Arthur's Strangerville Mystery

As long as he could remember, Arthur has always been interested in things that fly. Planes, helicopters, the vision and idea of a future with flying cars... So when it was time to go to university, there was no question on what he wanted to do, but then he was drafted into the Korean war and had to put everything off. For those years, shooting at an enemy he didn't know and couldn't differentiate from the people he was supposed to defend, he almost lost his way. More than once he thought it was over. That he'd die fighting for something he didn't understand. And so on return, it felt almost surreal to start university, to focus on something he had loved and forgotten and now was allowed to love again.

Arthur loved studying, loved the library, the scientific breakthroughs, the conversations and debates. On his graduation, he was already set for a job with NACA (later NASA) at their High-Speed Flight Station at Edwards Airforce Base. Graduation day was a triumph, and nerve wrecking at the same time. But Arthur knew where he was going, and for the first time in a long time, he knew exactly why.



But first he had to move. With the job, came a small rental home in a town in the Mojave desert called Strangerville. It's only perk was the closeness to Edwards and the Station. The house was small, boring, and what his sister would call tragic, and the town could very well be described the same way. But Arthur didn't care, because now his life was about to begin and a house was just somewhere to sleep anyway. The fact that there already were furniture in place was practical, and so he never asked why it was unoccupied, and what happened to the man living there before him.




The night before his first day at his new job he could barely sleep, and it wasn't only because his bed was uncomfortable and the light flickered strangely at times in his room. His stomach was in knots when he arrived, looking around the lab that would be his work place with wide eyes as the very head of the station, Walter Williams, greets him as he arrives.
"Do your best, ask lots of questions before getting things wrong and try not to break anything you cannot fix yourself," he says as he guides him through the lab. Arthur is wide eyed.
"Is that a IBM 704?" he asks as he sits at a control station. "I've been longing to try one of those!" Williams give him a secretive smile: "You ain't seen nothing yet, son. Do well and maybe you will."




For the next few days, Arthur stays late at the station as often as he is allowed too, losing himself in the job. At night, he's exhausted and falls into bed, not even noticing how uncomfortable it is. But as weekend comes around, he decides to explore town a bit, going on a walk to see the place he now should learn to call home. It's certainly not much to see. Some houses, lots of military trucks, a library, a bar, and some odd looking park surrounding an old crashed plane. From one of the many test flights in the area, he's told.

When he returns to his home, there are people waiting to greet him, but immediately he can see that there is something wrong with them. He tries to greet them, but they seem unresponsive, and they move strangely, saying something about a crater? Arthur doesn't know what to make of it at all.



He tries asking around town, but most folks don't seem to want to talk about it. Either they pretend they see nothing, or Arthur is losing his mind! How can they not see???



Finally, he speaks to the man selling some strange items in a little shed. It's not someone he would normally trust, but it's the only one so far that talks about what he's been seeing all day. "Go to the bar and ask," he says. "There are lots of military there, and given enough to drink, they might share what they know. Otherwise there are more than your average number of scientists at the library lately, they arrived when the weird plants started showing up."
"The weird plants?"
"Blue, look like they're glowing? Keep your eyes open and you'll see them. Just don't get too close."
"Why not? Are they poisonous?"
"Or something. You've seen the people who gets too close."
"Is that...?"
"Don't say too much. Not here. Be careful."



Even more confused, but also curious, Arthur takes the man's advise and go to the bar. To his surprise he finds several of his co-workers, and on of his formal classmates there.
"You weren't the only one requited straight from Foxbury."
Even his boss is in town. "Williams? Yeah he lives up on the hill. Where the fancy houses are."



Arthur doesn't find out that much on his first visit to the bar, but he spends Sunday reading up on the town at the library. If there were many scientists there, they are not there on a Sunday, but it doesn't really matter, because as he's reading a book Arthur finds a weird photo falling out of one of the archives. "Lab. Crater." it says on the back. How strange. Didn't he overhear one of the military say something about staying out of the crater last night?




But the weekend ends quickly and by Monday Arthur is back at the Station again. One of his tasks is to find a new type of fule for the planes, to allow them to go further and faster on less, to make the planes lighter. It's fascinating work, and Arthur is soon so wrapped up in it that he forgets everything about his home town.





