Munger and Satell were two preeminent scientists, both ranking in the top ten in biology and bioengineering respectively. They were also top candidates for the Seena Award, the greatest scientific honor in the world, and both were still under forty-five. Although being top candidates meant they only had to wait twenty years to receive the award, while others had to wait forty.
But due to their status, they were treated like scientific royalty in the Gurang Province, and General Alexander had specifically requested their expertise, by name. This offer was a great honor and an opportunity that could only be stumbled upon, not sought after. Even a slight connection with such a renowned general would open doors that remained closed to many for their entire lives.
Naturally, they accepted.
They were placed in charge of a hundred other eminent scientists, some even older and more established than themselves, but lacking the same glamorous achievements.
And so, here they were. Beneath an inconspicuous small mountain outside of Golden Dragon City, deep within its bowels and covered by a myriad of military installations, lay the facility where they were now stationed.
The lab buzzed with activity, filled with the low hum of machinery and the occasional sharp beep of monitoring devices. Sleek robotic arms moved with precision, transferring delicate samples from one glass chamber to another. Nutrient-rich solutions bubbled softly, their colors shifting as sensors recorded data onto nearby screens. The antiseptic scent of the lab mingled with the metallic scent of the blood samples, continuously piling in a rack on one side.
Watching the ceaseless stream of lab coats adding to the pile of samples, Munger felt a headache coming on. This would take days to sort and categorize based on parameters he didn’t even know yet. The amount of work for one man was ridiculous, and he definitely wouldn’t trust anyone else to do it.
A young man carrying a tray of blood vials carelessly passed through the plastic curtains of the doorway. He stumbled, and Munger instantly jumped forward, catching him before the vials stained the lab's perfect track record.
Munger’s face turned cold as he grabbed the tray and pushed the young man back through the curtains. “Don’t they teach you how to walk before they give you a degree? Or have they forgotten that as well?!”
By the end, his voice was a scream, and the young scientist scurried out of the lab.
A lazy voice suddenly filled the room. “Can you chill out? What’s the point in rushing? We’ve already won the Seena Award.” The tone shifted to a melancholic one. “All we have to do now is wait a tiny twenty years.”
Munger looked at his colleague, his lips forming a sneer before he quickly reverted to his cold demeanor. Satell was a brilliant man, but his spirit had been broken by the underwhelming response to his discovery. Ever since then, Munger could tell that pushing scientific boundaries was something Satell no longer had in him.
Munger placed all the samples in their corresponding slots and went back to the computer. Sitting next to Satell, he watched him sifting through the various subjects like he was shifting beach sand. Munger's anger grew, realizing that precious subjects might pass screening because of Satell's lack of enthusiasm.
He suddenly pressed a couple of buttons and brought up the folder of a specimen he’d been thoroughly enamored with. He thought that maybe sharing his thoughts and speculations with Satell would awaken something in the man.
“Look here. This guy was the most interesting of the thousands we’d found.”
“Thousands?” sulked Satell. “How many are there in total?”
Munger frowned but decided to humor him. “Around fifteen thousand. Subjects from all over the Golden Dragon Administrative Zone are being processed here.”
“God, that’s a lot of work,” sighed Satell.
“If you hate it so much, why don’t you just quit?” responded Munger.
“I can’t. My wife wants to run for a position in the Central Committee. She threatened divorce if I fail here.” Satell seemed exasperated by the situation. He certainly didn’t inspire confidence in Munger.
“Your wife seems like an ambitious congresswoman, and certainly a connection to the general would be beneficial,” agreed Munger. “So why don’t you at least try?”
Satell turned to look at Munger and, seeing his expectant expression, sighed and fixed his hunched posture. Munger could tell this was not a genuine effort, but he had no choice but to keep going and hopefully fix his attitude.
“Look at this video.”
He played an attached video clip showing the young man in question jumping from a fifth-story window at his high school.
Satell frowned when he saw the concrete crack as the young man landed, and not his legs as expected. “His parents are high up in the party, and they modified him genetically. And?”
Munger frowned. “Think more.”
Satell clicked his tongue, visibly annoyed, but his face suddenly turned severe, recalling a piece of information only extremely well-connected members of the party like him and Munger would know.
