Detonate Me, Granulate Me | BTS

Chapter O16

Yoongi summons them all to the projector room of the underground lab the next morning, positively bouncing up and down with excitement. Yoongi is never outwardly excited, ever, so this must be something pretty damn big.

When Jungkook steps into the room, the first thing he sees is a giant image of Kim Seokjin's face, holographically projected onto the wall. The image moves, and Jungkook realizes that it's not an image, but a video.

"I got the transmitter to work," Yoongi says proudly, puffing his chest out. "The software took forever to install, and I had to manually set up the holo-program, rewrite the hack for the spy wall, but I bypassed Paradisus security!"

"Hey all, hey Yoongi," Seokjin says, grinning and giving a wave. "Long time no see."

"Teach?" Jungkook chokes out, eyes wide. The questions he'd been bottling up inside release themselves, flying around in his head in a whirlwind. "What's going on in Paradisus? What happened to Jinyoung and the others? Can't you tell the about what's really going on?"

"I've only got a couple of minutes so I'll make this quick. All the Morphus have either been bailed out by the resistance groups or disposed. Namjoon, you probably know already but SPICA managed to extract fourteen Morphus from the female compounds, and DNH's going to do the same soon at the male compounds. Jinyoung didn't make it, I'm sorry. And the three of you, you're in the clear. I deactivated the microchips, set up the three dummy bodies and had them passed off for incineration. Officially, Paradisus thinks you're dead."

"Were you in on this from the beginning?" Taehyung asks. "Does that mean you knew about where Jungkook and I..."

"Your trips to the Canidae compound? Yeah. Saved your asses a bunch of times, too," Seokjin says with a laugh. "Do you know how hard it was to cover up your footprints? Leaving your wristbands in the Foodhall like that, you idiot."

"Oh," Taehyung says, eyes wide. "But I was being hush-hush about it."

"With your subtlety," Jungkook says dryly, "nothing is hush-hush."

"Anyway," Seokjin continues, "I have some new intel. You know how we thought that the Retroviridae Animorphus virus was injected after birth and the subjects infected? Turns out it happens much earlier than that. I was prying while talking to one of the lab scientists working for Shin, and he told me the virus was introduced in the embryonic stage, and recoded entire sequences in the Morphus' DNA. They made a hundred different mutations of the virus, for a hundred different Hybrida. The files for the mutations and genome sequences are in Paradisus HQ, stored off any networks and only accessible to Kim and Shin, which is why I've never seen them before. But more than that," Seokjin says, holding up two vials, red and blue, "I managed to get hold of these."

"Are those...?" Namjoon asks, voice awed, and Seokjin nods. "Holy shit, you're a legend."

"It's not enough to facilitate a full morph and return, but it's a start. I'll send it over as soon as I can. Yoongi, you should be able to analyse it and break the compound down pretty quickly, if you're not lazy about it."

"When am I ever lazy about anything?" Yoongi grumbles, and Namjoon just shoots him an exasperated look. "Okay, fine, I admit that sometimes I do not sanitize and steal your underwear because I haven't washed mine, but science is different!"

"Do it fast," Seokjin says. "And once you're done, send the formula it to the other resistance groups too. They'll need it."

"Yeah," Yoongi says, saluting Seokjin. "Thanks man. Stay safe."

Seokjin gives a little grin, waving back, and the screen goes black.

"So," Yoongi says, turning to face Jungkook, Jimin, and Taehyung. "Looks like you'll be able to try out your morphs very, very soon."