by <unknown>
"Boom!"
A few seconds later, the helicopter burst into flames in the distance. Even so, because they were too far away, they could only see a blossoming orange glow, after which the small BBC helicopter fell like fine dust...
It was as if this was an inconsequential affair. The attack helicopter turned back and returned to the Eco Science City.
They could even wipe out those from the BBC without thinking twice?
Upon witnessing this, the Namibian colonel only felt that his back was drenched in a cold sweat.
Chapter 211: Trade |
All it took was a single shot from the military helicopter. It then turned around and returned to the city, nowhere to be seen after that.
If not for the mass of fireball and billowing smoke alight in the distance, it felt like everything that had just happened was no more than a fever dream.
Before the crowd had come to their senses, the entrance to the Eco Science City opened again. A group of armed soldiers fitted in fully enclosed protective suits marched out of the city.
Closely trailing behind the list of soldiers was an operating crane truck and a regular truck.
Without being prompted to do so, the crowd opened up a path, allowing the vehicles to head toward the wreckage of the BBC helicopter.
When Chen Chen saw the two trucks departing, he made a gesture of patting the colonel next to him to inform him that there was no need to be nervous. After that, he left the tower and got into a car.
"Back to the research center."
The driver began on his way upon receiving the order.
On the way back, after a moment's consideration, Chen Chen took out his phone and dialed a number.
The call was connected within two rings. A soft, womanly voice answered the call.
"Hi, this is the Foster Group, may I know who you're looking for?"
"Connect me to Norman Foster," Chen Chen answered.
"I'm sorry sir, our chairman is currently resting. May I know who this is?" The lady sounded extremely apologetic.
"Tell him I'm Chen Chen."
"Alright, one moment please…"
After that, there was silence on the phone.
After about two or three minutes, the call was picked up again, a deep voice came from the other end. "Chen Chen, you dare to call me. I haven't settled the score with you yet for killing my son."
"Mr. Norman, I'm just helping you handle your business."
Chen Chen answered unsympathetically, "Besides, you'll soon be able to live several hundreds of years, long enough to bury your grandchildren. So, why bother clinging on to such trivial matters?"
"Ha!"
The man on the phone scoffed and left it at that.
Chen Chen smiled. If the other party wanted to exact revenge, it would have been done a long time ago. Chen Chen cut straight to the point. "Mr. Norman, there's something I need your help with, I need to get in touch with the head of BBC."
"BBC? What happened?"
"I just shot down a BBC helicopter, I think there were three people inside it. The pilot aside, there was also a videographer and reporter," Chen Chen thought for a moment and explained.
Silence loomed briefly on the other end of the phone before a response followed, "I'm sure the wreckage and the flight recorder are taken care of."
"It's being taken care of, there won't be any traces left behind."
"How about witnesses, are they dealt with?"
"There's no way to deal with the witnesses since hundreds of thousands of them watched me shoot down the BBC helicopter."
Yet another wave of silence on the other end of the phone before Norman erupted. "Are you messing with me now?"
"No, Mr. Norman. I'm being serious now."
Chen Chen announced solemnly, "It won't be a problem because the witnesses are the refugees of Namibia. Truth be told, if Mr. Norman isn't willing to help then I can just get in touch with Mr. Wilson, I'm certain he'll be more than willing to help me."
No response came from the other end.
After a brief moment, the heavy voice started again. "I get it, I can cover this up for you. You won't even need to make an appearance. In return, I expect thirty thousand information credits as payment."
"Five thousand, max."
Chen Chen frowned. "It's just three people. Surely Mr. Norman doesn't think that they are worth ten thousand information credits each."
"Those aren't any common members, they are BBC reporters. The British Broadcasting Corporation is the largest media organization in the Earth Federation."
The voice elaborated further. "If word of this gets out, your company instantly loses all credibility and its reputation is instantly soured. You'll also be subject to the scrutiny of the federation."
"That won't happen, the Foster family isn't the only one on my side. I have several other families backing me up. They won't let any of that happen."
Chen Chen smiled faintly. "How about this, we can both compromise a little. I'll pay ten thousand information credits, that's the highest I'll go. If you're not going to accept it, I'll go to the Wilsons."
"Deal."
The answer came in the form of a growl before the call was hung up right then and there.
It was only then when Chen Chen set the phone down.
The Foster family was based in the City of London and held its position as one of the top ten financial consortiums in the European continent. Its influence spanned across several industries including the media sector.
Norman Foster, the patriarch of the Foster family, held 1.5% of shares in BBC. Even though he had no management rights, he was still a part of the board of directors, which was what prompted Chen Chen to refer to him first.
Even several days later, nobody came to follow up on the incident.
It was as if everyone had conveniently forgotten about there being a helicopter crashing in the vicinity of Eco Science City. Even the reporters of BBC stationed around Namibia were called back by the headquarters.
