Project Apollo

Chapter 2

National Institutes of Health

Bethesda, MD – 11AM

On the late morning of September 6th, Catherine Mueller entered the BSL-4 laboratory after having performed a double check of her one piece pressurized air suit. The door gasped as it opened onto the laboratory floor. Before her were tables of lab instruments, test tubes and computers for analytics. Being rated a bio-safety level four lab, the space was completely isolated from its neighboring labs in the NIH and sectioned off by a steel encasement, lining the walls of the lab. Covered head to foot, she stepped out into the top laboratory in the country. A curling oxygen hose connected the back of her suit to the ceiling, providing her with uncontaminated breaths and a pressurized atmosphere. Catherine's head, enclosed in a cylinder of plastic, turned to the older man already at work on a contagion brewing in the test tubes lined before him.

"Alright! Alright! You were right!" Catherine's English-accented voice muffled through her headset and into the headphones of the elderly man's. Her blue gloved hands waved off the impending I told you so...

"Catherine, you are the brightest young scientist I have ever met. You are so brilliant no one will be able to quantify the lives you will save within these walls.... But your taste in men sucks!" the old man's quaking voice targeted. Dr. Woslowski was the most experienced lab technician on staff at the NIH. With 40 years of experience under his belt, he developed a reputation for being the Einstein in biology, a nickname his explosion of long grey hair only added to. He turned from the table with his pipetting device still in hand. As his soft green eyes met his apprentice, he could see her short, honey colored hair held back like curtains by her large dark glasses. The hook of her nose kept her glasses up even as she stared down through microscopes all day. Despite her plain complexion, lack of upkeep and bagging eyes, her playful personality ignited an irresistible spark.

"I should just look here, every time I go on a date with someone in DC, I always wind up with some doctor type--" The elderly man laughed, cutting her off.

"A doctor type? The only doctor I could see you ever getting with is Dr. Bones!"

"For God Sakes, Jim, I'm a Scientist not a super model..." He always found her obsession with Star Trek hilarious. It was one of the dorky qualities about her that fueled his typecasting of her.

"Well, I have the perfect guy for you then... he's right over there, he's just contagious... he's clingy and will love you from the inside out...." He said nodding over to the other side of the laboratory.

"It came?!" Catherine perked up.

"Just came in from West Africa, I haven't touched it yet. I know you tracked it down yourself..." The only thing that made Catherine Mueller more excited than Captain Kirk in his tight yellow uniform was a fresh bacterium ready for dissecting. She spun on her inflated heel and proceeded to her workstation where a refrigerated drawer slid out, releasing the fumes of dry ice.

There inside was a cell cultivation flask, containing the sample ready for dissection. It was labeled HCL-238, although it remained an anonymous visitor in their laboratory.

"It's finally here..." She gazed upon the viles, as if it were a candy store.

"As you know, it has killed thirty people down in Ebola country? Symptoms are not consistent with Ebola, though. So, of course we get the task of figuring out what it is and saving the world from it. How'd you find this thing again?" Dr. Woslowski spoke through their headset communication.