March, 2018
Secret Laboratory
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
​
“You hear about the shit they’re doing in Wuhan?” Billy said as he peered into a microscope.
“Ah yeah and you signed an NDA, we’re not supposed to even say the name Wuhan. Hell, we’re not even supposed to be speaking to one another outside of conducting our tasks. You don’t know me, I don’t know you, and this lab here in Boston isn’t supposed to even exist.” Emily replied.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. But all of this is fun, no?” Billy asked the hypothetical.
Billy continued, “they gave us this blood sample, didn’t tell us where, who, or what its from, and its complexity is out of this world!”
Emily rolled her eyes and continued running her data analysis; she didn’t respond. Something caught her eye in the data. She looked closer. There was a single protein flagged in the data set.
“I need to isolate this.” Emily thought to herself.
“Hey Billy, Protein here.” Emily pointed to the data on the screen as Billy walked over.
“Oh yeah, I see. What is it?” Billy said.
“I don’t know. I can’t attribute it to anything known.” Emily replied.
“Well, there’s only one thing to do then - let’s test it.” Billy responded enthusiastically.
The two scientists documented their finding.
Their contract was simple: analyze the blood sample; isolate, extract, and test any unidentifiable proteins. And testing was defined as “to seek gain of function of any quality associated with mammalian biology.”
These contracts were given to a few choice laboratories all over the world. And each laboratory was given one vial of blood. The vial of blood didn’t come with any paperwork; no serial numbers or bar codes either. One label was affixed to the vial and it had two words on it: “JACOB GREY.”
The truth was and is, that this situation isn’t all that rare. Shady contractors, shady government officials, and shady big pharma reps are always doing shady stuff. And Billy and Emily were just another cog in the wheel; this contract wasn’t the first either of them had signed on for, and it wasn’t going to be the last.
“Hey, instead of running the test right away, let’s put it through the BMS.” Emily insisted.
“That thing? Common. I mean, I know we’re not supposed to talk about that either, but isn’t it more fun to just jump head first into what we normally do? Look at all these mice just itching to become a part of science.” Billy seemingly spoke to himself as he crouched over and tapped on a small glass aquarium full of white mice.
“Because it’s part of the contract, Billy.” Emily replied.
The two scientists were expected to use the tools and equipment provided to them within the laboratory space. This included a prototype “Biological Material Synthesizer” or “BMS” for short. The BMS was driven by Artificial Intelligence, otherwise known as AI. And until the kinks were worked out and deemed ready for a profit - also known as ready for the public - Billy and Emily’s scope of work mandated that they use the BMS for at least one test.
Both Billy and Emily were skeptical of what or how this “robot” was going to perform what it was intended to perform, but they went ahead with the test anyway.
The BMS relied on a human prompt to begin to synthesize a test sample. That prompt would be interpreted by the AI and then the magic would begin. The result was the creation of an injectable protein ready for a mammalian host.
Billy placed a small drop of blood in a vial. He placed a label on the vial and wrote on the label “JACOB GREY / BMS RUN 1.”
The vial was inserted into a small tube on the bottom of the BMS. An additional vial of the host’s blood - in this case one of the white mice chosen at random - was also inserted into the same tube.
Once both vials were inserted, the BMS activated. On a small screen located near the top of the BMS, a message displayed “Please define the desired result of the synthesis of these two biological samples.”
A small microphone icon was on a button next to the screen.
Billy looked at Emily who returned the look with an “I don’t know” shrug of the shoulders.
“Umm, please take the unknown proteins in sample number one and, umm, make them do something to the known proteins in sample number two, resulting in something that makes the host, umm, able to umm, not die…I don’t…”
A message flashed on the screen “Time expired. Starting synthesis.”
Emily rolled her eyes as Billy looked at her.
“‘Not die.’ Great technical terminology Mr. Scientist” Emily said to Billy sarcastically.
“Whatever. This is new to me. Let’s see what this robot can do.” Billy responded.
It took the BMS about three hours to complete the task. Once complete, the BMS flashed another message on its screen, "task complete. Please retrieve the sample from the compartment."
Billy took a small vial of blood out of the BMS.
"Looks like normal blood to me" Billy said as he looked at Emily with curious smirk.
"Well, lets not waste any time. Grab another mouse and a syringe." Emily told Billy.
Billy picked out a fresh mouse from the aquarium then filled the syringe with the blood sample, then injected the mouse. Almost immediately, the mouse fell into a seizure, then after a few minutes, it became motionless - eyes wide - on the stainless steel surface of one of the tables in the laboratory.
"Well that didn't work." Billy snickered to Emily.
Suddenly the mouse bounced to its feet. It charged at Billy. The mouse was oddly fast as it made its way across the table. With a bounding leap, it landed on Billy's chest and scurried to his neck.
"What the fuck!?" Billy shouted as he tried to flick the rodent off of his neck.
"Mother fucker! Ouch!" Billy screamed.
He was finally able to grab the rodent by the tail and whipped it across the room. The rodent fell to the ground. For a moment it stayed there. Billy and Emily - who was seemingly in shock at what was happening - observed the mouse dragging its back legs as it began to move toward the both of them again.
"I must have broken its hips or something when I threw it at the wall" Billy said out loud.
As the mouse continued advancing on them, Emily rose her lab shoe off the floor and with a stomp, crushed the mouse. As she picked her shoe up, her heavy breathing became heavier as she observed the mouse - still alive. She had missed the head with her courageous stomp, but even though she managed to land her heel on the body of the rodent - its guts exploding out of its side - the mouse kept trying to move forward. Billy and Emily looked at each other "How the fuck is it still alive?" Emily said to Billy.
