THE ARK

Day 1074

Normally James Cowan arrived to work at exactly 0700. Cowan was someone who believed in being prompt, and as the director of the team, he held the others to his standards.

Today the clock showed 0700 and James Cowan had already been there for an hour and a half.

Unable to sleep, he had slipped out of bed early. He was careful not to disturb his sleeping wife and headed into work.

James felt like a kid on Christmas morning. The anticipation of the awakening was so intense that he found himself pacing in and out of the rows of capsules. As he paced, he thought of Sullivan.

He would have done almost anything to have had his old friend and mentor here with him for this fantastic day.

As he thought of the excitement of the day, he noticed the dismantled remains of Miller’s capsule. He then felt a wave of anger. He found that he was actually angry with the dead woman. No matter what happened, the fact that Miller died would prevent the experiment from being 100% successful and it was her fault. Miller’s irresponsibility had jeopardized the experiment and years of work. That single fact was what truly caused the anger that Cowan felt.

Within twenty minutes, the rest of the team was in place, including Colonel Matt Fitch. It was the first time anyone on the team could remember seeing Fitch before 0830. Cowan was glad to see that the Colonel had the same eager anticipation as the rest of them.

Since most of the team was civilian working under the Department of Defense, there tended to be a natural “us vs. them” mentality on both sides. Cowan and Fitch had worked hard to reduce the boundaries and had been largely successful. Occasionally, however, it was clear that it was still present. At this moment, all of that was nonexistent. There had been so much work and time committed and now was their big moment.

Cowan slowly walked to the front of the room, after a minute he finally spoke.

“I know most of us expected yesterday to be the big day. But unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Don’t let yourselves get down because of the problems we dealt with yesterday. It’s been made clear that those events are in no way any indication of failure on our part. Our plans and systems worked exactly as they should have. In fact, the largest problem, in my opinion, is related to the primary cooling system failure in capsule ten. That indicates a problem with the part we got from that vendor, and that’s something we’ve little or no control over. It also indicates that the extra work that went into all the equipment redundancy was exactly on target.

We have again reviewed the vital signs and equipment readings for the sleepers and their capsules and there is no indication that any of them are experiencing any problems.

We will start with capsule one, and after she’s awake and everything is looking good we’ll begin working on number two. If things are going well with the first two we’ll pick up the pace and start waking them up two at a time. Are there any questions?” Cowan asked.

After a moment of complete silence, Cowan added, “Colonel Fitch, is there anything you want to add?”

While Cowan was the project leader, he still had to answer to Colonel Fitch. They had long ago learned that keeping each other involved in all aspects of the work made for the best working relationship.

“I know how much work has gone into this project, and the five years of waiting for today has been quite difficult for everyone. Let’s get them awake so we can finally see the results of our work and officially call this project a success,” stated the Colonel with more than a little enthusiasm in his voice.

James Cowan and Captain Amy Travers, along with one of the physicians went over to capsule one.

“Begin wake-up sequence on capsule one,” called out Cowan.

A technician at the beginning of the first row entered the wake-up sequence for capsule one into the computer keyboard.

Immediately the computer stopped the flow of SF016 through the IV line, and a bolus of two different medications was infused instead. At the same time, the flow of gas into the facemask was replaced with pure oxygen.

After about three minutes, the young Army Lieutenant by the row of medical monitors called out, “Pulse rate and respirations are increasing. I’ll begin depressurizing the capsule.”

As the capsule depressurized there was a faint groan from the structure. The depressurization process took three full minutes. During that time Cowan was able to watch as the subject’s breathing increased from about four breaths per minute to almost twelve.

They were just becoming aware of the fact that the capsule was no longer making the noises associated with the change in pressure when the technician exclaimed,

“Depressurization complete, activating door mechanism.”

With that, there was the sound of a mechanical device moving, and the heavy pressurized cover started slowly lifting.

“Door locked and in position, vital signs within normal limits,” called out the technician.

The physician and Travers immediately began working. They removed the internal positive pressure facemask and replaced it with a normal oxygen mask. The urinary catheter was gently removed and the internal IV system was replaced with a standard saline IV bag.

