Dark Day

Professor Frederick Wood was a government scientist of some standing. A short, balding man in his early sixties, it was him the government turned to when this problem started. Fred thought this call was a joke and as he set off from his home in Edinburgh, heading for Northampton, he muttered under his breath that this better not be a waste of time. Of course there wasn’t anything on the news, because he checked.
 
After a long drive he didn’t get there until gone nine, and it was already dark. It was a chaotic scene. The public had already been sent away and there were troops and Police there, stood around. After being ushered past the cordon he drove his car up to the command vehicle. He jumped out of his car and marched up confidently to the commanding officer; a major.
 
‘Professor Wood’, he said offering his hand. The major looked down at his hand in disgust for a second then took his hand and shook it.
 
‘Major Cameron,’ he said. ‘What we have so far is a whole group of as yet unidentified civilians that live here in this estate, which have not yet come out and have not been rescued. The whole place seems to be consumed in some kind of dark matter, which I never come across in my entire career. And I’ve been to some dark places.’
 
‘Have you sent anyone in to investigate?’ Wood asked.
 
‘Yes we have. That’s the problem. So far we’ve lost four soldiers and two Police officers, who went in before we were called. They haven’t come out and we’ve got nothing on the radio at all. No reply. So we stopped sending people in. What we did next was to send in the bomb disposal remote vehicles. They stopped working after about ten to twelve minutes, which we estimate to be about 140 feet into the area.’
 
‘What is the size of the effected area?’
 
‘I sent a helicopter up about four hours ago, when dusk was setting in. but it was too late really. It was too dark. Anything that goes in doesn’t come back. But my estimate is that the affected area isn’t that big.’ The Major pulled out a map. ‘It starts here at Parabola Road, it spreads as far as Red Lane and here in Rexford Terrace here. We think.’
 
‘It is growing?’ Wood asked.
 
‘No, doesn’t seem to be. We’re stood just outside of it and we’ve been here for about three hours, with no need to move.’
 
‘Right.’
 
‘What would you need to make your assessment Professor?’
 
‘Not sure yet. I would like some more of those bomb disposal machines. How many have you got here?’
 
‘We have two.’
 
‘I would also like the Police to start building up a picture of who is in there from the civilian side. We’ll need electoral roll information, and I’m guessing this is a poor estate, so perhaps we could check out benefit records as well.’ A Police Inspector was near by. The Major motioned him over and told him to start building a picture of who was inside. ‘Can you please also contact the following colleagues of mine and ask them to get here ASAP?’ The Professor had already written a list of people he might need before he left, which he now passed over to the major. He then asked for a desk, a computer and a telephone. He was shown into the command vehicle. ‘Is there any footage from the bomb disposal vehicles?’ he asked.

‘Yes. I’ll get them on-stream in a second,’ the Major answered.
 
To start with the Professor had the command centre to himself as he watched the footage. He scribbled notes on a notepad as he watched. All the footage showed the same thing. The robot moved slowly into the darkness, as the camera image became darker and darker until it went off with a flurry of white noise. And that was it. He reversed the footage and lightened the image as best he could. He could see corners of walls and houses, crumbling. He could see the top of someone’s head on the floor. He could see cars with flat tires. He continued to write notes. He needed some more brains here. His colleague Professor Michael Field for one. He might be able to see from the images what was causing the structures to breakdown. What might be causing buildings to crumble and the rubber on the cars to break down.
 
He stepped out and back over to the Major. ‘I think there’s not a great deal we can do tonight. Really we need to establish exactly what the boundaries are on this thing. We can only do that in daylight.’
 
‘Okay,’ the Major said, listening intently.
 
‘For now make sure no-one goes in and no more machines should go in there either.’
 
At first light the Professors colleagues had arrived and had begun work immediately on deciphering what they could from the images they had recovered before the remote vehicles had stopped working. A briefing was now underway headed by Professor Wood.
 