“That tensile strength in his bones is equivalent to a Level Two enhancement. Highly regulated by the military. How did they perform the procedure on him?”
Munger shook his head. “They didn’t. I’ve checked his blood already. There is no trace in his DNA of nanite tampering.”
“That’s impossible,” scoffed Satell. “It must be some new nanite technology that doesn’t leave the usual markers.”
Munger pointed to himself. “Aren’t I Munger? Wouldn’t I know if something like that was invented? To begin with, if I don’t invent such a thing, no one in the country can.”
“I bet that little girl can.”
“That’s different,” Munger screeched. The little girl in question had received brain augmentation since she was an embryo. Her parents wanted to create a super genius, and to some extent, they had succeeded. Though Munger didn’t believe she was more intelligent than him, compared to the average individual, she was undoubtedly a savant.
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Munger grin resumed and he pressed a button on the computer. Another folder came up on the screen, with an image of a crimson-haired little girl attached to it.
Satell’s eyes widened, and he jumped from his seat. “She’s among the subjects?”
Munger scoffed. “She is a subject.”
“But she’s only a child. Is she even a teenager yet?” Looking at the picture, the girl couldn’t be more than twelve. How could such a child survive a world that created the horror stories that returned from there?
“She is ten,” corrected Munger, “and that’s exactly why this project requires our utmost attention. Something is happening in that world that’s enhancing humans at a rate that shouldn’t be possible, even with the best genetic procedures we can envision a hundred years from now.”
Munger went to the side and opened one of the freezer cabinets. He pulled out a sample of tissue and brought it under the microscope, waving to Satell to join him. Munger had arrived on site twelve hours earlier and had already gotten a chance to look at it. He planned to show it to Satell before they began triage, but by the time Satell arrived, the facility began to flood with subjects that desperately needed their immediate attention.
But he needed to stoke his colleague’s curiosity, so despite being pressed for time, delaying the triage slightly was a necessary sacrifice.
“What is that?!” Satell screamed in wonder as he looked at the tissue displayed. He recognized the cells themselves, as they looked almost identical to normal muscle cells—a long cylindrical cell that would contract and generate movement in the body. But these cells were not neatly bundled together as they normally would be; they were woven together in an intricate pattern that boggled his mind.
Munger nodded with excitement. “I was confused at first too, but it’s definitely a bundle of skeletal muscle cells. It belonged to one of the specimens that came back!” said Munger, expecting nothing less from his colleague once he could wrap his mind around this monstrosity.
“You’re saying one of the subjects brought this back with them?”
“Well, no. This was one of the subjects.”
Satell’s hairs bristled on his back, and he suddenly felt a strange urge to leave the lab. He looked down at the long strip of muscle on the table, knowing that whoever this was taken from probably didn’t feel too good right now.
Seeing his sudden apprehension, Munger corrected, “The subject resisted incarceration and was terminated. He was committing robberies most likely before this happened. What’s there to feel bad about?”
“Right,” Satel replied ruefully.
“In any case, I’ve analyzed a couple of other samples, and they all present such modifications to their cell structures. What I want to find out next is how deep the modification goes. Does it stop at the cell macrostructure, or does it go deeper?”
Satell immediately picked up on the implication and widened his eyes. “You’re saying there’s more than a couple?”
Munger nodded. “I estimate that most, if not all, of the specimens have been affected by possibly some sort of mutagenic agent in that world. We have less than thirty-six hours to figure out what to do with them as the countdown elapses. We don’t have long.”
“Specimens?” squeaked Satell.
Seeing as Satell’s mind was nowhere near the research, Munger felt he’d only be hindered by him going forward. He sighed and decided he had no choice but to act. Munger refused to allow this project be jeopardized by Satell's work ethic or his prudish morality.
“Maybe this will catch your interest,” Munger said, pulling out a white bony object from a drawer, slightly curved and longer than his palm. “This was found in possession of that magnificent specimen I showed you earlier.”
“Stop calling them that!” hissed Satell, but his curiosity was piqued despite himself. Munger began to ignore him. His mind had already been made up.
He held the object up and laid it horizontally, pointing to the filed edge. “Press on this. You’ll see something cool. I was shocked the first time I saw it.”
