Infection

Mary P.O.V

Nothing could have ever prepared us for this. I guess all the signs were there, but how were we supposed to see them? We weren’t looking for this…

I was sat alone in the lab, waiting for Flynn to return from one of his many meetings and I was bored out of my mind. My research of the past few months had just been completed and I was ready to go out and celebrate a hard earned breakthrough. I hadn’t been working in the lab for long, but I had been here many more times then I can remember. Ever since I was little, I used to come and visit my father and watch him work, fascinated by everything that happened. That was what had first gotten me into the science of genetics, and that was part of the reason I had come to this particular lab… so that I could work alongside my father. I was sat in Flynn’s chair, spinning aimlessly… He always late, no matter what the occasion or how important the job. He was so useless at times! I was spinning on his chair humming to myself when I did an especially fast turn and fell off the chair, knocking a pile of papers off his desk.

I started to grab at them quickly, knowing that this would be the one occasion that he would walk in and see his work all over the floor. He would know it was me, but if I shoved it all on his desk in some semblance of order then maybe, just maybe, he would think it was one of the interns, and they would get in trouble instead. I allowed myself to pause for an evil laugh in my head before I once again scrambled for the papers. I gathered them up and shoved them on his desk, straightening them before I collapsed back into the chair. The best thing to do was to look bored and casual. I was about to start spinning again when I saw another paper on the floor – one that I had missed. I sighed to myself and bent down to pick it up, but the readings on it caught my eye and I for froze for a moment as I read it.

I sat on the floor, going over the readings again and again… They had to be wrong, they had to be. There was no way this could be true. After years of hard work, and this is what happened? I couldn’t believe what was written down before me. I could tell that the readings were bad… very bad... But was struggling to work out what they actually meant. The data had to be wrong… it HAD to be. I had to check, I had to get a second opinion. I knew I couldn’t go to Flynn – he would know that I had been going through his work. And if he had missed this then I suddenly felt like I couldn’t trust him with this. I had to go to the one person who would know what this was – or at least would have more of a clue, and someone who I could trust 100%.

I had to go to my Father – Doctor Connor.

Doctor Connor P.O.V

The mountain of official papers on my desk before me looked ominous, the only downside of running a genetics laboratory. I am perhaps one of the few people who can honestly say, hand on heart, that they love their job. A sheer passion for science, particularly the human form, drove me to the University of Oxford, emerging with a first class honours degree in Human Genetics. 

I skimmed through the sheets half-heartedly, hoping to find something remotely interesting or relevant - no such luck. In rustling through my table, I managed to dislodge a photo frame, which shattered clumsily. I tiptoed among the minefield of glass to retrieve the beloved photo. The assembled faces of my family in their younger years grinned back at me. My wonderful daughters Mary and Dara.... and my darling wife, Penelope. Poor sweet Penny.

Penelope passed away when the girls were young, in the most unfortunate circumstances. Never have I loved a woman so much, nor had such a good friend that I could completely open up to. Her death served as a force to build a stronger bond with my youngest Mary, but also drove a rift between Dara and I - she blamed me for the unfortunate turn of events. Thinking of all the cherished memories I held with Penny brought a single tear to my eye. 

My office door burst open abruptly, and I had only just enough to wipe the salty droplet from my eye to conceal my sudden onset of sorrow. Mary stood in the doorway, her face distraught and confused, her hands anxiously grasping a single sheet of paper. I’d seen that look a rare few times before, and it was almost definitely a sign of bad things to come. Very bad things.

“Father! Something’s.....I think........just look at this!”

Mary thrust the paper into my hands, then began to pace up and down. I raised the paper to the light, my eyes scanning across the data before me. I could feel my face drop as I tried to make sense of the figures. I could tell that the numbers were out of the safe boundary, extremely far out. And then it hit me, causing me to cry out in shock.

“What is it? Father, you’re scaring me!”

My hands trembling, and my heart beating unusually fast, I double checked the data to confirm my suspicions. I forced myself to take a deep breath. It wasn’t our fault, it just couldn’t be. We’d been so careful - nobody else knew the true extent of our research. 

“Mary. I need you to stay calm and work with me. We can stop this before it gets any further.”

“Stop what? What does it mean?”

“I’ll explain everything later. For now, we need to initiate Protocol 0.”

Mary’s eyes flashed bright with realisation. I walked back to my desk, having always feared this moment would come sooner or later. The dull silver pen drive felt like a hellish burden in my hand, as I slotted it into my computer to issue the command. 

Protocol 0. The command to indefinitely put the building under quarantine.