"Dr. Hill," a voice startled him back to reality.

Turning his head, Robert saw the General in charge of Fort 41 look at him, the General's face displaying how annoyed the officer was feeling. Robert sighed internally, remembering the fact that military personnel didn't usually appreciate situations outside of their control. The others at the table, aside from his wife, had a similar expression of frustration. Glancing at the laptop in front of him on top of the podium, he saw a map with a heat map showing the spread of the contagion. Seeing such an image made him understand why the top brass were feeling frustrated, though they didn't understand what he and his wife knew.

"Dr. Hill, I expect an answer to my question," the General growled.

Out of sight of anyone's view, Robert gripped his fist, hating how things have turned out. With his other hand, he used his middle finger to push up his glasses he wore during presentations. "As you can see on the graph, the contagion has already covered nearly a quarter of the nation and will grow at an exponential rate."

A fist slammed on the table. "I already, fucking, know that! I'm asking you how the fuck are we going to clean up this mess?!" The General yelled. "While you're playing doctor in your laboratory that WE provided, I have the President and The Military Council flooding me with calls! You and your scientist buddies have already had over a week, and I want to know the solution you're supposed to come up with to fix everything!"

"General, as I have said numerous times... It isn't about finding a single solution, but finding several that continue to change." He glanced over at his wife, Laura, who flashed him an encouraging smile. Like him, she looked exhausted from the lack of sleep and proper meals. "The modified humans pose a unique threat with their ability to adapt to strong stimuli. This means that any solution we come up with has to be quickly administered to a large enough group, before losing its effectiveness."

"We still don't even understand how they are able to change their genetic makeup in such an apparently instantaneous manner, which makes us hesitant to test any solutions on the samples we have in the lab," Laura added in, likely trying to share the burden of facing the General's wrath.

"Since we don't understand how they are able to communicate with one another, there is the risk of activating an Adaptation Event. This means that we are reliant on computer simulations, which are time-consuming by nature." Robert said, looking at Laura sternly to let her know that he knew what she was trying to do and to stop it. The General, under the growing political pressure, began to demonstrate unusual behavior and made Robert worry about what the General would do.

"You've been saying that, but you've yet to provide anything I can take to the President and The Military Council! I expect something by the end of tomorrow!" The General said.

The lights in the conference room turned on, signaling the end of the meeting. Each of the officers stood up and waited for the General to make his way out of the room. None of them glanced over at him and only whispered to one another. He imagined they would have a separate meeting that only involved the military.

"Makes you wish those people from Star and Moon were still here, huh?" Laura said to him after everyone else had left.

"God no. I'd rather deal with the military every time." Robert shuddered. "The military is usually predictable with how they do things, but Star and Moon is anything but predictable. WIth how they're secretive and talk... It's like they know more than they are letting us know."

Laura nodded her head, understanding the sentiment. "Remember when they approached us at the hospital? I didn't even know what Star and Moon was until that man came and asked us about various topics that weren't even a part of our research. I almost told him to go over to the university if he was going to ask such generic medical questions, but the way he looked gave me a feeling that it would have been a bad idea."

"We still don't know that guy's name, and I wish his questions were the last things in our interactions with him," Robert whispered.

Laura was quiet before saying, "Its thanks to him that we were able to make it out in time before everything went to shit."

Before Robert was able to say anything, the door to the conference room opened up and his assistant, Billy, stuck his head into the room.

"We got an issue. Both of you need to come back to the lab." He told them, his expression indicating that this wasn't about the simulations being finished.

------

Robert grabbed his laptop and rushed towards out of the conference room, passing by Billy who was holding the door open for the two of them.

Just like most military bases, the hallway was dull with its dirty yellow painted walls, linoleum flooring, and fluorescent lights. It was a depressing sight, and he never understood how people willingly volunteered to work in such an environment. After finishing medical school, the few classmates he knew who accepted the offer to work at a military base were the lower ranking students. Robert could feel his shoes squeak on the floor as he quickly headed towards the labs. A sinking feeling pushed him to walk faster, though not enough to run down the hallway. As a professional, Robert didn't care for the idea of running in a work environment like some nurse or assistant.

"What do you think happened?" Laura asked him, as she closely followed after him.

"Hopefully, the simulations are finally finished on those so-called research computers," Robert answered. He didn't want to jinx anything, especially in their current working environment.