‘First things first we need a complete picture of how big this black space is. We need helicopters with thermal imaging, three dimensional imaging and some computer hardware online or here at the command centre. I also need the MET office to supply all their data to the week leading up to it and thereafter.’ Everyone walked away knowing what they needed to do, to begin analysing the space. The Professor summoned the Police Inspector, Peter Johnston, who needed to update Wood on how many people were believed to be inside the zone. He estimated that 157 people were currently unaccounted for. Wood walked away back into the command centre which he had now commandeered. 
 
‘Good to have you all here.’ Wood addressed the assembled professors. ‘We have what I believe is a black hole. A mini one. What we need to establish is why this apparent black hole is not dragging matter into it. As it stands the Police and the army do not think that this black space, as I am calling it is expanding even at a slow rate. We do not know whether the people that have entered the space are dead or alive and we don’t whether the people who were already inside have perished. Any ideas anyone?’
 
Professor Jane Seagrove spoke first. ‘If the space is not expanding and if it is not dragging matter into it, then it has no centre of gravity – no heavy object at its core. So I would disagree that this is a black hole or something similar. I think its something new. Something we’ve never encountered.’
 
‘Thanks Jane. Anyone else?’
 
‘We know, or we can see evidence of the space causing matter to decay. Can we confirm that the decay we can see on the images was caused by the…’ the professor speaking pauses to find his words, gesticulating as he searched, ‘space? Or was it an explosion that has caused the damage?’
 
‘Good question. Hang on.’ Wood grabbed the phone and rang the Major. He asked if there were any explosions reported before the blackness arrived on the estate. The Major didn’t know and referred to Inspector Johnston, who confirmed there was no explosion. Wood put the phone down and said ‘No. No explosion.’ The room fell silent, while Wood had his fingers against his lips in deep thought, but also waiting for a new idea, a new question.

‘Probes.’ Michael Field said. ‘Is there or are there any kind of probe we can send in that a, is going to survive and b we can get back.’ A pause, ‘Or that we can receive information from inside the space?’ 
 
‘Remote vehicles from the bomb squad have broken down so far. Two of them I believe’, Wood said.
 
‘What about a probe that will send signals for as long as it can, like a Mars lander or something?’ Jane said.
 
‘We would need to talk to one of the space centres. Leicester has one. I have a colleague there. Shall I call?’
 
‘Yes. Immediately.’ Wood passed her the phone. She continued to speak while the debate continued. ‘How long will it take to get here though? And who will pay?’ Wood asked himself, not expecting an answer from the group. He picked up another line and called the Home Office. As he asked for the money to secure a probe from a space centre, while the other professors continued a heated debate. Outside helicopters were flying around recording size and behaviour. The Major was co-ordinating while he stood and stared at the blackness in front of him. Daylight shone as usual around its edges as the dark patch in front of him and towering over him seemed bottomless and unforgiving. Eventually the professors broke and came out to join him. They all stood and stared in silence at the dark patch in front of them.

‘If defies even light,’ one of them said. It was quite a sight – quite a phenomenon to look at. It would make a great tourist attraction. ‘Can we take pictures of it?’ The same professor asked. ‘I mean if we took images and put them through a printing process and a digital analysis what would we see, especially pitched against a light background or perhaps with a zoom lens, right inside as far as can go?’
 
‘What about laser imaging?’ Professor Field suggested. ‘There is one at Oxford med.’ 
 
‘We’ll try all of it. Major, can you obtain for me the best long zoom camera you can?’
 
‘Sure’, he said. He called over a subordinate and the junior man ran off towards the nearest army truck and drove off towards town. 
 
An hour later the images from the helicopters were being uploaded on to the command centre computers and technicians from various universities began to arrive to do the analysis. Before long the 3D image requested by Wood was ready for inspection by the assembled scientists. The Major stood at the back, with a senior civil servant from the Prime Ministers Office who had arrived over night.
 
‘It’s non conformist. It’s not spherical. It’s not orderly. It’s a long blob, a bit like a cloud formation,’ Field said. 
 
