Topic: The Coming of a New Day

Corea

Date: 2013-05-15 15:57 EST
Chapter 1: The First Horseman

Maranatha Coastline Research Facility, Rhydin, 05:38 A.M. 5.2.13

"How are we doing today, Margaret?" a scientist asked, approaching his attractive co-worker as part of the morning ritual of small talk leaned against the side of her desk with a coffee.

"Still hating my elderly-sounding protective I.D. the corporation generated for me. How are you, Todd?" Margaret asked back, never breaking once in her typing to lose so much as a minute's worth of cryogenic monitoring and its subsequent report.

"I think I'm still liking mine today. 'Todd''s a lot cooler than my real name, not to try to narrow your search down any. Wouldn't want to go against the privacy code. I don't see what the big deal is, though. We're just playing babysitter to a bunch of obsolete germs most days," Todd complained, strolling back over to his own work desk.

" " Until those other days, when, you know, the actual professors come and conduct their government-funded research."

" " On a bunch of obsolete germs..." The two looked at each other then, arriving at some junction of disinterest and oral stalemate. Margaret did not linger unproductive for very much longer, however, returning to her report on the day's meter readings and the like. Todd's job, on the other hand, was arguably more important, and thus easier for him to procrastinate about without supervisors on weekdays; so a pink rubber ball was fished out of his desk drawer, the same faded color of a pencil eraser, and thrown at a downward angle against the wall his office neighbored. It would not be long, neither, until Margaret would sigh exasperatedly.

The visitor alert light blinked then at Todd's office, one of his station's parameters, and surprisingly he noticed it early on and gave the ball to the little nook of space behind his phone and beside his computer monitor.

"Hey, Margaret. Looks like today's one of those days." Todd waved her attention at the little red bulb that blinked quite blindingly at the side of his desk beneath the screen currently broadcasting the checkpoint guard, Desmond, who monitored the road from the beach helipad by the tennis courts to the research facility itself.

Margaret came over to see what this was, making the face that neither of the professors were expected in today. During this time, Todd had caught wind of a peculiarity in the urgency on Desmond's face. He quickly flipped the jagged switch to permit audio accompaniment with his broadcast as Margaret arrived, grabbing the upright privacy wall on Todd's desk to lean in as well.

"Hey, are you guys there, or what"! Somebody say something!" Desmond shouted, obviously unnerved.

Todd depressed the push-to-talk switch. "We hear you, Desmond. What's wrong?"

"Gulls! Dead everywhere! They're all over the beach. I don't know what?s going on. Some kinda leak in the ocean, maybe, I don't know. Is it something maybe you guys have been working on?" You wanna call someone??"

He was in a panic, noticeably shaken by what he'd seen. Todd and Margaret looked at each other with cautioned perplexity. A sudden abundance of dead, should-be-living-otherwise things appearing close by on the coast of the transmissible disease research facility was not such the conundrum. They again communicated with their eyes, her gaze reflecting their shared position on this issue before she whispered subtly but dutifully to him.

"I'm going to make sure everything's alright on the computer," she told him, going back to her desk in urgent stride. Todd then went to turn on the microphone again.

"Desmond, stay right there, okay' We're coming to you." He released the push-to-talk and shut his monitor off so that a much more dire stare could cease being suppressed.

"Dead seagulls...?" Margaret called over to him, and Todd took a moment before grabbing his keys and getting up suddenly.

"Until we know what this is, we're not taking any chances. We're going on Yellow Alert. Check what you're checking and come meet me at the lobby. It's a lovely day out for the biohazard suits." Todd walked on out of the computer room, leaving Margaret at his desk in petrified terror.

Corea

Date: 2013-05-15 16:14 EST
Cape Cuttle Research Center, 08:11 A.M. 5.2.13

The gulls cawed out at the Cape Cuttle Lighthouse. During the first week that sound had been a relentless choir of sirens very in need of a vocal coach. After the first week, adjustment occurred. Michael McAvin was right where he wanted to be: nowhere. He was doing exactly what he wanted to be doing: nothing. A long, long year's worth of actual marine biology work and his request for transfer had finally been heard. He was relocated to his highly-desired location with a just as highly-desired "limited personnel." As long as he submitted a sum of research that looked like it was a sum of research, he could sleep the rest of the time, and he was taking full advantage of that at the moment, the gulls retching sounds just ambient white noise to his ears. Though, his brows did twitch at a familiar pitch of annoyance, one that he hadn't heard for continuous days of peace but nevertheless expected its inevitable return.

"Michael! Hey, Michael, you're not going to believe this!" Again, he heard it. That was not the sound of a vocally talented seagull he had impossibly hoped it was. Michael opened his eyes.

His comfy cot was sat up from and a jarring headache was soon enough covered with a hand to prevent it from swelling his cranium to the point of what felt like bursting; the clear liquor bottle laying on the floor at his feet explained his subpar condition. After a few moments of preparation he overcame its pounding and evaluated the time of day. His cotside clock, however, was shying away from him currently and required redirecting his way, inadvertently tidying his living space in doing so. He read the red electronic digits with a slightly bothered look....8:13 ticked and calling up to his perch atop the lighthouse he heard the voice down below again.