A couple of the soldiers walking in the hallway who they passed by greeted the two of them. Many of them were assistants or nurses working in the research building and knew both Robert and Laura after only a week had passed by due to the nature of their work. Robert politely nodded his head to the ones he had worked closely with. No one tried to stop them to ask why they were in a hurry or try to casually chat with them like his previous coworkers would have at the hospital.

He soon saw the double doors that indicated his section of the building and the beginning of the research lab area. Yanking on his security badge and waving it in front of the card reader, the light soon switched from red to green. Releasing the card and feeling it snap back into place, Robert pushed open the door.

"What happened?" He called out after entering the research area. There were a couple of doctors and scientists looking towards a series of monitors and watching a couple of people in hazardous material suits performing some kind of experiment.

"Who the hell is that? I don't remember authorizing people to enter any of the sample rooms!" Robert yelled.

One of the doctors looked over at him with worry on his face. "It's Terry and Jackson, Dr. Hill."

"Terry came barging in saying that he received authorization to move forward with tests related to the effectiveness of radiation harming the modified human cells," a scientist standing next to the initial doctor explained. She was equally worried.

Hearing the words from the two people, Robert understood that the General had only said he wanted results at a later time to catch him and Laura off guard.

"How can Terry be doing this?! He knows, just like all of us do, what could happen with exposing those cells to harmful substances!" Laura yelled. "Damn it! Just because he's an officer doesn't mean that he should blindly follow what the General ordered."

On the screen, they saw one of the figures lift up a metal container and set it on the table.

Realizing what that metal box was, Robert rushed towards where the hazmat suits were.

"Robert!" Laura yelled after him.

The laboratory was divided into two main areas, one section was the safe area where suits weren't needed to be worn. Most of the computers and data processing equipment was located in the first area. There were also offices for each of the members, with remote computer access terminals located in each one which allowed them to go through the data and try various experiments without needing to contaminate samples gathered. Past the offices was a locker area, where a person could shower and hold extra clothing. After this area, was a hallway that led to where the protective gear was housed.

Running into the room that had all the protective gear, Robert quickly grabbed a suit and began to put it on. As he was rushing to put on the outfit, he kept saying, "Let me make it in time! Let me make it in time!"

Next to where the hazmat suits were hung, there were oxygen packs on a shelf. Hastily, Robert took a pack and put his arms through the shoulder straps. Making sure to tighten the straps, he connected the hose to a socket on his chest. Turning the nozzle, he could feel the air supply increasing in the suit. It slightly puffed up from the extra air being pushed into the suit from the pressurized canister.

A door with the words, "Caution!", Indicated where he needed to go. Slamming his palm on a button next to the door, he watched as a red light turned on and highlighted, "Sanitization," to indicate that the transitionary room was being prepped from someone to enter. The process took half a minute and couldn't be overridden to prevent someone from releasing deadly pathogens. Robert had increased the time required, due to his worry that the modified human cells could withstand a normal process. It was ironic, considering a modified human cell go through an Adaptation but the risk of contamination was too high. Now Robert wished he had left it at its original ten seconds. The only

saving grace was the security surrounding the case.

Just like with many of the protocols put into place, the case couldn't be opened like one would open a refrigerator. There needed to be at least two people had the proper clearance level. Each individual had to input their personal thirty characters long passcode, and it needed to be typed correctly the first time, or the case would lock itself until a designated staff member could reset the case. After the person types in the code, there would be a minute long delay before the next person could input their passcode and wait for an additional minute. Everything about the case was designed to increase the time necessary on the off chance permission was denied to open the case. On the base, there was always a senior officer on duty that held a universal override remote that could disable most items on the base that had a security protocol similar to the case.

Robert was glad that the military was paranoid and was cautious about such matters, where they would have the ability to disable dangerous items. When a green light flashed, he quickly jumped into the corridor and closed the door quickly and punched the button to initiate the process again. Bathed inside a red light, Robert would only know when it was completed when the room turned green. Counting the seconds, Robert tried to reassure himself that a person who take extra care with the passcode and cause the time to open the case to be extended to over three minutes. He only hoped that he didn't kill too much time running over and putting on the equipment.

As he kept time in his mind until he could get out, he kept cursing the General. To have those two use the material inside of that box meant the General is ready to push the button on the final option. Unfortunately, Robert understood that testing out the method could mitigate the effectiveness of such a choice. For the modified humans it could mean tipping the balance in their favor and marking the end for humanity.