Moon Fall
Chapter 6 - Fishing for Clues

The door slid closed behind him and he went to his desk, his fingers tapped along it’s surface. The screen popped up and it showed the face of two of the presidents guards.

“Yes? Can I help you? I’m not taking appointments today.”

One of the helmeted men leaned forward. “Sir, we’ve been asked to keep and eye on you considering the recent emergency regression you’ve been through.”

“Well I don’t need any assistance, but I appreciate the check up.” He released the com and watched.

“Sir, the president asked us to personally run a bio-scan on you.”

“Without my permission?”

The men looked at one another uncomfortably. “Honestly sir, we were just told to get a bio-scan from you. I don’t think the president wanted us to ‘take’ it from you though, we’ve been curious as to how he expected us to do that if you said no.”

Peiter frowned and his fingers went to flying. Slidding his pinky over the files he copied and sent the recent bio-scan from the bathroom palm scan to the officer and opened a visual for them to see him.

“Look, I’ve just had something to eat and some supplements. I’ve only gotton a few hours sleep but my vitals are fine. I’m still rather tired and as much as I appreciate the presidents considerations, I also wouldn’t expect him to replace out that you woke me from my rest. I’m still very tired. Have either of you been through forced unchecked regression?”

The two men looked to one another, the second one shook his head and the first one turned his attention back to him. “These readings do have everything we need, are you sure you don’t need anything else?” The man paused. “We ‘were’ ordered to do a ‘full’ scan and make sure you had access to everything you might need. Just so you know. Would you mind if we came back after you’ve rested?.”

Peiter bit his lower lip and faked a sudden yawn. “I’m having a hard time just standing here guys, look. Could you give me a few more hours rest? You know, let the food settle a bit and let me rest up.”

“Of course, that’s not a problem sir. How about we return in five hours? If something comes up, these are our com link.” Two numbers flashed on the screen. “Just let us know if anything comes up and you have to leave. Sorry for bothering you, just following orders.”

Peiter waved away the apology. “No, I’m sorry I’m so tired. Have either of you gone through regen?”

“I have sir, just once.” The second man said with a bit of an accent. “Not for aging, worked on dome materials crew for a few years, had a nasty accident. Got fixed up and some regen on the side, medics found I had traces of genetic inheritant lung cancer they hadn’t found on the old scanners.”

Peiter smiled. “Good, got any tips for me?”

“Sleep, supplements, and water.” The man nodded, his mouth the only thing visible under the helmeted visor. “You get some more shut eye sir, we’ll check out the hydroponics section, I’ve got an old friend who works down there I’d told I’d see before we headed back to District Headquarters, if that’s ok?”

“Do that, also talk to a Vern Shultzer, he’s been working on making home grown grape wine. The real stuff. Ask him to give you both a bottle for me.” he slid an authorization cue code to them and addressed it to Shultzer.

The two men smiled and nodded. “Thank you sir.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Oh, we won’t.” The second man with the accent said with a big grin.

The two officers left and the screen went blank. Peiter let out a sigh of relief.

“Unlock, Silent mode off.” He returned to the bedroom and found the analysis had completed.

What he saw didn’t make any sense. “Explanation?”

“Current running model for extrapolating interactions between whitewater and any other biomass or matter does not match the current replaceings. Upon contact with the dampening chemical, whitewater did not mimic the compound and expand on it, but rather attacked it and literally burned it away with an intense Gamma radiation burst.”

“What about the white tendrils?”

There was no reply.

“During all of the experiments there were these white tendrils like worms or floating thick pieces of hair. What were they?”

“Unknown, there is no record of the ‘white tendrils’.”

That’s not possible, I’ve seen them each time. Double intesify visual scans to confirm presence in whitewater.

“Scans have already been made and besides the combination of the two mixtures there is not sign of physical formations within the solutions.”

“Playback both recent experiments in slide show format, high density visualization, full spectrum, and magnify the area around the glass.”

The video’s played back from the instant of him pouring the solutions into the whitewater till after the intensified reaction. Neither the first nor the second playback showed the white tendrils.

