Mertail - Containment Breach 5

 

Containment Breach

 

Story and Images by Mertail

 

Part 5: Conclusion

 

    Katie Oswald worked as one of the many junior accountants at TransRepo Industries.  Normally, that meant she and her team stayed pretty much in the sixth and seventh floors of the main building.  Today, something was different.  She was touring part of the newly developed Nanite Containment Facility.  There were some minor irregularities in the cost reporting and they needed to be rectified before the monthly reports could be completed.  Her, along with two other junior accountants, and her immediate supervisor were in a group of temporary cubicles just outside the Biological Level 2 Containment Zone.

    She caught as strange flicker in the air but it had vanished when she turned her head towards it.      After looking around a while, she decided it had to be some kind of hallucination or something.  She returned to the pile of invoice slips that had become her duty to reconcile.  She really wished these scientists would take better care when doing the accounts.  Didn’t they know how important it was?

    After a few hours, she noticed an itch at her waist and absentmindedly brushed the dark hairs away.  Sheena’s hair, she noted mentally.  How could that dog lose so much hair chasing frisbees and not end up bald?  When the hair didn’t brush away, she tugged at it.  It was solidly attached.  This was strange.  She walked over to the women’s washroom for a closer look at the hair.

Mertail - Containment Breach 4

 

Containment Breach

 

Story and Images by Mertail

  

Part 4:  Reactions

    Betty Kowalski was working in the computer server area.  She was helping on of the technicians thread a new fiberoptic bundle through the already crowded collection of cables that already filled the cable bay.

“There should be an easier way,” she muttered.

“Not without breaking the containment seal on the other side of the wall,” the technician responded.

“Are we that close to …”

“Level 2 is on the other side.  We’re just running an line to the virus lab.  Good thing.  They’d kill us all if we had to shut down level 2 like we did last time.  Seems even a few days is more than they want to give up.”

“We’re not in any danger?”

“No.  The virus side’s been virtually shutdown for months.  Nothing hazardous in there any more.”

“Oh.  Was there?  Before?”

“Don’t know.  All I know is we had to work in the damned hazmat suits ten months ago when we recalled the building.”

    A jet of silvery mist caught Betty in the face.  Unconsciously she inhaled, lost consciousness and fell from the ladder she was standing on.  Her partner, hearing the crash, quickly came to her aid.  She was barely breathing but a quick first aid assessment showed no apparent broken bones.

Mertail - Containment Breach 3

 

Containment Breach

 

Story and Images by Mertail

 

 

Part 3:  Visitors

 

     Imogene Bellamy wasn’t even a member of the staff when this had all started.  She’d been visiting her Mom at lunch.  She’d been working with a company a short distance up the road as part of a work partnership program associated with the local technical college’s Work Placement program.  She’d not seen but smelled a strange metallic scent as a fine silvery mist poured from an overhead ventilation duct.  Neither she nor her mother thought anything of it until her mother got home that evening.

“Mom,” Imogene began with a slight whine in her voice.  “I feel terrible.”

Mertail - Containment Breach 2

Containment Breach

Story and Images by Mertail

Part 2:  "Human" Resources

    Tammy Rothschild had graduated from the local technical college only five weeks prior.  She’d done very well in the office management course she’d taken and was pleased to be able to give her notice at the dead end job she’d worked in since high school.  TransRepo paid ever so much more and, in a few years time, she’d be able to work her way up and make even more!!

    Her first few days on the front desk were pretty normal.  Aside from having to get another of the office managers to cover for her whenever HR decided she needed to fill in yet another form, it was pretty simple.  The fourth day, she and the other new hires were put through the Corporate Introduction Session.  It covered all kinds of things that her diploma hadn’t covered such as evacuation drills and shelter-in-place drills and where the emergency biosafe areas were.  The trainers made much of the fact that, though such events should never occur, the release of one of the biologically active agents from the secure labs might happen.  They needed to know what to do.  Even if no one ever expected to actually have to do it.

Mertail - Containment Breach 1

Well now, I've got to get more content posted while we're waiting on the next set of voting results.

This week I am very happy to present my first full commissioned story (with illustrations) by Mertail.

So, without further ado (tune in all week for updates) - after all....what's a normal day at TransRepo Industries without a little mishap?

Containment Breach

Part 1:  Release in the Lab

     It started as a normal day in the Biogenetics Lab of TransRepo Industries.  The current project, under way now for nearly two years, was a simple one to describe but fiendishly difficult to implement.  An unexplained, as yet, rise in the number of people needing service dogs with increased capability was fostering feverish research into genetic methods to increase canine intelligence.  The original work had been with virus carriers for the new genetic material.  This created some interesting small steps in the first few months.  The unfortunate problem was that you had to wait for the puppies to be born and mature a bit before you could see the actual effects of your genetic tinkering.  That all changed with the creation of the first DNA compatible nanites.  These microscopic machines, working in tandem, could completely restructure the adult animal based upon the changed DNA that the viruses had introduced into the animal’s cell nucleus.  Instead of waiting for the next generation, you could get good indications immediately (or at least a few days).  Of course, the puppies would be a step beyond that having actually grown up with the modifications and would have the advantage of learning to use the enhancements completely.  Regardless, it did speed research considerably and ensured that the puppies would be good candidates for further enhancement even if they didn’t meet the final requirements.  The results had been so spectacular that some of their canines had doubled their intelligence in only three generations.