“How does TransAnt hope to make use of this?” Deb asked. “Are they going to interview those of us who don’t lose our minds?”
Keene looked at her with bleary eyes. “I didn’t say ‘something in our DNA’ by accident. Antonovsky believed that only thirty percent of the human population possesses salutogenic capacity. It’s only a theory, of course, because it’s like making educated guesses about suicides—you can’t prescreen a segment of the population inclined to kill themselves, then study the results afterward. Not to mention, most cases of extreme duress can’t be replicated without, ah, breaking the law. But since most children aren’t trained from birth under extreme conditions of duress—if we take nurture out of the equation, in other words—the assumption is that salutogenesis is, in fact, genetic. That we can actually distill the mythic Hero Gene. So, yes, TransAnt will probably want to take DNA samples at the end of the season.”
“They won’t need to,” Ayres said grimly. “We all underwent blood tests and basic disease screenings stateside when we signed up. I’m sure the waiver for additional testing is in the fine print of our contracts. They simply need to wait and see who hasn’t lost their squash by November.”
“But you said we weren’t the . . . test subjects,” Deb said, glancing between Hanratty and Keene.
“There are twelve Shackleton staff members who were identified to me as test vectors. Four of those were considered prime candidates,” Hanratty said. “All had overcome considerable emotional or physical trauma before arriving at the Pole. The assumption—correct me if I’m wrong, Keene—was that those prior experiences were the first cracks in the shell, so to speak.”
Keene nodded. “It would make sense that people who had survived and even flourished after some kind of crisis had already exhibited a salutogenic start and that those qualities would appear fully upon the application of additional stressors. If this experiment is following normal protocols, the so-called mentally healthy personnel would form the anxiety baseline, then data would be collected from the four prime subjects as well as the other eight at-risk candidates.”
“‘Additional stressors’?” Deb asked.
“Orchestrated events meant to . . . push the subjects’ buttons, so to speak.”
She looked confused for a moment, then her eyes widened. She looked at Hanratty. “The power failure was planned ?”
The station manager’s silence told them all they needed to know.
“What else was there? Is there something around the corner?”
“The psych staff at TransAnt planned only two major events,” Hanratty said calmly. “The power outage was the second. The first I’m not at liberty to reveal, but I can tell you that it has already occurred.”
“‘Not at liberty’? Jack, these are our lives you’re talking about.”
“I know this is all a shock and you have a right to be angry.” Hanratty spoke slowly. “But that’s why I’m filling you in now. It wouldn’t do you any good to know what the other event was; it happened almost four months ago. The effects were recorded, assessed, and the ramifications long gone.”
“Jesus Christ. I can’t believe this.” Ayres pinched the bridge of his nose. “And you and Keene are in charge of this shit show?”
“No. Originally, only Taylor and myself knew about the experiment. Keene figured it out after studying the psych profiles of the crew. He came to me with his suspicions, so I filled him in.”
“But he’s not in charge of the experiment?” Ayres asked. Hanratty shook his head. “Then who is? Just you?”
“Not exactly. I’m responsible for the stressor events and making sure they don’t get out of hand. The script and action parameters for those events were handed to me by TransAnt.”
“I hear a ‘but’ in there.”
“But I was told that there would be a member of the crew who would be monitoring the tests and gathering data. To help keep the study clean, I assume, that person’s identity was kept hidden from me and I still don’t know who it is. I’ve taken to calling him the Observer.”
The room was quiet as they chewed on the information. Finally, Ayres spoke. “I’ve got a question.”
“Go.”
“Things turned ugly after the power failure, and I can’t say I’m happy with any of this garbage about some kind of experiment, but from your perspective, we have the situation relatively under control. No one’s been killed. Injuries have been moderate, but treatable. Comms going down is not good and has raised anxiety considerably, but we’re handling it and are otherwise stable. This . . . Observer is collecting a bevy of test results, so he should be happy.”
“Correct.”
“So, why are you telling us all of this now? What’s changed?”
“It’s the third event,” Deb said.
Hanratty nodded grimly. “There is nothing in the action protocol calling for external communications to be disabled. We didn’t do this.”
“And you don’t know who it is?”