Répandant les haricots

Inside there was only silence to greet them.
A certain aseptic scent was rippling through the air; with a touch of an exotic, floral, even tropical aroma.
In the ceiling, a red dot of light an operational amplifier emitted a "bip" sound, and then the facility seemed to come to life.

The lighting went on, and noises of machines being put to motion reached their ears. Apparently, sensors, as they detected the movement of people on the room, automatically brought the systems online.
Dan's eyes took a couple of seconds getting used to the light, and in such a moment he was surprised. They were in a diagonal corridor, heading towards the earth, with the width of an subway station, complete with rolling stairs.

This sloped hallway was very much empty, excepting some spaced security cameras. At the other side, ending the corridor, there was another door. A bifold door. They went down the rolling stairs.

- You want answers, Mr...?
- Medetre. Yeah, I think that I'm entitled.
When he heard that name, Sagi wrinkled his eyebrow. «That...! So you're related to....!», was the thought that could be read in his expression.
- Yes, I'm the brother of one of your associates. Her name is Autumn. Autumn Medetre. Yesterday I received a notoriously distressed call from her, crying for help. I still haven't managed to find her. What I did find was a whole sort of creepy events and terrible situations to boot. I'm sure you know who I'm referring to. Is it not?

Dan realized they were heading underground -- and that his screams pretty much rebounded off the walls, echoing ad eternum. The complex seemed as deserted as every other place Dan had encountered that night.
- It seems, there isn't another way.... But. First I wasn't seeing any reason at all to disclose matters of this gravity to a stranger. Now I know..... who you are, in fact.

Down there, the fluorescent lit hallway was all shiny, due to the mirrors set at the whole length of the walls. There were books strewn on the floor, as well as dissertation dossiers and stickies.
Dan had his suspicions at an all time high.
He knew that the man knew he was unaware of everything that was going on.
-I want the truth of what happened to her. It must be painfully evident that something, or a lot of things, went wrong.
- This setting is the core of Biodine's investigations. Here is where everything began.

The same sensor devices opened the bifold door, allowing them to see the other side. Another corridor, totally unfurnished, also mirrored. This one having multiple doors and bifurcations, too. The aseptic feel was even more intense in there.
The rooms were messy and cluttered. Symbolizing the panic felt there, not long ago. Sagi headed them into a suite chamber in a left fork. On the tiled floor, a brass, very stretched and stately V was engraved.

Sagi placed his hand on a desktop scanner, which after confirming his identity, unlocked yet another heavy steel and tungsten door.
This room: it was positively the eeriest place Dan had ever had the mishap to witness. Barely lit with one of those fluorescent lights. It had a five boar-shaped Bunsen burners over one table. Lab coats scattered all over the floor, among other items like Petri glasses, labeled containers for acids and powders.... In a corner, a round table with short legs covered with papers.
Now, in all of the complex, the soft, smooth smell of... mango? Yes, a smell of mango was circulating, flowing amidst the unfettered environment.

They sat on the round table top drawing a secant to each other. Dan, who was carrying the shotgun all that time, handed it back to the scientist. Who, promptly dropped it on the top of the table.
- Look, I know that this project was to create something revolutionary. Making money is always a powerful motivation.
Dan took out the letter he'd discovered earlier and flaunted it in front of the scientist's eyes.
- I' m largely a layman when it comes to technical terms. But this Astraea holding is definitely up to nothing good. And my sister was wrapped in this.
Matters were serious.
- Alright, there isn't much reason to hide a thing at this state of things....
- So..... where did you came from? Did you just fall from the sky?
- I'm a reporter. And I got HERE via a drift way.... Passing by a really weird underground tunnel...... and the corpse of one scientist guarding it.
- I'm sorry.

Dan didn't follow:
- Hah...? Survival is needed, first. You didn't do anything?
- No, it wasn't for that that I was apologizing...... - the scientist released a bit of expectoration - So I see, through the mine.... As a really unimportant aside, I'll relay as an insight, that this whole region's subsoil possesses the petroleum in wealth. The tunnel you just crossed is a finished remain of a part of a closed, inoperative mine. The stone walls, were added later on, after the mine was shut down, in a pro bono effort. - again, more expectoration - That good man, still so young ... named Nathan... one of the molecular biologists... he never came to fully grasp what was happening... he was a great fan of the Twilight Zone series. And ended up being in the twilight zone himself.

