The Patient Zero

Emily didn’t back down.

She stepped in front of Victor as the agents approached, fists clenched, ready to either scream or swing—whichever instinct kicked in first. The men fanned out in a half-circle, rifles low but fingers twitching near triggers. Still, she held her ground, hands raised into a fighting stance like she could somehow punch her way through the barrels of military-grade automatics.

Victor barely moved. “Emily,” he spoke in her ear softly, “it’s fine.”

“No, it’s not fine,” she hissed, her eyes darting between the soldiers. “They’re pointing guns at you like you’re one of those things.”

A black limousine pulled up behind the agents, sleek and silent. The rear door opened with a soft hiss, and out stepped a man in a charcoal-gray suit, finely tailored, more executive than military. He adjusted the thin-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose, silver hair perfectly combed. His gaze was clinical—hard, precise.

“That’s enough. Lower your weapons,” he said calmly.

Victor and Emily took a close at the man and recognized him. Dr. Leland—the head of the research labs. Their boss.

“Doctor Salerno. Doctor. Hayes,” he said smoothly. “Come with me. We have much to discuss.”

Victor and Emily exchanged a glance—uneasy, but curious. With a final wary look at the agents, they climbed into the limo.

Inside, the seats were plush black leather, arranged in a square around a central panel like a mobile war room. Opposite them, lounging like she owned the place, was Cassie, legs swinging and a juice box in hand.

“Hiya, guys,” she chirped, as if this was the most normal thing in the world.

Victor blinked. Emily's jaw dropped. Before they could speak, Dr. Leland entered and sat across from them. A discreet display screen glowed beside him, showing real-time diagnostics and surveillance feeds. It was his tablet, which contained a lot of classified information.

He pressed a button on the side of door. The privacy glass between them and the driver slid down.

“Take us to the New Dawn Initiative facility.”

Victor leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “You’re behind the New Dawn Initiative?”

“Not here,” Leland replied, calmly. “We’ll talk once we arrive.”

The divider closed again, plunging the cabin into a quiet hum of engine and tires. The ride stretched into silence, interrupted only by Cassie’s occasional slurp of her juice.

The drive took them far beyond city limits, ending at the edge of a thick forest. The limo pulled onto a narrow dirt road and stopped in front of… trees.

Just trees.

Emily stepped out cautiously, scanning the area. “This is it?”
Leland stepped out last, checking something on his phone. “Watch closely.”

He took out his tablet and tapped a few buttons.

With a faint shimmer, like heat rising off asphalt, the world shifted. Trees blurred and twisted as an illusion peeled away—an enormous hidden structure emerged, coming into view. A towering, fortress-like complex of concrete, glass, and humming energy fields. The structure pulsed with a faint blue glow. Panels moved along walls, like the building was breathing.

“What the hell…” Emily whispered.

“Cloaking field,” Leland said nonchalantly. “Quantum displacement optics and some other tech stuff. Ask our engineers if you want the details.”

He gave them a look—flat and clinical—that made Emily shiver. “Nobody knows this facility exists and no one will.”

Soldiers in black combat armor patrolled the perimeter, their rifles slung and visors tinted. Dozens of scientists in white coats moved between checkpoints, clipboards in hand, faces and eyes hollow, like they hadn’t slept for days.

“Don’t worry,” Leland added, noting their unease. “They’re just for our protection.”

“So he says,” Emily muttered to Victor who chuckled under his breath.

As they entered through biometric scanners, the interior opened up into a sprawling atrium—bright, clean, cold. Transparent walkways bridged overhead labs. Machinery hummed beneath floors of reinforced glass. Massive servers lined the walls, blinking with encrypted data streams. Next to them were uniformed random technicians, some of whom looked like they had not moved from that spot for a year.

And waiting near the main lab door, arms wide in mock welcome, was Dr. Adrian Keller.

“How’s it going, guys?” he grinned.

Emily stopped in her tracks. “Wait—Keller? You’re here? You work with them?”

Leland stepped forward, motioning for them to continue walking. “Dr. Keller has been with us from the beginning. His position at the hospital was necessary to help with the research.”

Victor’s voice was low. “You set this up months ago.”

Victor had always been cautious of the Leland. Things didn’t add up. Everything from the sudden “retirement” of Dr. Reynolds, the previous lead scientist, to how he himself landed the job in the first place He remembered the interview with Leland—how strange it had been. He didn’t even take a look at Victor’s resume that much. He simply asked one simple question.

“Are you looking to save the human race?”

At the time, Victor thought it was just a dramatic opener. He hesitated, thinking it was a trick question. Because of course he wanted to help his people —that was the whole point of medicine, of research.

But something about the way Leland had asked the question…stayed with him. Did he know?

Leland nodded. “When the first wave hit, we saw the patterns. The infection was strange. Subtle. Still, the most influential people in the world were concerned to put it simply. That led to the creations of the various research lab facilities in many corners of the world, just like the one you work at. And just like yours, the other facilities included the recruitment of the brightest minds in the world under the cover of researching unique viral infections.”

“What about the New Dawn Initiative?” Emily’s eyes widened. “How does it figure into all this?”

“A front,” Leland confirmed. “A national network collecting blood samples without causing suspicion or panic among the public. We collected blood from all major areas we suspected of infections, hospitals, schools and houses. We also had first priority for infected individuals which we supplied to the research labs.”

He paused observing their faces, full of shock and questions.

“I can see from your faces you want to ask how long we have known of this infection period and how many are infected. While these are good questions, the answers are irrelevant.”

He turned toward a large monitor and touched the screen. It lit up, showing files, graphs, and video footage.

“At first we thought it was a mutating virus. Simple enough. We quarantined the infected in one of the research labs in Europe. But three weeks later, something went wrong.”

The video footage played showing a man, a researcher slamming himself against a reinforced glass, his forehead splitting open.

“One of our researchers unexpectedly got infected while grabbing a sample from the infected. He became increasingly violent and rabbid. We quarantined him and over time his higher brain functioning started to deteriorate until he basically became like an animal. Living on instinct.”

Emily flinched as the video showed the man being restrained. Both his arms and legs were tied, his mouth was placed in some sort of mask.

“After that we had to restrain him so he wouldn’t hurt himself. A month later something even peculiar happened when a woman showed up at our door out of the blue. Alone. Pregnant and barefoot. She was not in the best state, she looked worn out from cuts all over her body. She’d walked nearly thirty Kilometres, can you believe that?”

The footage switched to a beautiful woman with red hair. Victor’s eyes enlarged looking at her, he recognized her but he didn’t know how. His mind was a bit foggy ever since he…ever since….

Leland continued. “Naturally we interrogated the woman and ran plenty of tests on her. She had the infection in her blood but she was normal. Rational. I would go as far to say that she was as normal as any healthy person. It was clear that whatever this virus was, it was evolving faster than we had anticipated.”

Victor frowned. “Why…what did she want?”

Leland turned, tone darker. “She was drawn to us. Drawn to the infected. When she got here, she claimed she was four months pregnant. Our scans however, showed that she was at least 8 months pregnant. The child inside her was growing at an unnatural rate. We theorized that the infection must have passed to the child as well, infecting him.”

Victor stepped closer to the screen. “What about Leon Mitchell? Was he part of the earlier infection or this evolved version as this woman.”

Leland’s eyes glinted. “To understand that, Doctor Salerno… you’ll need to meet Patient Zero.”