Part 3
December 31, 1983
My sixth winter at Arklay Laboratory.
Two almost stagnant years had passed without much achievement, but the turning point has finally arrived. The catalyst was a report we received that morning. Alexia had died at the South Pole institute.
It was said that Alexia was accidentally infected by the T-Veronica virus which she herself had developed. At that time, Alexia was twelve years old, and was too young to continue this kind of dangerous research.
A rumour began to circulate that Alexia had deliberately infected herself with the virus, but that seemed very unlikely. More likely, she had not got over the death of her father a year earlier and had made an error.
At the South Pole institute, Alexia's research was then taken over by her twin brother, her only blood relative. But no one expected any worthwile results from him. The Ashford family line seemed to have almost died out without producing anything of note. As I suspected, the legend surrounding this family was no more than that.
Alexia's death changed Birkin - or should I say it transformed Birkin back to the person he once was. It played a major factor in Birkin's psychological wellbeing as his researchers started showing him more respect. With Alexia dead, the was no longer anyone who exhibited greater potential than him. However, talking about Alexia in front of him was still taboo. Birkin strongly disagreed when I tried to get hold of a T-Veronica sample. I had to bide my time to find a better opportunity to find out the truth about Alexia's research. In spite of the fact that Birkin was in much stronger position he still never grew up. However, in those days, I had much bigger issues to contend with.
The Arklay Laboratory was situated in the centre of a mountainous region, itself surrounded by a deep forest. I often went out for walks during my time there, but I never came across anyone else. Helicopter was the only means of reaching the laboratory, making it inaccessible to outsiders. The remoteness of the area and lack of people is an important factor when choosing a site for an institute like this, in order to minimise a potential disaster if the virus escaped. However, biological weapons were not as simple as that. The viruses would not just infect human beings.
No virus chooses just one type of carrier. For example, apart from humans, the influenza virus can infect birds, pigs, horses and even sea lions. It complicates the matter further when you know that not all the species of the same family can be infected, but other species of birds are spared. More over, the same virus may take different carriers, depending on it's variants. It is impossible to know all the carriers for even just one virus. The biggest problem is the high adaptability of the T-virus.
While Birkin was not contributing much I had been studying the possibility of secondary infection from the T-virus. What I discovered was that the T-virus has carriers in almost every single species. Not only animals, but also plants, insects, fish, almost all the species have a potential to multiply and spread the T-virus. When I was strolling through the woods, i always thought - Why did Spencer choose this location?
There were so many species that co-existed in the forest. What would happen if the virus escaped and came into contact with a creature capable of being a carrier? If it were some insects, then they would not pose a big threat of secondary infection due to their size. But insects can multiply to enormous numbers.
In that case, how far could the virus spread? Suppose it was some plants. It may appear at first that the possibility of widespread infection would be small as plants cannot move. But what about their pollen?
This location was too dangerous. Come to think of it, it made perfect sense for the Ashfords to choose the South Pole as site for their laboratory. In contrast, this location, it seems, was selected in order to spread the virus. But, that couldn't be ture, could it? What did Spencer want us to do?
These thoughts were too important to share with anybody else in the laboratory. The only person I cold possibly ask was Birkin. But, it was obvious there was no point in talking to him about it. What I needed was more information.
Around this time, I started to feel the limitation of my situation. In order to find out Spencer's true intention, I needed to be in a position which would give me access to the information I required. I had no hesitation in giving up my present position for this purpose. But, I did not want to be too hasty because if Spencer had any suspicions about my real motives, then the game would be up.
I concentrated on my research with Birkin so that my real thoughs would not betray me. While we were keeping ourselves busy, the female specimen was almost forgotten about. A failure, with no use, but still she lived on. We called her a failure because we could not get any valid data from her. Until that experiment took place, five years later...
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