Chapter 35: The Source
"And that's the last one," Lucille said as she removed a squirming mouse from the cage on the floor and placed it into the small glass compartment it will live in for the next couple of days or weeks, depending on if it becomes infected with the virus. "There."
They were currently in one of the labs on the last floor of the building and there were twenty one glass compartments that contained mice and soil samples on the stainless steel tables that were in the middle of the room. The compartments were numbered according to the markers they had kept in the forest and they had used all the samples they collected because they suspected that the virus had spread from where the bottle was picked.
Imani had collected the bottle from the girl after she recognized it and, sure enough, the biohazard symbol was on its top and bottom along with an inscription that read 'OMR'. Imani had been distressed but had calmly asked the girl where she got the bottle as she showed it to Lucille.
The children told them they found it at a farmland that was on the edge of the forest and Lucille had used one of the humanoid robots to call the medical centre because the children were most likely already infected. That made Imani's guilt double, squeezing at her brains, because they were just kids, they didn't deserve this. What she had done, she could not undo but she could kill Jacob Peterson when she finally got a hold of the bastard since he had been ignoring her calls.
Lucille had been really angry because after she stopped by the medical centre this morning and found out that most of the people that were infected had been in the forest four days ago, she had sent out an alert that everyone should stay out of the forest.
The two scientists led the children out of the forest and to the side of the road where they waited till the robots from the medical centre came to take the children. Lucille had told the robots to contact the children's parents before they left and she and Imani headed to the farm the children found the bottle.
A couple of farmers had been on the farmland and had been very confused when Imani and Lucille appeared in Danmat suits. Fear crossed their faces when they finally put two and two together and Lucille told two of the robots to escort them to the edge of the farm before calling the medical centre again. Imani hadn't been scared that they were werewolves because they looked completely devastated by the fact that they could be infected and she felt sorry for them.
Lucille had been a little bit surprised when she realized that the plants in the farm weren't dying; the leaves weren't even wilting or changing colour and everything looked normal.
Since they didn't get a specific place for where the bottle was found, they had to take samples from all the places they could before the robots from the medical centre showed up. They closed off the entire farm when they found out that it could be ground zero for the virus before they took the farmers to the medical centre while Imani and Lucille headed back to the lab.
Imani had realized that this was way bigger than her because Jacob Peterson doesn't use the lab that she had seen that bottle in. It was used by five other scientists that Imani was convinced were in on what was going on because she remembered the bottle had been filled with the familiar light green liquid she had accidentally created when she saw it. There was also the fact that she knew the 'OMR' which was inscribed on the bottom of the bottle stood for Owen's Medical Research. Owen was Parisa's late husband and Imani had seen the abbreviation on a couple of recorded experiments in the institute.
What was happening was obviously an attack on werewolves and they'd used the virus she created as a weapon which meant she was inadvertently in on it.
She had a lot of questions: how did they get records of the experiment of the virus and who told them to create it. She wasn't thinking of why they created it because she knew random people didn't just wake up in the morning and decided to create a new virus similar to the one that almost ended the human race. Someone had to have told them to do it. She didn't want to believe that someone was Parisa because the Sirizan virus killed the woman's husband and almost killed her children too so she wouldn't be crazy enough to do something that had a high chance of backfiring on her.
The e-mail she'd received from Jacob Peterson, which she had read multiple times last night, didn't have the answers to her questions so Imani was left to wonder. She couldn't report what Jacob and the other scientists had done to the institute because she no longer trusted them. She also couldn't report to the police because they would find out that she deleted records of the experiment and that would definitely get her into trouble too. Besides, Lucas didn't want to get the government involved.
As Lucas popped into her mind, she glanced at him. He was standing behind the polycarbonate unbreakable glass that served as a wall between the lab and the hallway. His face was blank and although he was staring straight at Imani and Lucille, he appeared not to notice them at all.
He had a right to know everything she knows but she was scared of what he'll do if he found out that she was the one who created the virus. Of course, it was an accident but she was still scared. His people were dying because of the virus and she doubted an 'I'm sorry' will suffice.
"Okay, let's go," Lucille said, snapping Imani out of her thoughts, as she closed the cage that was on the floor and ushered her towards the door that led to the decontamination chamber.
Imani decided she was going to tell Lucas everything after she found a cure to the virus but for that to happen, she had to create the virus again.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone