Dr. Shoji Chen's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Chen stood inside the stone hall and watched rain hammer the windows. Water pooled at the foundation's edge but didn't seep through. The walls held. She set her sensor on the nearest bench and pulled out her portable drive. Three infected people had tried entering the lab. Their data showed different mutations. She needed to organize the readings, compare viral loads, find patterns in how the pathogen changed. Her fingers traced the edge of the drive. Ming would have built spreadsheets by now, color-coded and cross-referenced. Chen just stared at the numbers and tried to see what came next. The hall gave her shelter and space. That was enough for today. Night fell while she worked. The hall grew dark except for her computer screen. Chen stood and walked to the window. Outside, pale blue-green light pulsed between the trees. She pressed her face against the glass. Thin stalks rose from rotting logs in clusters, each topped with a glowing cap. The fungus lit the ground like scattered lanterns. Chen grabbed her sensor and stepped outside. The light was bright enough to see by. She knelt beside the nearest cluster and tested the air. Clean. The fungus grew on dead wood but didn't carry the virus. She broke off a small piece and held it up. The glow didn't fade in her hand. This could light the hall without draining the solar panels. She could work through the night and save power for refrigeration. Chen collected six clusters and carried them back inside. She placed them along the benches. The blue-green light filled the space, steady and cold. She sat down and opened her data files. The numbers made more sense now that she could see them clearly. Dawn came gray through the windows. Chen rubbed her eyes and saved her work. The fungal light had lasted all night without dimming. She stood and stretched, then walked back outside to test for the virus again. Her sensor beeped as she moved between the trees. Twenty meters out, she found a twisted tree with bark that gleamed purple and orange in the morning light. The branches curved wrong, growing back into themselves. She'd seen viral mutations in animals but never in plants. Chen circled the tree and took readings from different angles. The virus had infected the wood but hadn't killed it. The tree kept growing, warped and strange. She scraped a sample from the bark and sealed it in a vial. If the pathogen could mutate in plants, it might show her how it changed over time without a host dying. She marked the location on her map and headed back to the hall. The tree wouldn't give her a cure, but it proved the virus could do more than just kill. That was something. That was progress. Chen pushed deeper into the brush and nearly tripped over rusted metal. She crouched and cleared away vines. Old cages lay broken and scattered across the ground. The metal bars were thick, built to hold something strong. Her sensor beeped positive. Virus markers covered every surface. She examined the lock on the nearest cage. Someone had studied infected animals here before everything fell apart. The cages told her she wasn't the first to search for answers in wildlife. Others had tried and failed, then abandoned their work when the outbreak spread. She photographed each cage and tested the soil beneath them. The readings showed viral traces but no active infection. Whatever had been kept here was long dead or gone. Chen stood and looked back toward the hall. The glowing fungus, the mutated tree, the broken cages—each piece showed her how the virus moved through this place. How it changed what it touched. She walked back with the vial of bark sample clutched tight. The world was full of evidence if she knew where to look.