Kazi Depot

Outside the Decontamination Room

The puddlejumper had dropped them off in front of a large metal room that seemed to have been added to the Kazi Depot station some point after the original construction. Almost as if it had been welded on as an afterthought. A large hatch on the outside of the metal box was opened, and inside was an all-white airlock.

One-by-one, they were asked to enter the airlock that led to the decontamination room. First, in their environment suit. They stood in the middle of the room and were sprayed for about thirty seconds with a thick, foamy substance, before being washed with a high-pressure spray that shot out of nozzles from the walls on either side of Johns.

Once the foam was completely removed from the environment suit, another substance, this one less thick, started spraying from the ceiling, covering the room completely. A woman’s voice came over the speaker. “Please remove your environment suit and set it on the ground next to you.”

Johns complied, twisting and turning knobs at his waistline until the suit was opened and air audibly rushed out into the room. With the environment suit removed and sitting cleanly next to him, the woman spoke again.

“Now take off your clothes. Then, place both your environment suit and your clothes in the large rectangular box to your right, and then close and latch the lid.

Johns did. The rectangular box was about five feet long and three feet wide, nestled up snugly against the walls of the airlock. He hoisted the lid up from one side, propped it up against the wall, and then carefully placed his clothes on the floor of the box, then closed and latched the lid, just as the woman had asked, before returning to his spot at the middle of the room and covering his dick with his hands.

A loud rushing sound came from the box next to him as his environment suit and clothes were sucked at high speed through the piping system to an object decontamination system not far away.

“Now close your eyes and mouth. We are going to spray you down with decontaminant now. It won’t be coming nearly as fast as it had been for cleaning the environment suit.”

Johns did as she asked and soon another rushing sound came from the walls next to him and he began to be covered in the thick foamy substance. Just like before, he was then washed off, then misted from the ceiling sprinklers above. This time they gave him one final hose down before opening the airlock, and the woman greeted him with a standard issue Kazi Depot uniform to change into.

This process wasn’t new to Johns. It was something he went through anytime they had to leave the station on foot.

He didn’t feel much like waiting for the others to come through, but he had made sure that they would decontaminate Sara second. She had samples that she needed to study. And Johns had to gather his thoughts.

***

Late that night, Johns sat alone in Command, staring at the drone video feeds of the crash sites. His com unit dinged and a notification popped up letting him know he had a new message from Sara. “Come to the lab. Studied the samples.”

Johns threw down his things and jogged out of Command. He didn’t have the patience for the walk across the station, so he took a detour to a nearby supply closet where he knew a cart was stored. He hopped in and pulled it out, going all of the ten miles per hour the cart would take him.

He loved the carts. It was about the only time he got to feel the wind in his face inside of a station, aside from the damn air recycler. But breathing that in directly out of the vent was like having a mouthful of plastic.

The corridors of Kazi Depot were eerily quiet at night. Most people on the station worked in research and started their days early. The restaurants, shops, and service providers that had popped up to cater to them in the station had followed suit. Those that worked on the other shifts just conformed to the schedule. Kazi mornings started well before the star broke the horizon on the simulated corridor wall screens.

He arrived at the research lab about five minutes later and parked his cart just outside of the glass doors. He took the key with him. Avoiding that walk back home was too valuable for him to risk it.

“Morning Sir,” one of the two security guards standing watch outside of the Research Lab said as he walked into the small alcoved entrance area.

He flashed his com unit and bent over to place his eye in front of the retina reader, then placed his right hand on the reader. A puff of air hit his eye and the glass doors to the research lab slid open.

The room was circular, lined around the edges with various countertops and stations for doing whatever it was that scientists did all day. In the middle of the room stood what looked like an enclosed surgical table, with gloved inserts for the surgeon’s hands on either side of the transparent poly-plastic cover. In the middle of the table was a small slide with a small distinctive blue color on it.

“That was quick,” Sara said.

The screen of her com unit showed what appeared to be many cellular like objects, packed tight, washing to one side in unison, like some type of synchronized dance.

“They are very active,” Sara said, zooming out on her screen to reveal the small dab of goo in its actual size.

“I see that. And...What do you make of it?” Johns said, raising his eyebrows.

“Well...it’s a living thing. The Goo is, I mean. It is unlike anything that I’ve ever studied though. Every piece of it is working together toward the common goal of expanding and consuming. Watch this.”

Beside her on the lab table was a petri dish, and inside there were a few small leaves from a plant. She picked one up with tweezers and dropped it onto the center of the Goo. She zoomed in on it using the camera at the top of the see-through box, displayed on her com unit.

As soon as the plant matter hit the Goo, the cellular like objects went into a frenzy. They shook violently, and attached themselves to the leaf. Piece by piece, they broke it down, almost as if they were tearing it to bits on a cellular level. In real-time, they watched as the leaf disintegrated

Outside of the zoomed in image on the screen it was hard to tell what was happening. It looked as if the leaf simply fell into the goo, or was pulled down into it, and then disappeared into nothingness. The leaf became part of the goo.

“The goo is shredding the cells, one-by-one. Then, it grows. It’s hardly noticeable. But look —before and after,” Sara said as she brought up comparisons on the screen in front of them. After ingesting the tiny leaf, the Goo had grown in mass and gained 0.0001 ounces. “It breaks it down and the nutrients from the plant to feed itself.”

“So this stuff is corrosive?”

“Yes...well, sometimes,” Sara said, putting her hand on her forehead. “We have more testing to do. But it doesn’t seem to eat through metal, just settle on top of it. It does break down plastic, though, but very slowly. What it does for sure is break down any kind of organic matter. Any kind of plant-based consumable we’ve thrown at it has been gone within minutes. Same with meat. So I’d say...while it might be alright to get this stuff on your environment suit for a while, you wouldn’t want it on your skin.”

Johns nodded. That made sense. And it would allow him to create some very clear rules for the team.

“This is especially a problem here on Kazi. It would be bad enough on a normal world with an average amount of plantlife for it to consume. But Kazi’s is shore-to-shore with lush jungles. And the re-growth rates….this thing may potentially never run out of biofuel to consume and grow.”

“Have you found anything to stop the growth? Or slow it down? Maybe something we could douse it in to keep it from expanding?”

“Fire,” Sara said bluntly. “Fire kills it.”

Without a second thought, she slapped a button on the clear box unit and long pipes of flames started shooting at the slide in the middle of the table. At first there didn’t seem to be a reaction. Then a crust of charred skin started appearing on the Goo. It bubbled, and then began to blacken and shrivel in the middle of the petri dish. Sara held down the button until the goo wasn’t more than ash.

“Say no more,” Johns said, smiling.