Then Billy moved in with another stomp - this time crushing the animal's head. The mouse was motionless now.
"You're bleeding" Emily alerted Billy. Billy grabbed his neck. He was bleeding. "That little fucker got me good." Billy said as he pulled his hand away, revealing a couple fingers coated in blood.
Emily handed him a napkin; Billy held it on the wound.
"So what do we do now?" Billy asked Emily.
"Lets bag that mouse up. Clearly whatever that machine made did something to the thing." Emily said as she moved toward the BMS. She pressed the microphone button and said "Hi, umm, can you transfer all the data associated with that last task to my drive?"
The BMS responded, "Data sent."
Emily moved over to her chair and clicked on a folder on her laptop. The folder was labeled "JACOB GREY / BMS RUN 1".
Emily clicked through the data. Then she heard a thud. She turned around and saw Billy on the floor. He was having a seizure. Then - like the mouse - was motionless, but eyes wide opened. Emily couldn't call 911. They were in an undisclosed laboratory and she was well aware of what would happen if people found the lab and started looking at what was going on in there - especially since the rumors of what was going on in Wuhan were tarting to get out into the mainstream.
Instead she quickly messaged her handlers through a secure messaging app on her laptop.
"Emergency. Team member down. Not sure what's happening. BMS synthesized sample created. Host deceased. Body preserved. Please advise." Emily typed.
Almost immediately, her cell phone rang. "Secure all data sets, samples, and electronics. Leave the facility immediately. We'll coordinate with first responders on our end. What's the status of your teammate?" a voice on the other end of the phone said.
"He's still laying there. His eyes are open. He's starting to breathe heavily." Emily responded.
"Did you achieve gain of function?" The voice asked.
"Umm, I don't know. We ran the stuff through the BMS, and then injected the sample into the mouse, then the mouse did stuff, and then it was like trying to attack us." Emily wasn't making too much sense - clearly she was overwhelmed at the moment.
"Okay. Leave him there. Secure everything. We'll access the BMS data on our end." The voice said.
"Just leave him here like this?" Emily was rightfully concerned. She didn't know Billy well, but it seemed wrong to leave him in this state.
"Go. Now." the voice ordered.
Just then, Billy rose to his feet. He momentarily stared at Emily. "Billy, you okay?" Before Emily could say another word, Billy lunged at her. She pushed him back, but not before he was able to land a clean bite on her hand. "What the fuck!? Billy no!" Emily screamed.
Emily still held on to the phone with her other hand. She could hear the voice say something like "Laboratory 51, Boston. Gain of function breach."
It was all happening so fast. Emily pushed Billy, he bit her hand, Billy fell backward, Emily ran for the laboratory door. Billy gained his balance and pursued her with superman-like agility and speed. She opened the door and slammed it behind her as Billy crashed into it. The door locked and Emily ran down a long corridor, then out an emergency exit.
It was sunny out and oddly warm for a March day. Spring was coming. Emily collapsed onto a sidewalk. She began having a seizure.
​
_________________________________
Frank hung up the phone and hurried out of his office and down the hallway. Frank had moved around quite a bit since being Jacob's handler way back in 1999. Once he was able to get the location of the star gate, Frank became a member of the "deep state." It took some time, but he had helped put the pieces in place to have the U.S. Military invade Iraq in 2003. It was also super helpful that not long after plans were being devised for convincing the world that Saddam needed to go, some islamist fundamentalists put a little bow on the whole operation with the events on September 11th, 2001. Frank was rather impressed with how it all came together. And once Jacob helped him locate and study the star gate, Frank was assigned to oversee what more could be done with Jacob's knowledge and biology - hence the secret labs and the whole "gain of function" operation.
Frank entered a corner office in the Langley, Virginia office building.
"What is happening at Lab 51 Frank?" a man sitting behind a large desk stood and said to Frank as Frank walked in.
"It sounds like something happened. I don't know if its connected to the research, or just some freak accident. I did hear a scream on the phone. I'm not sure if the contractor lady made it out of the lab. I have a team from the Boston office on the way now."
Just then, another person walked in the room. "Sir, you need to see this." The man said as he walked over to a large wall-mounted TV. The man put a news channel on. There was breaking news out of Boston. "At the moment, people are attacking one another in the streets of Boston." The news anchor said, then live footage from the station's helicopter came on the screen. It was chaos. As the camera zoomed in on the crowd, people could be seen jumping, running, and biting one another. A few brave policeman were unloading full clips on entire persons - only for the person to continue to advance, ultimately tackling, beating, and then biting the cop.
The man behind the desk looked away from the TV and said to Frank "Frank, does this have anything to do with your little lab experiments?"
The man already knew the answer. Frank locked eyes with the man. "You wanted 'gain of function' I gave you 'gain of function'." Frank replied sternly.
"I wanted break through. I wanted advancement. I gave you labs, people, alien blood, and artificial intelligence." The man said as he looked back at the chaos unfolding on the TV screen. "But from the looks of it, you gave me fucking zombies!" The man screamed as he pointed at the screen.
"Sir, it will be fine. We'll clean this up. We'll get the National Guard activated and we'll spin this and blame it on some virus created in a lab in China or something." Frank said confidently.
Just then a news anchor came back on the TV. "Authorities are issuing a shelter-in-place for all of the Boston metro area. Lock your doors and windows. Stay inside...Holy shit! This is like a real-life zombie apocalypse or something!" the news anchor mumbled as he took his mic off and stood up and walked off camera. The TV screen then changed to the Emergency Alert system.