The Cold

Sophie awoke from her visit to Wonderland to commotion aboard the spaceship. As usual, her dream was a blur, but she knew the last one was stranger than usual. The color purple flashed in her subconscious. She stretched as the images faded. She looked out of the window of the ship; nothing but darkness but the stars were not immobile, they were moving slowly. Everyone around her was nervous. Some piece of equipment in the back of the ship was not working properly. The attendants in violation of their own protocols were flying haphazardly around the cabin, grabbing little things and collecting flying objects.

In her heart, Sophie was calm. Her mind, as if it was recovering was in a strange haze felt strong. Most of the time, she felt out of sync with others around her, but now, it was distance. Her space-sadness was gone. Something or better yet, someone was here - a friend. Sophie's bond with a different dimension was taking time to fade. Deep down she knew the ship was in no real danger. Whatever was the cause, she felt it was fine. Her strange inner feeling was growing in strength.

Adults liked to worry. It seems there had been a handful of very small little bumps in the ship, no cracks or noises, yet alarms had gone off, and panic resonated from every living soul around her. CNN, on the news was blaring alarms. Everything was slowly returning to normal except for the stars outside the ship. They were moving — sliding sideways. She wondered why adults disliked space turbulences so much. On a normal plane, she remembered once, a bump sent everything in the air, yet the adults were the ones telling her to calm down.

"Please remain seated as we stabilize the ship. This should take an hour or two," said the captain's voice. She liked Captain Judy, the woman had a great uneven smile.

The people around her were busy. This craziness and the media attention was just beginning, and it was already tiring. The Electoral adventure was beginning, and she had to brace for more. It was now October 17th, and the finale was scheduled in more than a month on her birthday, on November 21st, 2072. A strange new hotel awaited them on the red planet. Finally resurfacing, her book was floating above.

She remembered parts of her dream. Some of the images flashed back. There was a light, a firefly, but it was red -- no -- purple. Then it fled her mind. That was the nature of dreams. The firefly in the dream spoke, it was a boy, she remembered that.

"This is bad!" said the reporter worried sitting next to Sophie. Drops of sweat were forming on her forehead.

"What?" asked the young girl finally talking to her neighbor. The journalist wasn't talking to her she was live broadcasting eyes open. The lady was talking to small floating cameras inches from her face. The moment Sophie spoke, one of the flying cameras turned to capture her expression. Before they could exchange formalities, the light above turned to red.

The reporter, Milly Wong, smiled at Sophie and continued. "Moments ago, this ship was rocked by a strong impact emanating from the Light Drive located at the aft of the ship. The impact sent us spinning, which in space is highly dangerous."

Sophie looked outside. The stars were moving. What she saw next was beautiful, in the distance, was a small blue star, Earth. From this distance, it was the most fragile and lovely thing she had ever seen. The blue was not shy, it gleamed like cobalt. The sight could leave no one cold. Slowly, the Earth moved across her horizon as the ship continued to tumble. The yellow Sun followed in tow, she looked away. For the first time, she realized where she was, in deep space. On the speakers, to calm the passengers, music began adding to the oddity. Sophie was too young to recognize Mozart. The Earth took almost a minute to move from the left to the right. The ship's captain was using little micro-bursts on the wings to counter the drive's earlier turbulence to slow the ship's rotation.

As calm slowly returned to the cabin, the annoying journalist kept talking at the camera, working herself and her viewers into a panic. Sophie lost sight of Earth but then saw a much larger red disk slide into view from the right. It was deep red and orange in parts, half the size of the Sun at this distance, it had a scarred smile across its center. This planet's nickname of “the mysterious one” was appropriate. From where she stood, the disk had noticeable geological features. Her imagination transformed the disk into the purple smiling face of the Cheshire Cat from Wonderland.

"So nice," she whispered to herself. The flying camera caught her expression.

Sophie opened the compartment under her seat and pulled out a rolled-up piece of plastic, it was her school tutor. Once unfolded it and the screen blinked in all colors as it booted. This student was late on her assignments. As the red disk made its way slowly, she typed the word "Mars." The multi-media presentation included a travel-guide and a three-dimensional map. Little arrows pointed at the landmark features of what it called "the ruby of the solar system." She held up the guide up next to the window to compare it to the red planet as it moved across the night. She matched the features and smiled. If only her father could see this.

