Chapter Text
It was an average Tuesday morning in the offices of Parker Genix, and Martin Krebs had just sat down at his desk, coffee in hand. He paused as he looked down at the folder on his desk, and sighed. Reaching over, he would take a packet of sugar from a container on his desk, and would rip it open, and started tapping it lightly over the cup. When he was satisfied, the man would take a small coffee stirrer, and swirl it until he believed that it was to his taste.
Lifting it to his lips, he would hesitate a moment before he took his first sip. Now that was helping him to wake up, as he did not have a lot of sleep the previous night. As he blinked, someone observing might notice bloodshot eyes, and he would barely stifle a yawn. He had every reason to feel this way, as he put the coffee down. Maybe it would keep him alert, maybe not.
What would keep him awake though, was what he saw when he opened the folder. He spread the papers out, these were the most recent forms, as the date on the top was stamped to yesterday. Among the papers were information sheets, pictures, charts and graphs.
Scanning them, he first picked up a photograph. This showcased a picture of a person in an isolation ward. There were heavy plastic sheets surrounding them on the hospital bed, and it was clear that they were being intubated. An orderly next to the person appeared to be wearing a Hazmat suit. Printed at the bottom of the photograph was 'patient zero'. Krebs frowned and placed the photograph down.
Things were not going well at all, he thought. The man continued to browse through the paperwork, occasionally stopping and frowning at each one. What concerned him was a sheet of statistics, his eyes looked down the dual lines of the spreadsheet printout, as the results section was very clear. Negative. Negative. Every single trial had come back negative.
He stood up, taking another sip of his coffee, and considered it again, before tossing it into the trash. It would take a lot more than coffee today, eh felt. The coffee here was awful, anyways. That was his opinion, as he would look down the hall.
Standing up, Martin Krebs was a tall man, about six foot tall, with slim shoulders. He wore a button down white dress shirt, with a black suit jacket over it. Completing his ensemble was a pair of black dress pants, freshly steamed from the cleaners. He looked to the side, running his hands through his hair with a sigh of exasperation.
Taking the papers, he'd put them back in the folder, as he would walk down to where the labs were. There weren't too many people here in the office, as it was still rather early, although he presumed people would appear later in the day. They'd better, as there was a meeting scheduled.
ParkerGenix always kept to it's schedule, and they had investors that they couldn't disappoint. Which was why he might be on pins and needles right now, due to the results that he held in his hands. It wasn't far from his office to the labs, and he reached it in a minute or two, opening the door to see inside.
The lab was rather spacious for it's size, and neatly kept. There were two islands in the center of the room, parallel to each other. Along the side of the room, there were storage cabinets, and a large refrigerator was on the back wall. In the center of this room, there were scientists in white lab coats huddled around these center islands, each focused on what they could see through their microscopes.
As Krebs entered, no one looked up from their work. He coughed twice, clearing his throat as loud as he could. Finally, one of the workers noticed him.
"If you have a minute, I need to speak with you," Martin said, as he walked next to the man, placing the files on the desk. The scientist had 'Dr. Richards' on his lapel pin. An older man, he looked up from his microscope slides, and stared at Krebs.
Krebs patted the file, and shrugged his shoulders. "I'm sorry. But this is unacceptable. We can't submit this."
"These are the latest results. We can't refine any more than this, unfortunately." Richards had turned from the microscope. Standing against the table, now as he was eye level with Krebs.
Krebs smiled, but there was nothing really behind that smile, as he looked at the man. "I know that last week you told me that the purity of the solution was ninety percent. And it's still not enough with these recent trials."
"That is correct. Sir. It wouldn't work even if you ran more trials with the current solution we have. The virus keeps reacting almost as if it were deflecting every single direction we try to go with it," Richard explained.
He had one of the slides open now, as he would put it under the microscope. A tv screen on the wall would turn on, showing a blown up version of what was on the screen. It was a cell, a virus cell, magnified to many times.
Krebs leaned against the table, as the scientist turned on his laser pointer, using it to indicate the cellular structure. "This was the result of the most recent trial. See this is the virus here, and now we just introduce our drug here..." he would place a dropper on the virus, as he kept the slide up.
