I had always thought I was boringly normal.

Beloved ones getting caught and put away like animals was something that affected every family I knew. Disappearances were all over both the news and gossip among traditional humans. Teens trying to graduate from high school and rushing to get both a job and a partner with whom to procreate to make the doctors in the BioSolutions Centre happy.

That used to be me – except for that last part about procreation, of course. I never stood out but for my passion for bikes and mechanics.

My red alarm clock was only supposed to be a family heirloom. Apart from that, we had assumed that my grandmother's disappearance had been arbitrary. Either that or a selfish act from a woman who felt like having a family was too burdensome.

How was I supposed to know that I was special beyond anybody else in the whole world because of my connection to Agape's mentor, who was also my grandmother?

It felt too surreal to me. My life had become a hectic ride, and the suspension provided by my factory settings wasn't adequate in the least fur such a bumpy ride.

I proceeded to read the letter. Sigi was standing by my side, and I let him read it too.

Dear stranger,

I ask for a moment of your attention. If you have found this tablet and this letter, it is because I was seeking comfort among strangers. Although it might sound confusing or pathetic, this is how my life has turned out to be as of late.

Loneliness is feasting on the rational side of my brain as much as the toxins in the Neon Sea prey upon everything that dares to swim in it. Its aggressiveness knows no bounds, like that of those people who have either hurt me or left me. Only the bitterness I feel when I say those words pushes me to acknowledge that I had once left someone I loved behind – but my reasons to do so were based on kindness, not selfishness.

My husband and my daughter. I miss them beyond anything you might imagine, but I cannot afford to put them in danger.

Why?

The answer is simple: I am dangerous. I have always been and I shall always be until the day I die, and even beyond the grave. That is the kind of power I harness, for even when I am long gone, the consequences of what I have done and what I shall do will still have a huge impact on our world.

Because I wanted to make a difference. I made a mistake, and I am seeking atonement at the highest level. When my noble aim shall come to life, no more tears shall be shed but those of joy. No more infected wounds shall hurt our society. I want to change the world, my friend.

However, I cannot carry on with my task without your help. You, dear stranger, are the help that I seek. I kindly ask you to lend me some minutes of your time, but most importantly, your hope for a better future. In spite of that, our journey together will not be free of danger.

Let me explain myself fully. If you believe my story is worth reading despite the dangers it entails and if you would like to help me, grab the device that accompanies this tablet and place it close to your nape. The rest of the content of this letter will not be decoded until you do so.

<Decoding protocol initiated. Please wait until the process finishes.>

<Nanochip code: 0014583886971. Agape Dvořák-Handel. Hacking in process.>

<Nanochip successfully hacked. Decoding the rest of the letter initiated.>

I hope you understand there is no way back from this. Your nanochip has been hacked and deactivated, and that means you are no longer under the supervision of the GSNS. You don't need to worry: your last data have been erased before they were even sent. The GSNS will not have any proof of you getting this tablet and reading this letter – or control over what you shall think, say, and do for the rest of your life.

You are dead to them. The last transmission was that of a heart attack, so they are going to assume that you have just died of natural causes.

That means that you are out of the system, like me. Like the people who have chosen to lead this path and those who shall come in the future.

This letter shall have three parts.

The first is a presentation of who I am, and also an account of what happened before, during, and after the Prevalence War. The second is a depiction of my project and how I am planning to change the world we are living in for the better. And the third is an invitation to meet in person and to live with me because now that your nanochip is hacked and notified you as dead, it would give you away the second a person with an active, normal nanochip would see you alive.

But first things first, who am I?

Valentina Asclepius, once a young undergrad in Medicine with great ambitions who had come to Thalis looking for my chance to shine, is now a bitter, older woman whose dreams have shattered and faded away and whose life is haunted by dreadful mistakes.

I am responsible for the Neon Sea's pollution, for the creation of clones, for creating the cornerstone of the Prevalence War, for not being able to stop it, and worst of all for being first an ambitious piece of shit, and later the greatest coward that history has ever known.

It was 2098 when a virus of an unknown source shook the very core of medical researchers all around the world. That was when the amazing job I had been looking for presented itself out of thin air.

I was still an undergrad at the faculty of Medicine in Thalis when I came across an ad on the 'Situations Vacant' faculty digital board. I smirked at it because I knew I could get any job I chose. I was high on pride after turning my back on my family, leaving them behind to live their petty little lives in the countryside. I told myself that I needed nobody. I was getting the best grades and everybody's envious glares. Naturally, I was every professor's favourite student. I'd get that job for sure.

That was how I met him. My ally. My muse. My boss. And my partner in crime. Apollo Bergeron, PhD in Medicine and Biology. The genius of the century.