But in the morning, while he's taking his morning job, it's right there. The blue, glowing plant that the shop owner spoke about. Arthur keeps his distance, but takes a photo all the same. He needs proof that he's not insane, even if he has no clue what to do with that proof yet.




Thoughts about the blue plants and the strange people start occupying his mind all the time, but he knows he's too new at his job to start asking questions there, even if he's dying to. Surely someone at base ought to know something?

But instead he throws himself into his work. He tries his hand at as much as he can, studying rocket fuel, airplane fuel, aerodynamics and ways to liquidize food in order to make it easier carrying food with you on planes in case you get shot down. That draws some attention.




"I wouldn't normally let someone who has been here such a short term get this kind of security clearance but you've shown you're willing to go that extra mile, and those who are higher up than me is starting to pay attention." Williams says as he calls him up to his office. "From now on, you're working in the lower labs."



Before even going into the lab, Arthur needs to decontaminate himself. "As well as when you are finished for the day," Williams says sternly. Arthur promises to remember and Williams takes him into the lab. Arthur is overwhelmed!
"What is all this?"
"Equipment, machines..." Williams answers. "You'll learn to use it."
"But the technology... we don't have technology like this."
"We don't, well we do, but no one knows it, and it needs to stay that way."
"How...?"
"Aliens. It's their technology originally, we've been "inventing" it a little at the time. When the world is ready, they'll get more of it. Not all of it, but more of it."

Arthur thrives in the new lab! He loves the machines, the work, the level of security clearance. He especially likes inventing things. Shortly he's invented a freeze ray and is working on a satellite dish that can detect aliens.





One day, there is an alarm sounding at the Station when Arthur arrives. "Unauthorized personnel on base" and in the more highly classified areas "alien intrusion."

Arthur finds her in the lower labs. A woman, looking as if she works there, a part from the fact that she's a woman and she has pink hair. A dead give away. Using his freeze ray, Arthur contains the intruder and run to find a soldier.





Arthur is praised for his quick thinking and saving on the base from the intruder. "There are a lot of secrets she could have accessed from down there. And who knows, she could have given those secrets to Russia!" Williams says with animation in his office later.
"The aliens are working with Russia?" Arthur asks.
"They could be!" Williams says. "You never know these things. But you stopped it, and that's good work."



But at home there is always the mystery with the strange people walking around, and one of the plants has shown up right outside his house. At the local bar, which most of the people on base frequents, there are whispered rumors about a secret lab in the crater, which the abundant military personnel tries to discourage. "There is no such place," they say. "And if there were you should absolutely not try to go there."



"Is it us, sir?" he asks his boss one day when they're both down in the lab. "Or aliens? That are doing those things?"
"Not here!" his boss answers. "Meet me at the park."



And so on Saturday, Arthur goes to the local park. He hasn't visited before, because he does think it's a bit weird with a park surrounding a crashed plane, but when he does go he sees several people from town there and speaks to a few of them before Williams signals that now is the time.




"You do understand that what I'm about to tell you is highly classified?" he starts. Arthur nods. Yes, that much he has understood. "So you're right and you're wrong. It's aliens, or one alien lifeform, but it's not us per say," he says. "There is another lab, another alien lifeform than the one we're dealing with, another branch of government. It got out of hand. The lab is sealed off now, but the spread is obviously not contained and I've been asked if I can't spare a scientist or two to look at it." He looks carefully at Arthur.
"Are you that scientist?"
Arthur thinks for a second, then nods. "I think I am, Sir."
"Good! Then listen."

What Arthur hears next leaves him unsettled. He learns that there is a secret base in the Mojave, in an old crater which can only be accessed through the airport. They had some strange form of alien life there, but the experimentations went wrong and it spread. The scientists who completed the experiments started acting strange, couldn't complete their work, and eventually the military sealed off the entire place with the scientists inside, but clearly they did not contain matters enough.

"Right now everyone is on damage control and holding down the rumors, but it's getting harder. Someone needs to get inside that lab and see what they can find."
"Do we have access?"
"No, and we can't have. You'll do this on your own time, and you'll report only to me. Everything else is up to you. How to get in, how to stay safe... I cannot help you or appear to know what you're doing, is that clear?"
"So we don't have the military with us on this one?"
"Are you kidding? Their solution is to nuke the place and all the scientific breakthroughs with it. We don't even know if that will help or just make matters worse. We need to figure this out before the military convinces the president to turn this into a new test site."
"I understand." Arthur says, hoping he can live up to the expectations.

