DAWN TO DUSK

           In those final few gray minutes just before the sun rises over the frigid North Atlantic, Kathleen Wysocki steadies herself on the rock jetty. She aims her camera at three fishing boats with nets hanging high on booms as they veer towards the harbor. Behind them, a thin orange line separates the awakening eastern sky from the vast indigo ocean. But, something isn’t right. They’re coming in too fast.
           As she clicks off several shots of the trio speeding in loose formation, the blinking blue and red lights of an ambulance across the channel burn through the lingering haze that shrouds the Down East shoreline. Kathleen’s instinct as a news producer kicks in and she trains her lens on the EMTs wheeling a gurney down the ramp towards the dock.
           After lashing lines from the lead boat to the bollards, several crew members hoist one of their mates and carry him to the gurney where he’s wrapped in a Mylar blanket. An emergency worker fastens a nasal cannula over the prone seaman’s face before placing him in the ambulance.

            The blast of a klaxon startles Kathleen. She spins to see the second boat’s crew run up the ramp and pound the side of the departing emergency vehicle. It skids to a stop. Two fishermen transfer another to the ambulance that speeds off with only lights flashing. No siren. Kathleen rushes back to her car.
            Knowing East Shore Medical Center is the only nearby hospital, Kathleen races up Lower Creek Lane towards Blackburn’s Corner. The adrenaline rush has her wondering if she should have stuck with photojournalism in college. But then, there wouldn’t be that Tribeca loft or the dream job as producer of the Liberty Network Nightly News. There also wouldn’t be that two-month suspension, already half over, that she’s spending at her childhood home some forty miles up the coast from Ellsworth Maine and not at her Manhattan apartment.
           Someone had to take the fall for the big mess with the Department of Defense and, despite their on again off again romance, it wasn’t going to be news anchor, Sam Gensinger. So, here she is.
          At the crest of the hill Kathleen sees the pulsating lights about a mile ahead. She accelerates until less than a hundred feet separate the vehicles. The sun rising behind her casts a glare so strong that even if the ambulance driver did check the rearview mirror, he’d see nothing but blinding sunlight. The ambulance slips beneath the overhang of the hospital’s emergency entrance. Kathleen parks in the visitor lot and grabs her notebook.
          Recalling how suspicious locals are of outsiders, she keeps her distance, but walks through the doors with an air of confidence that had opened many others before these. To blend in, she pushes up against the wall, all the while watching and listening. Though not every word is audible, Kathleen gleans that the men had fallen ill as the boats were heading back after several days at sea. She jots down snippets of conversations: nausea, numbness in the legs,
uncontrollable shaking, delirium, broken blood vessels in the eyes, then, complete loss of consciousness.
          From the curtained area a doctor shouts for the head nurse who rushes past Kathleen without looking. After a brief, but intense exchange, the nurse spins around. Kathleen reads panic in her eyes. Almost instantly, the nurse returns with a stack of yellow gowns and face masks she distributes to the staff and the attending physician working on one of the fishermen.
          Kathleen’s reporting from Haiti after the earthquake taught her to recognize the signs of contagion, so she inches towards the exit and slips outside to her car. The ambulance still sits empty near the entryway. Over the next half hour no one enters or leaves the building.
          She calls the hospital main number and identifies herself as a member of the press asking to speak to someone about the fishing boat incident.
           A gruff voice answers, “This is Lloyd Brundage.”
           Dispensing with cordiality, she charges ahead. “Kathleen Wysocki with Liberty Network News. What can you tell me about the men brought in from Lockhaven Harbor?”
           Obviously trying to evade the question, Brundage fumbles, “What? Who?”
           “We were there when the fishing boats docked and saw two men transported to your facility. Can you provide any information?”
           “No comment.”
            Sensing Brundage is about to hang up, Kathleen goes big. “One of our producers saw contamination gear being distributed in the emergency room, and…”

