Read Online Fantastic Voyage: Microcosm by Kevin J. Anderson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kevin J. Anderson
Tags: Fiction, General, Science-Fiction, adventure, Science Fiction - General, Fiction - Science Fiction, Science Fiction - Adventure, Life on other planets
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capable of safely reducing a test subject to an infinitesimal fraction of its original size. At least, so long as everything went according to plan.
Director Hunter stood inside the chamber, hands locked behind his back. Enough had already gone awry for one day. Captain Wilcox had come out of surgery and remained in recovery. Marc Devlin still hadn't checked in, and Deputy Foreign Minister Garamov should be landing in San Francisco any moment now.
“Are we ready for our test?” Impatient, Hunter turned to Dr. Rajid Sujatha, who had suited up in full clean-room garb. “We'll only have time for this last check.”
They didn't have the luxury to make this a model mission, but Hunter and his crew would pull off a miracle anyway. He couldn't pass up a chance like this.
The Bengali doctor nodded vigorously from across the room. “As soon as we bring in Fluffy Alice, Mr. Director, sir.”
In Hunter's considered opinion, the miniaturizing apparatus itself appeared to have been inspired by an alien spacecraft. Indeed, after he had pulled strings to resurrect this mothballed program, he'd never asked where the equipment had originated. The technology seemed beyond anything the most ingenious minds—American or Soviet—had ever created. Back in the 1960s, how could mere human scientists have developed an apparatus so much more complex than even the Manhattan Project's atomic bomb or NASA's Apollo moon landing?
Some things Hunter didn't want to know.
Waiting behind the barricade, he brushed a hand over his mustache. His neat hair was a shade too dark to be called iron-gray, but it gave his lean face an extremely distinguished appearance.
Technicians in gloves and clean-room suits moved around the chamber, fine-tuning the prismatic grid, double-checking the outputs of myriad devices behind the interlocked focusing plates.
“Ten minutes to activation!” a jumpsuited woman called.
“Check. Everybody finish up your procedures. Bring in the rabbit.”
Dr. Sujatha wheeled a cart into the center of the projection area, his sparkling black eyes framed by his dust-filter mask and bushy dark brows. Inside a cage sat a contented-looking white rabbit, all twitching ears and blinking pink eyes.
Sujatha positioned the test animal at the focal point of the miniaturization beams, then stepped behind the barricade, out of the clean zone. He had a wife and three daughters at home, but they had no inkling of what he did for Project Proteus. Eleven times now, he had gone out of his way to show Hunter snapshots of his lovely girls.
Sujatha yanked down his mask and removed his latex gloves. “Fluffy Alice is ready for another test run, Director, sir.”
Only a few more hours… The mission must proceed, despite the problems, despite the speed bumps. Hunter's stomach wouldn't start to unknot, though, until Marc Devlin got back. What was taking him so long to bring the alleged UFO expert? He hoped his son-in-law had had a nice, quiet drive, because all hell was breaking loose around here.
“Five minutes,” a technician called.
Unexpected sparks crackled from one of the control panels, accompanied by a thin curl of smoke and the smell of burning plastic insulation. Shouting, two technicians shut down the preliminary run and yanked the cover plate off their main panel.
“Do we need to cancel the test?” Hunter growled. “We can't afford another setback.”
One tech yanked out a circuit board and pried at a blackened component. “We can get this replaced in a minute, sir. Put the countdown on hold for sixty seconds. That's all we need.”
Inside the miniaturization grid, the rabbit sniffed around her cage, as if looking for something to nibble.
“We expect no surprises, Director, sir.” Sujatha tried to sound reassuring.
“If we expected them, they wouldn't exactly be surprises. After what happened to Captain Wilcox, I insist on total safety for my team members.”
Hunter remembered why the miniaturization research had been
Director Hunter stood inside the chamber, hands locked behind his back. Enough had already gone awry for one day. Captain Wilcox had come out of surgery and remained in recovery. Marc Devlin still hadn't checked in, and Deputy Foreign Minister Garamov should be landing in San Francisco any moment now.
“Are we ready for our test?” Impatient, Hunter turned to Dr. Rajid Sujatha, who had suited up in full clean-room garb. “We'll only have time for this last check.”
They didn't have the luxury to make this a model mission, but Hunter and his crew would pull off a miracle anyway. He couldn't pass up a chance like this.
The Bengali doctor nodded vigorously from across the room. “As soon as we bring in Fluffy Alice, Mr. Director, sir.”
In Hunter's considered opinion, the miniaturizing apparatus itself appeared to have been inspired by an alien spacecraft. Indeed, after he had pulled strings to resurrect this mothballed program, he'd never asked where the equipment had originated. The technology seemed beyond anything the most ingenious minds—American or Soviet—had ever created. Back in the 1960s, how could mere human scientists have developed an apparatus so much more complex than even the Manhattan Project's atomic bomb or NASA's Apollo moon landing?
Some things Hunter didn't want to know.
Waiting behind the barricade, he brushed a hand over his mustache. His neat hair was a shade too dark to be called iron-gray, but it gave his lean face an extremely distinguished appearance.
Technicians in gloves and clean-room suits moved around the chamber, fine-tuning the prismatic grid, double-checking the outputs of myriad devices behind the interlocked focusing plates.
“Ten minutes to activation!” a jumpsuited woman called.
“Check. Everybody finish up your procedures. Bring in the rabbit.”
Dr. Sujatha wheeled a cart into the center of the projection area, his sparkling black eyes framed by his dust-filter mask and bushy dark brows. Inside a cage sat a contented-looking white rabbit, all twitching ears and blinking pink eyes.
Sujatha positioned the test animal at the focal point of the miniaturization beams, then stepped behind the barricade, out of the clean zone. He had a wife and three daughters at home, but they had no inkling of what he did for Project Proteus. Eleven times now, he had gone out of his way to show Hunter snapshots of his lovely girls.
Sujatha yanked down his mask and removed his latex gloves. “Fluffy Alice is ready for another test run, Director, sir.”
Only a few more hours… The mission must proceed, despite the problems, despite the speed bumps. Hunter's stomach wouldn't start to unknot, though, until Marc Devlin got back. What was taking him so long to bring the alleged UFO expert? He hoped his son-in-law had had a nice, quiet drive, because all hell was breaking loose around here.
“Five minutes,” a technician called.
Unexpected sparks crackled from one of the control panels, accompanied by a thin curl of smoke and the smell of burning plastic insulation. Shouting, two technicians shut down the preliminary run and yanked the cover plate off their main panel.
“Do we need to cancel the test?” Hunter growled. “We can't afford another setback.”
One tech yanked out a circuit board and pried at a blackened component. “We can get this replaced in a minute, sir. Put the countdown on hold for sixty seconds. That's all we need.”
Inside the miniaturization grid, the rabbit sniffed around her cage, as if looking for something to nibble.
“We expect no surprises, Director, sir.” Sujatha tried to sound reassuring.
“If we expected them, they wouldn't exactly be surprises. After what happened to Captain Wilcox, I insist on total safety for my team members.”
Hunter remembered why the miniaturization research had been
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