After two weeks and dozens of strongly worded letters Tadeus finally got his research request approved. He returned to his campus lab, but they let him keep some of the new equipment he used at the excavation site.

While setting up the tests for the day, the researcher was suprised to hear knocking at the lab door.

"Hello, Doctor Floyd?" In the doorframe Tadeus saw a woman, about 30 years old, a good couple of years older than himself. Her elbow-length blonde hair contrasted with his own black birdnest.

"Hello who do I have the pleasure speaking to?" Tadeus responded after a while of staring at her awkwardly. It just occurred to him that he was a bit of a shut-in in the last few months. She was the first acquaintance he made since the accident, second if one counted the superpowered mugger.

"Doctor Lena Cunningham, I'm from the Nebraskan Department of Agriculture. I'm here to help with the study and to ensure that all the protocols are being followed."

"Of course. Come in then, I was just setting up the machines."

After setting everything necessary, they brought in the test subjects - mice.

"So, how did you decide to test the effect on animals? You wrote that you suspected a beneficial symbiosis, citing personal experience caused by an accident. What happened?"

Tadeus met this woman barely an hour ago. He didn't trust her not to call bullshit if he said 'the microbe gave me a superpower', nor was he really keen on proving it to ber by injuring himself.

"I don't feel comfortable discussing it in detail. If the theory is correct, we'll see it anyway."

"So it's just a hunch? You realize that wasting resources like that can cost you a career?"

"It's not a hunch. I- I had a car accident that could have crippled me. After I woke up two days later there was not a scratch on my body. I have accounts from the hospital."

The cat was out of the bag now, at least partially. He was extremely worried what would happen if more and more people learned of his… condition.

She looked down, thinking.

"And you are saying it's because of concordis."

"Yes, and to see if we can replicate the effect in other organisms I needed approval from you guys."

"Okay. Sorry, when I saw how young you were I assumed you were one of those kids that come out straight out of college and think they will get a Nobel prize after three months of poking rats with a stick."

He laughed at that, more relaxed now. "Did someone really do that?"

"Yep. The research was meant to study conditioning by negative reinforcement, but I had to shut it down after two hours because the head researcher actually poked a rat to death. I honestly think she just wanted to torture some rodents, and wanted to have an excuse of 'science'."

"Wow. I do not envy your job."

"Well, I get to protect animals from abuse and further the humanity's understanding of the world. But yeah, that case was awful."

They chatted for a bit, and finally set up the first trial. It was meant to test the gestation process of floyda concordis, as well as how contagious it was.

The mice were divided into four groups: the control group, a group they injected with the microbes directly, a group fed contaminated food, and a group which had one wall of the terrarium covered in a solution containing the microbes. They had 20 mice in each group, and the groups were prepared by a couple of other researchers who came after Tadeus and Lena had set up the cages. This ensured that the head researchers did not know which group is which, and as such, they couldn't fabricate data that would lead to their preffered conclusion.

At the end of the day, when Tadeus went home, he felt relieved and content. The itch at the back of his mind had, after close to a month, finally subsided. At least for now, Tadeus thought.