Mimicry

Chapter 7 - Eclosion

As Faith stepped into the common room, her heart pounded in her chest like a drum. She scanned the room, seeing her colleagues in their usual spots - John strumming on the guitar, Kate and Ceriann playing darts, Josh and Essie engrossed in a game of pool, and Jake playing a thrilling game of Jenga by himself.

She took a deep breath and said, "Guys, we need to talk. Something just happened."

Everyone paused. All eyes turned towards her, visions almost daggerlike without the sharpness that accompanied their danger. The base had had its fair share of terse moments over the past few days, and it seemed it would only continue. Everyone held their breath, awaiting Faith's report.

"There's been an incident in my lab," she began, not sugarcoating the situation. She could see the immediate concern reflected in her teammates' eyes.

"What kind of incident?" Ceriann asked, her voice sharp with worry.

Faith swallowed, "The substance... It's active. When I went to go examine it, I wanted to see what kind of cells it was made of. It looked like either some substance the alien made from my initial check, so I thought I'd have a closer look at the cells. It seems that it was lying dormant this whole time. When it came into contact with my Gram stain solution, it... reacted."

"Reacted how?" Jake asked, his eyebrows knitted together.

"I think..." Faith hesitated, then pushed forward. "I think it tried to integrate itself with the solution, almost like it was trying to absorb it. The cells just sort of writhed around, with no rhyme or reason, almost like they were acting on their own. I don't know what caused it, probably some chemical in the solution. I have no idea what. Then it... sort of exploded."

"Exploded?" Josh repeated.

Faith's eyes widened in a fit of worry. She was acutely aware that this was the last thing anyone wanted to hear. "It sort of... burst. It kept shaking and whatever until it seemed to just burst. It got all over the worktable and my microscopes and..."

A silence fell over the room, broken only by the soft hum of the base's generators. Everyone was lost in their thoughts, processing the information.

Finally, John spoke. "Have you been exposed, Faith?" There was an edge of worry to his voice.

She shook her head, easing the tension slightly, "I don't think so. I got some on my lab coat, but the material is thick enough that I don't think it could eat through it, or whatever it does. Not like the latex in the cave, but..." she paused. The material had technically touched her on the ship. It was dormant then, so it was probably nothing. Surely? "...but I didn't take any risks, regardless. I've put the lab coat in my wash basket. Any other precautions I'm very happy to take. Wiping down the stuff with the cleaner seemed to work, but I burned the tissue with it just in case. I wrote more stuff in my notepad if anyone wants to read it later. But yeah..." she trailed off her mini speech.

"Faith," Essie interjected. "What was that about the ship?"

Saving Faith from any further panic of having to explain, John took over, "Uh... when Faith encountered the substance on the wall and removed some of the stuff from her scalpel, it sort of burned her. Or rather, it burned through her glove. Even in its dormant state, it seems to hate latex. But..." John interrupted himself. "It looked fine, at most there was just a reddening of the skin. While the latex was burnt, it seemed to do nothing to her, per se."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Josh chided. "This could be important to know, given what just happened."

"It seemed fine at the time," John desperately tried to reassure everyone, "anyway, we had no idea it would react like that. As far as we were concerned, there wasn't much to worry about at all."