The room was dark. The only light was that of the computers and running technology. The clacking sound of fast typing over a keyboard and the murmur of information processing and analysis.

Cameron bit his lip, eyes never leaving the EXTRACTING DATA message on the monitor's screen.

"Just a little bit more... This just might be it!"

He pressed the ENTER key and on the screen of his computer base appeared DATA EXTRACTION COMPLETE followed by the blackout of the Toughbook on his desk.

He reclined back on his chair and sighed in accomplished exhaustion.

He finally decoded and extracted the data hidden inside the USB drive and Toughbook Brython and Z.O. brought him last time. The one THAT man wanted. Why would THAT man want the information inside the old operating system? As Cameron read the date details of the files extracted, the data dated about more than a hundred years back. Maybe, before the E-Virus spread.

He clicked over the folder, RECORDS. It opened to over sixty videos. The image of a young middle-aged man as thumbnail.

Cameron checked the files were in chronological date order, placed on his special sound barrier headphones and clicked on the first one.

There was a sound of shuffling paper and things over a surface. The camera angle wrong, most of what the video was showing seemed blurry. A clatter and the camera fell down, but quickly was picked up, followed by a curse.

"Dammit! I hope it didn't break."

After some more clattering and shuffling the figure moving around the blurry room sat down in front of the camera and once, they adjusted the focus, it finally showed the man on the thumbnail. He had gentle tired and dark circled brown hazel eyes.

Cameron thought, guess we have that in common. Only their reasons were different, and the man's dark circles were human, not like his. His were unnatural, IN-human, that of a monster.

The man's dark hair was short and in disarray. It seemed like he hadn't combed it for quite some time and quickly tried to tidy it up without any success. He had a sharp jaw line and something about his face structure reminded Cameron of someone, only that now he didn't have a clue to who.

The man in the video,

"Hi! It's weird to start my video with that kind of salute, since the only one who will have access to this is me, but yeah... Hi! My names is Dr. Julian Hopeshift. I am the researcher in chief for SARPE Data Analytics and Biological Engineering Unit. I've been working for SARPE's Pharmaceutical Corporation for more than fifteen years, following my late father's footsteps as an innovative scientist and continuing his research on the development of a life upgrading virus."

Cameron's eyes widened in surprise.

"My father named this virus the A-Virus06, the A standing for ANGEL and the 06 for the variant that showed significant changes both genotypically and phenotypically on the in vivo study subjects. The Earth was and has been changing, climates in the World have turned the environments we once knew to the origin and growth of the pathogens responsible for the new deadly pandemics, killing more humans than years past and dragging us to a mass specie's extinction."

The man drank some liquid from a glass. It appeared to be water, but anything SARPE made wasn't molecularly the same as the original source.

"We lost mother on the recent pandemic, throwing father into a state of hopelessness. He wondered; how many people are suffering like him. The many lives lost of those whose immune system had been not STRONG enough. It occurred to father, that he wanted to make the human body stronger, less vulnerable to sickness... Less vulnerable to... Death..."

A pause.

"That's where ANGEL goes for. Father wanted it to be a source of hope of survival for humankind. Something that could help us live more and be safe from death and suffering. A savior...

Sadly, he passed away not finalizing his research. Yet, here I am, his son making HIS dream a reality."

Dr. Hopeshift made a cheapish smile.

"One might wonder, why on Earth did we make a virus with a human genome altering function and if we ever considered the pros and cons of such function. To answer that question is that we did, and if we hadn't agreed to proceed with its engineering, a massive number of individuals would've been dead by now."

The doctor chuckled and gave a big teary-eyed smile towards the camera.

"Yes... We did it father. Your ANGEL worked. It saved us all..."

The video ended and Cameron felt both moved but also a feeling of concern creeped at the back of his mid.

He scrolled through the videos and clicked on one recorded a year later than the one before. The man still looked tired, but he looked tidier and, in some way, happy. Even handsome.

"Good day! Good day, indeed! The A-Virus06 has proved useful these past two years. People recovered from their illnesses and felt their bodies revitalized. I met with one of the patients discharged by our local hospital. She was a beautiful young woman with luscious titian hair and bright green eyes. She was admitted to the hospital for a long-term treatment for heart disease. She said she had been in the hospital since she was sixteen and wasn't allowed out of the building unless supervised and unless it was for an extremely short time. That makes it eight years in isolation. I felt bad for her but happy as she explained to me that they told her recently she had been given a new type of treatment, which to my knowledge was the A-Virus06 and from one day to another, her dark circles, pale and fragile complexion, and her heart have stopped showing signs of body disruption."

