Doctor Nelson and His Amazing Alien Wonder Suit

by C.M. Hiebert

It had taken six years and four nations to build the Brodsky Dome, but the effort had paid off. Perhaps too well.

The original underwater excavations of Atlantis had used bathyspheres and experimental submarines to raise the occasional dinner plate from a thousand meters below the surface. Under the dry bubble of the gigantic submerged dome, archaeologists were now salvaging tons of Atlantian relics. The American military and government scientists running the program found themselves quickly overwhelmed by the workload. After much political wrangling, the decision came down from Congress to invite members of the world’s science community to help. America was releasing its grip on the remnants of Atlantis.

As artifacts piled up in Florida warehouses during the early 1930s, a variety of physicists, engineers, linguists, archeologists, historians, geographers, and philosophers dropped their careers and dedicated themselves to studying the items.

Everyone wanted to know what had happened to the world and believed the answers were locked within the tons of barnacle-encrusted statuary and pottery being pulled up from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Somewhere among the mosaic of relics, the secret of the Ultra Syndrome awaited discovery.

Doctor Jonathan Nelson was one of the civilian researchers asked to join the group. His credentials were an esoteric mixture of biology and archaeology. Nelson’s medical career leaned toward research, and his early professional years had been spent studying the spread of influenza. In the late 1920s, his research had taken him to the Yucatan peninsula to examine a new viral strain emerging among an isolated population of Mesoamerican Indians.

While there, a previously untapped interest in archaeology ignited, and he became fascinated with the Maya civilization that had once thrived across the peninsula. Studying the ancient culture had taken up all of his time away from the lab. The obsession would later become his vehicle to notoriety.

When funding for his influenza research ran out, he had remained in Mexico at his own expense, studying the decline of the Maya, learning their language, piecing together their daily lives, deciphering their sciences, and studying their medicines. Nelson published several papers on the Mayan language and quickly became known as an authority on the subject.

After the Azure Wind encircled the world and ultra humans sprouted into existence, Nelson, like every other man of science, turned his eyes toward Florida where the greatest scientific discovery in history slept in overstocked warehouses.

When new blood was needed, Nelson was one of the first scientists to be called. Similarities between the Atlantian writings and Mayan hieroglyphs made him a shoo-in. Einstein was at the top of the list, so he felt in good company.

He immediately accepted the invitation to join the fledgling Institute of Atlantian Studies and purchased passage on the first freighter headed north. He couldn’t wait to get a look at the artifacts being brought up from the Atlantic floor. Some of them were supposed to be amazing.

His main wish, however, was to contribute to Man’s understanding of the Ultra Syndrome, and perhaps, in all modesty, have a chance to leave his own mark upon history.

He would soon see his wishes fulfilled in a way he never dreamed.

On his fourth month of examining and cataloging more than a thousand objects, ranging from the common to the mysterious, he came across a large item that looked like a full-length mirror. The artifact was a polished metallic oval about five-feet high and two-feet wide, set within a solid, ornate, marble base, which was knobbed with thousands of tiny raised runes. The runes were what attracted his attention. They were different from the Atlantian hieroglyphs that he had become familiar with. In fact, Nelson realized the two languages bore no relationship whatsoever.

So where did the mirror come from?

Nelson had quickly emerged as a star at the institute. He had an almost preternatural knack for making connections between items, and when he focused on a problem he didn’t let it go. Twice in three months, inspired by some possible connection between artifacts, he had worked several straight days and nights before collapsing from exhaustion on one of the tables in the cafeteria. Both marathon sessions had lead to significant breakthroughs.

But those motivations paled compared to his excitement over the mirror. Realizing that it was different than the other items, Nelson set aside his routine duties and gave it his full attention. As a research scientist, he knew it was often the anomalies than revealed the deeper truth of a problem.

Nelson had the mirror moved to a lab in a small outbuilding where he could work without interruption. He measured it, weighed it, photographed it, x-rayed it and began transcribing the more than twenty thousand wedge-shaped glyphs texturing its marble base. Two weeks passed and the only time he left his isolated lab was to eat. It would take complaints from fellow researchers before he paused long enough to take a shower.

