The Doctor and the Major went inside another lab. One much larger than the last. They were met by a woman wearing a white lab coat similar to Doctor Derr's but with many more straps and buckles on it. As they got closer to the lab, they started hearing something.
Echoes of inhuman screams thundered across a lab's white padded room; their source was a sickly-looking man. His skin had a strange red tint, full of cracks and warts that damaged it making it look like a monster spawned from hell. No one who saw him wanted even remotely to resemble how he did.
His muscle bulged as he tried to escape the shackles that were bridling him. Still, despite many attempts, he could not free himself, and the only thing he could do was give in to his most primal instinct, scream.
The scientists knew what happened to him. Apparently, this man went progressively mad in the two weeks following the incident he was involved in, which decimated his whole team, the red hawks.
Ranger Lakwosky became more savage as time went on. If initially he only had sporadic aggressive outbursts, they became more frequent until he couldn't reason any more. The only thing that the militaries and scientists could do was restrain him.
Major James Fischer was looking at him behind the glass. He knew this man; he was there when he returned from his mission, where monsters decimated all his team.
Professor Derr Xilion was the leading scientist in this project; he, with major Fischer, determined that the man's strange behavior was related to the Heniate.
Professor Derr, in fact, found out that the parasite did infect the ranger too, probably due to the Leylarhad bites he sustained.
This also meant that it was just a matter of time before the parasite would get a hold of the thaids around the city since Leylarhad were extremely powerful thaids among the low-ranked ones, the most prominent around the city.
"He was infected two weeks ago, more or less, by Leylarhads," Professor Derr said.
"I know. I interviewed him when he came back," Fischer said. "This means that we already have infected humans here... The Leylarhads injured many soldiers, and these probably had intercourse with their spouses and partners. So, we must do something about it."
"I'm already working on a vaccine. However, it won't be easy to make it. Heniates have a special brain crystal power. They can birth living organisms, which they control through mana. This, in turn, gives commands to the host, making them do what the Heniate wants. However, each Heniate has a particular mana frequency. To disrupt the signal it sends to the worms inside the hosts and to kill its spawn, I must find this frequency first. They die as soon as the mana is cut off from the worms, and so do their eggs, and…"
Professor Derr said, he looked at Major Fischer with a solemn look in his eyes.
"And what?" Fischer asked.
"Listen, the worst thing is that the Heniate's parasite can modify its victims' DNA, making them more suitable to accommodate the eggs. A stronger and mindless host is better for reproduction. The thaid induces mutations inside the hosts' bodies, making them stronger and faster."
Professor Derr looked the man in the eyes and then replied, "If we kill the Heniate, and the host is too far into mutations, as soon as the thaid dies, and the insects it controls die with it, even the hosts will perish…"
The situation was becoming worse and worse for the major. He knew that if the parasites spread further, they might wipe out the city entirely. It would take decades before the nation could recover from such a disaster.
"Do you have any clue where this beast could be?" Professor Derr asked.
"No," Fischer replied. "We knew that something was pushing the thaids to migrate, but we only knew it was to the east. We didn't have much time to search for it because of the horde, and all the soldiers we sent to search for what I now assume is the Heniate are missing in action." Major Fischer said.
"It could have been the beast itself or something else for all that matters. Or maybe they found something and were attacked by powerful thaids. We lost contact with several squads, so nothing is certain."
"Remember, this is not a simple migration," Professor Derr said. "There is a parasite behind it."
The two then turned to look in the ranger's direction. Lakwosky's restrictions were a necessity since it was highly likely that he would have assaulted multiple people if they were not present.
The most pressing problem was that the same symptoms the ranger showed were also present in other people. Mostly soldiers that had been sent to cull the monster's population, raising the need to restrict their freedom, as there was no cure for it yet.
Fischer stood behind Doctor Derr, watching Ranger Lakwosky struggle to free himself from the restraints imprisoning him. The ranger was a superhuman, so a mixture of strong ores was used to restrain him.
"What a pity, a brave warrior such as him reduced to a mindless human-killing machine, incapable of distinguishing between friends and foes," Said the major.
A blood sample taken from the ranger did show that he was affected by the same parasites the other beasts had. Since this particular thaid, the Heniate could change the DNA structure of the creatures it infected. The situation made it so that Ranger Lakwosky hard mutated, making him a sort of human-thaid.
Professor Derr removed the parasite bugs from his body. Still, it was unfortunately impossible to make the man return the way he was, as it was too late to intervene. His DNA changed too much, and the man simply ceased to be.
"We're doing everything we can," Professor Derr replied. "But I fear we still need to wait until we have more data."
"Unfortunately, the Heniate's bugs proliferate quickly. Only a bite is needed to infect other organisms and transform them into murder machines." the doctor replied.
"I see..." Fischer turned to look again at the screaming soldier. His shrieks and screams were so inhumane that the major broke into a cold sweat in fear of ending up like this man.
The major wandered in his thoughts while looking at the restrained men inside the white padded room, with only a transparent reinforced glass to shield him from the mutant.
He felt bad for the unfortunate ones destined to become monsters, unable to escape that nightmare. But then, he remembered he had a job to do. He had to be strong for the sake of the city, no, the sake of the nation.
"Ranger Lakwosky's mutation gave him not only improved physical strength and agility. The problem is that we don't know if he developed some other mutations along with the ones we found out. Moreover, he naturally created several neural links in the span of these two weeks," the doctor said, breaking the silence.
"He went from being an OMICRON2 soldier to an MI3," he said, leaving the Major speechless.
However, he had another thought: "Is it possible to transform this mutation into something we can use?" He asked.
"It is possible, but we need a lot of time, and I'm not sure we will have it in the foreseeable future," the doctor replied.
"But aside from this, we have more pressing matters. As I've said, If the horde is under the Heniate's control, it is probably coordinating them to attack the unaffected thaid's population, and then it will be our turn," Professor Derr added.
Major Fischer was listening carefully. He was bothered by the professor's theory, but it hardly made any difference since the thaids were already marching west toward the city.
"Are you certain it will attack us?" the major asked.
"A hundred percent sure. It is its nature, after all," Professor Derr said. "It will target us."
Fischer turned to look again at the restrained monstrosity behind the glass, thinking that this hypothesis was not farfetched.
"We will do all we can to stop the monsters from coming here," Major Fischer said. "In the meantime, keep developing a vaccine."
"I will. Don't worry, James."
The two spent the next hour talking about the situation. The major got more information from doctor Derr and then decided it was time to leave the building. He had a lot of work to do.
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