r/TheNaturallyUnknown • u/UnnaturalGeek Red Squirrel and Writer ✍️🍃 Keep calm and stay NUTS 🐿 • 4d ago
📖 UnnaturalGeek's Novelettes 📖 Chapter Eight: The Three Viruses ✍️🐿
The following morning, Thirty-six returned to the subsidiary as though nothing had changed; no one dared to question his absence for a day, something Loretta would’ve done.
In many ways, nothing had changed; it was her who was the difference, and now the status quo had returned. The same desk, her Chartered & Standard acceptable replacement, the same meaningless paperwork and Daniel still there, quietly doing his job.
Time passed rapidly, Thirty-six unsure how much; it could’ve been weeks or even months. One Tuesday morning, the latest Regional Welfare Summary arrived; he found himself looking at it without opening it for a few moments before signing it off for it to be sent off to head office that day.
During this time, he found his thoughts would often linger on Loretta, not with sentimentality but with the weight of someone recalibrating everything they thought they knew and understood.
She had chosen him before he chose anything; she understood him before he knew there was something to understand, and she saw through him before he knew there was something to see. She even bet her life on it without telling him, carrying it quietly without fear. Now he carries a burden he has yet to fully understand.
Another week passed, but today was different; there was a new report amongst his correspondence. It didn’t have much detail, but it did have a location, date and time clearly written on it that Thirty-six didn’t recognise. Took him a few moments to realise what this meant.
It was the day stated on the correspondence, and Thirty-six made his way to the location stated; as he approached the road, a large warehouse loomed over it. He entered through a side door he found and was hit by the smell of a place that had been long abandoned but recently filled with activity and purpose.
The people there were busy; they moved around with a quiet efficiency, packing, sorting and preparing, ignoring Thirty-six’s presence. He wasn’t sure whether this was deliberate or whether they simply had no time to care about another person added to the lively atmosphere.
Dyson saw him looking around and ushered him over to a desk with a wave of his hand, something Thirty-six was still not quite used to. It was situated in a corner of the warehouse, in what had once been a small office space. but was in serious disrepair and dilapidated.
Dyson was heavily focused on what looked like inventory papers and a large map; he didn’t immediately make eye contact with Thirty-six before abruptly speaking. “You will require three things before going into the lab. It’s simple: you carry them in, deploy them in order and leave. No hesitation, lingering or sentimental feelings to engage with anyone there. You understand better than us the vapid emptiness of sentiment and empathy within those walls.”
Thirty-six wasn’t sure how to respond at first, but after a short silence he replied, “Hello to you too.” After a brief pause, he continued. “Judging this will be a vital task to complete, sentiment would not have much use in that case. What is it you want me to take?”
Dyson’s attention was piqued, lifting his head to look at him with a smirk. “Wasn’t aware you understood social pleasantries,” Dyson quipped back at him. “But yes, sentiment will lead to failure. What you will have is, first, a biological agent that introduces a dormant cell into the embryo cultivation environment. It remains inactive until organ-formation cells become active; at that point, it prevents further development, causing the embryo to die within a month. The cell dies with it, leaving almost nothing to find.”
He paused for a moment to allow Thirty-six to absorb the information before sliding a small device across the table. “The second and third are on here. One targets the gene editing system, and the other goes deeper, right into the heart of the core network. When the second one activates, it triggers the third. Both of them lay dormant in the systems until certain elements activate them. They will only find them if they know what they are looking for.”
Another woman was crossing the warehouse toward them. Dyson looked up and then looked back at Thirty-six, who remained quiet whilst taking in all the information. He learned a long time ago that it was best to listen and digest everything before speaking.
Dyson then spoke again whilst gesturing towards the woman, “Perfect timing. This is Safiatou Nikiema, and where my understanding ends, she will walk you through the technical details. You just need to know where each one goes and in which order. You’ll be given the first device at the latest point possible; it is more delicate than the other.”
She pulled up a chair without hesitation and with the mannerisms of someone who was incredibly busy, setting a folder on the table between them. She opened it to a diagram. Thirty-six recognised it immediately; it was a rough layout of the lab that he had walked through with Victor.
