Chapter 71: The First End

Union Park, The Nexus

July 3rd, 1998, 04:27 PM

–

Erik Ravenclaw was seated on a bench in a park inside the Nexus. He was watching his children play with the other children of the residents and had a small smile on his face. His eight children had grown fast. Yes, eight kids. From his seven wifes, Calypso had twins. Two beautiful girls, Helayna and Hestia, with orange-red hair and stormy gray eyes that are as kind as her mother but can be troublemakers when they want too. And as her mother predicted, they are fiercely protected by their older siblings.

Erik watched as the kids played. He looked to the side, where some of the mothers were to the side talking about small random stuff, meaning, things that would bore any husband, and saw some of his wives there, happily chatting. Erik smiled at that too when his attention was pulled by a child's voice.

"Daddy, daddy!"

Erik looked at the child calling him and saw that it was Alix, his daughter with Ching Shih. The cute little girl with black hair and black eyes was running to him with her sisters behind her. He watched as his five little girls approached him. When they arrived by the bench where he was seated, they stopped. Alix was fidgeting a little, trying to gather courage to ask something.

"Yes, princess?"

Erik said, trying to encourage the little girl to ask away. That, together with some nubs from her sisters, had done the job.

"Can you- can you give us some money for ice cream?"

Alix asked and made some puppy eyes to Erik. He looked from her to his other little girls and saw that all the other four, Suyen, Revna, Helayna and Hestia, were giving him the same puppy eyes. Erik smiled at the little girls and took a thinking position, with a hand on his chin while frowning his eyebrows.

"I don't know…"

Erik said, playing with the little girls. The 'sisterhood', noticing that their future ice cream was at risk, decided to attack. Suyen was the first to jump and hug Erik.

"Please, daddy~"

The little girl pleaded. Helayne and Hestia were the next ones who jumped and hugged Erik.

""Please~"

Both said in unisom. Alix and Revna were the last ones who jumped at Erik.

""Pretty please?~""

They said, pleading to their father. How could Erik resist that? Well, to begin with, it was not like he was not going to give them some money. He just wanted them to not be too used to receiving everything that they wanted.

*sigh*

"Okay, okay."

Erik said after letting out a fake sigh.

"""""Yay!"""""

The five little girls chorused, celebrating and already tasting the cold treat in their mouths. Erik, after being released by his daughters, put a hand inside his jacket and, from an internal pocket of it, pulled out some bills. He then gave it to the one who had made the request, Alix.

"Here you go, princess. Be sure to invite your brothers and your friends too."

Erik said to the little girl, who gave him a big smile and nodded her head. She then turned away from him and, together with her sisters, went to where their brothers and friends were still playing. Erik was smiling at the scene. A thousand and sixteen years had passed since he was born in this marvelous world, and he didn't regret a millimeter of his decision in accepting his 'reward'.

–

Erick's House, Some city in another reality

October 31st, 2038, 00:36 AM

–

Inside a big house in a wealthy neighborhood, men could be seen upturning the house if anyone was to look through the windows. They were searching for something.

*glugh-glugh*

A noise, out of the ones being made by the searching team, could be heard. It was coming from the house's basement. In it, one could identify the apparel of an advanced research laboratory, and in the middle of it were four people. The sound was coming from the one who was tied to a chair. He had his head forced back by one of the other three men, while another one was pouring water from a galon over his towel covered face. He was being tortured by waterboarding. The third man, a well dressed man, was looking at the scene with apathy. They had a job to do here. Their orders were as clear as the water being poured on the tortured man's face. The man made a signal with his hand, and the man that was pouring the water stopped immediately. The other one stopped holding the man's head in place and took the wet towel off his face.

The tortured man had seen better days, that was for sure. He had a swollen purple eye with a cut in the eyebrow, a broken nose that was bleeding a little, and a split lower lip on his mouth. The man immediately started to cough while trying to breathe at the same time.

*cough cough cough*

When he stopped coughing and was just breathing, the man that was watching the session before spoke.

"Well, Dr. Erick Nord, is this enough?"

He said while looking at the tortured man's, now identified as Erick Nord, eyes. What he saw was stormy gray eyes looking directly back at him under swollen eyelids. That was not the eyes of someone that was afraid or going to surrender. Erick Nord was looking at his torturer with no fear at all, he knew what was coming from him, and he was not worried.

*ptu*

Erick Nord's answer was a spit, where his saliva was mixed with some blood, that flew and landed on the asking man's clothes.

"I suppose that was a no then."

The man, who looked like was the boss of the men, said while taking a handkerchief from a pocket and wiping the spit from his clothes. At this time, some other men entered the basement lab. The 'boss' looked at them and made a silent inquiry. The men who had just entered the room shook their heads negatively. At that, the boss clicked his tongue.