"Hey Michael!" she called again, this time with either urgency due to his unresponsiveness or excitement at some truly interesting occurrence. He wasn't quite sure, but she clearly wasn't stopping anytime soon, so he got up to go answer her. He put a kind-of cream-colored Hawaiian shirt on with a too-bright red flower pattern upon it. It was a suitable drape over his wife-beater.

"This better not be another seashell," he hollered down with some restraint, still too tired to care about anything too much as he was still making over to the outside deck. Once he reached the railing his shirt blew on a constant gust at that height and he stuck his dirty blond head over the railing with its strangely matching short brown beard and gazed down at the young fruit vendor's daughter from the downtown peninsula market. Seeing her holding out a limp seagull, he leaned on the railing to serve the dual purpose of resting and projecting theatrical disinterest.

"Didn't your parents teach you not to touch dead animals?"

Corea

Date: 2013-05-15 16:36 EST
The lights powered on down the body of the lighthouse. They always took a long time. At least inside they would be able to carry a conversation without shouting, and last he checked, shouting was counterproductive to recovering from a hangover. He'd had to shout once more, however, spying her running up the stairs with the bird still in her hand"as if he needed to see it any closer"and telling her to leave it outside. "I know you're not thinking about bringing a dead bird up around my bed," he said, watching her run back down the stairs with annoyance to drop her prized finding off on the side of the road. He wasn't about to furnish his room with any diseases it might be carrying, after all.

With ample time to find and light a cigarette, Michael repeatedly fired the striker on his nearly gone disposable lighter while keeping an eye down on the spiral stairs down below. Her name was Allison, a girl of about eleven or twelve, and she'd often ride her bike to visit him twice or more a week, and that was twice or more times a week he didn't need her to, considering his contributions to her family's fruit cart were non-existent. Still, she would often make him despise himself later with sweet moments of genuineness and pleasantness and all-around hope for the next generation. She seemed interested in this stuff, at least, so who was he to hinder the developing mind of one of the future's inheritors"

When she finally reached the top of the stairs she put her hands on her naked knees and caught her breath. While she did this, Michael tidied up a bit, clearing at least enough space around the littered deck to move about some.

"Now what?s so fascinating, kid?" Michael asked, leaning against his paper-strewn desk.

"I was riding my bike through the park and I saw it in the middle of the road near the settlers' monument. I've never seen one so up close before. It's so big! What do you think killed it?" Allison asked.

"Who knows. Those birds die all the time. Somebody probably clipped it with their car or something." Michael woke his laptop up from sleeping and carried it over to his lap in the temporary little seat he'd made out of the corner of his desk. Nope. No new mail from the university. A frown meanwhile played on Allison's lips.

"But that's what I was going to show you. There was nothing wrong with it. No injuries, no nothing. It was just....dead. Don't you think we should study it?" she asked, snooping through his marine equipment on the opposite end of his desk. By now, Michael had caught onto her little plight for an excuse just to play with the lab equipment.

"Uh-huh. I think I'll leave that one to the ornithologists, kid," he said, taking his expensive whale-recording headphones out of her hands and laying them back on the desk, much to her disappointment.

"What do you use those for" Listening to whales?" she asked, prompting his inspection of them while he sought an answer.

"They're probably the most expensive cans you or I have ever seen, so let's be careful with them, alright' I was using them for a behavioral study on the acoustics of white-beaked dolphins, but they end up playing a lot of Zeppelin records most nights," he admitted, finally laying them back down. "Now is there something else I can help you with, Little Miss Allison?" he asked, somewhat eager to remove her, and the hazard to his expensive equipment she brought with her, from the lighthouse at least. Seeing that she was taking a while to answer, he grinned and looked outside. The bigger favors were the hardest for kids to ask for, so he'd give her her time she was obviously taking for one.

"Well," she began. It was slow progress, but it gave him more time to try and figure out what she was fishing for. Perhaps she was interested in one of his stories from his time spent at seas, or hopefully something scholastical he could enlighten upon her for a career in marine biology. Undoubtedly, however, she was more than likely to ask to accompany him to the beach to check up on the sea turtle hatchery he helped a fellow biologist with while she was teaching at the college. He predicted right.

"Are you going down to check on the baby sea turtles this morning?"

"I am. Are you asking me if you can go?" Emotionlessly, pointedly, Michael crossed his arms; but he was mostly kidding, not that she could tell of course.

"Can't I?"

"Do whale carcasses float?" He counter-queried, putting the cigarette end out in a cereal bowl that had since found other purposes in recent days. His tone, demeanor, and glare was interestingly unfriendly and off-putting since it more or less confirmed'she thought"that he'd given her the go-ahead. After a testing moment he seemed to enjoy, he plainly said it. "Go get your bike. I'll meet you outside."

