"Harold, you didn't come to bed!" Kirana gave a call as she came into the main lab area on Mieni with one hand resting on her swelling womb. The discovery that she was pregnant after Harold was converted was wonderful, as it meant not only having her mate, but also having a family to raise in the future besides. And now, she wasn't too terribly far away from laying her eggs, if some of the medical records taken from Marlysa's pregnancy was any indication. She still had a lot of curiosity about about science and Harold's work, partially because it meant getting to spend time with her mate, but at the moment she had more family oriented thoughts on her mind.
And the snake she was looking for, turned with a rather apologetic look as she called to him.
"I'm sorry, dear," Harold spoke, "It's just the call about the virus attacking itself... it's just such a surprise. Especially when much of Project Chimera was based off of what happened with Teela's uplifting. After all, my dear, we used part of the virus used to uplift you and gained from you to give Teela the ability to slither on land... as eels don't naturally have the fins that would develop into legs as part of the uplifting process. And while that did lead to some... surprises... with Teela's uplifting..."
"It didn't kill her and lead the virus to attack itself," Kirana finished as she came forward. She wanted to hug him, as she could see the concern in his eyes, but at the moment her egg filled middle was a bit to big for that. She settled for laying her tail over his, as was the best she could do to comfort him. There was a lot about the things that Horizon was experimenting with that bordered on "mad scientist" territory, as some science fiction shows described it, but from everything she'd seen, Harold worked hard to minimize all the potential risks. Using computer simulations and live tests on samples to observe the changes there before even considering to move onto actually testing it on a living being. It showed that he genuinely cared and wanted to actually make things better with the Animalia Virus, not simply running around randomly injecting it into people just to see what it would do. He cared, and that was one of the things that drew Kirana to him.
"Yes, but the scientists working on Project Chimera said that was what happened," Harold spoke, "which runs against everything we've found with regard to Teela's uplifting. Tests on her blood show that NOTHING is wrong with her. Her cells are not only functioning... but are stable. The Animalia Virus in her is working perfectly. The only surprise was in how certain DNA traits from your DNA transferred over to Teela. It's where we've found that the virus CAN perfectly hybridize species, even unrelated ones. The issue that we've found is in the mapping of the DNA strands. Doing it at random would make things uncertain... but things would still be STABLE. I don't see how the virus used in Project Chimera could then turn on itself. The only potential issue would be that the DNA sequences weren't properly aligned and thus there could be some surprises in form... but things would still be stable."
Kirana slowly ran her hands over Harold's. His scales felt fairly dry, but they still felt just as good to Kirana as they always could. She held Harold's hand one one hand and stroked the back of that hand with her other hand, hoping that this would comfort him.
"Maybe there was something in the way the virus for Project Chimera was organized," Kirana said to him, "they had the mapping wrong or made a mistake in their calculations."
"But I've been looking over the calculations they've sent me for comparison and my conclusions on what happened," Harold spoke, "there is NOTHING in them that would indicate such a massive consequence. Any mistake would have only had something closer to what happened with Teela. The new Animalian might have more features from the other animal that it would be joined with. It wouldn't just suddenly have the entire sample cells just destroy themselves. The Animalia Virus isn't designed that way."
"Could there be something that you missed? Something that Project Chimera did differently?" Kirana asked, "I mean... what happened with Teela was an accident in that she got so many of my features. The only thing that was intended was to transfer over my ability to move and slither on land... you didn't expect for her to gain my stripes or that her hands would be more Snake-Animalian-like than Fish-Animalian-like and that just using samples taken from my blood... maybe there was something missed in the tests. Something odd and unexpected, even if their calculations were correct."
Harold gave a heavy sigh and looked down, "from what I've seen, the computer projects and the tests on the blood and cell samples provided seemed to be moving well within the parameters that were expected based on Teela's uplifting. There wasn't anything in the readings that was wrong until yesterday afternoon when the cells in the test sample suddenly died."
Kirana blinked and looked over to her mate as he brought a hand up to his chin and was simply stroking it as he looked back and down toward the computer he was looking at. Kirana soon recognized the look as one Harold gave when something was odd. He made the same face when Kirana began to feel the first signs of her pregnancy, though it rapidly changed to joy when it was confirmed that Kirana was pregnant.
"Is something wrong?" Kirana asked.
"May not be wrong," Harold said slowly, "but there is something odd... is that around noon, yesterday, Lyre time, the equipment monitoring the samples was turned off. They came on about fifteen minutes later, which could mean it was just an accident, but it was AFTER that point that the cellular decay began."
"What could have caused the power outage?" Kirana wondered.
"It could be anything," Harold sighed, "It could have been a cleaner caught the cord on a broom or something... or someone tripped over it. The problem is that while the systems monitoring the sample were off, if anything was added to the sample, by accident or design, there was no way we could know that something was added to the sample..."
"So, someone sabotaged Project Chimera?" Kirana gasped, pulling her head back in surprise.
"Worst case, yes," Harold said slowly, "but it may not have been deliberate. As I said, if cleaner accidentally pulled the cord, there is the potential that some cleaning agent was spilled by accident, which could have bad consequences. And if it was an accident... the person might simply be afraid and didn't answer out of that fear, not knowing that the tests could easily be done again."
"What if it is sabotage?" Kirana asked.
"Then we'd have a problem," Harold said slowly, "Anyway, I must..."
"Tomorrow morning," Kirana answered, "It's late here and it's bound to STILL be night there. Wait until a time when everyone is up."