Satell’s mind was in disarray thinking of what he’d gotten himself into and didn’t think too much of it. He placed his index finger on the object, but just as he was about to press, Munger pursed his lips. He didn’t think it would be enough.
“No, place all your fingers and make sure they’re as close to the knuckles as possible. You have to apply enough pressure, or else the effect won’t be visible.”
Seeing Satell follow his instructions, Munger grinned. “Good. Now press hard.”
Shick!
Blood spurted onto Munger, staining his white lab coat a vivid crimson. Four fingers fell to the floor with a silent but conspicuous pat pat sound, both men looking down in surprise.
“Oh,” said Munger, “I didn’t know it was that sharp.”
“Argh!”
A loud scream reverberated through the entire complex, loudly announcing a change in personnel.
.................................................
“What do you mean he quits?!”
A buff man with short hair and donning a simple military uniform roared into his phone. His face was red, and veins were popping all over his face, making his male secretary waiting patiently to the side sigh with exasperation.
“I don’t care that he just had surgery. Get him back to work!”
The colonel listened for one more second to the other side’s arguments but got fed up and slammed the phone onto the desk.
Boom!
The desk cracked in half, and the phone exploded into a million pieces.
“Damn! Satell left the project saying he’s scared of Munger. What did that idiot do to him?”
The secretary pursed his lips and shook his head. “The general will not be pleased.”
“You think?” Colonel Biran glared at his secretary and wished to pounce on him and tear his arms away, but thinking of who his older brother was, his mind immediately cooled.
Seeing his superior’s frustration boiling over, the secretary conceded, “There are, however, multiple candidates that match Satell’s abilities, and with much more suitable personalities. I even dare say this was a blessing in disguise.”
“Well, your opinion doesn’t matter.” The colonel snapped back, but he began to relax and slowly straightened his clothes with gritted teeth. “Even though you are correct, and I agree with you. But what matters is whether the general agrees with it. And I have to be the one to ask him. Not you, and certainly not Satell or Munger!”
Colonel Biran shivered when he thought of having to face that man. The general always preferred being spoken to in person and never took phone calls unless in a war zone, and even then, only if absolutely necessary.
He put it out of his mind for the moment and shifted subjects. “Have you found any good seeds?”
The secretary pulled out a digital notepad and passed it to the colonel. On it was a list of names along with corresponding photos. The colonel swiftly shifted through the close to one hundred names on it.
“It’s hastily put forth,” explained the secretary, “but I’m confident most of them fit the criteria you asked for.”
The colonel nodded but stopped when he came across a face he’d seen plastered all over social media that morning. “Isn’t he the one who threatened to kill his high school secretary?” His gaze turned cold. “I told you I need them to be strong and obedient. Neither can be lacking!”
The secretary’s expression didn’t change as he responded calmly, “He did that because he wanted to find out his friend’s phone number. He is supremely confident in himself, yet despite this, he followed every order during his arrest and never caused a scene. He has answered every question directed to him and never once complained or even questioned being detained. He is composed to an unnerving degree, and that tells me he only intimidated the school secretary as a tactic to achieve success. He fits your criteria, Colonel Biran.”
The colonel scoffed, but if his secretary was to be believed, this was an S-class seedling.
As he sifted through his pictures some more, he found one that made him frown. It was a picture taken with his clothes off, showing a conspicuously swollen belly. The profile picture was even more ridiculous, with his abdominal area protruding far outside his frame.
“Why is his belly so big? Is he pregnant?”
“Huh?” The secretary quickly looked through the folder again and shook his head. “No sir, his chromosomes are XY. That cannot be possible.”
“Right.” The colonel nodded but still felt uneasy looking at the picture. He put it out of his mind for now and moved to throw the notepad on his desk, but he sighed loudly, seeing the state of his office.
“I need to give the general the news. Bring me a new desk from storage and make sure nothing goes wrong while I’m gone. Also, alert the next co-department head of science of what Munger did. I don’t want a repeat of this again.”
“Yes, sir!” The secretary gave a customary salute, and the colonel swiftly left the office. He shook his arms and legs while in the elevator, as if preparing for a fight, and took a long, deep breath. He began to rehearse the words he’d speak in the general’s presence, wanting to make sure he didn’t misspeak and invite calamity. If the meeting went well, he would celebrate more than when his son was born.