to do, thought Mona. No one was left in the lab. She had been cleaning out this containment unit that was being used as storage when the alarms sounded. Mona popped her head out of the door to look through the window into the next lab in order to see what was going on. In the containment unit one lab over, the bugs had formed themselves into the figure of a struggling human who was covered in the swarm. The new janitor must have felt like a complete ass after opening the unit containing the bugs, but not for long. These guys had turned him into human soup in a matter of minutes. Once they were out, they fed on every carbon-based thing in their path, living or not. The lab still hadn’t quite figured out what the bugs were trying to accomplish. Satiate a dietary need? Eliminate a threat? Murder for sport? 

Her labmate was the next casualty, not that she was particularly torn up about that. Mike had always been an ass. Taking Mona’s ideas and presenting them as his own, constantly trying to “teach her proper technique” although she was a contributing author on the textbook that explained the techniques the lab used. There was even one office party where he made a move on her. Well, he tried to. Mona had quickly and skillfully broken three of his fingers to end that encounter. Too bad the Good Ole Boys Club that was upper management refused to listen to her. She had been dealing with his hostility ever since then. At least now the world was safe from that misogynistic asshole.

When her labmate was over taken, Mona quickly locked herself in the unit. As the lead scientist on the bug project, she knew exactly how bad this situation was.

The lab had been able to determine the weaknesses of many of the Otherworlders contained within the facility. Allicin, a compound found in garlic, is toxic to one, another has a severe silver allergy, another is only harmed by fire. These bugs, however, aren’t yet fully understood. They were first thought to be a swarm of locusts, destroying fields near the site of a meteor landing, but when the farmers and field hands also became part of the bugs’ lunch, the lab stepped in. A distraught farmer’s child had called the police reporting a swarm of bugs that looked like a human, standing in the middle of their destroyed crops, staring toward the house. The police chief then called the head of the lab.

Mona had been a field scientist then and was called to the scene for observation. After sending a crew in to evacuate any people who may still be in the farm houses, Mona set up an observation site on a neighboring hill. The bugs swept through two fields of crops and vegetation, including about two feet of soil, before returning to the meteor. She had noticed that all metal in the area had remained untouched. The next day, the bugs left the meteor again, tearing through another, larger field. This time, after they returned to the meteor, Mona had the rock boxed in a metal crate and welded shut. 

Unfortunately the people of Earth had no idea they were living among Otherworlders. They would pop up here and there over the centuries, and humans would deem them monsters, but no one ever considered they might be from another galaxy. They called them names like bloodsuckers, lycanthropes, fae, goblins, and so on. When the containment lab was created by the government, and most of the Otherworlders were rounded up, the monsters became part of human lore. Now they’re only seen in scary movies. Well, scary movies…and the lab.

Still, if Mona wanted to make it out of the lab, she needed to figure out how to get past them. Her cell phone didn’t work in the underground facility, but at least she had her control tablet and her backpack. She took out a half empty water bottle and some chips she hadn’t finished from lunch yesterday. Her stomach rumbled as she ate the last few crumbs. She couldn’t stay in this unit forever. She needed to come up with a plan, and soon. 

Mona took a long glug from her water bottle. Ok, she thought, if the alarm was sounded, then this hallway has been sealed. And since the bugs always move as a swarm, they all have to be in here with me. Good news for the outside world.

Mona knew no rescue team would be coming after her. Protocol. And after coming off a draining 24 hour call day, she had been mentally and physically exhausted. Sleep did not come easily at first, but she was able to rest a few hours before the bugs decided to wake her up. Now that she was thinking a bit more clearly, she wondered why they hadn’t returned to the meteor quite yet. Normally after feeding, they would go back to the rock and become dormant for an hour or so. 

“There must not be enough carbon in this hall to satiate them,” Mona mumbled to herself.

Brainstorm time, she thought. I could override the seal on the hallways with my control tablet, then the bugs could move on to find more carbon in the lab and return to the meteor. But who knows if anyone else is still trapped on this floor. I don’t want to be responsible for more casualties. And I definitely don’t want to be responsible for releasing them back into the world.

She racked her brain. She noticed a couple CO2 cylinders in the corner of the lab.

