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Hi all Long time lurker. I thought I'd start a story that's been mulling around in my head for a while now. I'm still not sure where it's ultimately headed - though I'm hoping it won't go where you think it might. I have some ideas for the direction - but nothing concrete. There could be anything - so fair warning - if you're easily offended, or grossed out, or whatever, this may not be the thread for you. I'm planning on keeping each chapter fairly short, but hoping to post updates more often. It's my first ever story - so be kind, or not ... EDIT: I've purposefully not given our main protagonist a name, but will use uppercase HE/HIM/HIS to refer to HIM. I'm gradually editing each entry to fix this after the fact. Apologies if it's hard to follow. ******* CHAPTER ONE It was over. Well, IT wasn’t over, but the race to find a vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the virus that caused COVID-19, was done. The company where HE worked had lost the race. There were five or six vaccine candidates approved worldwide, some mRNA based, some more traditional. HIS company had spent billions of dollars, and would never recoup those R&D losses releasing vaccine number six or seven, even if it was more effective. If only it was even slightly effective. The project was shelved and, indeed, the existence of the company itself was now under threat. Word had come down from on high that afternoon; a Thursday. The staff were shocked, but not particularly surprised. Everyone expected the axe to fall at some point — many surprised it took as long as it did. It was always a radical and ambitious plan. A plan that would pay massive dividends if it paid off - not only in immediate sales of vaccine, but in lucrative patents that would forever change vaccine development and progress medical science as we’d known it. As the old saying goes, if it’s too good to be true… A vaccine that reprogrammed the patient’s DNA so that the patient’s own immune system would produce the cells and antibodies necessary to fight the virus would not only prevent COVID-19 disease, it would also prevent transmission of the virus causing the disease, ending the pandemic once and for all. But that was small fry compared to future developments. No more influenza, common cold, herpes, HIV, Hepatitis… any infection known to man — virus, bacteria, fungi — would be cured. And even the big C, cancer. Well, it WAS ambitious. But it was not to be. Though the theory seemed sound, putting the theory into practice proved… challenging. Hundreds of billions of dollars were spent trying to make it work and, though there was some promising early results in vitro, every single tested animal had resulted in horribly disfigured or dead animals. Not exactly ready for initial human trials, let alone approval for final manufacture and sale. The bean counters and lawyers were still crunching the numbers and considering the options, but it seemed that so little progress had been made converting theory into practice that everything relating to the project, from samples to formulas, from notes to equipment, from methods to specialised equipment — everything — was effectively worthless.