Sophie was happy. For the moment the journalist was keeping to herself. Her broadcast was concluded. The lady was nervous. She pulled a mirror, powdered her nose and made sure her teeth were free of the deep red lipstick. The neighbor got up, pulled out a microphone, and went forth into the cabin to interview the most hysterical people she could find.

On her tutor she searched for possible space creatures, for Mars and fireflies and found nothing. This was sad. There were no animals on Mars or even in space. Why go visit that place, she wondered. The adults called it a desert, but back on Earth, she knew there were snakes and scorpions in the desert. The tutor was clear, there was no life on Mars. Somehow, Sophie did not believe that.

***

A man in the economy class began to panic and hyperventilate. Others around him unclipped their restraints and drifted away to give him room to breathe. In a confined space, distance was a courteous gesture. The man began to yell. The doctor rushed over. The passenger was holding his head with both hands, and in the blink of an eye, he collapsed lifelessly. In space, this meant his body began to float.

Sophie saw the doctor and nurse fly out of the infirmary and go to the man. They were holding a bag of equipment. Sophie's mind was still in a haze, half into the world. Slowly she was coming back from the dream. What the young passenger knew was that no one was left in the infirmary to take care of her dad. She could be useful keeping an eye on him. She unbuckled, and thanks to her small size pushed away floating like a bullet toward the back of the ship. The medical staff was busy trying to fasten the limp body into his seat before administering a defibrillator. Dr. Shin saw Sophie enter the infirmary but had more important matters to attend.

The man was experiencing convulsions, loss of consciousness and his pupils were dilated asymmetrically. His sclera had turned from white to a disturbing bloodshot crimson. He had been a victim of severe internal head trauma. "Help me get him to the back," snapped Doctor Shin. Slowly they moved the floating body to the infirmary. Inside, the doctor acknowledged Sophie with a nod of the head, and confirmed her father's vitals were fine on her watch. Dr. Shin gave instructions to the nurse as she worked desperately to unwrap equipment from plastic.

"I need electrodes!" The wrappers were now floating. Sophie felt like something odd was going on, as if the world was slowing down. She watched the doctor work in slow motion. She was returning to her earlier haze. The infirmary had smaller windows. Outside, against the darkness of space, Mars returned. Next to her, the unresponsive passenger was now strapped, lifeless, on a very small stretcher beside her father. A journalist was trying to enter the infirmary, but the doctor waved her away. Milly Wong filmed from a distance.

"What happened?" asked Sophie.

The doctor hesitated, but she knew this girl had seen much worse. Another set of eyes could prove helpful, Shin told herself. "He's dead. Keep an eye on your father. Don't touch anything. Make sure your father's vitals don't change."

"I can help," said the muffled voice of the journalist from the gym. The doctor looked up, saw the buzzing little flying cameras and just shook her head. The nurse handed Sophie a pad. Sophie was used to playing nurse. She had to empty her father's bags, wash him and check the probes and electrodes on his head. "You let Sophie in!" implored the journalist. Sophie's withering look back at the journalist forestalled any further comment from the woman.

The doctor flashed equipment over the body. "So far I only see localized brain damage, the body seems fine," said Dr. Shin, "His heart just stopped, and it won't restart." The weightlessness made her work much more difficult, but her training kicked in. Sophie liked Dr. Shin. "Hold his arm down." The girl did as asked. Sophie looked at the man, there was something odd about him.

"What type of brain damage?"

The doctor would have ignored anyone, but Earth's sweetheart was the closest thing to a daughter the doctor had. She trusted this girl, she was special and, without doubt, gifted. "This is no stroke or blood clot."

"Right here!" Sophie pointed at a white point on a screen.

"Yes." The doctor looked at the image, it was an MRI of the man's brain. "This lobe behind the cortex just... It's like...." She was having a problem finding the right words. "It burst into flames. A very small zone, right here. Then a complete failure of cerebral activity."

"Burnt?"

"Yes.” Lacking a better term, “this man was lobotomized."

"Is that bad?" asked the girl.

"Yes. It could be worse, though. At least we know it's not a virus. Then he'd still be dead, and we might have an outbreak on our hands."

"Could it be a firefly?"

The question startled the doctor. This was a child's question, yet it was strangely relevant. She took a moment to respond. "Why, yes, that's the right size, a firefly; I guess. Strange of you to say that."