Agrivated, Peiter brought the stored contents of the counter out again and grabbed the remaining half filled vial of the solution and uncorked it. He poured the liquid in and stepped back. The reaction was almost instantaneous.

The white tendril’s sprouted forth as the cup rattled on the counter and sparks burst forth like lightening from the cup. The tendrils seemed to pulse brighter and brighter and a warning came up on the screen for a second, but with the brightness of the tendrils he couldn’t make it out. It was only a few seconds but Peiter began to notice the tendrils turned black and flake away like ash. The whitewater tendrils stood over two feet above the glass but within a few seconds the whole counter was covered in remnants of ash, the cup had cracked, and there was nothing left of the whitewater or the solution.

He moved closer and noticed the scorch marks on the counter. He tapped on the surface but no control pad illuminated. He hit the counter once with his butt of his palm and nothing happened. The mirrored wall didn’t illuminate either.

“Respond.”

“There was been an electrical short in the residence causing several devices to go offline. Transferring data to nearest visual receptor.”

Peiter saw the lights in the bathroom come on and he saw the video on the mirror.

He ran through the visual recording. The system had recorded the data from several operative locations and only one recorded the whole event, the rest had corrupted data from an Gamma radiation spike. The one recording showed the white tendrils, though from this angle it looked like it had almost reached the ceiling before it had stated to vanish. Looking up at the ceiling Peiter noticed a black scorch mark right above where the cup had sat. Indicators didn’t read any temperature increase and the Gamma radiation had vanished leaving no remnants of any kind. Something he also noticed is that the Gamma radiation began when the tendril’s appeared and ceased when the tendril’s burnt out.

“Critical errors have occurred, restoration process to begin upon command.” The computerized voice stated.

“Begin restoration and cleanup. Send all current recorded data to datapad with all prior settings. Erase all current data stored regarding whitewater experiments or anything from just after my meal till now. Any reports sent due to malfunction are to be canceled. Have any other departments been made aware of the Gamma spike or the device damage in this residence?”

“Negative. There has been no register of any electrical or radiation interference reports. All data has been confined to the current residence.”

Peiter’s office was only slightly separated from the rest of the complex and his room had been built with some extra security done after construction. There had been a time when he’d thought that Alexi was trying to spy on him or monitor him. It was a year or so of paranoia that he’d rationalized with a psychologist as transference of responsibility for the death of his fiance to her brother, or rather a lack of caring about his sister caused Peiter to question whether or not his brother had a hand in her death. A few years later he’d found out, through some under the table dealings, that he had been in fact tracked and recoded by Alexi. There had been numerous scans but all the monitoring had been non invasive and from all accounts it had been to monitor his well being. The point was that Peiter had been right, he had been watched and Alexi had lied to him.

Instead of confronting Peiter focused on his work and noticed the monitoring had stopped. As long as he kept his nose to the grindstone Alexi hadn’t felt the need to worry about him, at least not after the psychiatrist gave him a clean bill of health.

He approached the counter and suddenly caught a whiff of a familiar smell. He almost gagged as he backed away covering his mouth and nose.

“Cycle the air.”

There was a sound of air rushing through the room and the smell vanished. He remembered the smell from when he’d mixed the solvent with the whitewater back at Gelispie’s dome. A sicking smell, a thick heavy scent that he’d never smelt before. It smelled like something was spoiled, and burnt.

“What is that smell?”

“Scanning filters. Unable to determine. Database does not cover olfactory comparison data.”

“And contact with the Cloud would register outside of this office?”

“Correct.”

“Nevermind then.” He scratched his head and poured himself another glass of water.

The crazy idea dawned on him as he sat there watching the recordings over and over again. The whitewater almost acted like it was under attack. It used the new solution to create more of itself because it could not mimic the concotion itself but when there was too much of the concotion the whitewater basically committed suicide.

He laughed. That wasn’t possible. It had to be a simple chemical reaction that hadn’t been documented yet.

The idea that no scientist had come across this except for a crazy old geologist on the edge of nowhere seemed pretty incredible but the facts spoke for themsleves. Whatever Gelispie was doing down there he’d got himself killed. Proportionally the solution had to be 1/4th of the whitewater to cause this kind of reaction.

