Recombinant Retroscriptase Counterprotease

"Okay... it's a been a rough day, clearly. Can you tell me what happened here?" you say, trying very very hard not to look down her open blouse.

"I'm Alison. It clearly has been a rough day. You're lucky, I actually can tell you what happened." She peers at you over her glasses, and you find yourself wondering if she has any idea how unreasonably sexy she is.

"So... what happened? Was there a fire? What's this tent?"
Alison leans back against the fence. "Well, there was an accident in the genomic biochemistry lab. Not a fire, exactly, more of a leak as I understand it. This tent is to contain any possible contaminant from escaping into the rest of Nowhereville. We don't know if it could be infectious - my understanding is that they were working on something derived from retrovirus proteins, so that could be very dangerous if it gets out. We have no idea exactly what it might do."

"Wait, so it's some kind of virus? Dammit, why did I have to walk right up here? Please tell me more so I know if I'm panicking for no reason." you say, a sinking feeling developing in your stomach.

"Well..." she leans over a nearby table that is sitting amongst a pile of equipment that's been haphazardly evacuated from the building.

She draws a vague circle outline with her hand on the desk. "Imagine this is a whole virus, or retrovirus in this case. All around the outside are these things called ''spike proteins' which can get into other cells, like ours, and reprogram the DNA to make more virus. So we do experiments to see if we can use portions of a virus or retrovirus to rebuild our own human DNA, to do all sorts of things - fix genetic diseases like Huntingdons or even cure cancer! And that's what they were doing."

"So is it safe?"

"Safe? No, biological research is never completely safe. But look around you. Does anyone look sick?" she says, and you have to agree, they don't exactly look sick:

Although everyone is looking at you and Alison for some reason.