Insight finally came to him after a much-needed thirteen-hour sleeping binge. As if handed to him in a dream, Nelson awoke and realized the purpose of the glyphs. They were instructions.

Despite its apparently solid construction, the mirror was some kind of instrument.

He reexamined the runes and, sure enough, noticed new patterns appearing in them. In a matter of days, he had a solid theory on their properly read order. Now if he could only figure out what they said. He began corresponding matching runes on different areas of the mirror, seeking repetition of order. The floors of his lab were covered in discarded pages from his notebooks. He had not referred to his notations since the runes became burned within his mind.

Late one evening, after several weeks of obsession, he toyed with the idea that the markings weren’t just instructions, but actual interactive controls that might operate the device. After all, why were they raised? For decoration? Perhaps, he thought, they were really buttons and switches. X-rays had shown the base to be solid, but the controls didn’t necessarily have to be mechanical. Some of the other discovered items that still worked were activated in strange ways. They had to be stroked in certain areas or at specific frequencies, or be in contact with specific organic material. There was a kitchen knife, for instance, that hung loosely like a chain until in the presence of a head of lettuce, when it would suddenly stiffen and bear a sharp edge. The discovery had launched an entire series of phallus-related jokes around the institute.

Nelson occasionally had to remind himself that Atlantian technology wasn’t limited to science and engineering principles. It was half magic. The phrase “Atlantian Science-Magic” was appearing frequently in newspapers and magazines, often in quotes from scientists working for the institute.

Almost without thinking, Nelson began to stroke the runes with his long fingers, trying different combinations and patterns, searching for some kind of intuitive relationship between them, some sequence that would awaken the device. Then, more by chance than plan, he simultaneously touched two runes on either side of the base, and the oval mirror began to glow. He instinctively stepped backward, but his scientific curiosity trumped any real sense of fear.

“Bingo,” he said.

Smoky black swirls began to stir and shift across the surface of the mirror with illusionary depth. A low hum filled the air. Nelson was practically hyperventilating.

Then a voice came from the mirror.

“Are you a human being?” the voice asked clearly, and in perfect unaccented English.

“What?” Nelson chirped, trying to figure out how to react to the startling and unexpected development. It had talked to him!

“You certainly don’t look like a monster. Is that fur on your head?”

“I’m…yes…I’m a human being.”

“You don’t look like the images I’ve seen. You’re much smaller and softer than what we expected. We were told human beings were monsters.”

Nelson had hit something big. The mirror was some kind of communication device. The being talking to him was…who? He decided not to respond to the monster reference. It was obvious he was not addressing a fellow human and who knew what this entity’s definition of a monster might be?

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I am a person from a world far away from you,” the voice answered from the dark spirals rotating within the mirror. “Who are you?”

“I am Dr. Jonathan Nelson.”

“Do you love peace or war, Dr. Jonathan Nelson?”

The bluntness and structure of the question stopped him cold. Did he love peace or war? The voice was childlike in its query; sincere, open, and apparently as curious as himself. But he knew he had to be careful. If the speaker truly were from another world as it claimed, Nelson was standing at a crossroads of history. He must choose his words carefully.

“Peace.”

Nelson knew he should awaken his sleeping colleagues and tell them what was happening. Such action was even required in the institute’s charter. Major discoveries were to be shared so everyone could benefit. The U.S. had hoarded its finding for several years, but now Atlantian technology belonged to the world. Although consultation would have been welcome, he was afraid to break the dialogue. He didn’t want to disrupt the exchange just for the sake of protocol.

“That’s not what we’ve heard,” the voice carried the rising tone of mildly scolding disbelief. It was a distinctly American inflection. Nelson realized that the mirror was translating their speech right down to tone and nuance.

“Why do say that?” Nelson asked.

“You destroyed our world.”

“What? No, that’s not possible.” Nelson was unnerved by the accusation.

“It is.”

Nelson didn’t want to argue with the being, but certain facts conflicted with that statement.

