Symbiosis: At World's End

Ambush

In the main communications hub of Site Alpha, a stringy, pale man with glasses was busy analyzing communications with Site Beta. He was pouring through some records when he noticed a gap of communications completely unaccounted for. He started digging into the records and other gaps in communications, be it security camera footage, automatically generated lab reports, or use of an access card!

He immediately sent the report to their digital forensics' division for analysis, who immediately began peeling away the layers to discover that there had been unauthorized access to the active project files and unauthorized use of lab equipment, among other things. They sent the report straight to the council, who immediately started behaving like chickens with their heads cut off.

The lab report detailed the use of a genetic sequencer and the sequences aligned with symbiotic tissue, and the hack job that had accessed Project Ark. They immediately knew who had done this. Only one person, other than Mitchell, knew the secret to creating symbiotes.

"Have Dr. Annabelle Wendell arrested IMMEDIATELY!" The head councilman bellowed.

The order was immediately dispatched, and soldiers started preparing to bring her in.

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Wendell herself was currently working on the final touches of the tracking device she had been requested to make. She had designed it to be worn on the wrist and communicated with the satellite array they had constructed. In all honesty, it didn't even work. She had made them a GPS device that led them anywhere but where they wanted to go, that being the location of her escaped creations.

She set it down and got up and left for her lunch break. She noticed that the patrols were heavier than usual. Along the way, she was stopped by a soldier and informed that Evans had called her to his office again. She huffed and turned around, making long strides to his office, just wanting to get it over with and grab lunch.

He was sitting in his chair, looking at his computer monitor, which displayed the footage of the combat test of her artificial symbiotes.

"Ah, Wendell. Glad you're here, I need to discuss something with you."

She sat down in the offered seat and waited patiently for Evans to start speaking.

"Earlier today, I was informed that someone has been accessing unauthorized files from this base. They almost made a clean break, but they forgot about the second trail that comes from covering the first. We do not, however, know who did it. All we know is that it happened from within these walls."

Wendell feigned shock and concern.

"Why are you informing me? Do you need my help in hunting down the hacker?"

Evans held up his hand.

"Let me finish, Annabelle. We also discovered that all the security cameras in the bioengineering department started playing looped footage. We assume it was the same person who perpetrated the hack job. Next, we discovered that a few lab reports were under a mask. Digital forensics managed to uncover the file and discovered that the equipment had been used to create an artificial symbiote. Something only two people in the world know how to do, as far as we know."

Wendell looked at him with more feigned concern.

"Are you saying that someone else got their hands on my research?"

Evans shook his head.

"I think you know exactly what I'm talking about, Wendell. Sorry it came to this, but orders are orders."