‘Mmm,’ Wood mumbled. There was silence in the room as they all stared at the screen. ‘Have we learned anything new here, apart from the scale and shape of the thing? Let’s switch to thermal please?’ he instructed the technician. The technician pressed a button on the key board and the image popped up. 
 
‘Oh,’ Wood said. ‘Well it’s cold, but it’s all cold. I’m guessing the thermal imaging infrared isn’t penetrating. We should have expected that I suppose.’
 
‘Will the laser work?’ Field asked, not expecting an answer. A junior officer popped his head round the door, ‘The camera’s are here along with the laser imaging equipment.’
 
‘Right. Thanks,’ Wood said. They all left the screen and went back outside. They immediately began setting up tripods and other equipment and within minutes they were taking pictures. They watched as the lasers entered the darkness and appeared to stop. Wood walked back to the monitor and looked. It appeared that the laser image was recording something but it wasn’t immediately clear. ‘Can we change frequency, try and tweak the image some what?’ he asked the resident Professor who had arrived with the machine.
 
‘Sure,’ he answered. They all crammed in behind Wood and watched, as the laser image sharpened and at what looked like a remote machine came into view. 
 
‘Can you examine the machine to look for damage?’ he turned to the Major, ‘And can we have a technician here to view this to see if there’s any damage to the machine?’ The Major shouted and signalled the engineer and he ran over. He arrived and the professors made room for him.
 
‘Is there any damage?’ Wood asked.
 
After a prolonged silence he said no. He left and the professors conferred again.
 
‘My thinking is that we build a scaffold over the entire site,’ Field suggested, ‘Then we build a laser image of the entire site, which we can then drop other imaging methods, probes and so on into the middle of the thing.’
‘I agree,’ Wood said. He looked at the Major.
 
‘I’ll get the engineer core here,’ he said, without having to be asked. He marched off to his phone and began talking while the professors chatted.
 
‘Well,’ Jane said. ‘What do we think this is?’
 
‘My thinking is that we are looking at some kind of breakdown of matter itself. As we know everything is connected, especially on earth, with the atmosphere, and water in the atmosphere and so on. It would be interesting to discover whether oxygen is present inside the space.’
 
‘I agree. It’s a breakdown of atomic behaviour, like the atomic engine has been switched off some how. There maybe other sites like this all over the universe. Small undetected black regions – like dead zones in the universe. It’s not beyond our current knowledge. I think with some further study I think that’s exactly what we’ll discover.’ Jane Seagrove added.
 
‘Survivors?’ Field asked the group.
 
‘Depends on oxygen. If everything, if the laws of physics have broken down some what, then oxygen, air, would have gone also. So I don’t think survivors will be in there.’ Jane said.
 
‘You think everyone is dead?’ Wood asked.
She shrugged. ‘Maybe. We won’t know until we can see inside it.’ The phone rang. Wood answered.
 
‘Yes. Professor Wood.’ 
 
‘This is Carl Friendly from Leicester Space Research. We have a probe we were going to use for the Titan expedition planned for 2013. But it’s a ten year, ten million pound project and I have to say I am not prepared to let it go.’
 
‘The government has assured me that you will be paid the full costs. And…’
Friendly interrupted, ‘It’s not the cost Professor Wood. It’s the emotional cost of my technicians losing ten years work. That’s the issue. I’m sorry but I am not going to support this. And I won’t be persuaded.’
 
‘Well that’s your choice. But I may have to insist. It’s built with public money after all.’
 
‘Well, I’ll take my chances,’ he replied. The conversation ended.
 
‘Leicester said no’, Wood told the group. 
 
‘That surprises me,’ Jane said. ‘You’d think that there’s enough mystery here to generate his interest wouldn’t you?’
 
‘He’ll come round. I have a friend there. I’ll get on it,’ Field added. He walked away, pulling his mobile phone out of his pocket as he went. 
 
The scaffolding arrived on civilian trucks which were stopped at the boundary and unloaded, before the army reloaded them for the last short leg of the journey to be assembled at the site. It took two days. The scaffolding surrounded the entire site, with plastic sheeting covering the outside. The engineers struggled to figure out how to cross the wide gap. In the end they built platforms having decided that bridges were out of the question without sturdy columns touching the floor of the site, right inside the space. This gave Field an idea.
 