He wondered what it could be used for. Terrorists? Propulsion? A new energy source?

Each idea had one simple drawback. All the terrorist activity could only be domestic, as whitewater only existed on Whitehome. It could not be used against foreign individuals, ships, or planets for that matter. There was some negative push and pull between new Domes and the already established Domes but that was social and murder on Whitehome was practically nonexistent. Accidental deaths were minimal at best. Not to say there were not rumors on the network that the government was kidnaping people or people were going missing. Those kinds of things could never be proven. Besides the dumbing down of information about the current damages to the closer domes, Alexi’s government had been very crystal clear in it’s organization and implementation of law enforcement and buricratic disposition. In the early years there had been calls to secede from the Galactic Governing body, EarthGov, but Alexi had squashed that idea quickly. Whitehome couldn’t exist without trade from outside and EarthGov couldn’t pass up having a world where anyone who was truly sick or ill could come, stay for a time and get cured of almost nay illness. Whitehome was more a resort world now, at least one of healing.

Propulsion and the use of the reaction as energy would make sense if, as stated before, whitewater could be taken from the planet. As for a energy source for the planet that could be worth knowing but it’d take a few years to make sure the reaction could be controlled. As whitewater was the lifeblood of the colony, having something that caused it to explode might not sit well with people. Current power consumption

Perhaps there was some credibility for Gelispie’s paranoid hermitage, perhaps not wanting this information out was why he experimented with it in secret?

Peiter shut down all the monitors and transferred all the data to his personnel pad and encrypted it. He realized that he did in fact feel tired still. Not wanting to get back in bed he took the blanket and sat back at his desk, propping his feet up and opening the screens to see outside. Lowering the lights he closed his eyes and let his muscles tighten and loosen until he felt relaxed.

At first he just lay there, trying to relax himself and fall into sleep but then he started remembering something Gelispie had said.

The old man with his hair all frizzy and his bald head reflecting the light from above him. The screen glitching as he stared at Peiter with those eyes that didn’t seem to connect or focus on the image before him. The twitching had stopped, the man had spoken to someone who wasn’t there, but still he’d focused on Peiter. That face he made, “You... you know.” He’d said, so very certain and alert. “I know you know, or you think you know.” What was it he was supposed to know? “Sheila said you’d thought about it, she told me your dreams. Dreams of the water.”

Dreams of the water.

He woke to the sound of something thumping, it resounded against the room for a moment and then hit again. It wasn’t like someone beating on a door it was a more fuller rounded sound. Getting up he noticed that the room was lit from the translucent wall panels that would normally have looked out over the coral plateau and the agricultural and North Dome.

Something was different. He got to his feet and let the blanket stay wrapped around his shoulders as he approached the brightly lit windows. Something brushed against his face and hit his eyes and he flinched.

It was wind.

He felt a soft wind blow across his face and he heard the thumping again and he took a few steps closer to the windows. He put a hand up but felt no surface, his hands went down to the bottom of the window just at his hips and he leaned out slightly looking around in amazement. What he saw took his breath away. The coral landscape that had once covered the expanse beyond was now water, like an ocean. Below waves crashed against the side of his private office dome. The water didn’t create whitecaps like he’d seen from the vids back on Earth. The water seemed sluggish and thick, but clear. A cool scentless wind brushed his cheaks but the warmth of the sun caused him to feel persperation develop on his brow. He looked up and covered his eyes. It was then that he saw the dual lights in the sky.

This system didn’t have two suns...

He realized it was the moons. The two moons were glowing so bright they looked like small suns in the sky. Leaning out over the concrete windowsill he looked down and saw the water splashing again against the walls. His fingers began to lose purchase not that he was slipping but that is fingers were passing through the walls as they turned to sand. He felt himself topple forward and he screamed. He felt is body hit cold water and he felt his breath leave him. He flailed and kicked and found himself breaching the surface of the water just in time as his lungs burned for air. He gasped and looked about rubbing his eyes clear of the water. He watched as mountains crumbled down like sandcastles in the water then those dulled mountains seemed to slip into the water as if they were being turned into water themsleves. He lay there, floating, staring up at the suns, covering his eyes with a hand. He felt a rush as he looked off in the distance and saw something he couldn’t believe. A large welling up of the water, like a wave but he seemed to rise higher and higher up into the sky like a drop of water washed over a marble.