If I could open a cylinder, then the whole lab would be flooded with CO2. We haven’t tried feeding them CO2 before...and I am on a different ventilation system in here. There would be more carbon in that gas than we usually feed them. But on the other hand, if the cylinder explodes, it might blow out the window of this unit. Then I become otherworlder lunch. And even if they get their fill of carbon before reaching me, I wouldn’t be able to breathe.

There had to be a way. Mona kept scouring the lab from inside the containment unit. AHA! The safety kit! They always kept a small oxygen cylinder and mask in the emergency safety kit on the other side of the lab! 

So if I did get a CO2 cylinder open, there’s a chance the bugs would eat their fill quickly enough to have to no interest in my own carbon and go back to the meteor. Then I could hold my breath, run over to strap on the mask, and get the hell out of here!

It was starting to come together. Now she needed to figure out how to open a cylinder from inside the containment unit. There were no projectiles she could fire remotely, and she definitely was not going to run over to open the valve manually. I could heat up the lab and cause the safety valve to release, she thought. But heating only that corner of the lab would prove difficult. Afterall, she needed the oxygen cylinder to still be intact in the emergency kit.

Think, think, think…

Mona suddenly started to dig through the boxes that were being kept in this containment unit. Since it had its own ventilation system, Mike used to sneak in here and smoke when Mona wasn’t in the lab. She had caught him a few times, but upper management never gave him anything more than a slap on the wrist. There had to be a lighter hidden in here somewhere.

She found one tucked under some old lab coats. “YES!” she squealed.

Rummaging through some more boxes she came across a few old glass media bottles and a bottle of methanol that she had asked Mike to dispose of. 

“Oh look, flammable solvent stored outside of a fire cabinet. Environmental Health and Safety would have a field day with this. Fucking Mike…,” she muttered to herself.

At least his inability to maintain proper lab safety had ended up being beneficial. Mona could use this stuff to start a fire at the base of the cylinder! Then, once the cylinder is heated and the gas is released, the flames will go out, but the gas will continue to vent! Mona only had one point of concern now: this whole plan hinged on Mona’s ability to open the containment unit door, light and throw her lab-made molotov cocktail, and close the door again before the bugs could get inside.

Mona filled the media bottle with methanol, then shoved a ripped section of lab coat in the top. She took a few calming breaths to steady her hand by the door. 

“You can do this,” she whispered to herself. She glanced around the room trying to see exactly where the bugs were scurrying. It seemed the swarm had found some old journals near the safety kit and was currently breaking them down to goo.

This was it. Mona prepped the lighter in one hand and the flame bomb in the other. Using her elbow, she opened the door and flicked the lighter simultaneously. The bugs, sensing a better carbon source, began skittering toward the unit. With a laser focus on the cylinders, Mona threw the bottle toward them. A fleeting moment of Lin-Manuel Miranda singing My Shot passed through her head. She pulled the door closed and smiled as the bottle smashed against a cylinder, spilling flaming methanol all over the foam packing pads stacked next to them. The fire was contained to the immediate area of the cylinder and the pressure gauge started to increase.

What Mona hadn’t realized was that Mike had never replaced the rusty metal straps holding the cylinders to the wall. As the fire raged, the straps gave way, and the cylinder fell over at an angle.

“Oh no!” Mona gasped. The pressure release valve began to blow. She ducked toward the floor just as the cylinder shot away from the wall like a rocket. The regulator was blown off and shattered the window of Mona’s containment unit. She pulled in one last breath of air and desperately looked to see where the swarm was. The flames had started to extinguish with the amount of carbon dioxide in the room, and the bugs seemed to be ingesting it! Mona darted across the room to the safety kit that had somehow been unscathed by the cylinder blast.

As she strapped on the oxygen mask, the bugs slowly moved into the hallway and back toward their meteor. “I can’t believe that actually worked,” she said, astonished.

Finally free, Mona grabbed her backpack and headed out of the lab. 

“I need a raise,” she sighed, opening the large metal door to the elevator corridor. It slammed behind her, shaking the walls in the hallway.

Back in the containment room, the bugs rested inside the meteor. The vibrations from the door shook the walls and some dirt fell into the room from a two inch crack in the wall caused by the cylinder explosion. A bug came out of the meteor, eyeing the feast of soil that would lead them to the outside world.