My job interview went smoothly. The Human Resources team were in awe of my accomplishments, my grades, and my curriculum. They admitted that I was the best candidate by far. I smirked. I only needed to snap my fingers, and the job would be mine. Apollo was there among them. He was the one to sign the deal off with me, but that didn't mean I had impressed him.

He was the most ambitious scientist I had ever met. I could tell by the way he publicly undermined every single positive trait of mine at the end of the interview when the rest had fallen silent. He said he wanted proof of my skills, my genius, my brilliance, but he also admitted he progressively grew frustrated every time a new candidate showed up. He considered all of them either fame- or gold-diggers.

Yes, if the project he was the manager of got successful results, all of the members involved would be both rich and famous all around the world ad eternum. I knew their aim but not the project specifics. The survival of the human race was at stake.

I vowed I would make that a reality. I would save the world. I have never been higher on pride than at that time in my life. He smirked and said I had got the job.

I was made to sign a non-disclosure agreement right after being granted the job. Later, I was taken to their secret facilities, an underground huge lab beneath Silver Island, in the middle of what nowadays is the Neon Sea.

Back then, it was known as the Sea of Dawn, and it wasn't as polluted and deadly as it is today. That island in the middle of it had never been inhabited and got its name thanks to a particular species of huge oak trees. The backs of their leaves shine silvery under the sunlight while getting combed by the sea breeze.

Once inside those government secret premises, I got introduced to everybody there, a total of seven scientists of different ages and nationalities.

Besides the secret project to save the world from that unknown virus, they all shared something more from that day on: their hatred for me. My IQ was higher than everybody else's but for Apollo's. I became the youngest and most envied member of the team, and also the only intern. The rest had stable, much better positions and salaries.

I was constantly undermined: told to clean up the testing animals' cages, feed them, make them take their medication, bring coffees and make photocopies because they were 'better than me', or so I had heard them whisper behind my back.

Besides that, the chimpanzees repeatedly threw their faeces at me. My routine sucked day in, day out.

Everybody hated me, but for Apollo, whose constant stares locked with mine as if he was waiting for me to prove my worth to him as he had requested of me during the job interview.

But how could I prove myself when all I got to do was clean up the animals' mess and feed them? Why had they hired such a brilliant undergrad like me to do such pathetic tasks anyway? Why did they keep pushing me away every time there was an important discussion in the meeting room? Why couldn't I carry out tests on those animals?

After working there for a few days, I was bored and pissed. However, I was auscultating a baboon's heart with my stethoscope one day when I heard a double beating that seemed to come out of nowhere, shadowing the first beating by a couple of milliseconds. I checked again. I was thunderstruck to find a second heart, beating slightly out of sync in contrast with the first. Many other animals followed the same pattern.

I confronted Apollo about it. He laughed at me when I asked him why they weren't studying the virus itself instead of creating extra organs inside those animals. Nobody had ever told me what we were required to investigate there, though. He offered a reply then on the spot, to my amazement.

We were there to enable human cloning to provide viable organs for transplants.

Apollo's kindness had been like a shooting star: precious and brief. He construed my initial silence as proof of my unworthiness and lack of ambition instead of proof of shock. He kept on casting that awkwardly cold and hard stare at me.

In the meantime, I had other problems besides getting on well with my scientific teammates.

Since my salary for that secret project for the government was meagre, I had been forced to get a second job to pay for my expenses. That was the reason why I became a barmaid at 'The Lonely Fisherman'.

It was a pub on the extreme north side of the Dawn neighbourhood. The other barmaids there also hated my guts, maybe because I got more generous tips from our male customers. I hated that kind of customers, to be honest. I only complied with getting bills put between my breasts because they were willing to give me more money than the rest of the girls – and I needed the money badly.

However, every now and then I got molested by them and I hated myself because I had led them on in a way. I couldn't complain – or that was what my boss told me.

I hated my life. Nothing had turned out to be as I had expected.

That was why I felt an unrivalled thrill surge through me every time I got a chance to prove my worth in the secret lab. My plan was to spy on the tests and their results to form an opinion of my own so that later I could barge into the meeting room with a brilliant hypothesis that would knock out the rest of the team. I would stand out and shine like I was meant to do.

I would make Apollo look at me with a renovated attitude, with curiosity, with lust even. He was twenty years my senior, but that didn't stop me from crafting an inappropriate fantasy once or twice. I lusted after power and recognition from him the most.

He was one of the brightest scientists who have ever lived, but he treated everybody with disdain. A little bit of politeness wouldn't hurt him. The more I overheard them while carrying out tests, the more I realised he had the nasty habit of mocking his teammates, insulting their physical aspect and/or brains. The crueller he was, the larger his smirk.