Suddenly he wasn’t in the water any more, he was standing at a platform aboard a ship staring out as if from above the planet where he watched the water of Whitehome flow as he though of a marble welling watter into a tiny droplet but the drop didn’t fall away from the planet it just kept flowing. He placed his hands to the glass and watched as other ships flew by, a great mass of ships as if the whole planet had evacuated.

There was a great thump sound, he felt it in his head, in his chest, in his feet. He fell to the ground and he clinched his teeth, his eyes shut fast in pain. His heart beating and for some reason he knew it was the whitewater in his body that had regenerated him being pulled towards the flow.

The flow floated through space towards the largest and closest moon still shining brightly. He turned and saw hundreds of people staring out, some on their knees, others clutching the railings. Their faces filled with awe and horror and fear all wrapped into one. Red lights flashed but he could hear nothing. Looking back he watched as the whitewater enveloped the first moon as a hand would envelope a marble. There was a reverberation sound that echoed in his head and chest and he felt a great vibration in his hands and he saw the whitewater shoot further out towards the smaller moon and enevelope it. The moons began to move towards the planet as if some kind of gravity well was pulling them in. he watched as lights began to go out on ships, suddenly his ship was dark and if someone had turned out the lights. The ships drifted, no power. He felt his body life from the ground and he felt fear well up in him.

It was then that he realized this was a dream. That realization came with the sudden complete and singular stop to everything. Everything around him ceased to move, he felt his eyes looking over everything the two planet moving back to Whitehome... his eyes caught the strange sight of metal as he trailed the whitewater floating through space back to the planet. Time slowly restarted. Like an amoeba the whitewater had reached out and pulled in the two moons but revealed a strange silver core that was once a coral covered planet. This silver ball had a dark line running it’s expanse, and he knew he wasn’t just a dark like but a deep crevice.

As the two moons were pulled to it they two became silvery orbs the light now filling up the dark places as the whitewater flowed back over. The smaller moon touched the larger moon and rolled to the side and fell into the groove as the two moons touched down onto the planet. Both moons were too big for the large light filled crevice but the light seemed to grow brighter and brighter.

A voice behind him spoke his name, but he didn’t turn around. His eyes were stuck staring at the incredible event taking place below.

There was suddenly a large sound like a horn, it echoed in the distance. It blared for but a moment and then fell silent, a few seconds later it blared again. This cacophony repeated itself ten times and then... there was a bright pulse and light blinded him and he felt warmth overtake him.

Waking up to the sound of the door alarm he fell out of his chair and onto the floor. He pulled himself up and activated the monitors. It was the two guards again.

After a long process of scans and thanks for the information regarding the two bottles of liquor the two men toated away, Peiter was left alone and his thoughts were scattered.

The dream seemed all too real, but as he’d been ripped awake by the alarm he found he was having a hard time remembering details. Unfortunately he hadn’t requested the computer to monitor his other dreams, just the one from before. If he requested it now the images could have been merged with other memories. Fresh dreams were best, but after time passes the recordings tend to mix with other memories, blue becomes green, a boat becomes a bedroom and you replace your holding a coffee cup with your family at a holiday and nothing of your dream exists but in dim memories.

Pulling up the monitor he pulled the small pad out of his pocket and set it on the desk. “Replay dream sequence from earlier?”

He ran through the recording’s video and noticed the two dreams were very similar, almost as if he was watching the events from two different vantage points. He did remember that the second dream seemed more real.

“What are the side effects of Deep Regression?”

A list of items appeared on the screen and most were benign; headaches, increased hair and nail growth for a time, hyper sensitivity to all four senses, limited psychological issues due to change.

His fingers reached out and brought up a list of doctors who specialized in post regression therapy. Most of the information on whitewater regression could be found on the Cloud but Peiter wanted to know if vivid dreams like the one he had were common in his current state. He saw a name he’d heard before, it was the psychologist who had been one of the two who had treated Sheila.