The very next morning he heads to the lab, only to realise that it is far too easy getting in. There is a giant hole in the perimeter fence, which must be where those people escaped from, and the plants don't seem to care for fences, as the plants are everywhere, spreading either by air or by some root system.



While getting into the building is easy, getting into the secret lab itself proves too much. The door needs a key card, and as much as he looks for an alternative, Arthur cannot find one. He needs that key card to get in, and he needs to find it on his own. He wonders how.




He takes the time to examine the vast amount of paper work laying around. It's clear that this place was abandoned in a hurry, because no one thought to burn this stuff. You'd not normally leave things like this laying around. Piece by piece, Arthur starts figuring things out. Seed packets tells him that the plants spread by air, rather than by a root system (this calms him somewhat as a root system spreading from here to town would be overwhelmingly huge). It also tells him that the scientists themselves started planting these things, perhaps in a less than safe environment? He also finds documents, photos, reports that talk of the effects of the plants and different ways of being infected. It spreads through air, but only in close contact - while the plant is immature that is. Then it spreads wider, and becomes more potent.
"Avoid high spore concentration and never go into the purple mist," one document reads.

There are also documents about some sort of inoculation, but they're only partly done and scribbles on the papers make it seem as if it didn't work.




Knowing he must get the key card, and that Williams cannot help him get it, Arthur heads back to the bar. He needs more intel, and he needs getting people to talk, which means he needs to make them trust him. He spends quite some time befriending military personnel and scientists alike. It's hard work, at least for Arthur who is not naturally the most social person. It's not that he's awkward or find it hard per say, but he just generally finds general small talk silly and the bouts of melancholy he suffers from ever since the war means he isn't always in the mood.

But now it's important, really important, and so he makes a bigger effort, though to his surprise it's not one of the many men he needs to talk to. Instead it's a woman named Rita who proves to be the key - quite literary - to his problem. And to think he almost dismissed her because she is a woman, a very feminine woman at that, but unlike most women (or rather the idea Arthur has of most women) she is smart, funny and very much military.
"I didn't know the military employed women."
Rita smiles. "They don't...officially. Officially we're all secretaries."

The spend the rest of the evening chatting away. Arthur finds Rita fascinating, and she finds him trustworthy. She isn't easy to persuade, but the dossier he's put together is impressive and finally she gives in, slipping him a key card under the table. "If someone catches you, I'll tell them you stole it."
"Without you reporting it stolen?"
"Who said I wouldn't report it?"
"But then they'll be looking. They might shut the lab down."
"They already did, remember. Besides, I know a secretary or two that can make sure that report never sees the light of day - unless I need it."





The next opportunity he gets, Arthur goes back to the lab and uses the key card. The door barely wants to open, and when it does a bunch of spores, big enough to be visible, escapes making him cough. They disperse in the air and after some initial hesitation, Arthur goes inside.



And there he sees it. The purple mist the documents were talking about. He stops to look around, and goes another way, staying clear of the dangerous substance.




He finds himself in a lab, with the flower at different stages of maturity in containers. How did it go from here to the outside world? Arthur has no clue, but he has to find out. He looks around the lab, to the analyzers enclosed in a glass room. That must have been where they tried to make the vaccine. So what went wrong? There is no way around it, he needs access to the rest of the lab, but he cannot walk through the purple mist without protection and Williams had been clear about not expecting any help from the government. He has to find another way. A gasmask perhaps? Would that be enough? He remembers seeing something like it in that weird little "shop" run by that conspiracy theorist. He'll have to check it out.



When he returns from the depth of the labs, there is an alarming development. Outside a plant has change stage, from the young plants to a blossoming one, and a weird cloud has appeared in the sky. Oh no! What has he let out? It has to do with those spores that escaped when he opened the lab. He has no time to lose.




When he gets home, Arthur sees that it's not just around the lab. It's the plants in town too. The one outside his house looks just like the one in the lab. He tries to take a picture but it emits a strong light and the picture comes out blurry.

 


He heads straight to the little shop, asking about the gasmask, but the vendor won't agree to sell anything until Arthur offers up some proof of the alien. Arthur sells him some pictures, and is then offered to buy. "The gasmask won't work," he says. "The spores would get right through. I have a full body suit, but it's lacking a filter. Without a filter it won't do you any good, but perhaps you can convince one of the scientists to make you one? I know they can."



