“How is this possible? We had tested it for over two thousand times!”

“Do you think it is the Leopard stole our findings and developed this?”

“No way, who do they think they are, testing out something stolen right under our noses.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the CEO will be entering within ten seconds.”

The airtight seal gate unlocked its layers of locks a layer at a time, and the sterilizing agent started to spray from the door frame as the gate lifted slowly, creating a huge white mist. The researchers in their pink coloured lab-coats held their breaths.

Cough! Cough! Cough!

A man stumbled through the smoke coughing, but just before he was about to fall to his knees, a few agents in purple suits appeared from behind and dragged him back.

“That’s close,” the man drew out a long pipe from his comical pink, rubber coat.

“Sir,” a woman who was about a third taller than the man appeared from behind, holding a pile of folders in her hands, “I suggest this to be your last dose today.”

“Why,” the man snapped, but he withdrew his pipe into his pocket, “fine, fine, I get it, I’ll save it to tonight.” Then he turned to the researchers and complained, “gosh, it is not like I am from a virus-infested slum, next time I want none of that gas in my face when I enter this fucking room.”

“Sir,” the woman corrected the man, “it is you who ordered the usage of KD101 to be sprayed at any person entering the Class F research labs since the TOKO incident.”

“I know, I know,” the man replied, “fine, ignore what I said. God, at this rate, I’ll be soon needing an artificial lung.”

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By putting her documents onto a desk the woman took out her phone and checked, “currently we have around 400 artificial lungs in ready conditions, should I register the medical team…”

“No,” the man replied and punched his chest, “I am fine with what I have right now. Just remember the medical people to leave a spare one and they can sell the rest.”

“Affirmative.”

The man turned his attention to the researchers and pointed at some equipment placed at the far end of the room, “So, what is happening?”

“Mr Marksman,” a half-bald researcher who sitting on an automated wheelchair moved towards the CEO, “from what our special forces team gathered, there proved to be a success with our ‘Electromagnetic Fluid’ concept.”

Eshort Marksman took out a piece of tissue and spit inside it, then disposed it into a combustion furnace, “rubbish, I am pretty sure that is not us who made it.”

The woman, who was Eshort’s secretory walked up to him, “there is a theory suggesting that the fluid samples are made by Leopard.”

“No, no, no,” Eshort did a spin on the ground with his gold-tipped boots, “ use your damn brains, Leopard is just making B-tech duplication of our products that might be cheaper, but worse in every aspect.”

The secretory didn’t back down from Eshort’s statement, “that may be true for now, but the Leopard’s

market share is increasing rapidly, and they are currently heavily recruiting ex-North Köloñ members.”

Eshort chooses to not reply instantly, instead, he walked towards the samples placed in the vacuum tubes. Inside the tubes, the black gel slowly vibrated due to the input alternating current. Before anyone could stop him, Eshort sprint to the nearby computer and set all inputs to the maximum.

BANG!

The dark gel instantly turned into a long spike that made a hand-sized hold on its container. Seeing the result of his action, Eshort lowered the voltage and the spike melted back into the container.

“Interesting,” Eshort turned to the researchers, “now show me what else can this gel do?”

The senior researcher took out a small tray filled with broken mobile phones, where some even had their CPU removed and hammered into random shapes. The researchers then placed tray into a small chamber with a robotic injector.

“Ready to start?” Eshort took over control over the computer again and quickly typed in the commands. The robotic injector started to inject each phone with the gel and amazingly, the gel started to solidify, forming different components in the phone.

While Eshort watched, the senior researcher handed him a phone that appeared brand new, “this we what we produced in the test yesterday. This phone is perfectly functional.”

Eshort started the phone and swiped randomly, “So this gel is already programmed to repair, and, from what we have seen before, to attack?”

The senior researcher nodded and gestured another researcher to come with a digital pad, “this is what we have currently recorded from a sample of the gel.”

Glancing through the sentences formed by nonsense symbols, Eshort handed the pad to his secretary, “I’ll read this later. Anyways, Dr Kursk, have you did a chemical analysis of the gel.”

The old researcher nodded again, “Yes we did, and that’s what’s troubling us the most: this sample has the same composition as our failed prototypes, like exact to the nearest 99.9999996 per cent.”

“Figure it out then,” Eshort said harshly, “I want a us to be able to produce this material within four months. Now, I shall check on the other projects.”

The researchers watched nervously as their boss disappeared through the door.

“You!” Dr Kursk dragged a younger researcher closer, “Order the Search Team to do a carpet search of the North Side.”