Part 4
July 1, 1988
It was our 11th summer since we arrived at the Arclay Laboratory. I was twenty-eight years old. Birkin was then, a father with a two year old girl. His partner was also a researcher at Arklay. It was hard to believe that anyone could marry and bring up a child while both of them worked here. On the other hand, because he was different he could continue his research at Arklay. Only the mad could succeed there.
In those ten years our research finally reached the third stage. A highly sophisticated Fighting Biological Weapon - with intelligence, which would obey programmed orders and act as a soldier. That was the monster we tried to create and we called it The Tyrant.
But, from the beginning there was no huge obstacle - it was almost impossible to obtain a living subject on which we could base the Tyrant. The supply of genetically adaptable human beings for the Tyrant was extremely limited.
This is due to the nature of the T-virus. The T-virus variant which was ideal to create the zombies and the Hunters was suitable for most humans, but it had a fault of making the carrier's brain cells decline. To transform the carrier into a Tyrant we needed to keep the carrier's intelligence at a certain level. In order to overcome this issue, Birkin had been working on extracting a variant which would cause the least damage to the brain when it was adapted perfectly to the carrier.
However, humans with a genetic match to this variant were extremely rare. The Genetic Analytic team's simulation report told us that only one in ten million would be infected and transform into a Tyrant with the remainder becoming zombies.
It might have been possible to develop a more progressive strain of the T-virus which could transform more humans into Tyrants. However, to push the research further, first of all we required human subjects with a perfect genetic match to the variant.
There was little possibility that such a specimen would be supplied to us, because even if we scoured the whole USA, we would only be able to find fifty or so of them. In fact, at that time, even with the utmost effort we only managed to collect a few specimens with a close match. Even from the outset, our research was at a standstill.
But one day, we heard a rumour that a European laboratory were working on a project to create a third Living Biological Weapon. It was called the Nemesis Project.
I acted quickly to obtain a sample from the project so that I could use it to our advantage. Of course, Birkin was against this idea, but this time I somehow managed to persuade him. He had no choice but to admit that our research wouldn't go any further unless we found the matching specimen. A few days later, in the middle of the night, a parcel arrived from Europe via various transit points. It arrived to our heliport in a small box.
Nemesis Prototype
We had to pull many strings to obtain it from the French laboratory where it had been developed, but it could not have happened without the support of Spencer. Birkin showed no interest at all, but he accepted the importance of the experiment. The samples had been developed with a brand new design in mind.
A parasitic living body, created by genetical modification - that was Nemesis. A living body with intelligence, which was unable to do anything on its own. However, once it parasitised the brain of another living being, it would take full control of the body and demonstrate its highly developed aptitude for combat. The project was to provide the intellience and the biological body for combat separately and then combine them in order to create one living biological weapon.
If it was successful we no longer needed to worry about the problems we had previously encountered. But there was a new problem in that it did not always settle in the carrier in the same manner as we desired.
On the report attached to the sample, we saw nothing but a long list of deaths. The carriers lasted for only five minutes after Nemesis took control of their brains. But we already knew that an incomplete prototype would be extremely dangerous. If we succeeded in prolonging the carriers' survival then we could hope to take the lead in the Nemesis project. This was my aim. Naturally, I was planning to use the female specimen. With her unusual ability to survive, she could endure the Nemesis prototype for a long time. Even if we failed, we would lose nothing.
However, our experiments took an unexpected turn. Nemesis vanished when it tried to enter her brain. At first, we could not understand what happened. We never thought that she would take over the parasite. That was the beginning. Until then, she was barely alive but something was about to awake in her. We had to start examining her afresh.
Over the last ten years, she had been checked down to the minutest details, but we decided to ignore the past data and start anew. Now, for the first time in her twenty-one years of being here, something no one had seen was about to be revealed.
After much examination, only Birkin noticed it. Something definitely existed in her. This, however, went beyond the original T-Virus project and led us in a totally new and different direction. That was the beginning of the G-virus project, which changed all our destinies.
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