“We do not even have the capability to reach your world,” he said.

“You did once, long ago. Our worlds were at war then. You sent an envoy to discuss peace, but instead he pushed an asteroid into our planet from space. It killed almost all of us. Only a handful of our species escaped.”

Such a dark account delivered in such matter-of-fact tones made Nelson even more uncomfortable. He worried that he might accidentally say something he shouldn’t, or be misunderstood. Diplomacy between two human cultures was difficult. But this? He decided to just stay with the truth.

“I know nothing of this. If what you say is true, I’m very sorry about your world,” Nelson said. A world destroyed. Was it even possible?

“Don’t be sorry,” the voice said. “Our records tell us that if given the chance, we would have done the same to you.”

“That must have been a long time ago. Our history contains no mention of such an event.”

“Oh, this happened many thousands of years ago. I can see by your dress and the objects around you that your technology is primitive. This is in discord. How did you manage to make an interstellar communications device?”

“The mirror? We didn’t make it, we discovered it at the bottom of one of our oceans.”

“Discovered it?” the alien voice repeated, and then fell silent for a moment. Gentle black clouds swirled inside the mirror. “Yes, now I see. It was manufactured by our people several millennia ago. Were there other items discovered with the device?”

“Thousands,” Nelson said. “We are just beginning to study them.”

“There is one in particular I would like to ask about. Did you find a box?”

As the voice spoke the last word, the cloudy swirls formed a diamond-shape in the mirror face. Although the image was not detailed, Nelson recognized the famous floating obelisk found on the Mary Hurst.

“We did.”

“That is very bad.” The obelisk disappeared and geometric shapes formed in the cloudy mirror: spheres, cubes, cones and diamonds.

“Why?” Nelson asked.

“Because it was not designed to fit you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The box contained one of the greatest mysteries of the galaxy,” the voice said. “It caused the war between our planets.”

“How?”

“Our records are vague,” the voice said. “Apparently you were already making monsters when we discovered you. We were a conquering people who took what we wanted. Our ancestors had never seen technology such as yours and desired it for their own.”

Nelson wished he had a recording wire handy, but how could he have foreseen such a need! He never expected the mirror to be a communications device. He again thought of awakening the others. It was quite probable that he was hearing a chapter of Mankind’s history that had been lost thousands of years ago. He needed witnesses, but he was not about to walk away now. The others would just have to wait until tomorrow.

“You’re talking about the Ultra Syndrome, the condition that is transforming people into super beings,” Nelson said.

“Perhaps. The monsters can fly. They spit fire. Weapons cannot harm them. They can shatter mountains with their empty hands and travel through space without a vessel.”

Nelson’s mind was tripping over itself. He was trying to think of meaningful questions while simultaneously digesting the information the mirror was sharing. For every new detail the voice casually tossed out, a hundred more mysteries arose. It was as if he were a savage encountering civilized man for the first time.

“I’m certain we must be speaking of the same phenomena. What can you tell me about the condition? What is it? How are these things possible?” It the end that was what everyone at the institute really wanted to know, and he wasn’t going to let his encounter expire without finding out what these beings knew about the syndrome.

The churning gray-black smoke changed the direction of its rotation.

“We never deciphered your science. We captured and studied several of your monsters, but we could not unravel their secrets. After much time and expense, we developed our own version of the technology. But it was limited by our understanding of the universe.”

The smoke formed another shape within the mirror: A black cube with slightly rounded corners and a translucent surface that made it appear to be molded from black glass. The shape rotated in the mirror and Nelson saw a circular pattern carved on one side of the cube.

That’s when he recognized it. He had seen the object before. It had been packed in a crate of decorative -- but apparently functionless -- artifacts he’d cataloged his first week at the institute. The image returned to smoke.

“The philosophy of our technology is external,” the voice continued. “We depend upon machines to perform our work, to help us travel and to protect us.”

“As do we,” Nelson said. “Machines have revolutionized my world. They allow us to feed and shelter millions of human beings. They even allow us to fly through the air.”

The mirror remained silent and Nelson knew the being on the other side was weighing his words. What had he said to cause such pause?