He was about to make the call but before he pressed the call button he switched back to the list and skimmed through it once more, changed the criteria for the search and found a few doctors who dealt in post regression sleep disorders.

Instead of calling he sent a query mail anonymously requesting information on the situation, being as vague as he could. At this point he wouldn’t have time to set up an appointment anyway till later on in the week.

He closed his eyes a minute and took a breath. Perhaps he was getting too carried away.

Sitting back at his desk he tried to mull over everything that had happened in the past twenty four hours. Sadly it’s the only thing that ran through his mind. Looking around the office he realized that he’d spent more time pouring over reports and granting permissions and canceling projects on a daily basis that he had pretty much made it so he was caught up most of the time. In fact there were very few things now that he even had to do.

His job was managerial and his office was only one that was needed if large issues arose. Lower departments would send him schedules and decisions they wished to make, recommendations they were called. Almost all of them were simple request and most of the time what he got was just a second opinion. Maintenance was never requested frivolously, requests for items and so on were regulated by several departments, but he still received final say status. Really in the end he pressed either accept or decline buttons.

He just poured over the reports to take up time.

The realization had hit him years ago just after taking the position.

He got up and went to the wall and raised the transparency levels, letting in some of the sunlight. He leaned against the wall and imagined the whole area before him covered in water, not whitewater but salt water. He’d been to a beach once, not in a holographic representation but back on Earth when he was a boy.

Whitehome was the fifth planet from this systems sun and though it held an irregular orbit that could not be explained by science, it’s existance was that of an orb rotating around a sun. It wasn’t in the old Earth category of ‘goldilocks’ planet and not having any liquid water made it nothing really worth looking at save for that it’s entire surface was made of the coral like material. The strangeness of the planet brought scientists, scientists needed research stations and that brought more ships and eventually bases on the surface. Exploration brought workers and settlers for maintenance. Before whitewater was found the total population of the planet floating at around six hundred, then ten years after whitewater the population had reached over a million. The current population, not counting tourism and medicinal tourism, was recorded at over eighty seven million registered citizenry.

There was no real way of terraforming a planet like this, but some of the domes tried to recreate Earthlike conditions and since the planet was promoted as a relaxation planet of miracles, recreating earthlike venues was important. There were certain domes that were linked to populated domes that’s soul purpose was to house these familiar environments. There were several beach recreations along with gardens and even a old style theme park with ferris wheels and antiquated fireworks and so on. Anything to bring in people and money. Tourism was the new draw and the science seemed to fall to the wayside.

The beaches were fresh water, and Peiter had gone only gone when the dome was first opened. He hadn’t been informed it was going to be a fresh water beach and he felt a little dissappointeed. He hadn’t been back since.

Leaning against the transparent wall he could still just barely smell the salt water.

He remembered being a kid and walking on a beach back on earth. He even remembered flying over a man made beach on Mars when he was in his teens visiting a family member in New Galveston located in the eastern side of the old Gale Crater now dubbed The Gale Sea. He’d walked along the beach there and made sandcastles with some of the local kids. As the ‘sea’ was in a environmental dome, prior to full martian terraforming, there were no waves. Just a glistening sea of pinkish purple water.

He’s seen pictures after the planet had gone through stage four of planetary terraforming and the water was a clear blue. He’d come to Whitehome looking to create that same kind of environment but some how he’d found himself stuck on the planet for love and then...

He banged his head against the wall.

Why was he still here? Settled? Old Age? Familiarity?

Alexi had told him to go, replace something he wanted to do with his life after Sheila died. For some reason that just angered him and made him want to dig in more. A lot of his life has been through resentment of the universes attack on his personal life, at least that how he had felt for the first ten years or so.

He felt suddenly very warm, his fingers tingled and he could swear he heard a familiar voice ringing in his ear.

The door chime sounded pulling him from his brooding.

When the door opened a silver streamed blonde haired woman stood there with a curious expectant look on her face. Her eyes darted left and right and seemed to examing him. Her eyebrows raised and she leaned into the office then looked at Peiter. She wrinkled her nose and just as she opened her mouth to say something her eyes went wide.

“Hey Grace.” He said.