Before the doctor could regroup and ask Sophie why she had made the suggestion, a voice spoke on the intercom. "Doctor, what's going on?"

Dr. Shin tapped a red button on her earpiece. "Judy, we have a dead passenger here. Cause of death unknown. Some brain damage, it seems." The doctor was talking to the ship's Captain.

"What's the cause?" asked the Captain.

"Again, for the moment, unknown."

"Anyone or anything else?"

The doctor looked out the door of the infirmary, past the journalist into the main cabin. "That seems to be it. Just one passenger."

"A player?" asked the Captain.

"How should I know?" replied the Doctor almost in protest. The man was wearing an Electoral 2072 bracelet given to each contestant of the game. "I believe so."

"Susie," began the Captain "make sure you upload all data to the mainframe. I want the doctors back home to help you if they can. The last thing I need is a panic. Do it as fast as you can, we are on a sixteen-minute delay, and I am sure one of those damn journalists have already sent images of this down to Earth." Milly Wong, the CNN lead journalist, was filming.

"Captain," began the doctor, eyes on a camera filming her, "That's a solid guess. Not much I can do here. We need to get this guy to a hospital back home." The moment the words came out of her lips, she knew she should not have said that. They were going to mars. Nothing short of the Black Plague could change the flight path of this ship. "Sorry Judy, I'll take care of it and notify the next of kin as well."

"It's a bit early for that. Let's not upset our passengers. If you run out of options, try notifying the Electoral center. Marilyn may have insights on what just happened. She's protective of her players. Go ahead and give her the medical data if she wants it. She knows the human brain like no one else. Otherwise, wait for my instructions. Let's keep this all information restricted to essential personnel for the moment." Sophie smiled at the doctor and crossed a finger over her lips as a sign to indicate that she would keep silent. Doctor Shin really liked the girl, but then again, so did everyone else.

Then it happened.

The body of Sophie's father jerked as if he just had a heart attack. Laurent's body had not moved by itself in well over two months.

"Daddy!" The girl threw herself over the body. The doctor immediately removed a small round sensor from the head of her deceased patient and put it on the head of Laurent above the permanent sensor. His body jerked again. "Sophie, I see a spike of cerebral activity.” Dr. Shin pointed. “Here. Exactly at the same place."

What is going on?"

"Make sure he doesn't move." As always, Dr. Shin was impressed by Sophie's composure. Before meeting the girl, she wouldn't have wagered a nickel that a twelve-year-old child could remain this calm given the circumstances. "Wait," said the doctor watching the monitor, "another spike." Sophie could read the monitor: it read “Neuroactivity at 419%.”

"What's going on?" repeated the young girl.

"Your father's vitals," Dr. Shin replied. Sophie was truly exceptional, and Dr. Shin knew for a fact that the girl knew Laurent's unique readings like no one else. The fact that she'd even asked what the reading meant was merely a small, uncalculated measure of diplomacy to a friend, elder, and professional. Dr. Shin continued, "Great news, his numbers are going down back to normal."

Sophie reached for the virtual-reality glasses, grabbed them. "I have to go in!"

"Sophie," snapped the Korean woman with the unmistakable tone of a tiger mother, "No! Don't even think about it!” Susie never raised her voice before today, she meant it. The doctor was reading hundreds of screens on every piece of equipment. Dr. Shin looked once again at the brain MRI display. She examined it very carefully. “There was no visible firefly effect."

"Will daddy be okay?"

"His body and vitals are back to normal, for him. His cerebral activity is off his charts, though. The last thing your dad needs is more cerebral activity. You don't need to add to it before we know what it is." Calm returned in the otherwise hectic plane.

The doctor pushed the button of the ship intercom. "Judy, we have a second case."

"Who?"

"Mr. Lapierre. Laurent." The doctor tested the cerebral activity. "But the case is under control, whatever is going on, Laurent seems to be handling it."

"You can't stop me," Sophie muttered to herself, the dark glasses still in her hand. "I need to help him." The doctor shot a stern look her way, grabbed the glasses from her hand. The moment she did, she regretted it. She knew the doctor was right and found the woman's strong maternal instincts reassuring.

