Chapter 51
Birkin slid his security card through the reader and the door slid open automatically. He walked purposefully, returning the key card to the large pocket of his lab coat. He glanced into a few of the lab rooms as he walked down the hallway, finding them empty, as he expected. If the staff was following his instructions, as he naturally expected them to, they should all be in the secondary labs and storage areas, organizing all of the records of the past few years. It stung him to think of all the man-hours being wasted on such a mundane task, but it was necessary.
In the end, all that mattered was the work. Ten, fifty, a hundred lives were worth the biological knowledge discovered at the lab. If that many people had to die to keep their work on the Progenitor from being destroyed, then Birkin had to agree that it was worth the cost. Birkin knew in his heart that his work with the virus was the stepping stone to curing all disease, and what price was too high for that kind of power? The power to cure all disease, the power to repair bodies and render anyone nearly immune to debilitating illness. Anything was worth that.
Birkin would give his own life to make that dream come true. But no one else in the lab was as knowledgeable about the virus as he was. No one had been working with it as long, no one else knew it as intimately. Birkin couldn’t sacrifice his own life, because no one else was equipped to do the further work necessary. At one time, he could have trusted his wife Annette to do the work correctly, but that had been years ago. And none of the other workers at the lab were competent enough. Birkin was the only one able to handle it.
Or was this all self-justification? He had no way to tell.
He turned a corner and heard voices in one of the labs. Loud, excited voices. He entered the lab to find a dozen of his people standing around one of the lab tables, excitedly looking on as someone looked into one of the high-magnification microscopes. They seemed enthusiastic and bubbling over with excitement, but the only thing Birkin noticed was that they were certainly not doing what he had instructed them to do.
“What’s going on here?” he said, his voice with a harsh edge. “I told everyone to start organizing the lab. What are you doing in here?”
They looked up at the sound of his voice, but instead of looking scared that he was angry, they seemed to brighten up even more. They rushed him unexpectedly, and he practically had to wave them away. He was not accustomed to having his assistants acting like a bunch of over-excited school children. They all babbled at him in a rush, and he only heard snippets of what they were saying.
“... just an hour ago, we haven’t been able to contact you ...”
“... discovered it. We can’t believe how perfect it is ...”
“... another routine experiment. This is exactly what we’ve been searching for ...”
“... so glad you’re here, you absolutely have to see this ...”
Birkin pushed them off and yelled over them. “One at a time! What is so important that you’re not doing the work I assigned?”
The assistant sitting at the microscope came forward and took Birkin’s arm, leading him to the table. “Sir,” he said apologetically, “we were starting on that, but you said to finish all the experiments that were currently running. This one just finished up an hour ago, and when we looked at the results, we couldn’t believe our eyes.” He gestured to the chair and Birkin took a seat to look down into the microscope.
“Which one is this?” he asked. “Which test?”
“The initial G-virus test with an enzyme cocktail composed of VN-16 and LP-20. Those are the ones that we mixed with Progenitor-F to –”
“Yes,” Birkin interrupted. “I know which ones they are.”
“We exposed some lab animals to the G-virus and then the enzyme cocktail. Just a first-round test, totally routine, and we didn’t expect anything to come of it. But this is unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Look at it for yourself, sir.”
Birkin looked down through the scope and saw yet another group of red blood cells infected with one of their viral strains. He’d seen thousands – probably tens of thousands – of slides just like this over the years. But immediately, he saw that this slide was different. He edged closer to the table and pressed his eye into the eyepiece to get a better look, and increased the magnification to full, so that he could actually see the interior of a single cell.
“They acted as a catalyst for the G-virus to bond with the host DNA almost immediately. It’s completely amazing. This is one of the things we’ve been looking for, and we found it on the first day, totally by accident.”
Birkin didn’t need his assistant to explain the slide to him, because he could see it himself. The cell had mutated instantly, but not because of the virus in the way it normally did. The G-virus was already known for its incredible mutative powers, but this was different. Instead of simply infecting the cell and causing a mutation to occur, this time it the G-virus joined directly with the cell’s DNA and changed its very genetic make-up.
VN-16 and LP-20 were two of the more useful protein mixes. Birkin used them in the past to alter transmission methods for various Progenitor strains, trying to find the right timing method to allow the Progenitor to heal without activating its negative traits. It never worked, but the two proteins were still very useful. Somehow, adding them to the G-virus allowed it to bypass the cell almost completely and bond directly with the cell DNA. It was completely unprecedented. With the G-virus penetrating the cell in this manner, it didn’t even act like a virus. It was more like genetic therapy.
Birkin was fascinated and encouraged by the concept of gene therapy, but as a science it was still in its infancy. It was the process of implanting specific genes into a cell to repair damaged genes, replace missing ones, or even to cure hereditary diseases. The G-virus seemingly did exactly that, splicing itself right into the DNA of the host.