The wreckage of the crash was subsequently taken to the industrial zone of Eco Science City and disposed of as scrap metal.
Three days later, with armed soldiers monitoring the procedure, five thousand volunteers were selected without a hitch.
Not only that, during the written test sequence, hundreds of refugees who had recovered on their own and developed antibodies were discovered.
Having contracted BE-006 in an environment without any readily available medical aid, the fatality rate reached as high as ninety percent. Regardless, there was still a minority ten percent demographic who could recover without any medication.
Chen Chen also took this demographic into the Eco Science City as well and specifically assigned troops to watch over them.
Their blood contained antiviral serum which could be extracted accordingly. Should someone in the Eco Science City become infected with BE-006, these serums could potentially play a vital role.
One crucial thing to note was that the vaccine Chen Chen had developed only served to make ordinary people immune to the virus. It could not be used to treat patients who had already been infected by the virus. With that said, the blood of the already recovered patients could be utilized to extract antibodies for combating the virus.
The purpose of a vaccine was to prevent further infections while the serum was primed for treating the disease.
As for things on the side of the World Health Organization, Qian Wenhuan's report of the birth of a vaccine for the virus was immediately met with uproar.
The progress took more than a month shorter than the World Health Organization's projected model. Due to the complexity of developing attenuated and inactivated vaccines for the Ebola virus, the direction taken had leaned closer to developing adenovirus vector vaccines and genetic engineering vaccines.
Compared to the two former options, the process involved in developing the two latter variants was a great deal more complex. In addition to a hefty amount of funds and workf
orce required, extremely advanced biotechnology techniques were essential as well.
"Amid a vicious pandemic, the Messiah rises? Blacklight Biotechnology leads the world yet again – Washington Post."
"Blacklight Biotechnology is one step ahead in developing the BE-006 vaccine, initial clinical trials will soon be underway – Time Magazine."
"The greatest calamity in recorded history may be contained. Will the BE-006 vaccine save the world? – New York Times."
As Qian Wenhuan began applying for the rights to conducting the appropriate clinical trials, the information quickly made its way around the world. The very next day, it was published in the headlines of a majority of media outlets all across the world."
Chapter 212: New Research |
Due to the entirety of the Africa continent being on the brink of collapse, the World Health Organization spared no effort and permitted Chen Chen's clinical trial without a second thought. The requisite for splitting the trial into four phases was bypassed and the four phases were hence combined into a single-phase clinical trial.
The phases referred to here concerned the testing period for the vaccine. In usual settings, it was a requirement for the vaccine to go through four experimental phases before being debuted in the market.
The first phase of the trial was to examine the safety of the vaccine and the maximum number of candidates allowed was ten people. After the group was injected with the vaccine, they would be monitored for several months. The second phase of the trial would begin after ensuring that the vaccine did not pose any harm to the human body.
In other words, the first phase of the trial only served to determine whether it was harmful to humans. It was only from the second phase onward where the trial was to examine the effectiveness of the vaccine.
For the third and fourth phase, the sample size as well as the observation period would be gradually increased. The procedures became stricter from these points onward as well.
On average, the clinical trials may take up to several years. In certain cases, some vaccines were not developed even after decades. However, there were certain outliers as well. For instance, it only took a year to develop a vaccine for the pandemic outbreak which occurred three years ago.
This was largely influenced by the situation worldwide. The speed at which a vaccine was developed directly correlated with the severity of the virus.
After all, the daily infected and death count in Africa ranged up to hundreds of thousands daily. If after going through all that effort of developing a vaccine, a clinical trial spanning over several years was still required, then there was no need to push the vaccine into the market after the trial had concluded. They were better off burning the vaccine as a sacrifice for the deceased brethren in Africa.
In critical times such as these, the clinical trial for the vaccine had to be conducted in a timely manner, the sooner the better. The World Health Organization even specifically assigned a note stating that even a vaccine slightly harmful to the human body was permitted.
This meant that it was acceptable even if Chen Chen were to develop a vaccine that posed a slight risk to the human body. The only thing that mattered was that the pandemic could be put to an end.
As news of Eco Science City developing the BE-006 vaccine began to spread throughout the world, countless people began averting their collective attention to Eco Science City.
Under Chen Chen's appointment, the clinical trial was headed by Professor Bernhard. Additionally, the entirety of Eco Science City had suspended all other ongoing experiments as all of the resources available in the city were dedicated to the efforts of the clinical trial.
All in all, Chen Chen was very confident in the outcome of the vaccine. After all, it was a product based around the sum of the research of the Hive.
It should be pointed out that the Umbrella Corporation had been researching the Progenitor virus for three decades, even managing to develop the flowers. Factoring in the extreme genetic similarity between the BE-006 virus and the Progenitor virus, along with the technological level of the Hive, the chances of the vaccine failing was nil.
