ASTRONAUT JASON GARVEY IS CAUGHT OUTSIDE HIS SPACE CRAFT AND LOSES CONTACT FOR 17-MINUTES. THREE YEARS LATER, HE'S AT THE CENTER OF STORIES ABOUT MIRACULOUS OCCURRENCES AND FAITH HEALING. WHAT HAPPENED IN THOSE 17-MINUTES TO CHANGE HIM?
GARVEY I'm seeing objects of some sort. Cannot determine whether they're physical matter, gases, or both.
ROYCE Abandon Level II! Exterior Hatch, open. Transition Chamber, pressurized for re-entry. God-dammit, get in here!
MISSION CONTROL: Radiation levels: 100,000 micro Sieverts and rising. Pupils dilated. Breathing erratic. Skin warm and moist. Blood pressure 200 over 120. Mike, this man is on the verge of cardiac arrest!
GARVEY More like a cloud now that I see it up close. It's shining. Glowing like a corona. Images surging like a tsunami over the boundaries of his subconscious. Operating table. Lights glaring. White-masked surgeons peering down at him. "No!" he cries out, coming to consciousness. "Yes," the voice answers, dulcet and re-assuring. "All of what we're doing. For the good of humanity."
MISSION CONTROL Cap Com, we've lost secondary AOS. Are you getting this?
ROYCE Primary communication maintained...but not with Garvey. Jason, this is Royce, do you read me? Eruptions in his mind. Violent! Volcanic! Police sirens sounding. Ambulances, red and blue lights flashing! 6:17 p.m. His wife, Julia, so lovely. Lying on the bedroom floor. Mutilated, beyond recognition!
GARVEY It's almost on top of me! I feel the energy. It's drawing me to it...it's...His voice trailed off.
He was speechless, incapable of organizing the physical responses necessary for speech. He looked to his boots. Then, to his ankles. Then, to his legs and upper torso. He extended his right hand and was mesmerized by what he saw.
His entire body was electric, shimmering like some obscure plankton amid the deepest, darkest regions of space!
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