The Amazon Anomaly by Chris Cosmain

Author:Chris Cosmain [Cosmain, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Reason House Publishing
Published: 2023-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

Fernanda walked up behind him. She reached out and ran her hands across his broad shoulders, then gently massaged his neck. He sighed pleasurably at her touch, but kept his focus on the microscope into which he peered intently. Friday had arrived and the rest of the building, usually starting to wind down before the weekend, was buzzing. The labs of the various teams at INPA were still working determinedly on the anomaly samples and no one had had much rest. There was now overt pressure from the government to obtain answers, and organisations such as INPA and FMT toiled on relentlessly. Thankfully, they had all been granted a day off on Sunday to get some rest and recover from the busy week.

‘What’s so interesting in there?’ Fernanda leaned forward and kissed the back of his neck. Ray had been sitting at this laboratory bench in his lab for hours now, staring at samples of slime mould under a microscope. He had only paused to dictate notes on his phone, or mount complex micromanipulation tools to the microscope to pick at the samples.

He leaned back, finally pulling his eyes away from the binocular microscope. He pulled her in close and she sat down on his thigh, gazing at him expectantly.

His face grew earnest. ‘Nanda, I think we’re missing something.’

She shot him a teasing grin. ‘What? Like a few million reals so we can buy a fancy apartment in Rio?’

Raymundo frowned at her. ‘I’m serious, Nanda. The slime mould seems to be the key to this new ecosystem. It appears to control communication between the new species, allowing them to cooperate with each other and form the network we are calling the anomaly. But how did the slime mould achieve this control? How did this lowly, single-celled organism become the kingpin in this new and powerful cabal?’

Fernanda grimaced at him. ‘You make the anomaly sound like a drug cartel. What are you getting at?’

‘Have a look.’ He indicated the microscope.

Fernanda peered into the eye-pieces, contemplating how Ray was so old-fashioned with some things. Most modern microscopes possessed excellent built-in high-resolution cameras which interfaced directly with Presence glasses, providing a much more detailed and immersive experience. Yet Ray insisted on seeing things with his own eyes.

She loved that about him. His quirky approaches to problems and his knack for innovating on the spot had made him a brilliant botanist, renowned for his work in the field. She refocused on what she was supposed to be looking at, which at the moment appeared like an abstract painting. While she had years of experience working with microscopes, she usually examined animal tissues and cells, not slime moulds. She was not entirely sure what to make of the view before her.

She beheld an elongated blob containing many small yellow circles, a transparent beanbag filled to the brim with yellow tennis balls. The circles all whooshed forwards and backwards repeatedly, in a rapid and hypnotic pulsatile pattern. Among the yellow tennis balls swam large dark circles, as though someone had snuck a few black basketballs into the beanbag.

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