Arthur meets up with Rita that night, asking if she can help. "All I have is this scanner," she says. "I can detect and collect the spores, but we have no filter. You'll need a scientist for that. I might know a guy. Collect the spores, as many as you can, and I'll contact him. Meet me back here tomorrow night."



The next day, Arthur returns to the lab, scanning the air for spores. He collects as many as he can find, and use the analyzer in the lab to get as much information as he can before he has to go to work. Once there, without asking, uses some of the computer power of the Station to do some calculations on the information he received. It's a risk, but he needs that kind of calculating power and the secret lab doesn't seem to have it, or if they do, it's hidden behind all that purple mist.





By the time he gets home, he's exhausted, and yet the day cannot be over yet. He needs to get some food, then head over to the bar to meet Rita's scientist. As he has washed the dishes, he steps back in horror as vines start growing out of his sink.

This is getting bad. Like really bad, and fast. He needs to find a way to stop this.

 



He hurries to his meeting with Rita and the scientist still rattled. Does he dare remove the vines? Or should he leave them alone, but then what? How far will they spread? Is he even safe at home? In town?

But he cannot think like that, he needs to focus, and Sebastian Crawley, as the scientist is called, seems to be just the person that can help. "With this analyzed data I will be able to construct a filter that works," he says. "We've been working on one for months, but not succeeded in getting the full profile of the spores. I won't ask how you managed to get it when we failed, but well done. I'll send you one of the filters as soon as I have one. Do not go back to the lab without it!"



From then on it's a waiting game. Arthur goes to work, finishes his satellite dish, talks to his boss about matters that doesn't matter nearly as much as getting the filter. His job is everything he ever wanted it to be, but right now he cannot even enjoy it. His mind is consumed with what he'll find in the lab, and how fast he can get down there.






And then, finally, the filter arrives. Just in time! More and more people are getting infected, and he knows the military will be talking about drastic measures. Measures that most likely will affect the entire town. "Is that the filter?" Williams asks as they meet, once more, in the park. Arthur nods. "Small. I hope it's efficient, but I suppose there is only one way to find out. Time is running out."
"How much do we have?"
"Not much, I'm doing what I can, but this town, and everyone in it, might soon be a memory."
Arthur is shaken. "Everyone in it?"
"Military way of thinking. If everyone dies, no one is infected and no one can spread it. Us scientists are loosing ground and fast. Do hurry."



The very next day, Arthur is at the lab again, this time wearing his new hazmat suit. He knows what he needs to do. Find out what is in the lower levels of the lab, and find the materials needed to start working on that vaccine that was only half finished. He's been analyzing the data, he thinks he knows where the scientists failed, but he needs to know more first.

It's time to enter into the mist.




As he heads further in, he sees more of the vines that are not a permanent fixture of his kitchen. Covering the walls, the floors, it's all he can do to stop from shaking as he move across the corridor to the next locked door.



Arthur doesn't know what he expects to see behind the door, but whatever it is, this isn't it. Before him is the biggest plant he's ever seen. Several stories high, it's huge, looming over him, speaking to him through some kind of telepathy. It promises him greatness, if he succumbs to it's will, never to suffer, never to be in pain, eternal freedom from sadness and gloom.

It's incredibly tempting. To let go of the gloom, of the dark thoughts that has plagued him since the Korean war. Something in him wants to succumb, wants to be controlled, he can feel every logical thought melt away as he stares into the mother, so tall you can't even see the ceiling, it just looks like stars... but then an image of a mushroom cloud appears in the back of his mind, and another of the people in town. Of Rita's hopeful face as she looks at him from across the table, and Arthur finds a way to fight. It's not logical thinking that saves him, but images and feelings. He sees his mother's face filled with grief as he leaves for war, his sisters', his brother... for them he must resist.

He runs out of the room. This thing, whatever it is, is powerful, and he cannot possibly fight it alone.



He runs until he's outside the compound, but then he gather's up his courage. No one can join him without an inoculation. He needs to make that vaccine, and the only place to do so without raising questions is here. In the back of his mind, he still hears the mother's calls, but he ignores them, and gets to work. It's tedious, and hard, but he finds the material he needs, and gets to work in the labs, spending hours upon hours testing, analyzing, testing again, until he has three versions of a vaccine.