‘We don’t need a probe designed by a space agency. All we need is a scaffolding pole. We’ll drop it down, find the bottom and bring it back up and analyse its surface. See if it picks up anything, or gets degraded or decayed. We can drop it for set periods of varying time. We can also put meat on it, to see how it affects biological matter and so on.’
 
‘Yes!’ Wood smiled. ‘That’s good,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘We’ll get a brand new one and clean it so that it is absolutely clean of any contaminants.’
A new scaffold pole arrived and was taken into a specially designed tent, with showers for staff and white suits and hats. They cleaned the pole thoroughly then, once the crane was in place it was lowered into the darkness. The whole team gathered on the platform and peered downwards into the space, still fascinated by the way it blocked the day light. At night and at the top of large scaffolds big flood lights lit up the entire area. But by now large crowds had gathered a mile or so way, made up in large proportion by residents that had been removed from the area in-case it spread. They weren’t satisfied with the explanation from the government of a chemical spill. But they could not get close enough to know anything else and now when night fell, they would see the bright lights off in the distance. The media had to say something so they discussed all kinds of toxic chemicals and the implications for the wider area. They were not allowed to tell the truth, which by now many journalists already knew. 
 
As the pole was lowered, the engines from the crane strained and the team watched precariously from the platform which was about four metres from the pole. They had decided on thirty seconds for the first attempt. Other new poles were being prepared below, as the next one which was to be lowered for three minutes was being readied at the base of the crane. When it returned they saw immediately that there were flakes of metal peeling off the side of the tube. It was lowered to the ground and into a blanket of plastic and moved by hand by technicians into the tent. The professors climbed down the ladders and followed the pole into the tent, while the crane driver put the next one into position.

‘Do we need a pole to test the atmosphere in there?’ suggested Field. ‘We could arguably use anything.’
 
‘Yeah. But what?’ Wood asked.
 
‘We can’t use string it’s too organic.’ The room fell silent. ‘A lighter metal rod perhaps? Or nylon?’ Jane suggested, as they gathered in the tent to look at the first pole. They all looked along the length, taking samples with cotton buds and popping them into test tubes and sealing them up. They were then passed to waiting army couriers to take to a government lab not too far away.
 
The second one was dropped in while frantic activity took place to set up a matrix of lasers which will eventually build a picture of what was happening inside. Each time they dropped a pole it was left a bit longer, until they were leaving them for an hour, suspended from a crane, rather than dropped to be supported by its own weight. After several hours most of the laser images were online and a picture emerged. The command centre buzzed with people, with an overflow tent directly outside. 
 
By nightfall the image generator had taken its first full image of the inside of the darkness. It showed a disturbing picture of people seemingly in suspended animation. As they went through the buildings, images of people sat slumped in chairs and collapsed on the floor were coming in. It was possible that within the technology they could take heart beat measurements. They could do a basic medical examination. Wood instructed that rather than rush through the area looking for causes of the blackness, they should first record the fates of all inside. And that’s what they did. With anxious loved ones waiting in the town to discover the fates of their sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, it was vital that reports of fatalities or otherwise were made. It was going to take some time though and the exhausted team continued on throughout the night and well into the next day. In the end they counted 156 dead and one soul survivor. A young boy, who strangely was stood up inside his own house, stuck in suspended animation, his face contorted in pain, his mouth wide open, as if in mid scream. In front of him was what looked like a man hanging from the ceiling light. It seemed this was the last thing he saw before the darkness descended. 
 
A full list of addresses and occupants were passed via the Major to the Police Inspector, who took it out to the waiting family members. He carefully took in each person to a separate room to discuss the details and to confirm who was likely to be in each house. It was a tough process of elimination as heart broken people were told about the fates of their relatives. He was stood in a doorway, with his hand outstretched holding the handle of a door. Whatever had killed everyone in the estate had not killed this man hanging from the ceiling. This man was already dead, having committed suicide. But the boy was an enigma. The Police needed to discover who he was and why he had died. Wood secretly entertained the idea that somewhere in this house, lay the answers to this mystery. But he dared not utter the words in front of his learned colleagues. 
 