As that was all occurring, Cowan began shutting down the many individual systems and backup systems within capsule one. The life support systems, pumps, and monitors were all powered off. The only thing that was left operational in capsule one was the primary computer, and now he started it dumping all the data that it had gathered over the last five years. This data was rapidly being transferred across fiber optic cable to the complex’s main computer database. By the end of the day, that database would contain every conceivable detail that occurred during the study. Details as small as the amount of SF016 infused, to the exact temperature of any of the over fifty sensors in the capsule and in the electronics compartment had all been recorded. Also, the vital signs and body temperature of the test subject had been measured minute to minute and all this data was transferred to the database. Over the next few months, all this data would be sorted and carefully examined in hopes of learning everything that had occurred.

When the subject was unhooked and the systems were shut down, a sheet was used to cover most of her body and the four of them lifted Tasha Sanjourn out of the capsule and placed her on the waiting stretcher. As they lifted her, they felt her body starting to move slightly and with a slight moan, she slowly opened her eyes.

“Tasha, how are you feeling?” asked the physician.

Her voice was very weak and difficult to hear through the oxygen mask as she said, “Feel like I might barf.”

“That feeling is normal and should pass soon,” explained the physician.

Tasha slowly turned her head and noticed Cowan, “You got a little gray in the last five years, Cowan,” she said weakly and with a slight smile.

At that moment, she saw the dismantled remains of capsule three. The smile vanished and was replaced with a mix of confusion and fear. Her matted down blonde hair half covered her face as she quickly turned her head towards Cowan. The question was in her eyes. Cowan closed his eyes and slowly nodded answering the question. She too closed her eyes and was wheeled to the infirmary.

“So far so good,” Cowan said as soon as Tasha was out of the room. “Let’s start on number two. If that goes as well we’ll start waking two at a time.”

With that, he heard Travers voice call out from behind him, “Begin wake-up sequence on capsule two.”

The team that was gathered around the conference table the day before was back again.

As before, Colonel Fitch was standing at the head of the room, with James Cowan at his side.

“As most of you heard, things have gone as well as can be expected today. I just found out that number twelve has been out of bed and walking a little,” Cowan began.

“There were only two issues today and both of them were minor. There was a capsule door mechanism failure on capsule eight. We were able to rapidly gain access with the manual release. This brings up the concern, that in the future we’ll have to design an internal release on the inside of the capsule,” There were nods of agreement as he continued, “The other incident involved a subject four who did vomit. Fortunately, Captain Travers was quick and sacrificed her new dress uniform in order to help contain the not-so-pleasant five-year-old stomach contents.” There was loud laughter from all in the room and some embarrassment noticeable on Travers’ face as she sat at the table in generic medical scrubs instead of the uniform that everyone was more accustomed to seeing.

“The good news,” he continued, “Is number four was the only one to vomit. That means we’ve come a long way with the SF016 formula. It wasn’t that long ago that they all vomited repeatedly. Also, they’re all up and on their feet. This is by far the fastest recovery we’ve seen, even though the experiment lasted five times longer than ever before. This is related directly to the combination of medications we’re giving at the beginning of the wake-up process. Now Colonel Fitch has an overview of some of the problems we faced,” Cowan concluded.

“Before I start discussing the problems we’ve had, I want all of you to know that I couldn’t be more pleased with today’s success. I do feel, however, that we need to bring up the areas we’ll need to look into while they’re all still fresh in our minds. As we review the entire collection of computer data over the next few months, I’ve no doubt that there will be other issues that are brought to our attention, but right now Mr. Cowan and I have a few areas that will need to be investigated,” explained the Colonel.

Cowan began, “First, the primary cooling units were designed to last a minimum of twenty years under a much heavier load than we placed on them. I understand that it’s possible to have occasional failures, but there are lives depending on them and even a single failure in five years is a major problem. I want that system dissected and the cause of the failure located. After that, we’ll be visiting the manufacturer. The same goes for the door mechanism failure, let’s locate the exact cause and determine if a redesign is needed.”

“We have made massive improvements in the SF016 formula, but further refining is still a goal. In an automated wake-up scenario, such as a long space journey, we don’t want to have anyone puking during a wake-up,” added the Colonel.

Also, we’ve added a mix of medications given intravenously at the start of a wake-up to decrease the side effects of the awakening. We have now proven that they work, and need to get the administration of them automated,” informed Cowan.

“Does anyone have any further observations at this time?” asked Fitch.