Therefore, after handing off the clinical trial project to Professor Bernhard, Chen Chen returned to the Spire laboratory and began researching the Progenitor virus.
"The Progenitor virus is said to be able to aid the evolution of mankind."
At the present moment in the level-4 biosafety laboratory located in the Spire Experimental Base, Chen Chen was holding a blue test tube with a pensive expression. "However, it's closer to a form of mutation than evolution."
With that, he poured the liquid in the test tube into the human cell culture medium and began a silent observation.
Chen Chen was not the only one present in the laboratory. Hannibal and Li Lei's team was with him.
There were several extremely intricate devices laying around the laboratory. These devices stood out like a sore thumb among the other devices as they were more like a product of science fiction.
These devices were equipment that Chen Chen had obtained from Resident Evil. With the addition of these devices, the biotechnology standards of the Spire laboratory was further enhanced.
It could even be said that the Spire laboratory had far surpassed the biotechnological standard of modern human civilization, ascending to new heights…
"Mr. Chen."
After a while, Li Lei suddenly called out to him. "Please come take a look at this."
Hearing the request, Chen Chen approached the electron microscope and looked at its display. He saw the cells in the medium begin to multiply rapidly like rolling bubbles in a kettle.
"The multiplication rate rose from a coefficient of 1 to 3, more than doubling its original rate."
Li Lei said with a shadow of excitement, "Also, every time a cell breaks up, the length of its telomere hardly decreases. This is an exact match with the description of the information you brought back. This virus has the ability to enhance metabolism and extend lifespan!"
"Don't be too optimistic."
Chen Chen shook his head without the slightest inclination of feeling excited. "Don't forget, these are the changes noted in an ideal, simulated environment inside the dish. If applied in real situations inside a regular human body instead of a dish, chances are the person might begin bleeding, similar to symptoms displayed upon contracting Ebola."
"Due to factors concerning the immune system?" Li Lei put away his smile upon hearing this.
"That's right, the symptoms are described in the information provided."
Chen Chen put up the information on the display and noted. "A form of superantigen toxin is found in the Progenitor virus. If this virus was properly injected into the human body, the first thing that it does is to invade the human immune system, which includes lymphocytes, dendritic cells, and macrophages.
"Similar to the result displayed in the culture medium, upon infecting the human, the virus can triple the metabolism speed of the body. This in turn means that the body will exhaust a great amount of nutrition. The human body is simply unable to keep up with the consumption rate."
"This means that the Progenitor virus is greatly flawed and not a good fit for our experiment."
It was then when Li Lei reluctantly nodded.
"However, compared to the Progenitor virus, its relative products are different."
Chen Chen suddenly changed his tone, squinting his eyes as he turned to the leech slices placed in a petri dish to the side. "If we can fuse part of the gene fragments of the leech with the Progenitor virus, we get the infamous T-virus."
"That's right, the T-virus is more refined than the Progenitor virus."
Hannibal approached and flipped through the data while adding to Chen Chen's statement. "The Progenitor virus is known to boost a human's strength and speed. It's even known to extend human lifespan, at the expense of a minuscule rate of success.
"Just like the BE-006, the chances of surviving a Progenitor virus infection barely
exceeds ten percent. Even for the lucky ones who manage to survive, it's not granted that the Progenitor virus may incite changes because the human body merely produced antibodies to negate the harm done by the virus.
"In conclusion, the Progenitor virus is far from perfect, it's extremely flawed.
"However, the T-virus is different as it's an improved variant of the Progenitor virus. Unlike the BE-006 which is a viral virus, it's a mild form virus. It's a long-term symbiosis device which integrates its genetic material into the chromosomes of the host cell.
"In this symbiosis period, the gene of the host cell undergoes changes as a result of the integration of the viral chromosome."
Hannibal raised his head as he explained, "Simply put, a person who is infected by this virus will experience genetic reformation."
With that, Li Lei frowned and asked, "Then why was it that the people infected by T-virus didn't evolve but instead turned into zombies?"
"That is a product of failed evolution."
Chen Chen answered, "The process of cultivating a being that's able to synergize with the T-virus has to start from the zygote. This means that you have to infect a zygote with the T-virus, thus producing an enhanced being from the zygote. The only thing that can come out of directly infecting humans with the virus is a failed-evolution turned zombie.
"Of course, there are some exceptions."
Chen Chen thought about it and added. "Maybe one or two lucky ones among millions of people can withstand the virus and obtain superpowers like Alice..."
Chapter 213: New Variant Chimeric Virus |
For the next few days, Chen Chen never stepped out of the Spire Experimental Base.
Chen Chen had entrusted the management of the Eco Science City to Cheng Cao. Although Cheng Cao was unfamiliar with overseeing a city, everything should be fine since he had the help of Little X.
Meanwhile, Chen Chen remained in the laboratory and continued studying the Progenitor virus with Hannibal and the others.
