Chapter 2: The Package

12 August 2025

The second breakthrough changed her life.

Jenny dropped her clutch bag on her desk before noticing it was on top of something which hadn’t been there the night before. A heavy brown envelope was there, right next to her tablet dock and the empty cup of tea from the night before.

There was no return address on the envelope, although it had a postmark from Alexandria, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Someone spent a lot of money to send this package to me, Jenny thought to herself. So why didn’t that person identify himself?

She carefully opened the envelope and pulled out the contents. She found a few different printed documents, some handwritten pages, a slender bound journal, and a memory stick. The top document was a series of observational notes, and immediately, she knew this package was tied to her research project.

Jenny started reading while standing at her desk. Sometime during the forty-five minutes she spent initially digesting the information, she transitioned from standing to sitting at her desk. The outside sky was almost dark when she finished reading the printed pages.

The contents in the package were earthshattering. It was as if someone had been doing the same fucking research Jenny had been doing, but with a GPS rather than trying to use a compass or a sextant to find the destination.

Everything else she had planned for the week was scuppered. She pored through every page, and tried to decipher the data contained on a memory stick. Her initial observation from months ago was so right – the virus itself was elegant and more. But the version being described in this documentation was undeniably weaponised.

Someone called it the “**** Virus.” It was a single reference, but it might as well have been lit up like a marquee at the Palladium.

She was grateful that this virus couldn’t accomplish in the wild what was being reported in the documentation, because it required such a ridiculous number of activators that it couldn’t happen by accident.

Or at least if it could, it couldn’t happen on a large scale.

First, the virus had to get into a host. But the version of the virus she had encountered was too large to be airborne, and too fragile to survive outside of a host long enough to allow for random transmission. These researchers had found the same issue, and more. It required being maintained at a particular temperature range… a range which was typically found inside the human body. And it could only thrive when maintained in a nutrient bath with a high iron content.

“Bloody Hell,” Jenny softly exclaimed as she realised what she was reading. It’s not bloodborne, but it is blood-bathed. It gets into the host through some form of absorption, whether it’s skin or some other tissue. But when it gets into the bloodstream, it gets fed and nurtured.

The next day – following only about three hours of sleep in which Jenny only grudgingly indulged at the urging of Rebecca, her friend and colleague in the science centre – Jenny reread the package, and started reading the digital files. On the memory stick, Jenny found what she thought was the transmission answer. “Mucous membranes.” But the researcher who made the note thought that was too wide of an aperture for what was being found. Specifically, it wasn’t being sexually transmitted, which was what would have been expected for a mucosal agent.

The notes didn’t answer the question, but Jenny had her own surmise: it was the mouth. It had to be.

For lack of a better way of explaining it, it was like the virus was the venom of a poisonous snake, and it was pumped somehow into the host’s mouth for her to… what? Bite the next victim?

Jenny marked that spot in her log with three red question marks – her way of putting a pin in it.

***

Two weeks later, Jenny had extracted what she thought was every clue in the package. She knew how the virus lived. She knew how it spread. She knew how it could be sustained. But what she didn’t know were the two things she most desperately wanted to know: how was it composed genetically, and what would truly unlock its full potential?

There were descriptions of light waves and sounds and heat signatures, but not explanations to give context. There was also a log entry that the virus was specifically keyed to the endocrine system and the neural pathways of female physiology.

But how? And why?

She didn't know which agency or shadow corporation had mutated this thing, but it clearly wasn’t intended for “the good of humanity,” or some other appropriate purpose. According to notes scribbled in the journal, this virus had been used to turn women into “obedient fucktoys.”

It was her smut video made terrifyingly real.

***

Jenny pushed through her exhaustion, and finally she seduced the virus into exposing itself to her.

First, she exposed the culture – which was already bathing in her arousal fluids – to the specific light wavelengths identified in the notes. When the colour was tuned to a specific red, the virus's energy patterns became rigid. At the specific yellow, the protein sheaths wavered and shook, a pulse that looked like a biological heartbeat. And when she dialled the spectrum to a brilliant, saturated green, the virus seemingly exploded open. If a molecular machine could achieve orgasm, this one was screaming yes, yes, yes!

Jenny was finally able to sequence the virus while it enjoyed its afterglow. She saw patterns that couldn’t possibly have evolved in nature. If she were so inclined, she could spend another decade trying to break down the programming which led to this particular virus.

Right now though, with the understanding of how to open up the virus, she could determine whether the version she had been working with was an older or a newer version, as compared to the findings in the data on the memory stick. That was enough research to merit another year of grant money, if she could just find the right donor. Then she could use those two sets of data points to chart a map towards a deeper understanding of the evolution of the virus.

Or…

Or she could follow the even darker path that flashed through her thoughts. What if she took advantage of the ideas that the mysterious notes suggested? What if she tested the virus on living, breathing subjects?

What the fuck, Jenny?, she thought to herself. Scientists don’t do that sort of thing.

***

Another week had passed since receiving the package. Autumn hadn’t quite been reached, but September was hopefully marking the end of the long hot summer. Not that Jenny had experienced any of it, spending an inordinate amount of time in her lab.

Today was simulation day. She had managed to roughly program a protocol to mimic the virus’ behaviour in an infected human female, and then to expose “her” to the proper light frequencies.

Jenny adjusted her glasses as she watched the simulated interaction of the virus with the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. She expected to see some effect. What she got was a massive cascade. If these findings were correct, the virus completely rewired the network.

She leaned closer to her display, her breath fogging the edge of the glass. She noticed what she assumed was an anomaly in the simulation — a rhythmic, optical stutter in the way the virus bonded with the prefrontal cortex. It wasn't just a chemical reaction; it was responsive to the monitor's refresh rate.

"The optical trigger isn’t just a one-time thing," Jenny said to herself, her fingers trembling as she logged the discovery. "It can happen again and again, under the right circumstances.”

Suddenly, her mobile rang. And then again. And again.

She hoped she could dodge calls today, but this one was important. It was a potential donor, and she couldn’t afford to skip this call. Literally.

She pushed the answer button on the screen, and then the speaker button so she didn’t have to hold onto the phone.

He was a pleasant enough man, with an enjoyable voice. But he didn’t know virology from astrology. If she had to guess, he was some rich boy with a Cambridge degree and too much of Father’s money. He clearly wasn’t the one to be told about the true mission of her current research.

After the call ended, she returned to her simulation.

Her eyes bulged.

These data couldn’t be real.

The virus activity had spiked, and in seemingly random ways. Every few seconds, it went from docile to energetic, and then back again. Why?

She pondered the variables. What had changed during these particular time sequences which had never…

“The call,” Jenny said aloud to herself.

The virus had been exposed to a new stimulus. The voice of a man.

Her mind returned to the scientific method. If this was a coincidence, all she had to do was run an experiment.

For her control group, she searched YouTube for a Hugh Grant clip. Four Weddings and a Funeral – her mum’s favourite.

She pressed play. And sure enough – the viral activity didn’t give a shit when Andie McDowell was speaking, but it jumped when Hugh’s dulcet tones were audible.

Hypothesis confirmed.

Jenny scrambled to track down more vocal pairs. Next up was a BBC broadcast. The female anchor – nothing. The male anchor – everything.

Check and double-check.

The reference in the research notes to sound had been far too generic. But now she knew: the virus was drawn to the voice of men. The realisation triggered a chill through her. These characteristics are more than just data. They are the notches of a key, but for a lock she didn’t wholly understand.

If this is a **** Virus, then does it need a Master?