The Police returned with a short report of his name and circumstances. The older man hanging from the ceiling was a veteran of the Iraq war. The boy’s mother had left the home the year before, having left the boy with his father. The boy was ten years old and his mother had not turned up to claim him. Wood asked Johnston whether he knew why his mother had not shown up to claim her son. The Inspector didn’t know. 
 
‘We need to get in there. How are the poles fairing so far? What’s the level and speed of the decay?’ he asked Field, who was heading the processing of the pole probes.
 
‘Decay is rapid. But we are beginning to see the results of a slowing in the rate.’
 
‘How fast? I mean could we suit up and go in there and if we can, how long would that person have before he’d need to get out?’
 
‘With a chemical suit he’d have a minute and a half. In an astronaut’s suit maybe five to ten minutes.’ Field replied.
 
‘Major, can you get me an astronaut’s suit from ESA?’
 
‘Yes.’
 
‘Get it flown over. Quickly as possible.’
 
‘Yes sir,’ he replied. 
 
‘Now we have to decide which one of us goes in to get the boy.’
 
‘I’ll go in,’ the Major said. 
 
‘Okay. We now have a rate of decline in toxicity of the space. What would be the optimum time? And what’s happening to the boy? Is he going to die within the next hour, five hours, ten hours, a day? We need to focus our resources on him for now. And we’re sure there are no other survivors?’
 
‘Yes. We’re sure. But we can double check,’ Field replied.
 
‘Double check. Before that suit gets here. And how many do we need? I reckon we need a few, in case we have to go back in several times. Tell the Major.’
 
The Major was on the phone talking to the European Space Agency. Field and Jane Seagrove were using the laser system to check one by one the dead bodies, to check for signs of life. And the public were getting nervous and suspicious. There were already rumours circulating on the internet of what was happening here. Wood considered the possibility that he would eventually have to try and persuade the Prime Minister to explain it all. He considered what he might say, as he stood back and watched the work which was taking place around him, thinking constantly of retrieving the boy from the space. All he could do for now was wait.
 
‘Can you ask Inspector Johnston to come in please?’ he asked a waiting Police officer. Inspector Johnston came in. ‘Inspector, I need a complete picture of who the family is in number 15. I want a picture of who the father is, what he did for a living, medical records of both and can you find a child psychologist and have him on standby?’
 
‘Yes,’ he replied and turned and left. Within an hour he was back.
 
‘The fathers name is Smith, Ronald. The boys name is Charles Smith. The father was a sergeant in the army who did two tours in Iraq and several in Ireland. He was retired out of the army last year and was receiving mental health care, supplied both by the army and the local CMHT. His wife left him and has not been seen since January last year.’
 
‘And the psychologist?’
 
‘We’ve got Dr Reid, Dr Hattie Reid.’
 
‘A woman?’ Wood asked.
 
‘Yes. Is that a problem?’
 
‘Not at all. Thank you Inspector.’
 
‘Do you want her here now?’
 
‘No, no. Just have her wait nearby.’
 
‘Okay.’ The Inspector left. 
 
‘Field. Can I talk to you in private for a second?’ Wood asked. Field was hunched over a screen, which had pictures of a pole from under a microscope. He stood up straight and followed Wood into a separate room inside the command centre. Wood closed the door. ‘I have a theory,’ Wood said.
 
‘Oh. Let’s hear it,’ Field replied enthusiastically, folding his arms and standing back in anticipation.
 
‘You’re not going to like it.’ Field nodded and waited in silence. ‘Keep it to yourself, for now.’

‘Yes,’ Field replied impatient now to hear it.
 