           “How the hell?” Brundage snaps.
            Click.
            Kathleen peers up from her notebook. A dark blue sedan with government plates speeds into the lot and skids to a hard stop near the emergency room entrance. Two men in suits rush inside. In these parts nobody dresses like that.
           “Sam? This is Kathleen. Listen. Something’s going on up here. Don’t have all the details. But here’s what I’ve got so far.” She fills in her friend, coworker, and one-time lover, Sam Gensinger. When the whole Afghanistan fiasco blew up, it was Sam who got the News Director to issue a sixty-day paid leave of absence instead of firing Kathleen outright. It cost Sam dearly, but he owed her at least that much.
           “Can you get more?” Sam asks.
           “I’ll try,” Kathleen replies. “But, if the hospital administrator, a guy named Lloyd Brundage, checks, he’ll see I’m suspended.”
           “Listen,” Sam assures Kathleen, “I’ll get your credentials reinstated quietly. You keep on it there and call my mobile when you have something. But,” Sam adds, “don’t do anything risky. No Ebola martyrs. Thanks, kid.”
            Kathleen smiles at Sam’s obvious tell. If he calls you ‘kid,’ he likes you. Doesn’t matter if you’re an intimate friend or the old pretzel guy on the corner of Fifty-Sixth. It’s a very select club. Kathleen continues to her stake out at the hospital.
           “Sam? Me again.”
           “Gees kid, it’s almost midnight,” Gensinger says.

           “Listen. The hospital’s quarantined. They’re saying it’s precautionary. Some issue with the HVAC system.                    People are being given antibiotics and anyone who came in contact with the two fishermen isn’t allowed to leave.”
           “Legionnaires?” Sam speculates.
           “Don’t think so because that car this morning was DoD. They’re involved. So is the State Health Department.”
            Sam asks, “How did you find all this out?”
           “One of my high school friends is a nurse there. We go way back.”
           “Why is the Department of Defense there?” Sam ponders while staring out the window of his forty-third-floor apartment on the upper eastside at the grid of twinkling lights that define Manhattan. “I’m calling Jack Sheffington first thing.”
            Considering he’s the one who wanted Kathleen fired, she asks, “Think that’s wise?”
           “The DoD thing means this goes beyond Podunk Maine.”
           “Lockhaven Harbor,” Kathleen corrects him.
           “You know what I mean, kid. Get some sleep.”
            Over the next two days, more cars with Federal plates arrive at the hospital and then one morning they all vanish. The Lockhaven Harbor Observer runs a small piece about repairs to the hospital’s ventilation system, but nothing about those fishermen. Kathleen’s friend says they had been transferred to a private facility somewhere in Massachusetts, but nobody knows exactly where.
            Sam tells Kathleen his contact at the Pentagon came up empty. In turn, she says everything seems back to normal in Lockhaven Harbor. With tensions in the Middle East and North Africa now boiling over, this local anomaly falls away as quickly as it arose.

            While scanning her usual assortment of online news outlets late one evening, Kathleen comes across a small item on a Canadian news website. The Maritime Provincial Health Ministry in Nova Scotia quarantined a fishing village south of Halifax due to an unspecified environmental contamination. The statement reads there is no cause for alarm and officials expect the situation to be resolved within twenty-four hours. Likely a red tide. The following morning Kathleen calls the hospital in Halifax, asking about recent admissions from the quarantine. She’s told there were none.
           Two small obituaries appear in The Lockhaven Harbor Observer. Both list the deceased as local fishermen. One aged thirty-six, the other twenty-nine. Kathleen calls the editor for more information, but gets none. She finds telephone numbers for both. When she calls, the replies to her condolences and delicate questioning are nearly identical. “Despite heroic efforts by the doctors, he died of respiratory complications due to influenza.” To her trained ear it sounds suspiciously scripted.
           Kathleen spends the remainder of her suspension scouring global news sites about every environmental incident she can find. Something jumps off the screen. Sections of the Tripoli coast in North Africa are experiencing an algae bloom that contaminated the desalination plant.
           Similar items from Tunis and Algiers stop her cold. Additional web searches uncover similar outbreaks in Norway after an oil spill from a deep-sea platform, another in the Gulf Coast near a Houston refinery, and oddly one in North Dakota’s Bakken oil field. She finds eleven more environmental flare-ups. Many seem oil-related. Some are said to be algae. Others some type of transitory contagion.
           The situation in the Middle East is deteriorating rapidly and the threat of nuclear war between Israel and Iran has the world on edge. The United Nations calls an emergency General Assembly session to defuse the conflict. With every news organization focused on the escalating military clashes, none pay attention to these seemingly random phenomena. Nor do they devote any airtime, especially not Liberty News.

