Andromeda Strain: A Journal by Charles Burton

February 16^th 10:30 pm

            WHAT A WASTE OF TIME!!!! ALL I’VE DONE IN THE PAST 9 HOURS HAVE AMOUNTED TO NOTHING! Let me explain. After the monkey experiments, I thought that rats injected with heparin (an anti-clotting drug) would be able to withstand the disease. I was wrong. I injected rats with varying doses of the drug and put them into an infected room. The first rat lasted only about 5 seconds, and most had died after one minute. One rat that had a massive dose lasted about 3 minutes, but then it too died. I was frustrated by the results. I discarded the rats and started to autopsy the first of all the rats that we had infected, back at the room with the capsule. I autopsied the test monkey too. This took me hours, but amounted to nothing. I learned nothing AT ALL. I hope that the others had a more successful day. It’s almost time for our midnight conference.

            Well, there’s at least one good thing. Hall talked to Mr. Jackson, the elderly survivor. It turns out that he was drinking and taking medicine, which made his blood acidic. We think that this might be how he survived, because the disease probably can’t survive in acidic blood. Now that’s news. Even better: Leavitt and Stone found out about the disease. It turns out that the capsule probably collided with the disease in the atmosphere, which is why the satellite veered off course. Also, the disease appears to be green and pulses green and purple when it multiplies. There is more to this than we thought. Unfortunately the team agreed that we needed more sleep in order to make fewer mistakes, which means that I’ll have to give up this journal, at least until this is all over. I plan to write when I have time later. Until then, best wishes.

Andromeda Strain: A Journal by Charles Burton

February 16^th 11:00 am

            Leavitt and Stone are investigating the capsule, and Hall is working with the two survivors. In the mean time, I’m going to autopsy the dead rat, which is annoying because Leavitt is more qualified to do this work. It’s alright though, I enjoy the work. I started with the dead test rat. I put the dead rat in a cage, and put another (live) rat in the same cage. The living rat flopped over, dead. Airborne transmission. Rather interesting. Next I took another live rat and connected its cage with the two dead rats, but this time I inserted a miniscule filter that would allow a small virus through in between the cages. The rat lived. I continued to increase the size of the filter until the living rat died. The size of the filter that let the disease through was 2 microns, the size of a small cell. Very interesting.

            Next I emptied the cages of air until it was a vacuum. Then I replaced the air in the cages with clean, fresh air. After that I put a live rat in the cages where the dead rats were. Nothing happened. Dead animals were not contagious. Now I had to find how the disease killed its victims. How to test this baffled me. And then I thought of something. I could test where the blood started to clot in diseased animals. I did several tests on a monkey and found out the disease clotted the animal from the lungs outward. Things are going quite well.

Andromeda Strain: A Journal by Charles Burton

February 16^th 7:15 am

            It’s a new day, and I’m still tired. We just started our meeting on level IV, and we will be allowed to level V in an hour. As it turns out, the satellite actually veered off course before crashing back down to earth. We listened to government communications and found out that there are two likely possibilities to explain why it veered off course. One is that the satellite crashed into or got intercepted by a Russian satellite. The other (less likely) scenario is that it was hit by an unknown specie or bacteria in the upper atmosphere. Another very unlikely possibility is that it was hit by a meteor. I can’t even try to guess what happened, but we’ll find out soon enough. It’s time to go to level V.

            Once on level V we started work immediately. I taught the others how to use glove boxes, the sealed boxes that are used to manipulate material in another place. We used one of these for the room where the capsule is. We got a test rat and placed it into the room with the capsule. The effects were astonishing. One second the rat was alive, and the next it was on its back, unmoving. It was scary, but I knew what I had to do. “I’ll take it for an autopsy,” I found myself saying, “We need to know how it died.”

Andromeda Strain: A Journal by Charles Burton

February 16^th 1:45 am

            I’m so mad! As it turns out, I’m not allowed to go to bed for another 4 hours, at least! I’m supposed to go all the way down to level IV today, which requires even more sterilization and testing. Now however, I’m going to be going to level II with the other researchers: Jeremy, Mark Hall, and Peter Leavitt. At least I’ll have some company. First, we get rid of our clothes, and we have to swim through a disinfectant pool. Next, we have to get exposed to radiation to kill more harmful bacteria. By now, I’m so tired I can barely hear our instructions. Next we have to go through four showers, but at least they’re hot. Now we have to get a 2 hour long physical, including giving all of our medical history. We are now on level III.

To get to level IV we had to take four more disinfectant baths, and even exposure to ultraviolet light. After that there were ultrasonic vibrations, and an odd “ultraflash” cleansing. I had never heard of this, and neither did any of our research team. We even got our epidermis burned off!? After that there were more physicals, except this time they wanted samples of many different things, including urine, blood, and stool. Then I finally got the chance to get some rest. Except…another surprise. I couldn’t sleep. I was exhausted, but the mystery of this disease taunted me. All those innocent dead: men, women, children. What else could happen?

Andromeda Strain: A Journal by Charles Burton

February 15^th 7:30 pm

            Finally they’ve given me something to eat! Since bringing in the two survivors a lot has happened. First, they flew us directly to the top secret lab in Nevada. We had to read about project Wildfire, but I had trouble concentrating. The mystery of what had happened in Piedmont was just too great. Where did the disease come from? How did the man and baby survive? How contagious was the disease? What would it do to others who came across it? So many questions buzzed around in my mind.

            The man and baby were taken to the last floor of the facility. The file explained the procedure which was to be carried out. I was to be taken to the last floor of the facility, after all testing. I had to go down to level II, where I had to do all these experiments to see if I was really Charles Burton, among other things. I even had to do this weird exercise where you have to move your body according to dots on a screen and even had to sing Mary Had a Little Lamb! I also had to answer questions and take special baths. What a mess! I’m very tired from all of today’s work, and after I eat I’m going straight to bed.

Andromeda Strain: A Journal by Charles Burton

February  15^th 11:00 am

I have been called upon by someone I scarcely remember. Or rather, something. I barely remember having signed up for the Wildfire Project. But here I am.

            Jeremy and I are flying over the Piedmont area now, and I can’t believe an alien specie or organism might be on earth! I’m very excited by the prospects of extraterrestrial life forms, but I’m scared too. 50 people, just dead. Jeremy and I are about to go into the town (with protective suits on, of course) to investigate. I have no idea what we’re going to find.

            Oh my! We are now back in the helicopter, with survivors! We were dropped off in the town, on Main Street. It was scary. There was no sound at all. Just silence. Then we saw the first body. He was just lying there in the street, in his pajamas with a peaceful look on his face. As we made our way to the van, we passed many other dead. Most were clutching their chests. After reaching the van we used the tracking equipment to find the satellite. What a mess. The town doctor had pried the capsule open, and had apparently died right after doing so. The strange thing was that when I checked for blood, there was none. We cut open the doctor’s wrist, but there was still no blood. We went around the town, finding people in their homes. Unlike I’d assumed, many people had committed suicide instead of dying peacefully. And that’s when we heard the baby. We found him crying in his crib. How had he survived? We were still pondering when we saw the man in the white robe limping toward us. He was just a normal old man. But he had survived. We brought both back to the awaiting helicopter. Mysterious indeed.