Hopefully one of them will work - or at least give him information enough to continue his trials. Now he can head home.




Back in Strangerville, things has gone from bad to worse. Infection is spreading rapidly, much more so than he'd thought. How long was he in the lab? Arthur isn't even sure, he's lost track of time



Arthur doesn't wait. Sleep is something you can do when not facing imminent destruction from either an alien mastermind in the form of a plant or a nuclear explosion, whichever comes first. At least there are plenty of people around town to test the vaccine on, as there are infected walking around everywhere. He finds several entering the trailer park just behind his house, and test all three vaccines. Two of the compounds doesn't work, but the third heals the man (even if he wets himself in the process). It's not perfect, but now Arthur knows enough to make a functional vaccine. Hopefully the smellier side effect won't happen on someone who hasn't already been infected.



Heading back to the lab, Arthur creates several doses of vaccine as well as a weapon that he believes will weaken, and eventually kill, the mother plant. He has calculated the odds, and will need at least three people with him to defeat the mother, all three will need to be vaccinated, but even so, but time is of the essence, he does not know how long the vaccine will last for.

Returning to town, he seeks out Rita, asking her help in requiting people for the mission. "We need someone from the military," he tells her. "But also scientists. I'm thinking Williams and Crawly for them."
"And me for the military?" Rita asks to Arthur's horror.
"Absolutely not! You're a woman!"
"So is the mother," Rita points out. "Besides, most other military is already on board with the nuclear idea, you need someone who doesn't follow orders blindly - and that's me. Besides, you don't have time to find anyone else."
Sadly, Arthur realises that she's right.



The next one to get onboard is Sebastian. Arthur doesn't know him as well as Rita, but she trusts him and that's good enough for him. He seeks him out in the library, administrating the vaccine and recruiting him to fight the mother. He's not fond of the method. "I'm a thinker, not some brute who loves his weapons."
"And that's why we need you," Arthur says. "To stop the brutes with weapons." Sebastian frowns, but agrees.
"I'll get us some more filters, you get us more people."



Rita and Arthur then seeks out Williams at his house, asking for his help. Williams might be getting on in years, but this is a priority, and as soon as he is vaccinated he agrees. And Rita, Williams and Arthur sets out for the lab, as Sebastian is meeting them on location.




Vaccinated and ready, they get down in the lab. Sebastian has gotten hazmat suits for all of them, but there are no suits in Rita's size and it's way too big for her to move. "I'll be fine," she says. "I'm vaccinated, and we don't have time to wait."

And so it begins. Using Rita's card, Arthur gets them in, and soon they're in the room where Mother reins supreme. "Here goes nothing," Arthur says. "Begin!"





It starts out well, but the mother fights back. Arthur can feel her, and hear her calls. Soon the room is filling up with people from town, controlled, they are willing to fight them all to save the creature possessing them.



But just when it looks to fail, when Arthur is seconds from calling for a retreat, the battle shifts, the mother seems to faulter, her calls grows quieter, then stops. They've done it, the mother is silenced - and lies lifeless in the pit.



Arthur cheers, throws confetti (without wondering really why he has confetti) and turns to his allies to celebrate. There is Sebastian, in disbelief that he was a part of this, and Williams, looking pleased with himself, but as he turns to look at Rita his heart nearly stops.

Because what he sees is Rita, lifeless on the floor. The only one of them without a suit, she wasn't as protected as them, and the vaccination wasn't enough. Arthur feels his heart breaking as he watches her lifeless body. Why did she have to insist on coming?




As the three surviving fighters return to Strangerville they can see the result of their work immediately. The sky is clear, the plants gone from the ground, and people who were previously controlled are walking around like normal. When asked they don't seem to remember ever being possessed.

In fact the entire town seem to have forgotten. No one asks where Rita is, no one mentions her name. Some say they don't know how these rumors started, and he hears his coworkers talk about how silly people are to believe in conspiracy theories. "Where is the proof?" one of his fellow scientist at the Station asks. Arthur says nothing, he knows he could give them every piece of evidence they could ever ask for, but he also knows he never will and that this is something he will take with him to the grave just as he will the memory of Rita. He might be the only one who remembers her, or knows the sacrifice she made for the sake of this town and the people in it.