Story Idea 9

Annie's mother is dying, but being 15th on the transplant list means she wont make it.

Something needs to be done to shorten the list....

The story should be no more than 4000 words.

 

Deadline: 29th September 2013

AM

Frank

Frank was an idiot. A brand spanking new Triumph Bonneville motorcycle straight off the boat from England, and he'd already rebored the carburetter and changed out the sprocket when I saw him.

'It's gonna end in tears Franky boy,' I said. All for a lousy twenty extra miles per hour. He was a speed demon. A real seat of the pants guy, made of the right stuff. That's why when he came back from the Jupiter 59 Mission, I knew it was big. A serious, serious businesss. And Frank was never gonna be the same.

****

We arrived at Edwards airforce base in March of nineteen fifty seven and there we all met for the first time. Me, Gordon, Scottie Carpenter, Neil, Bob and Frank. We were all test pilots, and came from the services as engineers. Frank and I worked together with the NASA guys on the development of the landing systems for Jupiter and after some frustrating problems we finally managed to crack it in the summer of the following year.

It's scary to think what we were working with then, the kind of hardware we relied on. Hell, there's more technology in my cellphone than what we used to put Neil on the moon, and Jupiter was ten years earlier.

Over the months, we all the became a pretty tight team though Bob left in the autumn and we never really knew why. He said he'd been seconded for some secret military mission, hush hush kinda thing. Gordy said it was Cuba but anyway he was replaced by Ed Irving.

We knew it would be one of us. I knew it would be Frank, and sure enough Christmas came early for him that year when in November Mr Glennan called to tell Frank he was going be the first man into space.

I couldn't say I wasn't a little disappointed. I suppose we all were really but Frank was the right choice and we all knew it.

There was a certain relief that came with the news of Frank's appointment and only when I knew the call had finally come did I realise I'd been waiting for it myself.

Gloria knew, she said for the past eighteen months when I was home, I wouldn't stray more than a few feet from the kitchen, from the telephone. It must have been a big deal for her too. She lived every day with the same danger as me and whilst I didn't say it, I knew that hurtling fifty miles above the Mojave desert in an X-15 at three and a half thousand miles an hour was different from right up there, in the dark, the unknown. She wouldn't see me at the end of a days work or get the Hi honey, I'm safe and well call I made after the routine test flights that's for sure. It would be a black car and two sombre men in regalia at the door reminding her of the amazing sacrifice I had made for my country.

Still it was down to Frank now, for him and his loved ones and for that at least, as funny as it sounds, I was glad it wasn't me.

The night of the call was a big celebration. We already had a reputation as hell raisers which in part was true it was fair to say, but we worked hard and needed to let off a little steam now and then.

Our little band had become celebrities. Joe public had a massive appetite for the 'Space Race,' and we received a lot of attention, not all good but it culminated in a sweet deal that saw access to us and our stories sold for a quarter of million dollars to Life magazine. Split between us it sure made the long days shorter and well, it was something nice for the girls. We spent money on the house and for Gloria, a whole new wardrobe. She said she felt like a movie star. It made her happy and I was glad.

Frank bought a motorcycle.

After the excitement about Frank died down it was back to the grind and even more intense training. This time against a deadline set by NASA. Two of us, me and Scottie, trained side by side with Frank.

At the end of April, Frank began to get really nervous. He confided in me quite a bit and I guess I could say I knew the real Frank, the man behind the bravado, the sleek hair and dangerous twinkle in his eye. Frank wasn't tall but he was magnetic, so the moment he walked into a room, everyone turned to hear what he might say. One night, over a couple of beers in the base bar Frank told me he was scared. I told him there wasn't a man on the planet, or any other planet for that matter, that wouldn't be frightened. We didn't talk percentages but the chances of him not coming back, or of not even making it out of the atmosphere alive were finely balanced. We weren't kidding ourselves, but what a thing to be the first. The first human into space, and beating the ruskies and all.

It was that conversation that I kept going back to after he came back. We'd spent a good couple of hours discussing every stage of the launch, boost and rentry with the aim of finding something that had been missed, a little detail that could be ironed out and would give Frank just a couple more ounzes of confidence. 'You're gonna be a hero Frankie,' I said. 'Come June, every man, woman and child's gonna be waving a flag for you.' He'd smiled I remember, and nodded his head just a little as he rolled the thought around.

If it was going to happen, it would be mechanical failure that got him, so once the tests and checks had been done and redone it would be in the lap of the gods. I was angry when he came back. They told us about the research into the human immune system in microgavity conditions and how Frank would have been highly susceptible to bacteria either in his environment or dormant inside his body. Whilst the training was designed to prepare us for the conditions we would encounter, as best they could be understood from earth, no one could know what really would happen to our bodies.

Some said we weren't meant to travel into space and that we inhabitat this planet for a reason. There were quite a few dissenters, those who weren't waving a flag on launch day, and when Frank came back I wanted them to know the truth but all they got was validation when it was announced that Frank had been rushed to the Holy Cross Centre for Disease Control.

They let me visit a couple of times and we spoke on the telephone through a plate glass wall. Two government agents were posted outside the door to his room and I guessed this was to keep any press at bay. Frank was big news.

He was hooked up to a dozen or so monitors and when he spoke, he was different, slow, as if something wasn't working right in his brain. They had told me strictly not to ask him any questions about the flight but I was burning to know. He said he hadn't seen anyone else really but that men in suits came daily and asked him a lot of questions. They didn't know what was wrong with him. When I asked the doctors, they answered curtly as if making Frank better wasn't a priority.

When I learned the truth, things like that made sense. I was approached by NASA shortly after Frank came back. They wanted me to head the next mission and launch date was set for less than six months. When I was called to the White House for the mission briefing, I knew something was happening. Frank wasn't ill and what they told me changed everything.

In a universe so unexplained, unknown and unexplored, man will always be overwhelmed by curiosity and his desire for knowledge will know no bounds. What we didn't know back then as we raced so hard to put man into space, was that we were already up there. The human species inhabited space and they'd been waiting for Frank for two thousand years.

I came to Mars in nineteen sixty four on board a transporter ship built by the first humans. I've been here with them now for forty eight years. It's taken that long for us, well the second humans, to get up to speed with the technology that had been developed since the first humans left the planet in a.d. thirty two but now the whole species live as one despite the obvious differences.

When they released Frank from Holy Cross he found a very large sum of money in his bank account. We laughed but knew they could have taken more permanent action to stop him talking rather that pumping him full of tranquilizers. He never did tell anyone and things came to light in the natural order of things, mainly when there was money to be made in leaving earth once again.

Frank died three years after Project Jupiter in the Mojave desert. A blowout on his motorcycle at one hundred and thirty eight miles an hour. They gave him a hero's send off, tickertape in Times Square kinda deal. The journey he took will remain in history for many reasons.

He may not have been the first man into space but he was my friend and I miss him.

***

By Darren Seeley

Directive 2.51

18th June 1959 – Doctor Daniel Goldstein, Medical Director at Holy Cross, knew the rule, everyone did; one did not graduate from medical college without learning about the rule. In the nineteen years of his career he had yet to break the rule.

Do not get emotionally attached to patients. The sad fact was, sometimes they died.

The rule made a lot of sense and Daniel had always thought health professionals were foolish to ever choose to get emotionally attached to their patients. That was until he was grinning at his patient as he breathed the stale tasting air that circulated through his hazmat suit and realised choice didn’t come into it. Against his will he was well and truly emotionally attached. Like the rest of America he was fascinated by this man, this hero that had gone where no other man had. From the first moment he’d met him, almost a year previous, he’d been in awe of him. Now he was desperate to help him.

