Chapter Two

The travelers return from their trip out to sea and return to meet Dr. Reid at the station.

At last, Brea laid eyes on the living quarters: a small, pale blue shack that had exactly enough room for three cots, a shower, and a toilet.  It didn’t take long for Brea to grow attached to the luxurious accommodations, like running water, when she first arrived at the site.  She now found herself fast walking to her bunk, excited to finally get some quality rest.

“Another great trip?” Professor Reid asked as they entered, eagerly sitting up from his cot to greet the young adults.

Zeke rushed to help the sick professor up, “Yes, Dr. Reid,” he answered, almost too enthusiastically, which only made Brea dislike him even more.

“We collected plenty of samples this round.  I’ll just go put them in the lab for tomorrow,” Brea spoke, basically to herself, as Zeke was already talking off the professor’s ear about their next trip out to sea.

Brea walked out of the building and was welcomed outdoors by the cold, familiar air she had grown to love.  It was here on land where she belonged, analyzing samples and collecting data, far from the seasickness she adamantly resented.  But she had to be here, she kept telling herself; Brea honestly believed they were close to finding it"morbum curare bacteria, or the recently discovered fossilized bacteria that once thrived in cold, salty, deep sea environments hundreds of thousands of years ago.    Although fossils had been found months ago containing remnants of the biota, it was anyone’s guess as to if the bacteria was still present today.  Dr. Reid believed that despite dropping pH levels in the ocean, the bacteria might still be alive.  So he gathered up his master’s candidates, Brea and Zeke, left the Rocky Mountains of Colorado behind him, and went on to what Brea gathered was the most exciting part of his career thus far.

Brea swung open the door to the lab, and put down the box of samples.  Just as she began scooping sediment from the first canister into a petri dish, Zeke burst into the lab and immediately began yammering.

“Listen, Flea, you and I both know there’s probably nothing in those canisters, so just do a few quick tests and we can get out of here.”

Flea, or the not-so-clever nickname that Zeke had bestowed upon her was a result of their first open ocean expedition.  After the plane flight to Antarctica, it was clear that there would be tension and unavoidable conflict between the two students. Zeke, politely put, was “incredibly blunt with little regard for human decency,” which Brea scribbled in a journal she was keeping.  He was rude to everyone, and he saw her as an obstacle in his path to becoming a world renown geologist.  He believed that if this trip, by some miracle, became a success and Dr. Reid was able to find some evidence of the bacteria, that his name would be attached to the success.  There was no better way to kickstart his career besides fame and glory.  If it didn’t work out, he could at least put Dr. Reid down as a reference.  So why would he want to share the fame and glory with anyone else?  Name calling, toiletry stealing, and other annoyances were becoming an everyday occurrence for Brea in his attempt to get her to leave the site.  Much to his dismay, though, Flea wasn’t cracking as easily as he had hoped.

“Yeah, okay, whatever you say,” Brea answered dismissively.  “You really can’t discredit this sample"who knows what we might find.  If you start getting cavalier, we might miss something and really screw up this entire trip.”

“Look,” he answered, “after thirteen trips, the odds that we find something actually cool are pretty slim.  It’s already been five months, and we haven’t found anything.  And, if we don’t find something soon, it’s only a matter of time before we run out of funding.”

Deep down, Brea already knew this, hence her thoroughness in the examination of every sample.  But it had taken so much for her to actually get to Antarctica, that giving up and going home empty handed no longer seemed like an option.

A couple hours and coffee’s later, Brea was finishing up entering some data into one of the professor’s mass spreadsheets.  In the background, she had left several petri dishes containing some indicator and sample to sit while she worked.

“Get up, did you even do any work last night?”

Brea jerked her head up, and began grabbing for her watch.

“What time is it?” she groggily asked before suddenly remembering the progress she’d made last night.

“I swear, if you don’t get the results to Chris right now, I’m going to have to do it myself.”

“Not like you actually do anything relevant around here anyway,” she mumbled, may too loudly as Zeke gave her an annoyed look.

Walking over to the petri dish station, Brea looked down in disbelief"there, in one of the dishes, she saw something growing.  A culture?  No, it couldn’t be.

“Get over here, oh my God, wait, no, get Dr. Reid,” she stammered.  “I think we may actually have something.”

“What did you kids find so early in the morning?” Dr. Reid asked, fumbling to get his heavy parka undone as he entered the lab.

“If I’m right, I think we may have found a tiny bit of morbum curare.  What do you think, Professor?”

Immediately there was a shift in the man’s eyes.  He walked over, pulled out his thick glasses, and leaned in.

“My, you’ve certainly collected something of value.  We’re going to have to ship some back to the States for further testing, but this is quite exciting.”

Brea beamed, imagining the implications of capturing some of the bacteria.  Just think of it, Brea Cunningham: Cures Cancer.  Well, maybe not exactly like that.  Scientists were still in the researching phase of the bacteria.  It was believed, though, that an injection of the bacteria into a cancerous tumor would not only halt the growth of the tumor, but also result in its retreat and eventual disappearance.

“So Professor, what are next steps for us?” Brea eagerly asked.

“Well, we’ll need to head out to the site where you collected this sample.  This time I’ll come with you, though"I can’t miss this, it’s too exciting,” he spoke, excitement wrapped up in his words.  “We’ll need to take a submarine collection vehicle as well, to explore the habitat of the bacteria, and collect a better, less contaminated sample.  We’ll leave in two days, when I’m hopefully feeling a little better.”

Zeke and Brea shared an excited look for a brief moment, before running off in separate directions to get ready for their departure.

Two days later, Dr. Christopher Reid was bundled up with multiple parkas, resulting in a man nearly as wide as he was tall.  He stood at the front of the Explorer III which chewed up waves as it moved further from the port.  Both students were tucked blow deck, settling into their all-too-familiar living accommodations, which now contained a third cot.  

A chill came over Brea"she knew they were close.