[Thus, it went like that.
- This will be a relief, to let it all out - he closed his eyes, wistfully - This is a story of a lifetime.

&&&&& Sagi's tale: &&&&&&&

- I decided rather young, that the path which I was going to tread professionally, would be the way of sciences of biotechnology and biochemistry, and harness that power. I was a frail teen full of complexes. As I was a bit of a loner, I loved reading sci-fi noir stories as a pastime.
My imagination would simply fly away which indeed helped me get through some crisis. As I had stated, my body was feeble and constantly afflicted with ailments.

I used to have frequent fall, and my body would bruise easily. As I was a little boy, about thirteen years old, I was diagnosed idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, an autoimmune blood condition of unknown cause.
I vowed that I'd do everything in my power to use science to strengthen my body.
You see, when one endures such setbacks and frustrations earlier in life, in our own mind we chalk it up to our own defects and faults. From there on, I became obsessed with obtaining perfection. In college, I trained my intellect to reach the purity of perfection.

This was the beginning of my faults.
Henry David Thoreau, one of my elected authors, has a saying that is now very much meaningful -- "A wise mind isn't prone to resort to desperate actions", he once opinated.
A few years ago, me and some associates from college, founded this small research laboratories company precisely named Biodine. The first times were difficult and we were always struggling to get out of tight spots and finding patrons.
We were short on liquidity; until, eventually, an insurance corporation multinational named Astraea, struck a deal with us, and agreed upon funding our projects.
We acquired state-of-the-art equipment and machines. And we were fully motivated.

Some time ago, during an Aurora Borealis, a well-preserved meteorite was found, out of pure randomness, during a routine exploration in the surface of the desert region of Nusura. It was settled in a crater with a radius of 5 meters [16 feet] and depth of about 20 meters [66 feet]. The exploring crew issued a warning and a task-force of researchers was dispatched to investigate the occurrence. What they came across into was the discovery of the century.

It was estimated that the meteorite had crashed on the Earth's surface some 1,5 to 2,0 millions of years ago. The loam, a rich soft soil cushioned the impact.
We had our hands on breakthrough material! A milestone for a deeper inception on the secrets of the unknown far reaches of the stars. A possible answer to our questions regarding our own identity.

In the interior of the derelict, it was found a crystallized proteic film, covered in resin and ice, which held inside the perfectly fossilized specimen of something that could be referred to as "an insect from the outer space". An alien organism, intact, allowing us to gather information of the highest caliber.
The finding in itself had uncanny resemblance with our own terrestrial household wasps.

The colossal creature (colossal, I say, in terms of novelty, not size), was thoroughly analyzed and dissected, and we proceeded to extract its cytoblasts to determine what was the making of the "insect".
Other parties ended up gathering intelligence of the existence of the project, even the government, and as they eventually found out, they became interested.

Here, is where the lab team of the V wing studied the inert alien genetic material. We analyzed its reaction to Earth's environment and conditions of normal pressure and temperature...
The first results were not encouraging. We never had the opportunity to carry back the mutated gene pool here... A side effect we weren't alerted to.
On the next day after we had obtained our first mutated specimen, somehow the other test subjects became also impregnated. We were shocked before the evidence.

Calamity had befallen our discoveries. We couldn't understand what was the cause, why it was happening. In time, scientists were too infected. The outbreak was becoming incontrollable.

I, finally, ended up comprehending the origin.
The mutated guinea pig, in unheard fashion, started producing a string of unicellular rod-shaped microorganisms, animated by long flagella, or helical coils, «vibrio».
These prokaryotes, carrying the RNA possessing characteristics of the same host to the other guinea pigs, spread throughout the walls in those facilities.
These prokaryotes, however had a life expectancy really short, of about a few hours. Reaping through the labs of the W wing, in no time we had a catastrophe on our hands.
This is, though, only part of the story.]