There was a mystery around that sadistic attitude, though. His harsh remarks were never aimed at me, not even once. I had been actually expecting him to mock me for pathetically spying on them, but his ruthlessness never hit me even though I was sure he had noticed me overhearing them and getting my hands on their papers.

One day, I bumped into Apollo in the small kitchen in the lab and I spilt his coffee on him. It was my fault. He had got a large stain on his white lab coat, but he never yelled at me. Dr Stein, a colleague, came from behind him while purring some indecencies close to his ear.

Later, I found out they were having an affair. Cheating on her spouse and having angry sex with Apollo after getting brutally mocked by him turned both of them on, apparently. A week later, their passion withered, and they were back to square one.

But Apollo's good mood didn't fade away.

It was around that time, when he broke up with Dr Stein, that I tried a much bolder approach to my plans to succeed. I took the liberty of preparing a round of coffee right when all of them were having a vital meeting in the meeting room. While carrying the tray with the steaming cups, I could see that they were enjoying a heated argument when I passed by the windows in the hall.

I came in. Nothing. Not towards me, at least. They were far too busy yelling at each other to even acknowledge my presence in a meeting I hadn't been invited to take part in, as usual.

Never give burning coffee to a person who is fuming – that steaming cup can be used as a weapon. Obviously, I was counting on that. That was why I left a large cup for each and every one of them. The argument reached its orgasm, so to speak, when Dr Stein flew off the handle and took my bait. Dr Ivanov had reported her incompetence to the government higher-ups in an email a few minutes before the meeting had started – and he dared to tell her.

While the scene laid out in front of me became some sort of coffee-themed battle royal, I seized my opportunity to take a peek at some reports and their abstracts, carelessly laid out on the table. I aimed a glimpse in their direction every now and then, just to play it safe.

If I had got caught spying on confidential material I hadn't been authorised to read, it could be the end of me. That was a secret project for the government after all.

The only person not involved in an attempt at both physical and intellectual dominance was Apollo, who had been seated at the extreme of that long, rectangular table, far from me. His annoyance was shown through his furrowed brows and stern pose. He kept staring at them as if he would like to murder them.

Barely a minute later after the fight had broken out, I realised something was off in those documents.

Their theories and hypothesis seemed quite valid, but only in theory. Their dependent use on some heavy metals was odd. Some chromosomes had reacted negatively to the exposure to them. In addition, some protein-coding genes had mutated during the growth period of certain organs, eventually proving them unsuitable for transplants, since the rejection rate had skyrocketed.

That was on chimpanzees and bonobos, the human species' closest living relatives. Many of them had died over the previous few days. If it hadn't worked on them, it wouldn't work on us.

No wonder my colleagues were pissed off at each other. They had even expressed on official paper and emails their discrepancies towards each of their colleagues' ideas, proving how deep the distrust they felt for each other ran.

Everybody was fighting everybody for the spotlight. I was no different.

The moment I realised that, Apollo's eyes were anchored in mine. He had caught me spying. I gasped and swallowed hard. Some papers fell from my hands. His two blue orbs were mesmerising, and I was drowning in them. His playful smirk meant he had a wicked idea in mind.

I cursed myself silently. He might have been high on pride, but he had not lost control of his emotions when his subordinates were at each other's throats. I had assumed he had been witnessing the deplorable scene with mild worry. A divided team might mean a failure. But he had just been pretending to be focusing on them when he was giving me the chance I had been looking for.

Dr Stein regained her composure, though, and that was when she saw me, realised what I had done, and scolded me. She insulted me in colourful ways I had never heard before, but it was too late to call me stupid or immature.

A bright idea had already dawned on me, one that would make her feel ashamed of herself.

An awkward silence ensued after her scolding. I was too busy to even reply since I was gestating the idea that would grant that project's success eventually. My eyes were shining with a passion I had not felt in a long time. Apollo let out a chuckle right after noticing that Dr Stein's insults meant nothing to me.

I went back to taking care of the animals in the lab. I got a notepad and started writing the core basics and doodling graphics of the theory that would revolutionise the world of medicine.

On the very next day, I got a moment alone with Apollo in the kitchen and told and showed him everything. I could tell he was impressed by the way his eyebrows arched and by his amused look. He hadn't uttered a word in minutes while assessing the ideas created by my hyperactive mind and expressed on paper with my rushed calligraphy.

I could tell he was finished reading and forming an opinion when he looked like a cat that was about to kill a mouse.

Hello, my sugar cubes!

The core of the novel is getting unravelled from this chapter on.

Stay tuned to know how Valentina's letter goes on!

XOXO

MS