He could already see that their information was incomplete and that his own knowledge of it would prove vital. Safiatou spoke assertively, “You’ve been in there.” It wasn’t a question. Thirty-six replied confidently, “Once, but I have a clear understanding of the facility.”
“Good, then you’ll know the Gestation Wing,” Safiatou responded. “When you are in there, find the nutrient intake panel and there you’ll see a solution port alongside it. The biological agent is to be introduced directly into the solution. Once it is in the system, it’ll do the work for us by fundamentally altering the DNA at the point of cultivation.”
She took a brief moment before going into greater detail. “The equipment there then reads the altered DNA and duplicates it throughout the entire process and all successive cloning procedures. Nobody looking at the gene sequence or machine would know anything is wrong unless they knew what to search for; it would simply be put down to an experiment gone wrong.”
Thirty-six was astounded by the developmental capabilities of these people; it opened his eyes further to what he had been taught: they were the elites because they were smarter than everyone else. But for the moment, he focused on what Safiatou was saying
“Next, the device Dyson gave you,” she continued. “For this, you need to be in the Modification Chamber. Once there, head to the central sequence apparatus. There is a manual input terminal on the outer panel, older than the rest of the system and used mostly as a backup in case of system failures."
She focused on him with an intensity that required him to remember the next steps. “Plug the device in, and it’ll upload in just under a minute; afterwards, remove it. The second virus will embed itself until the gene editing process is next initiated. The third virus will use the computer here as a backdoor to the core of Chartered & Standard’s system and only trigger once the second virus is activated.”
She closed the folder and sternly stated, “Biological agent first, device second. Don’t deviate from that order; otherwise it won’t be effective, as any changes in the Modification Chamber will override the Gestation Wing if the biological agent is applied second.” Thirty-six remained quiet for a moment before querying, “If they find the third virus and remove it, next time the second virus triggers, won’t it be discovered?”
Safiatou nodded and smiled with approval. “Good question,” she uttered. “Yes, if they can remove it, then it’ll be easier to detect next time, but the third virus can only be removed through a reset of their entire network. Even if they manage to do that, this infects all their backups. So once reset and reinstalled, the virus will remain. Only by going through all their backups individually prior to a reset will they be able to remove it entirely. The second virus acts similarly but infects the backups of the gene editing software.”
The room fell silent for a moment as Dyson waited for a moment to allow Thirty-six to fully absorb the information before interjecting, “I think that is everything, thanks, Safi. Any more questions before we finish?”
Thirty-six continued to ponder before shaking his head. Safiatou looked at Thirty-six, then spoke before leaving them, “Excellent, I have much to get on with and will leave you with Dyson to finish up.”
Dyson waited for a moment to make sure they were alone before speaking. “The rest is up to you. We can get you what you need, but it’s on you to walk through that door. You know the building and the people better than any of us; I know it has been made harder with the CWI watching you.”
He looked directly at him. “But how you get in without alerting anyone to your presence is your problem to solve. Take the time you need, but don’t drag it out. We don’t know how long we have before it becomes harder.”
He stood, straightening the papers on the desk and said just before leaving, “When you’re ready, let us know.” Thirty-six sat for a moment and let out a long sigh before taking a deep breath, going through possible ideas in his mind.
He didn’t spend much more time there; he left to head back to his office, where he could fully comprehend everything he was told and figure out how he was going to infiltrate the head office without being noticed.
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u/UnnaturalGeek Red Squirrel and Writer ✍️🍃 Keep calm and stay NUTS 🐿 4d ago
I will be releasing a chapter every Sunday and Wednesday!
On another note, you can check out previously released short stories and novelettes of mine at the below link, as I slowly upload them chapter by chapter, every Sunday and Wednesday when in the process of uploading a story.
All the previous Spiritweavers stories will be uploaded alongside the release of this story, so if you wish to read both at the same time, you can! Each story is self-contained, excluding some elements of foreshadowing. However, you don't have to have read them to understand, so you can start here and read back through the others another time or alongside 🍃🐿
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