‘What if, this boy, seeing as he is the only survivor, is the key to this? What if, something has happened to him, which has triggered a shut down of the surrounding area? I mean he is in what we could interpret as the epicentre. I mean look at where he is in the space,’ Wood bent over the screen and showed Field the image, pointing his finger at the spot where the boy was.
 
‘I see.’ He thought for a second. ‘I can see why you want me to keep this theory quiet,’ a smile crept over his face. ‘No. I can’t see how that could ever happen.’
 
‘We are all connected in this universe. We are all part of the same matrix, a fabric of matter. From air to rock to water etc.’
 
‘But the human brain is subject to it, not the other way about.’
 
‘Okay,’ Wood replied. ‘Forget it.’ He turned on his heels and left, glancing back at Field’s smile on his face. He could have slapped him. They both returned to the work while they waited for the suits to arrive.
 
By late afternoon a helicopter buzzed over head, as Wood strained his neck to watch it hover over them and land in the landing area. As he walked over he could see the suits being unloaded. He walked back into the tent and asked Seagrove what the rate of decay was doing. He asked her for an estimate of time inside, before death. She looked down at her notes and at her computer screen, hitting buttons, her eyes darting from side to side. ‘About…’ a pause, ‘Fifteen to eighteen minutes.’
 
‘So the Major will need to snatch this kid. So what we’ll do is lower him in from a helicopter. He’ll run in grab the kid, locate the rope somehow and get winched back to safety.’
 
‘Well, we could give him enough rope not to detach from it at all. He could just run in with the rope attached and then we can take up the slack. We can monitor on screen, because radios won’t work in there.’ Jane Seagrove explained.
 
‘That would only take about three minutes or so I think.’ Wood guessed. ‘Let’s get him in here and see what he thinks’, Wood added, leaving the tent. The Major was getting suited up. ‘Come in here when you’re done.’
 
‘Yes Professor,’ he replied. Wood went back in. ‘And we’re sure about the decay rate and these suits?’ He asked Jane.
 
‘I have had some pretty accurate data from ESA on their suits. I am quite confident the Major will be okay. Not a scratch of all goes to plan. He’ll have his own oxygen and these suits will keep out the radiation.’
 
‘Okay then.’ The Major was briefed and he climbed into the helicopter, while the professors and the technicians watched the screens, patiently waiting for the action to begin. The Professor then gave the go ahead for the rescue. The helicopter took off, as he watched from outside, away from the others. It hovered noisily above the estate as a small white figure began to descend. Wood signalled for an ambulance and the paramedics to come forward into the camp, as he turned back to the scene. The Major was lowered in, as he disappeared from sight. Everyone held their breath. 
 
The Major could not see a thing, once inside, but he had memorised the route and was careful to get winched in facing the right way. He walked slowly, his breathing heavy, through the front door, which was easily pushed open and down what seemed like a very narrow corridor, his hands feeling his way along the walls and up to the living room door. His hand outstretched, he touched the boy on his shoulder. The boy suddenly leapt out of his suspension, making the Major jump. He let out a scream. A scream of terror and heartbreak, like all the world’s pain had left his soul at the same point in time. The scream was so terrible and so heart breaking, the Major had not heard anything like it since he was on tour in the Gulf war. It sent a chill down his spine and tears to his eyes and he began to tremble. Then suddenly, at that precise moment, like a miracle, like a giant blanket had suddenly been whipped away from the sky, light entered the room. Then it spread through the house, then the street, then the estate, until the darkness had been wiped away. The watching and waiting staff outside, took a step back, their hearts leaping suddenly, suddenly thinking that something had gone wrong. That something had exploded and they were seeing their last moments flash before their eyes. Quickly, the houses, the machines, the cars and the dead became visible from through the large gap in the plastic curtain wall. 
 