“We understand now,” the voice finally came. “Your world has also suffered a great disaster. That is why your current technology is so primitive. It has become external. If you have truly forgotten the source of your mysterious science, then your fall was even greater than ours.”

Nelson was overwhelmed. He was the first human being to make contact with a species from another world, and with a handful of exchanged words, the entire known history of Mankind had become a postscript to the great volumes of Atlantis. They had possessed interstellar space travel and devices that could communicate across the stars. Their technologies were so great they made other space-traveling species covetous. They destroyed worlds. If Nelson allowed himself to believe half of what the mirror told him, then Man’s Golden Age had died before the first word of history was written.

Taking a deep breath, Nelson resisted the urge to pursue every reference the mirror threw at him. Instead, he turned the dialogue back to the tangible lead he had just received.

“The last object you displayed, the cube. What was its function?” Nelson filed through his memory trying to recall his encounter with the cube. Where did it go after he catalogued it? There were six full warehouses of retrieved Atlantian items. Which one had he been in that day?

“It is a machine,” the voice said, “that makes knights to battle your monsters.”

Then he remembered. There had only been three warehouses operating when he first arrived. Professor Tristain had divided the buildings into sections for the sake of volume management. One corner was for common items. Another was for fragments. Usually a single tabletop was reserved for unknown or esoteric objects.

Nelson had catalogued the cube as “common,” thinking it was a decorative piece, a doorstop or paperweight. When exciting artifacts like the mirror were showing up every day, he didn’t give much time to glass cubes.

The cube was in Building Number Two, packed at the bottom of a wooden crate with an assortment of pitchers, plates, goblets, and vases. Nelson didn’t bother to restrain his excitement.

“I know where this…machine is located,” he said. “Will you wait while I get it?”

“Of course. But be very careful. It was designed to be dangerous.”

Running as fast as he could, he fled his laboratory and bolted across the crushed seashell road that connected the warehouses and various outbuildings.

This was why the greatest scientists in the world worked around the clock to salvage and study every fragment of the lost culture they could find. Understanding the syndrome was the prime goal. They needed to learn how to control it.

Nelson knew this unspoken truth, as did all the scientists at the institute. Carriers of the syndrome were already swaying world politics, overthrowing governments, asserting their beliefs upon the world. He didn’t believe everything he read in the newspapers, but if half the things printed about the Deists were true, ultra humans were already a threat to Mankind’s future.

It was a scientifically accepted fact that the affected individuals were still human. They were not gods as claimed by the Deists. Contraction of the Syndrome seemed to be random. That meant that, sooner or later, if the cases kept increasing, humans of ill nature or flawed politics were going to get it. The wrong person with the wrong power could be very bad for the world.

Nelson knew that the scientific community had to figure out how to duplicate the condition so that carefully screened and selected individuals could be given the abilities. That was the only way to make sure the opinions, values, goals and beliefs of carriers were not harmful to the natural progression of civilization.

Now that the Russian communists had fallen to the Deists, the task was imperative. If the cult discovered how to replicate the condition first, it would mean the enslavement of humanity.

This alien machine that made knights to fight monsters sounded damn close to the solution they were all looking for.

Nelson enter Building Number Two at a dead run, scaring the hell out of the MP on night watch.

“Christ, Dr. Nelson! What’s going on!” the boyish corporal squeaked, unconsciously resting his hand on the pistol at his hip.

“Turn on the lights,” Nelson barked. He was terrified the alien would break contact before he got back “I’ve got to find something in one of the crates.”

The MP wasn’t overly shocked at Nelson’s behavior. The scientists were allowed free access to everything at anytime. Work continued twenty-four hours a day. The corporal was used to the midnight loonies. And Nelson stood out among them. He had once seen the doctor sleep all day on a dining table in the cafeteria, through both the lunch and dinner crowds.

The overhead incandescent lighting came on and Nelson practically attacked the pine crates in the “Common Items” area. The MP helped him shuffle the heavy wooden containers – although he didn’t have to – until Nelson found the one he was after. The doctor pried the crate open and dug frantically around inside. After a few moments he came up with a chunk of glass hardly bigger than a bar of soap.