Dr. Hopeshift's smile widened.

"We also had this connection... I've never felt that way before, not that I had time for love when the research needed my outmost attention. Now that it showed to be a success, I had more time to look at things outside the lab and who was out there waiting to be known."

A pause.

"I can already feel she and I will be GREAT friends, and if time lets it be, maybe..."

The video cut there.

Cameron raised an eyebrow.

"Dr. Julian Hopeshift... What was that A-Virus06 he was talking about? The SARPE database doesn't have record of any of THAT."

He kept on scrolling over the videos.

"There must be something in one of these videos that gives me more information about this 'miracle' virus..."

He clicked on one two years after the last video played. The man on the screen wasn't the same one he saw earlier. The doctor looked exhausted, sleep deprived and had a somber expression. After looking around the room and acknowledging at it being safe, he spoke in a shushed voice,

"I... Last week I was called by my... by my boss. The head and owner of SARPE."

There was hesitation on the doctor's part. He again looked around the room, as if it was a conditioned response to past horror filled experiences.

"Dr. Fall asked for a favor..."

Cameron paused the video. The last name of THAT man putting all his nerves on end.

PLAY

"...I don't know why he insisted on me and my team to do such a thing, but... We were able to manipulate the A-Virus06 genome, splicing and inserting new specific gene combinations artificially designed in the lab. Dr. Fall provided insight and assistance on the procedures, and I thought that what we were doing was to improve the virus's health enhancing mechanism, but what I saw when we exposed our lab rats to the new variant..."

Cameron was trembling the same way as Dr. Hopeshift in the video.

"The rats tried to break out from the glass cage. They made noises normal rats wouldn't do. Hell... They barely resembled rats at all..."

A pause.

"There were other rats inside the cage... Normal rats. That weren't injected with the ANG... I can't even call it ANGEL anymore."

The doctor looked down, the dim light in the room making his face shadowed.

"They ate them."

Cameron closed his hands into fists.

"It can't be... Could it...?"

Cameron clicked on another video dating a month later.

Dr. Hopeshift looked down and a small sad smile sneaked around the corners of his face. His dark circles looked as bad as the video before, made permanent.

Most of the video was him in that posture. Getting impatient, Cameron fast-forward until he saw his head moved to look up at the camera.

"She is pregnant..."

A sigh. Neither pleased, nor the opposite.

"She is pregnant and I... I... I'm happy but also scared. What we've been doing here. This isn't a place, or time to raise a child. Yet, even when I feel this fear eating me up, I am happy and want our baby to be born. We still don't know if it's a girl, or boy but Bea it's already thinking of names. If it's a girl she would be, Emily, Agatha, or Ally. If it's a boy he would be, Matthew, Rolland, or Zacwhuiwrhhhi..."

The video distorted, emitting a high-pitched wheezing sound. Cameron winced and harshly removed his headphones.

"Godammit! Wha-?"

He looked as the screen of his big monitor became a mess and the wheezing sound still came out of his headphones.

He frowned and fast-forwarded the video. The video became normal a minute before it ended.

"We have changed the name for the new virus for E-Virus, E for 'Eater' because of his characteristic of making its host fall into a state of increased and insatiable hunger. I still don't know why Dr. Fall wants to have this THING preserved. I see no positive use for it. I wish the day he tells us to destroy it comes soon..."

Another video, dating two months later, that year.

The doctor's office was a mess. Papers and pens everywhere on the desk.

Dr. Hopeshift had that crazy look in his eyes again. His cheeks slightly sunken in, a sign he hadn't been eating well.

"These experiments are getting out of control! As the E-Virus multiplies inside a host and passes to another, the mutations in its genome become greater..."

His trembling became erratic, and he grabbed at his hair. He grabbed a nearby small object, a medicine pot that was empty.

"Sh*t..."

He threw it over his head and reached around the desk, accidentally knocking down the camera.

A hard crashing sound and more cursing in the background.

After two minutes, the camera was placed back to where it was, and focused. The doctor was holding two pills that he threw inside his mouth and gulped dry.