What had happened inside the estate? Waiting soldiers suited up to support the Major if things went wrong, looked to Wood for the all clear to run into the estate. He nodded and clutching their weapons they ran in and down the street. The Major, still inside the boy’s house, grabbed the boy off his feet in one sweeping movement and shoved him under his arm, out of the house, and once outside was quickly winched to safety. The startled boy cried in terror as the action took place. Once inside the helicopter, the message came through to the waiting ambulance to prepare for his imminent arrival. The helicopter landed and the boy was plonked onto the waiting stretcher, whether he needed it or not. He was whisked away into the ambulance, as Wood and the waiting doctor rushed forward. The boy was sat on the bed, skinny and disorientated. The doctor quickly examined him.
 
‘He’s emaciated, needs a good feed. But from the basic stuff we can do here, he seems fine.’ 
 
Wood stared at him, up and down, with his arms folded tightly. ‘My name is Professor Wood. You can call me Fred. You’ve just been rescued from a major environmental incident.’
 
‘My dad,’ the boy whimpered.
 
‘I know. He killed himself didn’t he?’
 
‘Yeah.’ Wood looked at the doctor, as the psychologist entered the ambulance. 
 
‘We need to take you for further tests at the hospital. And we need to give you some specially prepared food, because if you have a big meal straight away it might make you sick, and we don’t want that do we?’ the doctor explained.
 
‘No,’ he said. Wood okayed the ambulance crew to take him away, but not before a Police officer was assigned to go with him. A Police car went ahead and another behind. By now the soldiers had searched the whole estate, as the scientists moved in to examine the area and take samples. Wood’s phone rang and it was the Prime Ministers Office. He was put through.
 
‘Eventually we will have to tell the world what happened here’, Wood explained to Mike Field. ‘I still think that boy is the key. Something about his father. Why else would the whole thing end so suddenly as the Major said, the second he was touched.’
 
‘I admit, it is strange. I have to concur with you. I have colleagues who are training in psychiatry who were physicists and physicists who are training as psychiatrists. There is no reason why this case can’t become the breakthrough story. The reference point for the new branch of science: how atomic behaviour effects human behaviour and vice versa,’ Field said.
 
‘That’s what I was thinking. I can feel a paper coming from this,’ they both grinned. ‘Now, I need to go and speak with this young lad. We’re beginning a lengthy interview this morning. Poor sod. He’ll be there for hours. The government wants answers. And so does the rest of the world, not least the press. The Americans are putting pressure on the PM to give them a full rundown.’
 
‘I’m not surprised. This is huge.’
 
‘Yeah,’ Wood sighed. 
 
The boy had been moved to a military barracks, away from the attention of a frustrated media and a myriad of scientists and diplomats wanting answers. The government was steadfast. It wanted a thorough investigation to take place first, which included interrogation of the boy. Wood took his place along side Hattie, the psychologist and Inspector Johnston. Outside watching and listening was a bank of government and military officials. 
 
‘Just tell us Charlie, what happened to your family leading up to your father’s death?’ the psychologist led the questions.
 
‘My dad came back from Iraq and he and mum used to fight all the time.’
 
‘Did you fight with your father?’
 
‘Yes.’
 
‘Did he shout at you?’

‘Yes.’
 
‘Did he hit you, or your mum?’
 
‘No.’
 
‘Where is your mum?
 
‘I don’t know.’
 
‘When did she leave Charles?’
 
‘Mmm…I think about a year.’
 
‘And what else happened?’
 
‘Mmm…dad went mad when our house got burgled.’
 
‘Really?’ the Police officer said. ‘And what got stolen Charles?’
 
‘Pretty much everything.’
 
‘Did your dad get angry?’ Hattie asked.
 
‘Yeah. He went after the kids he thought did it.’
 
‘And then what happened?’ Hattie asked.
 
‘Dad got frightened because the kids kept throwing stones at him. And they kept hitting me and following me everywhere.’
 
‘Did your dad call the Police?’
 
‘Yeah.’
 
‘And what happened then?’
 
‘Just got worse.’
 
‘And what happened when you found your dad?’
 
‘Mmm. Everything went dark.’
 
‘Do you remember being in the dark?’
 
‘No.’
 
‘So you don’t remember anything about being in the dark?’
 
‘No.’ the boy rubbed his arm, and took a slurp of the milkshake on the table. 
 