The assistant, meanwhile, just kept talking in Birkin’s ear, but Birkin effectively tuned him out. He completely engrossed himself in the action underneath the slide and ignored the rest of the world around him.
The ramifications were beyond astounding, they were absolutely world-shattering. In all his years of endless research, Birkin had never come so close to finally solving the problem of the Progenitor. But here, right in front of him, was the key. The G-virus opened up a whole new world of possibilities.
The G-virus, like the Progenitor and all its other variants, passed on a powerful healing factor to its hosts, but that healing factor came with a terrible cost. In the cast of the Progenitor, death and resurrection as a second-stage host. In the case of the T-virus, mutation into a Tyrant. In the case of the G-virus, uncontrollable mutation and eventual biological breakdown. But those were the side effects of a viral infection. But this G-virus did not infect the host with a virus at all. Surely, the effects would not be the same. Birkin had no idea what this new form of the G-virus could do, and that idea both thrilled him and terrified him.
What would an altered form of the virus do to a living host? If the virus combined with the host’s DNA, then how could still remain lethal under those circumstances? The virus would not be lethal to itself. Even in the advanced science labs of the Umbrella Corporation, some things were still considered to be science fiction. Instantaneous combination of DNA between virus and host was simply mind-boggling. Combining the DNA of two different lifeforms would do nothing less than create an entirely new organism. But how could that possibly happen?
The virus and the host would become one. The virus could no longer kill the host, because the virus and the host were now the same thing. But would the powerful regenerative qualities still be able to heal the cells? What if a host infected with the Progenitor was then also given the G-virus?
Birkin’s mind reeled at the thought of what this could mean to their research. His assistant was still talking, but Birkin waved his arm to silence him. He slid his chair away from the microscope and
ran his hands through his hair. Why did they have to make a discovery like this on today of all days! Birkin didn’t have time to study it, not when the Progenitor was loose in the mountains and would reach Raccoon City any day now. There simply wasn’t time to even begin studying this new discovery.
But he could not help himself.
“This is truly incredible,” he said finally. “I can’t believe what we have here. But right now we have other work that needs to be done.” He pointed to one of the scientists, a young woman standing at the edge of the group. “You,” he ordered, “stay here and assist me with this. The rest of you, get back to work with that I told you to do earlier. We need to get this lab organized. I know it seems like a waste of time, but it has to be done. Time is short.”
They obviously didn’t want to be assigned such a menial task, especially on the edge of such a momentous discovery, but they all left the lab without complaint, their euphoria outweighing their scientific curiosity. They chattered excitedly amongst themselves, voicing congratulations to each other and speculating on the future.
As soon as they were gone, Birkin snapped off orders to the remaining assistant. They had to prepare the next round of tests, and there was no time to waste. As the young woman worked, she asked, “Dr. Birkin, why did you ask me to help you with this? I mean, Teddy was the one who first found out, and he knows more about it than I do.”
Birkin wasn’t sure about all their names, but he guessed that Teddy was the one talking his ear off the entire time. “Yes, well, Teddy didn’t know when to shut up when I was trying to think. You were the only one who didn’t try to smother me when I entered the door. I appreciate professional restraint in my staff.”
The girl almost blushed. “Thank you, sir.” A comment like that was the closest Birkin ever got to an actual compliment.
A few tests were still running, but they were all very close to completion, so Birkin scanned the schedule to see what was left and what results he could safely ignore. All the initial tests were basic exploratory experiments to test the G-virus with various enzymes and combinations, to set a baseline for later tests. It amazed Birkin to think that such a basic test had returned such incredible results. To think, the G-virus had been sitting untested for years. He felt a growing sense of anger and frustration at the knowledge that he could have come to this discovery long before now, if only he had abandoned his scientific prejudices and continued research into the G-virus. They could have solved everything by now!
He pushed away his bitterness and focused on the present. They had to prepare the lab for a new series of experiments, even as Birkin knew that he was painting himself into a corner. The fact remained that he did not have time for this. He could not afford to spend time working on a brand new project, not right now, not when any day he might have to pack up and escape the city like Wesker. If he was smart, he would pack this new sample up with all the new test data and mark it as important for future reference. If he was smart, he would join his staff and start organizing and filing all the files and samples. If he was smart, he would do lots of things.
But he simply could not help himself. His desire for knowledge, his desire for the key to his life’s work, and his obsession always got the best of him. This new version of the G-virus was something new, something revolutionary. He could not put it away untested. It was the single most important discovery the lab had ever made, and his scientific morals forbid him from simply setting it aside for later. He had to work on it now, it was like an addiction.
A new door had been revealed to him, a new path to follow, and he had to go through it, no matter what the cost. It opened up a whole world of opportunities. The next stage of his life’s work had arrived, and he could not let it pass him by. Everything else took a back seat.
Right now, the G-virus was the most important thing in the world.