With her suspension ended, Kathleen returns to Liberty Network’s Manhattan offices,where, because of escalating world events, Sam is all but unreachable. It’s only as he hurries to the make-up chair for the evening broadcast does Kathleen charge around the corner and block his way. “Hey, welcome back,” Sam says distractedly.
           “Come here,” Kathleen replies while elbowing him into an unoccupied office and slamming the door behind them. “Something’s going on.”
           “Yeah,” Sam snaps while glancing at his wristwatch, “the world is about to explode and I got eighteen minutes ‘til air.”
           “Sam, that environmental thing is bigger than I thought.” “Listen, Kath, not now. I’m still getting copy on the Mideast. We’re close to all-out war.”
           “I know. But, this is worse.”
            Sam glares at Kathleen, wondering if the suspension had been more unsettling for her than he thought. Has she lost focus? Become obsessed with this environmental story?
           “Kath,” he says, “I have to get downstairs. Meet me in the fourth-floor conference room after I sign off.” With that, Sam bolts out the door. Kathleen closes the folder and makes her way to the control room. They meet as agreed. Kathleen blankets the table with news reports from foreign countries, public health ministry announcements, and any mention of an ecological incident, no matter how small or temporal. “Sam, these are linked somehow.” Her frenzied gaze troubles him.
            Ever the skeptic, Sam leans against the wall and drags a hand along his jaw. “There has to be some explanation,” he says trying to spot a flaw in her hypothesis. They stare at one another, then the table, and then back to each other before he sighs, “I’ll make some more calls.”
            Sam telephones Kathleen later that night. “Listen, something IS going on at DoD.”
           “War preparations?” she asks.
           “No. Entirely separate. My source says he’s never seen anything like it. Be here tomorrow morning at seven. We’re meeting with Jack and Paul.”
            Sam and Kathleen are at the Liberty News building awaiting the arrival of News Division Head, Jack Sheffington and Paul Malcomson, Chairman of Liberty Broadcasting.
          “What the hell is so damned important that you drag me here on a Saturday?” a clearly angry Jack Sheffington barks as he bursts through the doorway. “I’m supposed to be on a flight to LA.”
            Before either Kathleen or Sam can respond, Paul Malcomson appears. His withering scowl makes Sheffington look downright jovial.
          “Jack, Paul, you need to hear this,” Sam says, then nods to Kathleen.

          “Wait a minute,” Malcomson bellows, “is this going to burn me like the last stupid thing she did?”
          “No,” Sam shoots back. “Besides, we all know Kathleen took the fall when it should have been me. Just listen.”

           Kathleen relates the events in Lockhaven, ending with, “The two men were supposedly transferred to a Boston hospital but there’s no record of them anywhere. Next thing, they’re dead. Of respiratory failure.”
           The two executives shift in their chairs, wondering how much more of their Saturday they’re willing to sacrifice to what seems like some tin foil hat conspiracy theory.
          “I know,” Kathleen says, “I dismissed it too. But, over the next several weeks similar incidents were reported in Halifax, Norway, North Dakota, Houston, the Persian Gulf, the North Coast of Africa, the…”
          “Wait!” Jack Sheffington interrupts with a fist to the table. “How long is this list of yours?”
          “It goes on,” Kathleen replies, her voice quivering.
          “So there are some random algae blooms,” Malcomson grumbles.
          “No,” Sam says. “That’s not the common factor.” He again turns to Kathleen, “Tell them.”
          “It’s conflict,” she says.
          “What?” the executives shout in near unison.
          “Yes,” Kathleen continues, “in every location some type of assault on the environment or human conflict has preceded these outbreaks.”

          “Purely coincidental,” Malcomson scoffs and springs from his chair, preparing to leave.
          “I thought so too, but look.” Kathleen slides a chart across the conference table. “I overlaid the conflicts and environmental disasters with the sudden incidence of illness. Here, see. Oil spills from offshore rigs and within weeks, outbreaks. Workers fall ill, some die, but always without explanation. Overfishing in the North Atlantic, same thing. Fishing boats and factory ships report infectious episodes. Even in Sudan where ethnic wars rage, the lakes and
rivers suddenly explode with diseases that attack humans, but not wildlife. When the conflict ceases, the outbreaks follow or stop.”
          “So it’s something in the water,” Jack Sheffington mutters, dismissing Kathleen’s allegations as speculation at best.
          “How do you explain Ambrose North Dakota?” Kathleen challenges. “Men got sick.When too many called out, the fracking stopped. Suddenly, no more illness.”
           Sam adds, “My contact in the Pentagon says they’re on full alert. Nothing this big in his twenty plus years there. Goes all the way to the top.”
          “Joint Chiefs?” Malcomson asks.
          “No, the White House.”
          “Okay,” Malcomson says. “This stays with us until you hear from me.”
           The following Monday, Sam and Kathleen are summoned to Paul Malcomson’s office where they find themselves surrounded by unknown faces. But, from their looks and clothes, it’s easy to tell they’re government officials, lawyers, or official government lawyers.
          “Kathleen. Sam. These folks are here from Washington.” Malcomson then introduces representatives of the administration, the Joint Chiefs, NOAA, NIH, the EPA, and the CDC.