“Morning Frank, how are you feeling?” Daniel asked as he skim read the chart from the end of the hospital bed. Daniel had known Frank as a handsome man with an easy charm, the charm was still there but his face and neck were obscured by inflamed patches of skin with sporadic blisters and flakes that made him hard to look at.

“Itchy.” Frank answered with a rueful grin.

Daniel managed not to grimace as a dry patch of skin on his friends face split and thick plasma leaked out. Instead he swept his eyes to the small TV set and watched Lucy yelling comically at Ricky. The TV was the only piece of non-medical equipment in the room and he’d bought it from his home to entertain his chronically bored friend. Every other surface was clear as Get Well Soon cards and flowers were not permitted within the room, instead these offerings to the astronaut lined the perimeter that had been set up at the hospital entrance and there were thousands of them.

“You’re due another application of cream in twenty minutes, I’m sure that will help.” When he looked away from the TV he saw that Frank was staring at him.

“Do you really have to wear that thing around me? You don’t honestly think I’ve been infected by some space germs do you?”

“Yes I do and no I don’t. You appear to just have a severe case of eczema. What I can’t explain is why the treatment is not clearing it up.”

“I’m telling you Doc, it was the same when I was a kid. My Mum slathered me with cream for months; nothing. Then my Dad took us on a holiday to the coast and after a few days of playing in the surf my skin cleared up.”

Daniel could see that the salt water could have an exfoliating affect so he scribbled instructions for the assistant that had been security cleared to assist him with the astronauts care. “I’ll have a salt bath arranged for you.”

Frank grinned and more clear liquid oozed down his face. “Not quite the same as a surf beach is it Doc?”

“That salt bath is about as close as you are going to get right now.”

“You could sneak me out under cover of darkness.” Frank teased.

Daniel fixed him with an un-amused look.

“Alright, alright. But any chance of getting these off?” Frank raised his taped up hands. “I feel like a kid that can’t be trusted not to scratch his measles.”

Daniel caught one of his raised hands and worked the blood pressure belt up his arm. “Kids can’t be trusted not to scratch their measles and neither, my friend, can you.”  

Frank rolled his eyes as Daniel inflated the cuff and then released it as he listened to his stethoscope.

“Are you still experiencing hunger?”  

“Yes, I’m starving. This hospital’s food doesn’t cut the mustard.”

“Never had any complaints before.” Daniel consulted the chart again. “You ate two hours ago, how could you still be hungry?”

“Doc, you were the one that put me on that training regime that had me eating six times a day, guess my body is just used to that routine.”

“Okay.” Daniel clipped the chart back on the end of the bed. “I’ll see if I can’t scare you up a protein shake.”

“Steak would be better.”

Daniel laughed. “In your dreams.”

Behind him Frank groaned dramatically. “Doc, you’re killing me!”

19th June 1959 – Daniel was studying the latest skin scrapings from Frank under a microscope when two men in business suits burst into the lab without knocking. The first man, Jeremy Faulkner, he knew as the Director of NASA, a man he had worked with for years. The second he knew only from the T.V, he was President Eisenhower’s VP, Richard Nixon.

“Gentlemen?” Daniel queried with a frown.

“Dan, we have a problem.” Jeremy said as he closed the door and pulled at the tight knot of his tie. He was clearly unnerved by the man at his side.

“”A problem?” Richard interrupted. “Men, this is more than a problem, this is a catastrophe!” He shook his head as he spoke and Daniel was fascinated by the drooping jowls of his face that struggled to keep up with the action.

“Doctor you are out of time.” The VP asserted.

“I beg your pardon?” Daniel frowned and looked at Jeremy for clarification.

“It’s the public Dan, they want to know what’s happened to Frank – they are demanding to know.” 

“And what do you think the public’s reaction is going to be when they see him? His skin is bright red and spontaneously splits? Do you think that is going to allay the nation’s fears of alien interaction? The look of eczema would be alarming to anyone who’d not seen the condition before but a case as severe as Frank’s? Even I’m finding it hard to look at him.” Daniel challenged.