"Yes!" Allison cheered, bouncing"pig-tails and all?over to the stairs where the railing became her next focus. Though overly excited, she wasn't about to fall down a very long and painful-looking staircase before she got to have her chance at seeing some baby turtles. So, free of any tragedy or accident, she made downstairs and out the lighthouse door while Michael grabbed his phone off the charger, stuck a pack of smokes in his chest pocket and pushed on a nice dark pair of hangover sunglasses.

Corea

Date: 2013-05-15 16:52 EST
The two traveled down the road together at varying speeds. It was hot enough out to make for very beach appropriate weather and there was enough of a breeze along with it to make you want to be out in it. It also continuously refunded young Allison's energy to sweep up and down the side of the unbusy road to compensate for Michael's tortoise-like pace. There were more golf carts and bicycles about Cape Cuttle than cars, but they drove by every now and then to remind the community that it wasn't just their older culture that occupied their little coastline city. It was really nice seeing it adapt and progress over the years, and that feeling could be felt throughout the town and market. Snapping Michael out of his little look back of the town's history, Allison flew by a little too close, more than likely to get his subsequent reaction out of him.

"Hey," he barked.

"Sorry," she quickly replied, smiling ahead of him where he couldn't see it.

How he put up with her on such a frequent basis, he didn't know, but that train of thought would be cut short when a coast guard truck came up behind them with its lights on and its periodic high-pitched chirping siren paving its way.

"Get over to the side, kid," Michael called out, grabbing her handlebar when she braked close to him. They stood there as it passed and continued on its way, perplexing both of them with Allison being the one to speak up about it.

"I wonder where they're going?"

Michael paused for a thoughtful moment before answering, "I don't know."

They resumed their walk after the truck had turned left and gone on down the road north, parallel with the beach. The two of them, on the other hand, would be crossing the road like they were going to the beach. They checked both ways, and Allison off her bike now, walked beside Michael approaching the dunes. Allison had to abandon her bike once they got over to the other side, propping it against an old wood post and then sprinting back to catch up with Michael who was patiently waiting at the start of the sandy path upon a shady pass where a cluster of gangly, tropical trees guarded the sea turtle hatchery.

They approached the site she'd recalled on more than one occasion of helping him count turtle eggs and check for hatched ones. The wire fence perimeter boxed in an assortment of plank markers that each had a clutch of turtle eggs beneath them. Further through this micro-preserve the university had funded, a small little bath house was off to the side with a running faucet, a unisex restroom, and a small supply closet kept under lock and key. It was the latter that Michael was going to be asking Allison to visit.

"You remember what we put the baby turtles in?" Michael asked, handing her his keys and going down on his knees to get ready to unfasten the flimsy wire fence.

"Yep. I'll be right back," she said, taking the keys and running off with that energy that only a heavy smoker like Michael could wonder where she got it all from.

He sighed and pushed the fence back, bending it enough to keep it out of his way as he started to dig, but he didn't do too much or work so fast. This was a lot of what Allison wanted to do, so he'd wait for her more or less, remembering to get out his little notepad that he'd use to count the eggs again and see if any had hatched overnight and gone to the ocean on their own.

This was a big favor he was paying to his colleague, Malinda Rabin. At least it comforted him that he knew she was a hard-working scientist who had a lot more going on in her research and teaching than a little nest of turtle eggs could offer, but she'd likely disagree with him there. She loved life and nature, and she was a genuinely good human being. No, this was just a matter of her being too busy, and Michael procrastinating and loathing work. Beginning to dig again, he pondered what she was up to, taking so long, before jerking his head at the piercing holler of a young girl, about ten or twelve, and shouting his name. He heard it a second time and pushed himself up in a hurry, kicking sand back and leaving the nest open and unguarded and exposing the sight of the turtle eggs sprinkled heavily in the moist sand, and among them, hatched ones, and some deceased baby turtles who didn't get very far.

Michael ran through the posts between the dunes, his unbuttoned shirt flying behind him and down one arm exposing the shoulder of his muscle shirt and his sunglasses getting lost somewhere in the sand along the way. He raced out to the beach at the chime of the third calling for his name, spying Allison there on the beach and standing around countless dead shorebirds littering the scenic oceanfront like a trash dump.

"Michael, look at how many there are!" Allison shouted again, lessening the direness of her situation but posing a whole nother one entirely.

Michael approached her with some trepidation, careful of his footsteps and navigation of the every space of beach a tiny bird or larger one like a seagull was not far from. A hand placed on her shoulder and she was brought close against him for confirmation of her total safety, of which he felt responsible while she was under his watch. While she looked on in amazement and pointed out the coast guard truck on the other end of the beach rendezvoused with other trucks and rescue vans, Michael shared a wholly other amazement.

The flashing lights so noticeable on the various emergency vehicles in the distance, and on such a sweltering day, more jarringly burst his bubble of how safe and normal things had been here up until now. Unsure of what type of omen this horrific scene was, he reserved fear but did so noticeably, squinting his sun-beaten eyes at the uniformed analysts and scientists scurrying from vehicle to vehicle out on the side of the road.

"I had better call the university..."