Thousand+ Words for Nov. 7, 2025

Caden Pulled his Eye away from the Eyepiece, Picked up the Pencil, and Added a Few....

Caden pulled his eye away from the eyepiece, picked up the pencil, and added a few words to the long annotation on the yellow legal pad. Then his eye went back on the eyepiece and his hand went to a control on the panel in front of him, which he turned slightly left and right. “Are you on with me here?”

“No,” said the woman next to him. She was also looking an identical eyepiece, both of which were connected digitally to a microscope located four stories below the small room.

“Well, get on with me, will you?” Caden said. “You should see this.”

“Hold on a minute,” Jennifer answered.

“What index are you on?”

“Seven seventy.”

Caden pulled away again and rubbed his eyes. “Okay. I’ve screenshot it anyway, you can look later. Let’s go to the next frame.”

Jennifer pulled away from her eyepiece and stood up. “Sheesh, look at the time,” she said, stretching. “Let’s go get some lunch.”

At her mention of the time, Caden reflexively looked at the clock. “Oh, man, it’s already 11 o’clock? We’ve burned the whole morning on this nonsense.”

Jennifer was already stepping toward the door. “Yeah, well, it’s only nonsense if you don’t find anything.” She pulled the door open and then turned, holding it. “Come on. We’ll eat, then we’ll go look at the specimen.”

Caden stepped through the open door. “I don’t need to look at it. Besides, he won’t let us see it.”

“He’ll let me see it, and you’re with me, so he’ll let you see it too.” The two of them stepped off down the corridor and toward the stairs, which led down to the lunchroom on the second floor and then to specimen containment in the first-level basement. The stairs did not give out onto the first floor; the first floor was the entry and exit for the building, and accessible only through a special security elevator from the first-level basement, or from the fifth floor. They were halfway to the second floor when the red light mounted to the wall on the stairs illuminated and started rotating, throwing shafts of red light around the stairwell.

Caden got as far as What the—?? in his thoughts before the klaxon sounded.

Jennifer clapped her hands over her ears and strode up to the annunciator panel mounted across from the light and pressed it with her elbow. “This is Simpson, six eight four eight. What’s going on?”

The annunciator crackled and a human voice came out of it, but whatever it was saying was lost in the klaxon’s wail. Jennifer put her mouth closer to the speaker and fairly screamed, her hands still over her ears. “This is Simpson, six eight four eight. Turn that damn noise off!”

The klaxon silenced and as its last remnants bounced around the stairwell, Jennifer dropped her hands. “Simpson, six eight four eight. What’s happening?”

“The tank is leaking,” a voice said. The voice was young, male—and frightened. “The damn tank has leaked all over the floor down here.” There was pause, and Jennifer heard a sound in the background, faint but unmistakable. It was the sound of human being vomiting. “Oh, Christ,” the voice said. “There are some kind of worms in the fluid, and—” The words stopped and were replaced by gagging and the sound of retching again, much louder and more distinct.”

Jennifer punched the annunciator again. “Initiate Protocol Yellow! You hear me, Simon? Protocol Yellow. Do it now!” She turned to Caden, who stood stock still, only now realizing the implications of what was happening downstairs. “Come on,” Jennifer said, pushing past him and starting back up the stairs. “We’ve got to get contaminate suits on. They’re in the locker up on three. Come on!”

Caden finally came to his senses and started after her. The two of them climbed the stairs two at a time until they were back on Level Three, then they proceeded down the corrider they’d just come from, past the door to the microscope lab and on to a locker at the end of the corridor. Jennifer got there first, flipped the door open, and grabbed two flat plastic packs off a shelf. She thrust them at Caden—they hit him in the chest and fell to the floor, but he stooped as scooped them up. By the time he had the plastic wrap off the suit bottoms, Jennifer was already peeling off her clothes.

Caden kicked off his shoes and lifted a foot to put it into the suit bottoms when Jennifer, still disrobing, noticed. “No, take your clothes off first,” she said. “Hurry!” As Caden watched, Jennifer already had her socks, shoes, and pants off, and as Caden watched, dumbfounded, she whisked off her underwear, dropped them, and stepped into her own suit bottoms. “Come on, Caden, it’s not a joke! If you don’t get that thing on—” She noticed behind him that a light yellow fog of some sort was rising from the stairwell at the other end of the corridor. She estimated the remaining time before the contamination diffused to their end of the hallway and lowered her voice. “Get your clothes off, get into the suit, and get your mask on. One step at a time. Clothes off, suit on, mask on. You understand?” In the few seconds it took her to say these words, she wrestled out of her top, pinched her bra off, and slipped on her suit top.

As one hand smoothed the velcrow closure, the other reached back into the locker and retrieved a mask, which she put on, activated the breathing mechanism, and then pulled the head covering down.

Caden had his suit bottoms on and was struggling to get his button-up shirt off. Jennifer grabbed a second mask out of the locker and thrust it into his hands. “Here! I’ve got the shirt.” She quickly unfastened the buttons that Caden had been fumbling with and then it was off. In the next moment, his undershirt was off, and then Jennifer helped him get his arms through the suit top and get it fastened.

Jennifer could see that the yellow fog behind Caden was halfway down the corridor now, but she relaxed a bit, realizing that as long as Caden continued to cooperate—and nothing else went wrong—the two of them would be sealed and breathing by the time the fog enveloped the entire level. She smoothed down Caden’s velcrow as he slipped the mask on and got it going. “Thanks,” Caden said through his mask.

She turned him around to see the yellow fog, now only meters away. “So—what the hell is that, do you suppose?”

“Oh, crap,” Caden responded.
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