“I agree with you completely.” Richard said with a nod as Jeremy tugged harder at his tie as though he couldn’t get enough air. He also was looking everywhere in the room except for at Daniel.

“What am I missing here?”

Jeremy started speaking in a rush but Nixon cut him off with a wave of his hand. His dark eyes fixed onto Daniels and for almost a minute the only sounds that could be heard in the room were their breathing and the steady humming of the refrigerator filled with blood samples.  

“Doctor, I don’t need to tell you how important this race to space is do I? This whole nation wants, no damn it, they need us to win this race and the Republican’s will be the government to deliver that dream for them. Next year is an election year and this recession is already killing us – we need the public behind us on this or I’ll lose out to the Democrats. I need to produce a healthy Frank Bowman to the public to restore their faith in us and our commitment to this race.”

Daniel found himself losing patience with the man. “With all due respect Vice President Nixon, I am doing my best with Frank but he is not ready to meet the public. I’m sorry if that is hurting your campaign for presidency.”

Nixon narrowed his eyes at him but it was Jeremy that spoke. “Dan, we have a solution.” Still Jeremy couldn’t quite meet his eyes. “And it’s to employ Directive 2.51.”

Daniel gave a sigh of impatience. “Sorry Jeremy but I’m not fluent in NASA’s directives. Just tell me straight.”

Jeremy blew air between his teeth and then gave one final tug on his tie. “We are going to use Franks body double to appease the public.”

“His what?”

Nixon breathed out impatiently through his nose while Jeremy raised his hands in a placating manner towards Daniel. “With the importance of this mission being so great it was decided that should anything happen to Frank his double would step in to face the public.”

Daniel was aghast. “What?”

“Did you think Frank was chosen for his skill alone?” Jeremy laughed humourlessly. “We matched the facial features of the astronaut potentials to members of the Secret Service – Frank and his double were the closest. With Frank having no family and next to no close relationships, he was the perfect choice.”

Daniel leaned heavily back on the lab bench he’d been working on. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “So Frank Bowman risked his life for this country and now some other guy gets to face the public and get all the glory while we wait for Frank to recover?”

Nixon fixed him with that look again. “Doctor, I don’t think you understand. Frank is now a risk to National Security. The meteor dust found on the hull of the spaceship would suggest he has been exposed to some contaminant and we cannot risk that contaminate infecting others.”

“Contaminant? He has eczema for God’s sake!”  

“Doctor, your country thanks you for your efforts but we’ll take it from here.” Richard nodded curtly and left the room. Jeremy went to follow but Daniel grabbed him by the arm.

“What is he going to do to Frank?”

“You know what has to happen Dan. He could be contagious.”

Daniel wasn’t a violent man but he squeezed Jeremy’s arm harder. “If that were true, you would be able to look me in the eyes. Why is this the first I’m hearing about this meteor dust? I’ve done numerous studies on Frank and have been telling you the Hazmat suits were unnecessary. Are you really going to let them kill Frank just so that asshole can get elected next year?”

“Dan I have no control over this, we both have to go along with it. You’ve signed documents that agree with all directives put in place by NASA and the US government, if you make a fuss they’ll be forced to deal with you.” Jeremy yanked his arm free and strode to the door. “Start destroying the files on Frank.”  

Daniel spun and smashed his fist against the lab table. The microscope toppled to the side and Frank’s perfectly normal skin sample fell to the floor.

20th June 1959 – Frank woke as Daniel was tearing off the tapings around his hands.

“What’s going on Doc?” He asked groggily as he raised his head off the bed. “Where’s your hazmat suit?”

“We’re going to the coast like you wanted.” Daniel tore away the last of the taping and pulled the bed sheet free. “Come on.”

“Doc, what’s going on?” Frank asked as he followed Daniel to the door, when Daniel turned he noticed new splits on Franks face.

“They’re going to kill you; they think something is wrong with you.”

