63 Six Years Ago (1/2)
”Mutagen…”
Gen. Miguel murmured as he roamed his eyes across the room. His gaze stopped at one corner of the room and approached before pulling the chair placed there towards the desk and sat on it.
”What are you doing?”
Prof. Isaach asked.
”You did not invite me to sit down so I just helped myself.”
”Don't you have more things to do?”
”I do but I needed to know the details first before I pass the report to others.”
The professor looked at him with disbelieving eyes.
”I already compiled every single findings we had so far in those reports! Seriously you…”
”You know that I'm a person who doesn't read too much. Can we get back to topic?”
”I'm really surprised how did you get into that position given that attitude of yours. Now, where are we again?”
”Don't worry about that, I keep up my image good in the eyes of the public. Back to the topic, you stopped at the name of the pathogen. My next question for you is why the children are more susceptible to the mutation caused by the Neutral Strain?”
Isaac nodded at the General's question.
”There are no clear causes but the most reasonable reason is because the children are still undergoing a period that we adults are already done with. We adults, our physiques change overtime due to different causes but we already stopped growing while the children are still in their growth period. Their growth is being influenced by the Neutral Strain in their bodies.”
”Then, what about the mutants?”
”Which mutants? The mutated Z-types or the Mutators?”
”Z-types? Mutators?”
”The Z-types are those infected that turned. That was what we labeled them. Those running pathogen spreaders were the Z-type 1 while those undead infected were the Z-type 2. Under them were the mutations we called Z-type 1a, Z-type 1b and so on. The Mutators on the other hand were the people who mutated after being bitten but they are different from the Z-types.”
”What is the difference between the two kinds of mutants?”
”Even though both variants originated from people who were bitten, the mutated infected remained zombie like while Mutators retained their consciousness to some extent and gained superhuman abilities. And the mutant variants from the latter kind cannot infect others. The mutated strain in their bodies already merged with their DNA after they mutated.”
”Then the mutated people first. Did your team find out why they became like that? Most people bitten turned into those zombie like infected while these people are very rare aren't they?”
In response to that question, Prof. Isaach took out a remote from the drawer below his desk and changed the feed being shown by the monitors.
There were two people who were staying in different rooms was shown in the monitors. One was a man in his thirty's while the other was a woman in her teens.
The man looked human. No, he's definitely a human. He sat on his bed reading a book. On the other feed however, it showed the teenaged girl whose arms and neck was covered in snake scales. She was tied up with chains and was unconscious.
”Yes, they are really rare. As you can see, these two are the only instances that we can observe. Well, there's actually the other one.”
”The guy that was already killed, right?”
”That's right. We still haven't found the reason why they did not turn into those Z-types since we can't observe the pathogen that changed them but there is only one theory we're looking into. It is the compatibility of the mutated strain to their DNA. Still, the proof we gathered is not enough to prove this conjecture.
Also, there are two variants to that. First is that man who successfully mutated without any issues who is a ”Successful Mutation”. He looked like normal right now but his strength was higher than an average human and if he activated his ability as a Mutator, his muscles will bulge and his strength would be multiplied by several times. The second variant is that girl over there which are the ”Failed Mutations”.”
Prof. Isaach pointed at the monitor showing the unconscious girl.
”She is like that man we had to put down earlier.During initial stages of their mutation, they retained their consciousness but as the mutation started to spread through their bodies, they started to lose control over their body. I personally asked this girl earlier how she felt during the initial stages of her mutation. Can you guess what she said?”
Prof. Isaach paused waiting for the General's answer.