"Each mutation is worse than the one before and the phenotypes differ in expression. Some would grow abscesses that threw an awful rotten smell and others would lose hair. The insatiable hunger is constant in all the study subjects, as well as the whitewashed irises, bloodshot eyes and feral nature. Yesterday, a new characteristic appeared in the already turned mice. Dark protruding vessels appeared on the surface of the skin, most of the network concentrating on the temporal bone area of the face, circling the eyes."

Dr. Hopeshift took a breath before continuing,

"Functional MRI and diffusion tensor MRI showed a significant increase of the limbic system and prefrontal cortex of the brain activity, pointing out the effects the virus had in brain function, and its responsibility to these changes on its host."

A moment of silence.

"I fear the fact that none of us can return the E-Virus to be like its origin Mother virus. In six months, Zachary will be born, and Bea is clueless to what I've been doing in the lab. The guilt of lying to her eats at me. I should've just quit and move far away from here, away from this mess. But, not even THAT was allowed to me. Dr. Fall said he needed me at the head of future experiments. That he needed my family here... That sounded strange to me. Why would he need my family if who he needs is me? He said, it was to maintain us safe. Safe from WHAT?"

The video ended.

A bunch of thoughts were passing Cameron's mind.

"I have a bad feeling about this... If this doctor was affiliated in any way with THAT man... Then I can expect the worst things that could happen."

Just when Cameron was ready to continue watching some more videos, a loud banging noise at his door caught his attention.

He yelled from where he was sitting,

"What do you want?"

The voice at the other side, accompanied by the insatiable banging,

"Open up, Cameron! Open up! NOW!"

Noticing it was the voice of Z.O., he quickly got up from his chair and almost tripped with one of the cables. The distress in Z.O.'s voice was shocking enough, a very rare thing. Z.O. didn't get this worked up if things weren't BAD.

He shut down his computer system and disconnected it. He taped over the screen of his AIW*, and murmured,

"Open."

At the far end of his room, part of the metal wall opened to a safe, that opened once he entered the twenty-digit password.

He placed the USB and Toughbook inside, closed it and said,

"Close."

Just when he opened the door, Z.O. and Brython stormed into the room.

Cameron,

"Wha... What's wrong?"

Brython was frowning and he rarely frowned, his grin nonexistent.

Z.O. turned towards Cameron, his face full of anger and that anxiousness his voice carried.

Z.O.,

"I need you to hack the security system's doors that block the pathway to your father's office."

Cameron mouth twitched.

Brython,

"Z.O. you didn't have to use THAT F word? It would have been better if it was 'Fucker' instead of THAT one..."

Z.O. exclaimed,

"We don't have time for this! Cameron, can you help me, or not?! Your fa... The doctor's men took Marlon because HE wanted to have a 'talk' with him. We all know what it means for someone like Marlon to have a 'talk' with Dr, Fall."

Cameron looked between Z.O. and Brython,

"Is Marlon the guy you two have been telling me about?"

Z.O.,

"Yes."

Cameron sighed and walked towards the right of the room, grabbed some metal things that he threw into a black backpack and the three walked out, their steps carrying them towards the main building of the Cave.

Cameron,

"Let's have a 'talk' with 'Fucker', shall we?"

AUTHOR'S NOTE

*The AIW, is an ARTIFICIAL INTELIGENCE WATCH personally designed by Cameron. It has a voice recognizing system; thus, it can only follow the commands Cameron gives it and of no one else. Cameron is the typical computer and technology nerd, only that cooler and more sociable. He doesn't detach from the real world and can focus on both his work and the things happening around. His IQ is 195 making him one of the most intelligent people on Earth, or at least the Earth they live in, which doesn't have may uninfected people around lol. All his technology works are extremely complex, only he can understand. He has tried to explain to Brython some of his tech's work, since they are from the Communications and Technology Department, but Brython would just ignore him and then ask:

"What? Could you explain from the beginning?"

And then, move on to continue playing on his self-made combat games. Yes, Brython also has his cool computer nerd skills.

The brain tests used by Dr. Hopeshift and team on the mice are done to track and visualize brain activity by sections and nervous system networks. When I studied neuropharmacology, we had a lecture about the different kind of brain tests that could be done to diagnose a person, two of them being these. You can google more about it, to have more detail on it.