Virus Notebook |Day 68 After Virus Release|

Anneka

One of the constants of lab work and research is creating journals to organize and manage ideas, progress, and objectives. Maybe it is my role as a scientist who is not skilled enough to change the world to document one who can do so through technical writing. Lex sure shouldn’t because he has to stay in the correct mind-space to prioritize virus development and to optimally use our lab equipment strained by limited power. I understand my task, but my former student and curious side can’t help but imagine the wonder of others and myself reading the journal in the future and re-experiencing the whole virus creation process in expansive retrospect. It has yet to set how incredible it is to modify nature. For both the betterment and danger to humans. If this cure really works, then this documentation is guaranteed to be one of the most important in all of human history. My mind is made. I’ll strive until I am powerful enough to change the world like him. I can’t be pleased with my brain right now. I need to follow my yearning. With that, I pen the first entry.

Day 68: The institute is highly fortified. My checks and patrols along dangerous routes are regular. Today, I have to carefully gather new virus strains from the zombies throughout the park using proper procedures to not contaminate the research. Lex corrects the power supply to be disconnected and not sent to most rooms and systems. The only power grid in circulation is for the virus equipment. The incubators discovered are only for curating infected human cells with antivirus strains. Lex determined it to be an unnecessary danger to subjects and logistical difficulty to do it on real humans. We still have ample former antivirus samples in multiple stages that we brought along. Lex chose to work on the antivirus from an earlier stage than the first prototype on humans that he tested a few weeks ago. We need to apply a different approach from an earlier branch point in the modification timeline before the failed prototype. I will declare it a new trial. Antivirus Variation Two.

Day 73: Lex creates a few genetic modifications and focuses on using biotech tools to transfer the modifications to the antivirus successfully. He watches how it replicates and reacts to infected human cells in the incubators. It reacts with no effect on infected human cells despite the differing conditions tested and allotted time waited in periods of one, two, four, ten, and twenty-four hours.

Day 74: The antivirus survives poorly in water compared to the bloodstream. This is an objective that needs to be worked on concurrently with the actual transformation from zombie back to human. They are both needed to succeed in saving as many as possible. 

Lex is changing the antivirus to have a quasi-envelope to acclimate it to water and the bloodstream, instead of one or the other. This is the benefit of a quasi-envelope, the ability to sustain the antivirus in multiple and even varied environments. I went out today to a grocer to gather unspoiled food and uninfected bottled water close by.

(Dummy, dummy, Don’t ruin the log by writing unrelated facts.)

Day 81: Lex appears unwell. The difficulty of maintaining hygiene with little water and the long hours are likely the culprits. The antivirus is confirmed to be suited to survive and replicate in water of varying conditions and types for many days. The grand divide in conditions of surviving outside the body and in the blood of the host is conquered. The survival rate is significant and proven over this week. Additionally, Lex finishes all the genetic and structural modifications concealed in his head. He implements them properly into the antivirus. Lex is sick. I question if medicine is enough to supplement the unhealth.

Day 82: We test the antivirus on infected human cells in controlled incubators for the second time. After a day the virus is vanquished from the colony of formerly infected human cells. We conclude that it works as the theory intends. The antivirus molecularly cuts the virus’s DNA at the correct location. This stops the virus from replicating in the bloodstream and the virus genome cannot be repaired. The virus essentially self-destructs and cannot infect nearby cells.

Day 84: Lex makes the process faster. Lex is also on the verge of collapsing where he studies. He is on edge, combatting his day-long headaches. It has to be to cover the vastness of the human body compared to the minuscule size of a virus. Time to uninfect a colony of human cells in an incubator is down to a few hours. This should mean that the time to infect a human should be at most twelve hours. It could be mostly linear as the area increases from the test to the human.

Day 85: Lex lies that his symptoms are over. He should sleep more than five hours each day. Lex rigorously tests the antivirus in the controlled environment. He goes over every possibility of immediate and delayed disaster that the antivirus could incur when introduced to a living connected human system. It would be so wrong if we create another virus pandemic that just harms people in a worse way. Even in acting with the best intentions we have to be ethical and aware. Taking responsibility and being ultimately fearful.

(I am going to cease crossing out too much of the text as it ruins the readability and purity of the account.)

Day 87: Today, we are ready to test it on the zombies in the park. Leaving the institute behind we navigate safely downtown. Carefully, we administer the virus directly to the zombies pouring an infected water solution down their mouths.

Day 88: I almost forgot what other humans looked like. So many days ago, I was ready to. Now, we've carved a beautiful path out of this mess from Antivirus Variation Two! My tired eyes cannot bar my simple tears. I want to squeeze their hands to show how much it means to me. Oh, how I cannot contextualize my relief that in spite of my terrible inadequacy, the world moves on. Everything I was fighting for was worth it. I wasn't a hero that failed.

Mell, Cree, Oliver, Steve. I didn't realize but there are questions to acknowledge with their awakenings. Do we keep them restrained in case the virus somehow reemerges? Or do they need to be let free as they are already weakened, confused, and conscious people? I inquired with Lex, and for each person, we decided to monitor their new state and ensure that they do not pass back into zombies on to us in an involved patient monitoring setting like a hospital. Mell has a distinctive bite on her arm. Strangely, the area is stable and uninfected, as if sterilized. The human framework of nerves and blood in that part of the arm was somehow remarkably restructured and replaced to go around and work despite the starting damage from the bite. The rest of the group were infected by the water, shown by no physical entry points for the virus. They largely struggled to operate their limbs around well, speak without stuttering and slurring, and show demonstrations of expected physical energy. Otherwise, they were functional. The small group took well to the information on the antivirus's role as a cure and are sheltering in our base as they feel it is safer than the rest of the city. I cannot blame them.   

The complete antivirus is invisible to the human eye and an advanced microscope is needed. An electron microscope works well for this case. The antivirus is 110 nanometers with a variation of 1.13 nanometers smaller or larger. The size means that the antivirus has no real color or is too small to have a color. The DNA is in the center and the envelope is made of host cell membranes, proteins, and phospholipids. To combat the chance of reinfection from zombies or water, the antivirus is dormant in small quantities in the body even after the subject returns to a human state. It only starts replicating again in the bloodstream once the body experiences changes or stress from the zombie virus once more.

Day 93: We’ve tested the antivirus so much, and now, on this day at the time of 16 hundred military time, we release the antivirus directly into the ocean and nearby US waterways in Seattle. By all ranges of estimates except the low end of the curve, the 0.1%, it will circulate by weather and water before it is too late.

I showed that villain Fion wrong. We showed Fion's estimations of humanity's loss wrong. I fistbump Lex's hand softly as we onlook the still dark towering city, glad that he can finally rest and absolve his deathly complexion. I can't wait to rest and have some time freed up for myself as well. I finally don't have to put this off anymore.