By way of introduction, E. W. Farnsworth is widely published online and in print. His horror collections include "The Black Marble Griffon" and Other Disturbing Tales and "Firstborn" and Other Stories and Poems of Horror. For further information about the author and his works, please see http://www.ewfarnsworth.com.
WONDER BUGS
by
E. W. Farnsworth
Dr. Priscilla Cooper followed in the footsteps of her father, Professor Randolph Cornuta, the esteemed paleo-entomologist whose researches into the prehistoric insects of what is now Greenland had smashed academia’s received traditions about the survivability of certain species of minute social fauna. Her claim to fame rested upon continuing her father’s research with a view to projecting what she called “the effects of wonder bugs on early primate DNA.”
Critical to her latest findings were behaviors of certain samples her father had stored in their attic. As with so many of the Cornuta species, the larval stage was a striking vermillion, indistinguishable in color from the proto-human blood upon which it fed, and its silvery-winged mature, mating display held a rare beauty especially when, in swarming flight, the desperate creatures spread out to find each other, to propagate and then to lay their eggs in the brief interval before the ephemerae perished.
Fortunately, Dr. Cooper’s husband was expert in every form of insectival and microbial extermination. He joked with his wife during their early courtship that she was playing with creatures brought back to life after one-hundred-fifty-million years of hibernation while his job was to ensure that those same bugs stood no chance of invading homo sapiens as they may have done for their predecessors.
The Coopers’ attic was therefore fitted out as a Bio-Level Four (BL-4) redoubt of concentric spheres, its inner sphere contained the humanoid blood and the Cornuta bugs while its outer sphere formed an ethylene oxide barrier promising to forestall any attempt of the bugs to break out of their enclosure and contaminate the surrounding landscape at large. Today’s experiment was being conducted with both the Coopers in full Hazmat bio suits as the larvae were finishing their blood feast and soon would become mature.
“David,” Priscilla said, “As you can see, we are already getting early swarms of mature bugs. Along the edges of the Petri dishes are some silvery eggs.”
“Don’t get excited, Pris. The mature bugs cannot escape their enclosure without dying.”
“Maybe we should call the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, or
USAMRIID?”
“What would you want to tell them? We have no release of infectious microbes ` to report. If you are nervous about the possibility of an unintentional release of the Cornuta bugs, I will execute our emergency procedures, but that will set back your schedule by eighteen months.”
Priscilla Cooper was anxious about receiving her next tranche of her research funding, which depended directly upon the proofs her current experiment were sure to provide—that microbes using the Cornuta bugs as hosts were the real danger to humans.
“You are correct about the potential delay to my schedule. Let’s check everything to be sure nothing unforeseen is happening to our sample set. I have the strangest feeling that something is going horribly wrong with the experiment. The signs of early insect mating are suspicious.”
“Your father, the esteemed professor emeritus, told me we had to be ready for evolutionary changes as well as surprises to our hypotheses.”
“But Dad knew such changes do not happen overnight. Sometimes they may take ages.”
“Yet our samples are acting more like fruit flies than Cornuta bugs. I wonder whether environmental factors might have already triggered a rapid evolutionary event.”
“That’s a chilling thought. Keep checking for anomalies, please.”
Dave Cooper was now focused on the Petri dishes with the silver eggs along their edges. Pris saw her husband was troubled about something he was observing.
“Tell me what is bothering you, Husband.”
“I hate to break it to you, but the eggs are all over the place and not only around the rims of the Petri dishes. I am going to step out of the inner sphere now and decontaminate. Check your connections and air locks for any instances of freshly-laid eggs.”
“I can see where this logic is heading. What are the odds we have a major breach?”
“I’ll tell you that once I have completed my decontamination.”
While her husband completed his complex procedure, Pris searched her seals to be sure she had not experienced a breach.
“Dave, I see no sign of a breach, but I have swarms of bugs around my airlock seals. The bugs seem to be searching for an opening.”
“I wonder whether they can sense the presence of your blood. That would be a major finding.”
“That’s not very funny, Dave.”
“The bugs’ sensing the blood of homo sapiens could be the trigger for their rapid evolution.”
“Take a close look at the behaviors of the mature males and females around your seals.”
“The bugs are mating frenetically, and they are trying to scratch through my Hazmat seals.”
“I think it’s time to call USAMRIID.”
“Dave, the bugs have broken through my suit! They are biting my wrists.”
“It’s time for you to exit that sphere and go through decontamination—NOW!”
“I am going to do that, but I am turning on my recorder. We are experiencing an historic first. We must publish what is happening to me.”
“What we must do is to save your life. If that doesn’t happen, who will be able to fathom what you have learned from your father’s and your experiments?”
As Pris continued to document what was happening to herself on her recorder, Dave made the phone call to USAMRIID.
“Dave, I am beginning to feel chills. Those bugs seem to be carrying something deleterious to humans—or at least to this human.
Dave Cooper got back on the phone to USAMRIID and updated his report to include his wife’s symptoms.
“The disease control people are on the way!”
“The way I feel, they will not arrive in time. Before I become delirious, I need to tell you something my father told me. It was his suspicion that the Cornuta species was an alien implant.”
“Why is this the first I am hearing about this?”
Priscilla’s delirium rendered her conversation unintelligible. She laughed hysterically.