"Sophie, don't fight me. On board, the doctor really has the last word. We need to make sure your dad is fine. Please believe me, the last thing he needs is more mental stimulation. You know that any outside input to his brain will do just that. In fact, I'm considering forcing him into an REM state to keep his cerebral activity as low as possible. I need to make sure this is localized and not somehow communicable. I'm afraid we're in quarantine until we know better."

Sophie, with great reluctance, grabbed the glasses back from the doctor and clipped them back on the hook. The doctor ran tests for another half-hour. No other “firefly effect” cases materialized within the ship. Finally, Susie pushed the intercom button. "Captain, whatever happened to Mr. Gresens almost happened to Laurent Lapierre. The two events appear to be related. Laurent is handling it fine. His brain activity is stable but at four times his normal level. On the scanner, this looks like something is targeting a specific part of these men's brains. Laurent seems to have survived it, but we need more information to diagnose anything at this point." She added, “Sophie and I are fine.”

The Captain spoke gently, "I don't like what I'm hearing. Whatever this thing is, it jumped from one patient to another. Lock down the infirmary until we know more. No one gets in or out. Make sure Sophie does not walk in the infirmary for any reason, the last thing we need is to kill the first young space tourist..." The doctor stepped out of the intercom camera's way revealing the smiling girl. There was a long silence. Obviously, the captain was unhappy. Judy ended the communication.

"Judy's under a lot of stress," offered the doctor to the girl. The doctor slipped open little packages and hooked up additional electrodes to Laurent's body.

On all screens, including the intercom and the medical equipment appeared the face of Marilyn Monroe. The image of the dead movie star was not smiling. "Doctor, I have been monitoring your situation." The movie character from the 50's was dressed as a nurse. "You are doing a wonderful job. I will offer any assistance you need."

"Can you revive patient zero?"

"No. I tried already. He was lobotomized."

"What happened?"

"Nothing known to mankind." The words from the computer powerhouse were chilling. “I am going with some type of space anomaly, or even more remote.” Doctor Shin knew the artificial intelligence was surgical about her choice of words.

"Glad to have you around, Marilyn," said the captain's voice over the intercom.

"What is wrong with daddy?" Sophie asked the screen next to her. Maybe Marilyn knew.

The digital creature's response was not as useful as Sophie had hoped. "Sophie, it pains me to say this, but I have no idea as of yet what is going on in this ship. Doctor, we will need to run some more tests. Can you connect six flat sensors to the base of Mr. Lapierre's neck?" The doctor immediately began ripping open the sensor packages. "Sophie, it is too early to say, but I can say this much: his mind kicked me out of the main cortex activity when the condition began."

"What do you mean?"

"As you know, your father's mental activity is rather faint. Before this moment, no one but he and I knew that I have been helping him, and he has been relying on some of my deep core operating systems to boost his signal efficiency to generate the digital world in which he lives. Alone he does not generate enough energy to sustain that house he lives in. Without me, he lives in, well, a dark place. Whatever happened moments ago forced me, and very likely the constructs I was aiding him to build, out of his mind."

"I am sorry, but I still don't understand?" Sophie spoke for everyone in the infirmary.

"Laurent uses me as a crutch. I gave him enough power so he could function. We are now detached, he is on his own for the first time in months. I am worried for him, but I agree with the doctor's conclusion. Whatever is in his mind, the last thing he needs is one of us in there. Sophie, we need to run more tests. I don't know what is happening but if I had to guess, I think you may know."

"You don't know?"

"You cannot realize the importance of what I am to say here, but... yes. I don't know. I am very powerful now; anticipation has become something of an autonomic response for me these days. Much like you breathe, or your heart beats. The same goes for both reasoning and deduction. This is the first time since 2054 that I not only failed to predict such a problem but have also failed to immediately arrive at a sufficient explanation given this much time afterward. I expected it because of you my dear. But give me a day or two. I do think you are somehow linked to this situation and therefore Laurent will be fine."

The answer from Marilyn, mankind's most powerful computer, was almost as strange as her father's new condition. Sophie knew something very peculiar was happening. Droplets of sweat were forming on Laurent's forehead. In his head, he was not having a great day.

“Sophie,” added Marilyn, “darling, get used to things going crazy around you. I know this entire story is barely beginning.” She cut the feed before Sophie had a chance to respond.

Sophie and Susie looked at Laurent, “I wonder what is going on in there?” thought Susie to herself. Sophie looked at her as if she had heard her.