          “They want to discuss what you shared on Saturday.”
           Nervous, Kathleen asks, “Do I need a lawyer?”
           The apparent head of the group replies, “That won’t be necessary. This is only an informational meeting.” Kathleen and Sam exchange wary glances. “My name is Jennifer Milliano, special advisor to the President. My colleagues and I are aware of your supposition regarding recent events. First, considering national security implications, I need you to sign nondisclosure agreements.” She slides the documents across the table. “Once you do, we can begin.”
           Sam looks to Malcomson who shrugs. “Our attorneys reviewed it. Already signed mine.”
           Sam and Kathleen do the same.
          “Thank you,” Jennifer says. “As you well know, the policies of the previous administration unleashed an unimaginable assault on our environment by repealing protective regulations, allowing carbon-based energy corporations to pollute air and water with their waste, and by denying the human impact on the global climate. While we cannot reverse all the damage done, the President has charged us with developing and implementing a plan to address the current situation. As evidenced by the various departments and agencies represented, this is a critical priority. That is why we are here. Dr. Oldenburg of the National Institutes of Health will provide the details. Dr. Oldenburg?”
            After thanking Milliano, the balding research physician addresses Kathleen directly.

           “Miss Wysocki, I commend you on your observations. Your hypothesis that the occurrences are related is substantially correct, and the direct result of human activity. Very simply put, we believe massive colonies of microbial life forms have been activated. These colonies are spreading globally and are capable of surviving in fresh or salt water, the air, and even the most severe environments such as frozen tundras or subtropical deserts.” Dr. Oldenburg pauses, looks to Milliano who nods, then adds, “We believe these colonies to be sentient.”
           “Wait,” Sam interrupts. “They’re self-aware?”
           “Observed behavior strongly suggests a high level of communal intelligence within the colonies,” the scientist replies. “For example, we have seen colonies in the Atlantic react to events occurring on the African continent. The speed with which this communication happens is astoundingly fast. In some cases, spanning thousands of miles in under an hour."
            Stunned by the blunt admission, Kathleen asks, “Now what?”
           “As you discovered, these life forms go dormant when irritants are eliminated.”
           “So,” Kathleen interjects. “The problems stop when the conflicts do. Right?”
           “Yes, but it goes beyond that,” Oldenburg says. “For millennia, humans have been the uppermost life form on earth, able to control or destroy virtually all others. It appears this may be changing. There may be a higher form. One that will not tolerate our destruction of the environment.”
           “Wait,” Sam presses, “don’t you have the means to combat these…these microbes? A serum? Vaccine?”
             Deferring to his associate from the CDC, Oldenburg says, “Dr. Brandies, would you like to address that?”
           “We have not yet identified any method of neutralizing or eradicating this life form. While testing various protocols, the organisms were able to initiate rapid mutation that outpaced our ability to produce a viable defense. Our researchers were sickened with unknown contagions. We had to halt the testing. Acquiescence appears to be the only way of satiating this life form. Basically, we must, as a race, cease all activity that negatively impacts the
environment and stop all conflict.”
           “Sounds like the dawn of world peace,” Kathleen mutters sarcastically.
           “Put simply, Ms. Wysocki, that’s possible because just as our immune system produces antibodies that attack and destroy threatening antigens, apparently earth is eliminating its threat. Namely, us.”

           “So, now what?” Sam asks the assembly.
             Jennifer Milliano responds. “We are determining how best to communicate this without plunging the world into absolute political, economic, and societal chaos.”
           “And if you fail?” Kathleen wonders aloud.
            An ominous silence falls over the conference room. Twenty-seven floors below, crowds scurry along New York’s Sixth Avenue, totally unaware they are either at the dawn of a new age of global harmony or the dusk of humanity.