‘Then what do you remember?’
 
‘It got light. Like I woke up.’
 
‘So it was like being asleep and then waking up suddenly?’ Hattie asked.
 
‘Yeah.’
 
‘Were you in any pain? Do you have any aches or pains now?’ the psychologist asked.
 
‘No.’ he replied. ‘Not really.’
 
‘What do you mean by not really Charles?’ the Policeman asked.
 
‘Mmm. I had this pain in my eye sometimes.’
 
‘Did you? Which eye?’ Wood asked. He pointed to his right eye. Wood turned to Hattie and whispered, ‘Did anything come up on the scans we did?’ Hattie shook her head.
 
‘No,’ she whispered. 
 
The interview was suspended. The professors, the Major and the government men, plus the doctor went into the meeting room next door and the boy was kept company by a female Police officer, while they conferred. ‘We need to do more tests. And he needs to be kept here, away from urban centres, at least until we know exactly what happened and whether this boys ‘sadness’’ Wood used air speech marks to illustrate his point, ‘triggered this episode.’ 
 
‘I don’t think he can ever leave this base,’ the government official added.
 
‘Really?’ Hattie asked. ‘I won’t be able to support that.’
 
‘No-one is asking you to,’ he replied rudely. Wood looked at him with disgust.
 
‘I hate to admit it, but until we understand more, he’ll have to be kept away from urban centres and this place here will have to be cleared of all unnecessary staff,’ Wood added.
 
‘We need to do more tests and find out whether there is a particular part of his brain which is influencing the surrounding area. It seems clear to me that this kid has been through so much that some kind of atomic shock took place, starting from him and radiated from him into the immediate area’, Field said.
 
‘What if this is some kind of rage thing, that it happened to punish everyone he perceives as having hurt his family?’ The Police officer suggested.
 
‘Typical Police view of the world don’t you think?’ Hattie added. 
 
‘Okay, let’s not get carried away,’ Wood interjected. ‘Whatever happened, we all know that it could happen again. When it does, if it does, then we will know whether these bizarre events have been caused by a boy or by a wider environmental factor, that we don’t about. The chances are, in my opinion, that this boy has absolutely nothing to do with it.’
 
‘But we can’t take that chance,’ Jane said.
 
‘I agree,’ the government official said. The rest of the room concurred quickly. 
 
‘We still need to conduct a thorough investigation of the site itself. Let’s not get distracted by the boy’s role. Let’s look long and hard at the site itself and go back over the images we recorded and the samples we took.’ Wood concluded. He walked away, leaving the building and sat in his car. He turned on the radio and listened to the news. The news had not been released to the general public yet, but the rumours of what exactly took place were still on going. Conspiracy theories were being debated. He smiled to himself, then thought of the boy and his life from now on. He took a breath, a big sigh. He knew that he would spend the rest of his professional career trying to understand what happened here. He knew that that boy would have no life, no future. He turned the key and the car started. He was heading home to his wife and kids for a two day break. Because next week he was leaving his old job and moving himself and his family here. He left in a very bleak mood for the long journey north, back home. 
 
A week later Wood attended the funerals of Charles and Ronald Wood. He looked at the soldiers assembled there from the road. He watched as a large coffin passed and then the smaller coffin. As far as the world is concerned there were no survivors. The engine of his car was already running and he slowly pulled away.
 
He now had to go to the base and explain to the poor lad what was happening. Why he had to pretend to be dead. ‘What you have to remember Charles is that you’ll have the best of everything at the base. Education, toys, food, whatever you want. And you’ll always have friends here. Just think of all the soldiers you’ve made friends with already.’ The boy remained silent. As much as Wood tried, he knew his words were empty. He knew that this young lad would never see the outside of the base. He knew he’d never see his mother again. Nor would he have anything resembling a normal life. He felt like a liar, cheating this boy out of his life. But he had no choice, and neither did the boy.

-- Ben C Bamber

Image Courtesy NASA: Artist John J. Olson's conception for the future of space exploration: A base on Mars.