Ready to Infect

The Major fumed upon his two subordinates inside his office. Probably, there were his Lieutenants, recoiling upon the blathering Officer. Their clothes were bathed with soot, and faint blood stains splattered on their clothes. Luke stepped inside, trying to conceal his presence, but the floorboards defeated his purpose.

"I told you to instruct your scouts to make solid intel! We should have bombed the hangars. They were killed by one predator. One!... If we had paralyzed their air weapons... we could have returned to base unscathed." The Major had respites on his statements, suppressing anger as best as he could.

The Lieutenants remained silent. Somehow, they knew the Major's mood reached a boiling that was not accepting reason. Forty dead soldiers devastated the ranks. A despairing responsibility fell upon the Commander's authority to report the fallen to Command.

"Next time, do it properly!... You're dismissed!" The Major said, his cheeks raged red.

The two middle-aged Lieutenants had their salutes and went outside the office without any word uttered. Major acknowledged Luke after the Major's short depressing reverie.

"I suppose you have anticipated this war. And I know you have heard that forty are dead because of wrong intel…" George lowered himself to a chair and drank Jack Daniels Premium scotch. His demeanor relaxed a bit.

"Yes, I do. I know in wars there are the unfortunate ones." Luke answered.

"I guess you are not afraid anymore of dying," Major George said. "You come here without any regrets?"

"I am afraid to die, Major. But, I don't regret coming here. We can face the fact that our lives are always at stake if the Bugmen are still present, Major. In this timeline or 2030."

The Major had the appetite for liquor and poured himself again.

"You are not here for me to lament my frustrations at you. You are not here to be reminded to be safe always. No! You are here because I want you to be angry. I want you to imagine the worst results of war… With your anger and hate for these aliens, I want you to wipe them out as soon as possible. The question is, are you ready?"

Luke nodded. He was not ready.

The Major placed a large sack on the table which contained the collection tubes. Large thuds of wood against metal loomed as he placed them. His actions construed his chagrin during the raid.

"Ten blood samples from ten different hosts. I hope this is sufficient," he sneered.

"It will be sufficient to make my virus effective in the contagion rate, Major. But I will be needing more. I will be needing the blood of mountain animals. I need my virus to mutate more to environmental resistance as the mountain animals had over thousands of years."

"I know. You evolvers always need more. More resources, more men..." George realized his statements. He shook his head right after. An awkward silence fell on them, the Major's eyes looking down the floorboards. "What do you need?"

"I need a team to collect the samples in the mountains. Command told me about the Auroracrest Peaks. It will be my collection site." He said sternly, disregarding the Major's frustration.

"I know. Jameson also requested to collect samples there… Ok, for your team. I am assigning Nica, Calyx, and Kristo. You need more people for collection, right?"

"No. Just the three of them will suffice, Major."

Fortunately, Luke headed out with immense motivation. His interpretation of the Major's exchange was that the latter considered the Virus Evolver significant in the participation of war. After lunch of fried Eggplants, Okra Stew, and white rice, he headed directly to his laboratory with the ten metallic collection tubes that carried on his shoulder.

He inserted the collection tubes in the evolution tank.

"Alien blood samples identified," Monday loomed, her voice now embedded in the room's system.

"Give me readings, Monday," Luke said.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

[Virus Name] Nebula Virus

[Virus Type] Pycorniavirus

[Evolution level] Level 1

Lethal level: 5/100

Infectivity level: 30/100

Severe level: 20/100

Stability: 80

Mutation genes: 1040/200 (Added 1000 mutation gene points)

Capabilities: Aerosol Vector + Synapse chain

Mutated Symptoms: Mild Colds, Sneezing

[Mutation Options]

[1] Airborne Shell Persistence, 150 points – enhanced virus immunity against external atmospheric harsh conditions. Requirement: Aerosol Vector

[2] Covert Spore, 100 points - Allowing the Virus to spread before the symptoms appear. Requirement: Silent Spore

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Luke only navigated the modification panel more on the contagion ability of the virus and not on the upgrade of symptoms. Before its detection, he needed the virus to proliferate to the target population first. The Evolution leveling provided the Evolver access to a higher level of capabilities, including the fatal ones.

"Monday, commencing Silent Spore, Covert Spore, and Airborne Shell Persistence abilities," Luke said while modifying the control pad. "And rank up the virus."

"Copy that, Luke," Monday responded.

After a few seconds, and as the system underwent evolution protocols, the virus evolved. Two small almost imperceptible colonies appeared near the mother genome.

---------------------------------------------

[Evolution level] Level 2

Lethal level: 8/100

Infectivity level: 40/100

Severe level: 25/100

Stability: 70

Mutation genes: 560/500

Capabilities: Aerosol Vector + Synapse chain + Airborne Shell Persistence + Silent Spore + Covert spore

Mutated Symptoms: Mild Colds, Sneezing, Skin Lesions

----------------------------------------------

As anticipated, the virus mutated another unwanted symptom again – skin lesions. The Cure Evolver would wonder about the appearance of abnormalities on the skin of the infected hosts, therefore, triggering an alarm.

Luke did the operation again to extract the skin lesion ability from the mother genome and transferred it intricately and carefully to the adjacent glass tank that held the Nox Virus. The said virus already engrossed the ability of bronchitis.

He then understood that his predecessors hated symptom extraction. The extraction procedure underwent almost three hours. Many protocols were still done manually. First, he needed to conduct a Symptom Vector Mapping with the use of a Molecular Disruptor and Adaptive Protein Identification.

That process alone gave him an hour to isolate the target symptom. After identification and isolation, the evolver extracted the symptom by a process called Biosynthesis Extraction Protocol, taking another hour or so. After extraction, the genomic level symptom was then transferred to the adjacent Virus. Now, the process should be fast during transfer so as not to deteriorate the extracted symptom's molecular genome until it submerged itself to the other nutritive media gel in the adjacent tank.

After transfer, the symptom molecular genome would be injected into the Nox Virus called Genomic Resonance Sequencing. Whenever Luke did the protocols, his palms never ceased to sweat. The intricacy if leads to failure, would disrupt the stabilities of the viruses, therefore cell apoptosis would be imminent.

Any evolver would know that the incorporation of symptom capabilities would greatly affect the virus's stability. Therefore, Luke transferred 100 mutation gene points to Nox Virus just to pull stability back to 100 points again.

With the new Nebula Virus status, he knew the readiness to infect. The most awaited debut of an Evolver. 'The Major should know,' He thought.