*tsc*

"Unfortunately, for you, we don't have the time to stay and continue to play this game. And since our contractor can't have your cure, nobody will have it."

The man said to Erick Nord and snapped his fingers.

*snap*

"Prepare the goodbye basket for Dr. Erick Nord here. We are leaving."

The boss said and his man started to move. He then looked at the bound man on the chair and gave him a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"You see, Dr. Erick Nord, when I said that if Global Pharmaceutics can't have your cure, then nobody will have it, I meant it. Our orders were very clear. Search for your research on the cure…"

At this, the man pointed to the hard drive that was on top of the table near him.

"... search for any prototype that you could have made, and make you a proposal to work for us. Unfortunately, the last two were not achievable, but our contractor was very clear about what to do in this situation."

The boss said. At this, another man enters the basement lab while holding a basket in his hands. It would be a normal basket made of vime, like those ones that people use to put fruits inside and gift to others, if not for the stuff inside of it. The man put the basket on top of one of the tables of the laboratory, and the boos approached it

"This here, Dr. Erick Nords, is an incendiary bomb. It will disperse in the air a very flammable liquid that will turn into a heavy gas shortly after being released. The dispositive will then detonate a small charge that will cause enough flame to set the heavy gas on a very hot fire, burning everything around it. Best of all, the dispositive is totally untraceable and will burn to cinders with the fire that it will generate."

The boss spoke to his audience. Erick Nord would roll its eyes if they were not swollen and hurting, but his tongue was still intact.

"What is with you, bad guys, and their monologs? Is that some kind of 'must do before killing' thing? Do you guys have a guide book that you have to follow that says that you have to bore the victim to death before actually killing him?"

Erick Nord said. And it was a critical hit. The smile that was on the boss' face disappeared and he calmly walked to the bound man.

*BAM*

The boss hit Erick Nord with a punch to the side of the face. The impact made the chair where Erick was tumble to the side, taking the bound man with it.

"Enjoy your last moments of life, Mr. Erick Nord. Tomorrow, the news will show that the genius microbiologist Erick Nord died in a house fire caused by a chemical reaction in his personal laboratory."

The boss said while wiping with a handkerchief his hand of Erick Nord's blood. He then discarded the handkerchief on the ground and walked out of the basement with his men following right behind him after clicking something inside the incendiary basket.

Alone again in the silence of his house, accompanied only by the 'beep' sounds coming from the incendiary basket, Erik thought about how things got here. In the year two thousand and nineteen, a virus started to spread through the population of the world. The virus was highly contagious and could kill. When the pandemia was controlled world wide, two years later, the virus had reaped around five percent of the world's total population. But then, a new version of the virus was discovered. This new version was not as lethal as the originator, but it was more resistant to the vaccines that were created. Four years later, it was controlled again, but it had taken with it another five percent of the world's population. And another variant appeared, and another, and another. Now, nineteen years later, the world was fighting three variants at the same time and had already lost eighteen percent of the population that it had in the beginning. Those were the numbers lost for the virus. A good three or four percent were of suicides. People had just given up. They were desperate.

Then it came Dr. Erick Nord. Erick Nord was a genius polymath that specialized in microbiology. He was the one who had found the vaccine for the three first variants of the virus. But the government, following the angry mob that was not satisfied with the pandemia and the rumors without any base that said 'the vaccine made the virus mutate', pressed hard on the research laboratory where Erick Nord worked and he was fired. In the beginning, Erick Nord was angry. He was doing his work, and doing it very well. If not for him, the death toll of the pandemia would have been much higher. Erick Nord ended up accepting it. Later, at home, he decided to do his own research. His base was: if a virus can mutate to fight a vaccine, why can't the vaccine, or cure, mutate to fight the virus too?

Erick Nord's research went on for months. He would close himself inside his laboratory and would not exit it for days to come. Did his family not botter by his obsessive behavior? They probably would have, if he had any. Erick Nord was an orphan since he was twelve years old. Being a genius tends to alienate people from those around his age, and with Erick Nord it was not different. He grew up without friends and that made him focus even more on his studies. He would, of course, have his leisure time. Japanese manga and anime was one of his passions, together with fiction books. Erick Nord grew up, and got various masteries in different areas. Physics, Mathematics, Biology, Medicine, Engineering, Computing, Psychology, Law. He graduated in a lot of areas and, when he was barely in his thirties, he was declared a polymath. Even with all his degrees, he had one that he liked more than others: Biology. Better saying, Microbiology.

For Erick Nord, Microbiology was a world of itself. Things happening and a micro level that could not be seen with the naked eye. The creatures of this micro world looked like little monsters too. Micro monsters that were programmed with a simple and unique function. It was with this base that Erick Nord was using to create his own micro monster. One that would have an objective to clean its host's body of bad things. And he did it.

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