Frank blinked in surprise and shook his head. “Is there something wrong with me?”

Daniel gave a fleeting smile. “Do you think I would be busting you out of here if there was?”

“Good point.”

“Follow me and stay quiet.”

Daniel led them along a darkened corridor. The entire ward had been sealed off for Frank and the silence that surrounded them made their footsteps seem inordinately loud. Once they reached the end of the corridor Daniel paused. Beyond the door was a short walk to the entrance of the private car park but they would have to pass the dispensary and the dispensary was very rarely unattended, even at 3am.

“Frank, I want you to walk beside me, act like everything’s normal. If anyone tries to stop us you let me do the talking – just stay quiet.”

“Roger that.”

They entered the main part of the hospital and walked briskly towards the car park door. As they approached the dispensary a nurse Daniel vaguely recognised left the office carrying a tray. She gasped when she saw Frank but the look of revulsion on her face suggested the reaction had nothing to do with her recognition of the astronaut. As she gasped Frank’s stomach gave off an ungodly growl that made the nurse’s step falter. Frank slowed in reaction and Daniel had to grasp his arm and speed him along. Frank grunted lightly and under Daniel’s hand he felt liquid seep into the sleeve of the hospital gown where he must have torn the skin.

“What the hell was that noise?” Daniel whispered as they put distance between themselves and the nurse.

“I’m hungry.”

They made the door to the car park un-accosted but as they passed through it Daniel noticed the nurse was still standing in the corridor staring at them. He hurried them through and shut the door.

“Almost there. There’s a private exit that leads around the back and down past the river for a couple of miles and then out onto the highway. We can sneak out and no one will know we are gone until it’s too late.”

Again Frank’s stomach growled, even louder than before.  

Daniel thought he may have a chocolate bar in the glove box so he rushed forward to unlock the car but as he pulled the door open two moist hands fastened to the sides of his head. Before he could react his neck was jerked to the side savagely and his limp body fell to the ground.

Frank looked down at the lifeless body at his feet and knew he should be feeling something. He’d been friends with Daniel and now, not only was he dead, but he had died by his hands. Still he felt nothing except for the new strength that flowed through his limbs and the hunger.

The hunger wasn’t new, it had been with him since he’d first woken at the hospital and it was unrelenting. Nothing seemed to appease it, the more he ate, the more his body demanded. Another growl sounded from his stomach and with it a came a savage stomach cramp.

Frank knelt on the ground beside his friend’s body and pulled the man’s forearm to his mouth. The muscle was tough and very hard to bite through but the reward was worth the effort.

By Dayv Metcalfe

Frank's Tank

The World was ravenously ready to watch the drama. To hear the astronaut's first words after he was collected from a seething ocean. To watch open mouthed as Frank Bowman told them what it was like to look back at them, all together. Instead, as the recovery craft got close to the bobbing capsule, and Frank Bowman emerged, he tried to shout something as he waved his arms madly. The cameras stopped rolling. Pre prepared newspaper headlines, suppose to be full of quotes, data and feelings, were instead full of what? Where, and whys? Newly formed NASA (with a hovering military) said there had been a health problem, and that Frank had been rushed to hospital. One paper reported that he had gone to The Holy Cross, disease control, but quickly corrected the story, and suggested he had a collapsed lung.

A week passed. No Frank Bowman. Where was the hero, the people needed him, he had been built up so much, they positively desired him. People were getting twitchy. Eager for their man and the new stories he could tell. What exactly was wrong? He remained secluded in what had become known as 'Frank's Tank', rumours abounded, some humorous: -

"He has gone on holiday!"    

"He has defected to the Reds!"

Some thought provoking:-

"He met God."

"He has seen us all at once and hates us."

Some ideas about his absenteeism were cleverly creative, and one in particular made Frank spit his pea and ham soup out.

"He hasn't been in space at all, he has been in a submarine and when he appeared in that capsule, he felt guilty and tried to tell us."

By Andy Parker