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Daiyu nodded, feeling far more shaken up than before she had come down here.
But Heng was not done. “There’s one last detail you should be aware of.” He returned to the computer and moused through various menus and windows. “Again, I don’t know the significance of what I found yesterday, but it’s unusual enough that you should be alerted.”
“What does it concern?”
“I told you before that the calcium crystals were being distributed throughout the cell membranes of the afflicted. That’s not exactly true.”
“What do you mean?”
He brought up a video clip onto the monitor. It showed him and another researcher in the neighboring morgue room, decked in biohazard suits. Someone else manned a camera and zoomed in as Heng took a vibrating bone saw to one of the corpse’s calcified heads. He carved through the top and lifted it away. The camera shifted to reveal what was exposed.
Daiyu gasped at the gruesome sight.
The convolutions of a gray brain glistened under the light.
Heng explained. “While the rest of the body’s cells—in every organ and tissue—underwent the biomineralization process, the central nervous system remained unaffected. The brain and spine seem largely untouched.”
Swallowing down her horror, Daiyu fought to keep her voice steady. “Why do you think they were spared?”
Heng didn’t bother answering. He gave a shake of his head. “What is most strange is that we tested the brain shown on the video. When we did, we picked up a faint EEG, as if there was some ongoing electrical energy.”
She looked at him, aghast. “Are you saying the tissue is still alive?”
“No... certainly not,” he insisted, though he sounded disturbingly hesitant. “I imagine it’s just some residual heat energy from the violent process that’s randomly stimulating nerves and synapses. But it’s baffling, nonetheless. I intend to dissect out the brain and spine later today. Maybe then I’ll—”
A sharp alarm rose from the neighboring room, loud enough to make Daiyu flinch.
Beyond the window, the nurse waved for help as the petty officer’s body seized on the bed—or at least the part of him that was not frozen in stone.
Heng looked at Daiyu, his eyes pleading for her to let the patient go.
She glanced to the macabre video paused on the monitor, then back to the physician. “Keep him alive.”
Heng scowled but did not challenge her. “Duì.”
She turned and strode out of the lab. Half in a daze, she headed back to the elevator and took it to the second floor of the warehouse. She crossed in stiff steps toward her office.
Before she could reach it, her secretary rose from her desk and bowed before her. “Haijun shang xiao Tse,” she greeted her. “I had a call from Beijing a short time ago. They are sending someone over this afternoon to consult with you on... on the project below.”
“Who?”
The secretary looked down at the scrap of paper clutched in both hands. “Dr. Choi Aigua.”
Daiyu frowned, not recognizing the name. “Who sent him?”
“The deputy head of theZhongguó Guójia Hángtian Jú,” she answered, naming the China National Space Administration. “Dr. Choi is an astrophysicist with the Academy of Space Technology.”
Daiyu scrunched her brow in confusion.
Why are they sending an astrophysicist?
Still, a trickle of trepidation iced through her. She remembered Heng’s earlier description of the biomineralization process, calling it aterraformingof the petty officer’s body. She also could not shake the last image from Heng’s video—of a glistening brain in a hard shell.
One that still shivered with energy.
She again pictured the damaged submarine sinking into the dark depths.
What is truly happening out there?