“Are you on to something, Doctor?” the corporal asked. “Should I get everybody up?”

On his way out the building, Nelson stopped in the doorway.

“No,” he said, and sprinted back to his lab. Once inside, he set the cube on the examination table and tried to catch his breath. To his relief the mirror still swirled in the middle of the room.

“Is that the machine?” the alien asked, and again an image of the cube materialized in the smoke.

Still out of breath, Nelson leaned against the examination table and looked closely at the object. It didn’t appear impressive. His fingerprints showed badly upon its smooth dark surface and he pushed away the urge to wipe it clean with his lab coat. Aside from being lighter than it looked, there was nothing to distinguish it from a solid glass bookend.

Why the alien referred to it as a machine was yet another mystery. It seemed to be a single piece of whatever it was made of. No moving parts, no power supply, no hinges, no buttons; just a shallow engraving of a circle within a circle etched into one of its flat sides. Nelson guessed that something was being lost in the mirror’s translation.

“Yes. I believe so. The markings seem to be the same.”

“Then you have found an item of very rare occurrence,” the mirror said. “It is perhaps the last of its kind.”

Nelson had to gather his courage to ask the next question. One part of him felt he might be rushing the situation, that he should first build the trust and respect of the aliens before pumping them for more information. But he also believed that opportunity knocked but once. He had to learn as much as he could, here and now.

“Can you explain to me how it works?” He asked, suspecting the mirror might decline the request. If this were truly a machine that could make demigods, human ignorance of its operation might be preferable to them. Especially considering what had happened to their planet.

The silence from the mirror made him squirm. He felt like he was manipulating the being on the other side. He was afraid he would push for too much and they would leave, seeing him, and perhaps all of humanity, as question-filled and greedy for knowledge. But the information was too important and the stakes too high for etiquette to slow him down.

“Certainly. Its operation is quite simple and discussed in many of our histories,” the mirror answered, with the openness still present in its tone. “To activate the machine, just look into its eye.”

“And then what happens?”

“According to old records: Flight. A disregard for weapons and destructive force. Control of self-structure. Acquisition of The Arsenal of Things In-Between.”

“The what?”

“I don’t think there’s a translation that will clarify the name. It is a weapon that projects the energy of nonexistence.”

Nelson heard the mirror, but his thoughts had moved on to a new question -- a question that the voice from the mirror could not answer for him. As he stood in his lab at four in the morning, interrogating a being from another world, Nelson was forced to pause and review the choices he had made throughout the night. He had not followed protocol and awakened his fellow researchers in light of an important new discovery. He had not sought consultation after discovering the significance of the cube. He had lied to the MP.

And now, an even greater decision loomed before him.

Like everyone else in the world, Nelson had let himself ask the question: What if I had the power? What if I were invulnerable? What if I could fly?

The odds of contracting the syndrome were hundreds of millions to one. That meant that no matter how pure a person’s intent, or deserving his values, he probably wasn’t going to get it. The chances of someone with a scientific mind contracting the syndrome were astronomically slim.

It was even possible that the syndrome had already run its course with the thirty current carriers. Another case may never appear. No one knew for sure.

On the other hand, Nelson thought, this might just be the beginning. The syndrome might continue to spread across the world, endowing people of all moral codes, political beliefs and mental dispositions with powers that could raze nations.

As the Deist armies looked toward China, the fear that the power could be used to enslave humanity had become a very real concern.

And here was Nelson’s dilemma. If a man is capable of receiving the power and knows he will use it for good, why shouldn’t he have it? Why should chance be the deciding factor?

Soon, Nelson would be forced to share his discovery with his colleagues. The mirror would be moved to another location and used to communicate with the aliens, probably without the knowledge of the public. If the institute didn’t eject him for his various breaches, he might be on the mirror’s research team, but he couldn’t be sure. That was the institute’s call. The cube, of course, would be secretly confiscated by the U.S. government and used to enhance as many deserving candidates as they could find.

