“Boys, what happened?” Marcela jumped up and went immediately for the cabinet with the bandages.
“We were attacked by two of those. They were the doubles of Hans and one of the sergeants” Norman said and sat down so that Marcela could put a bandage on him.
The wound was bleeding profusely but was not deep, there was no residue from a bullet or inlet opening, just a number of small perforations as after a bite. Not a bite from a man or a dog, but rather strange in appearance: he was as if bitten by a shark with three rows of sharp teeth. The blood was mixed with yellow-greenish pus.
‘It’s too early for an inflammation process’, she thought. Usually pus appeared in a few days while this wound was only from a couple of minutes ago. Obviously, some unknown enzyme made the biological processes develop faster.
“You’ll feel pain for a second, Norman, I need to disinfect the wound, sorry”, she said and showered his shoulder with peroxide The bubbles created thin froth, chasing out gelatinous whitish strange matter.
Norman clenched his teeth in a painful grimace without uttering a sound. Large drops of sweat appeared on his forehead.
“I’m almost ready, Major, let me put some iodine, that does not hurt.”
“We were surprised or it wouldn’t have been so easy for them”, Michael whispered, collapsing on the chair, very pale in the face. He was losing consciousness and his head was falling backwards.
“Mike, are you okay?” Marcela cried.
“They attacked us with bare hands, while we were repairing the SUV”, Michael said with a trembling voice. “We had no time to react, but we didn’t give up… One of the doubles managed to bite the Major’s shoulder… the other…”
‘But you are bleeding, Mike!”
The young man faltered and the Lieutenant instantly caught his falling body just before it touched the floor, while Marcela leaned over him and tore with her hands his bloodied shirt.
She noticed five holes on the right side below the ribs, out of which dirty black blood was trickling, mixed with whitish fluid, spreading revolting stench.
“What happened to Mike, Norman? Tell me now! What is this wound?”
“Ivanov’s double stuck his five fingers in his stomach like skewers.”
“And he has curled them inside! My God, I wonder what these creatures are made off, if their fingers are like arrows!”
“March, look at this”, Babyface said, showing her the wound. “I’ve never seen such blood, there is something else here, isn’t there?”
“Yes, we definitely have to test this mucus.” She gathered a sample of it in a sterile retort, which she duly sealed. “Mind you, this thing aimed directly at the liver. It knows where to hit, in order to kill the more efficiently!”
Norman stood up at once in order to help the Lieutenant, who put Michael on his back and carried him to the bio lab. To common surprise he did it with such ease, as if the body of the student was made of cheese.
“You’ve obviously picked wisely your people, Major”, Marcela noted and bent over the retort with the sample.
“Where is Hans?” Norman dropped in the arm-chair, then touched the bandage with his good hand.
“He said he needed ‘to communicate with the Cube’. You know how he is, when he is obsessed with an idea.” Marcela put the last sticking plaster on Michael’s bandage and straightened up. “I’m leaving you, I need to see what this mucous nastiness is. Try to have some good rest.”
The Major did not hear her last words, having gone into a slumber from exhaustion.
Hans had long ago given up the efforts to repair the satellite connection and had spent the last couple of hours sitting with crossed legs on the floor by the Cube with a sheet of paper and a pencil in his hand. His head was filled with formulas, he was somewhere far away as if not noticing what was going on around him. He was so much engrossed in what he was doing, that he did not even wipe the sweat, streaming down his forehead. For several hours he had not touched his pipe and Marcela started to really worry about him.
“Hans, my friend, do you want a drop of water, aren’t you thirsty?”
He turned his head to her with a wandering glance and replied:
“No, March, I’m not thirsty. Have you heard of ‘Mandela’s effect’?”
“No, what is it?”
He seemed not to have heard her at all, raised his eyes at the ceiling and focused on a dot.
“Hans!”
The plump Professor dropped his bottomless glance at her and it soaked through her.
“Come on, say something!” Marcela was starting to panic.
Hans just sniffed a couple of times, deep in thought. He sat again on the floor and started scrawling indecipherable formulas on the paper.
“Hans, please, don’t be like that… You’re scaring me…” She was already calling Norman on the walkie-talkie. “Major, please, all of you come here. Hans has totally lost it.”
The plump scientist, who always found the correct answers to all of their questions was their most solid support in this place and now she was terrified of the thought that they may lose him. He was the only one who always kept presence of mind and calmly and soberly solved the most complex problems. What would they do if he was not himself?
Marcela left Hans to his difficult formulas and started testing the samples, taken from Michael’s and the Major’s wounds. She mixed the material from the retorts with the citrate and poured the liquid over a lot of test slides. Then she prepared the color indicators and switched on the microscope.
Once under the spell of the light in the lens and engulfed in the miniature world of cells and organelles, time as if stopped for her. If someone saw them with Hans at that moment, he would take them for mute sculptures, each one absorbed with a stony glance in his and hers parallel worlds. He was transfixed by the music of figures and logics, while she was married to the variety of the mini-world. An hour had passed without noticing.
The opening of the door took them out of their stupor. The
Major and Babyface came in the room, supporting Michael on both sides. The young man was very pale and could barely move his feet. Norman went to Hans, who still sat on the floor with crossed legs. The Lieutenant, almost dragging the wounded, helped him to a bunk in the corner.
Meanwhile Ivanov had raised up, seeming surprisingly well and was sitting in his bed, ignoring her requests to lie down and rest. The tube of the IV was dangling helplessly from his giant arm.
Babyface had put Michael on the bunk next to his and Marcela had injected to him a sedative. She bandaged again his arm, which looked healed and left him rest.
Alan was drugged and snoring.
“Hans, how are you?”, Norman leaned above the German. “I’m okay, why?”
“Well, March said you haven’t drunk water or eaten since yesterday. Are you sure everything is all right?”
“Yes. I know how we can destroy the Cube.” His voice sounded calm and confident.
“And how can this happen, dear?”
“Have you heard of ‘Mandela’s effect’?”
“No, we haven’t, Hans, what effect is that?” Norman’s tone was gentle and delicate. He thought he did not find the smallest reason for concern about the Professor’s mental health. He looked and sounded perfectly normal.
“There are events about which millions of people have different memories, compared to the other inhabitants of the world. Some call it mass psychosis or just technical small discrepancies in memorizing, but there is another hypothesis. You all know who Nelson Mandela is, right?”
“But of course.”
“Can you tell me what you remember about his death?”
“He died while in prison, didn’t he… back in the 80-ies. I’m not exactly sure, but it was in 1985 or 1986…” Marcela said.