As both men watched, nothing seemed to happen for a few seconds. However, there was a sudden, aggressive flurry of activity. The droplet in the center seemed to be surrounded on all sides, as the little dots from the virus cell began to surround it almost immediately. Krebs thought the closest comparison he could think of would be to seeing a piece of bread be dropped into a koi pond. It was like that.
After a few seconds, he changed his mind, seeing the way the dot was torn int, divided...bisected. Another few seconds, there was nothing left. "Damn. Just like piranhas," he muttered.
"An apt comparison. That, believe it or not is our best trial so far, with our most recent version of the prototype. The last ones were consumed by the virus too fast to properly observe."
Krebs shook his head. This was bad, really bad. He was already thinking back to the files he had been looking through not ten minutes ago. He had not believed it for himself, until he had seen it in person.
This meant that there were millions of dollars so far tied up in these drug trials, as he stared at the table, both hands flat, as he was forcing himself to take deep breaths. He looked up, as he forced himself to remain cool in the presence of someone who worked under him.
"Thank you. I appreciate that you confirmed for me that it's still going to take a while. What do you think you would need to produce a stronger strain?" He was keeping his words measured. So much money had been sunk into this, and he could feel the pressure of the investor call that would be very soon. He would need something solid to show them, that he knew what he was doing.
Richards turned off the slide, as he considered for a second. "I think we need a stronger strain of dna to use for our base. Something that is able to resist this virus."
Krebs nodded, as he clapsed his hands together. "I'll see what I can do. I'll reach out to the acquisition teams. Is there a specific species that you think you'll need? I remember that you spoke last time of needing a larger specimen."
Richards looked down at the slides again. There were markings on the dropper vials he was holding now, as Krebs might be able to see. Among the labels were 'Compy', 'Galli', 'Raptor', 'Para'. "I understand, the issue is that a sample from a larger specimen will be able to resist the virus. The sample I just used was that of the Parasaurolophus." He turned to look at Krebs. "If we could just get a sample of the Tyrannosaurus..."
Krebs shook his head again, hands in his pockets now. "The Government took control of the Masrani sanctuary, and that Rex is now official U.S. government property. The waiting list to get approved for a sample... it would take years. We don't have years," Richards continued.
Both of them knew that it wasn't hysteria or impulsiveness that was pushing him to get this resolved. No, they both understood that they had a limited amount of time to get this resolved.
Krebs took another step, now at the edge of the lab, as he nodded. "I'll speak with my people, see what they can do," he said as he grabbed the folder off of the lab table, and closed the door behind him as he stepped out into the hallway, again.
He considered for a moment, before he took out his phone. He scrolled down his list of contacts, until he came to one marked 'emergency'. With a slight hesitation, he selected this option, and he would press it, waiting as it began to ring.
As he heard it connect, he would turn away from the lab, beginning to walk slightly away. He didn't want to be overheard for his, as he heard the dial tone click, indicating that the person on the other end was there.
"Hello, It's me... I know I wouldn't call this number unless it was important, and believe me, it is." He rubbed his eyes, as he called, knowing that he was now committed to this. "I have a big problem, a particularly large problem... and I was informed that this was the place to go for solutions."
That was always going to be somewhat risky doing something like this, but he knew that he had to make a move now rather than later. The samples were not panning out as he had hoped, it really was too bad about that. But he had something he had kept in his back pocket too, which hopefully would sway things back in his favor.
It was a major swing to take really, but it was also the only card he had left to play at this time. It was this or nothing really, and he knew which angle he'd rather end up on, as he held his breath, waiting for that response.
As he heard the answer, he realized that he was gripping the phone very tight, perhaps more than was necessary. But it was what he felt like right now, as he considered, staring down the hallway as he did so.
"I don't think you understand. We have very deep pockets," he said as he paced, feeling annoyed. "Very deep. More than enough to compensate for any...expenses." he said finally. He nodded, as he would feel a smile crossing his lips, as he would hang up.
He'd gotten the answer he needed. Looking down, he realized he'd still been holding the folder, and as he put his phone back in his pocket, he lifted the folder, flipping it open to double check.
As he opened, he realized that a page had been sticking to the back of one of the files, as he pulled it apart, he would see it was a map. A map of an island.
On the header of this map read:
Ile St. Hubert. 226 miles east of French Guinea.
The END