Nelson thought about what it would be like to fly.

He picked up the cube in both hands and turned it until the circles faced him. He stared into the center of the rings and let his mind rest within their circumference.

“Oh, you’re activating it now?” the alien observed. “Acceptable. No reason to wait. The machine obviously chose you some time ago.”

Impossibly, the etched circles began to turn and rotate upon the surface of the cube. Their seemingly magical movement entranced Nelson. He heard the mirror speak, but the sound seemed far away.

“Chose me?” Nelson repeated dreamily.

The cube suddenly lost its solidity and became a liquid that spread up his arms, across his chest and down his legs, enveloping him in blackness. It dissolved his clothing and painlessly bonded to his flesh. By the time panic hit his mind, the liquid had nothing left to cover but his face. Right before he screamed, it swallowed him completely, leaving not one trace of Dr. Jonathan Nelson visible to the world.

Sealed within the substance, he looked down at his body. He still had the shape of man, but his form seemed to be a window to a world of movement and color. Spinning red geometric figures appeared to float within his arms and legs. A spiral galaxy slid across his chest, into his neck and face, finally transforming into a rain of black cubes.

A feeling of contentment replaced his fear. He felt that all was right and correct, that everything had happened exactly the way it was supposed to. Nelson consciously realized that the feeling was a safety mechanism built into the suit.

“You now have the power you sought,” the mirror said. “Use it wisely.”

Knowledge appeared within his mind. Instruction manuals created from thought. The suit was constructed by an alien culture, so some explanations didn’t make sense, but for the most part, the implanted thoughts told him how it worked. He knew he could fly, easily. He knew that common weapons could not harm him. He knew he could rearrange his atomic structure with a thought, transforming himself into something like a liquid. And he now understood what The Arsenal of Things In Between was.

Powerful stuff.

“Incredible,” he said, watching images of stars move across his hands. “I thought it was a machine that could make many Ultras.”

“One machine, one knight,” the mirror corrected.

He tested his control over gravity by floating adeptly to the center of the room, hovering halfway between the floor and ceiling. The task was simple. It was as if he’d done it a million times before.

“Let me try this one,” he said. In a blink he melted away, transforming from a man to a large black puddle on the floor. He was fully cognizant, (although he wondered where his brain must be), and could move agilely around the lab, passing under doors and through the thinnest cracks in the wall. He performed the suit’s abilities as if were second nature. Even in his formless state, the changing patterns and images pulsed within him.

Something told him to not yet try The Arsenal of Things In Between. There was not enough room in the lab.

He reconstituted to his man-shape.

“So it’s a suit that can be worn,” he said. “It’s like a version of the Ultra Syndrome that can be taken off and put on at will.”

“No,” the alien said.

Although the suit completely covered his eyes, he could see better than ever. He looked at the mirror. Framed in the oval, the smoke had formed the distinct image of a man in solid black body suit. Tiny curlicues of smoke danced within the outline of the figure.

“What do you mean?” Nelson asked, even though he already knew.

The alien again paused to make sure it had the right words.

“The choice is only made once,” it said. “It is permanent.”

“Permanent?” He again held his hands before his covered eyes, watching as red zigzags formed and evaporated across his palms. Nelson had never married and had no family still living. Such a change would affect no one but himself. As the reality of his new condition sank in, his initial sense of dread at the news of its permanence was smothered by the sense of acceptance built into the suit. After a few moments, he embraced his condition as destiny.

“Very well,” he said. “So be it.”

A knock came to the lab door.

“Dr. Nelson,” Professor Tristain called through the Quonset hut door. “May I come in?”

Tristain opened the door. The mirror shut off immediately, again becoming a cold and silent plain.

“The guard said you were in some kind of panic. He came and got me out of bed. I…”

Standing in his terrycloth bathrobe and cotton pajamas, Tristain couldn’t get another word out upon sight of Nelson.

“Good evening, Professor,” Nelson said as colorful planets, stars and galaxies swirled within his black shape. “I have a discovery to report.”

THE END OF THE BEGINNING