Chapter 3: Testing

16 September 2025

For the next several days, Jenny’s thoughts spun like her centrifuge. Her research was incredible, and the possibilities were undeniable. But everything behind the chemical reactions was still theoretical.

The logic pushing her forward was a closed loop, tight and inescapable.

To publish, she would ultimately need human testing data. To get human data, she needed subjects. To get subjects, she needed informed consent. But how could she possibly inform someone that she intended to infect them with something that could turn them into a biological marionette? The moment she explained the "**** Virus" to an ethics board or a volunteer, they’d call the police — or a psychiatric ward.

She stared at the glowing culture. It was beautiful in its own terrifying way, pulsing with that eerie, electric luminescence her arousal coaxed out of it.

"The only clean way is the old way," she whispered, her voice sounding thin in the empty lab.

She thought of Pierre Curie testing radium on his own skin, of Jenner and the smallpox vaccine. It was a grand, noble tradition of scientific martyrs. Of course, they hadn't been testing a protein-enriched payload designed to strip away their autonomy, but Jenny pushed that thought into a dark corner of her mind. She was different. She was only observing. She had a PhD. She would keep a log.

She would be the master of her own infection.

She attached the pulse oximeter to her fingertip, and fastened a chest strap for her heart rate monitor. Then, with hands that were only slightly trembling, Jenny prepped a small, sterile applicator.

She had already determined that the virus was capable of transmission through simple skin contact under precise circumstances. It needed to be warm enough, and moist enough, and with enough quantity, so long as it was applied directly to the skin. Too long separated from the iron-rich, warm environment of the bloodstream, or the heat and humidity of the mouth and throat, and it would shrivel and die.

She had returned to her short-hand theory about the "venom" from the mouth… now it was time to prove it.

She moved to the small mirror over the lab’s stained sink. She looked at her reflection. Her face was pale, with dark circles under her eyes – the price of eschewing the corporate researcher life for a rundown room full of secrets. But maybe this was the moment which would change her life.

"For the data," she told her reflection.

She dipped the applicator into the warmed nutrient bath. The virus seemed to cling to the cotton, as the faint, shimmering residue stained the swab. Jenny opened her mouth and swiped the applicator firmly against the buccal mucosa of her upper gums, just above her canine teeth.

The reaction was not immediate, but it was profound.

It started as a pinprick of heat, a localised fever that radiated from the site of the application. Jenny gripped the edge of the sink, her knuckles turning white. She waited for pain, but there wasn’t any. Instead, she felt a rhythmic thrumming at the base of her skull, perfectly synced with the refresh rate of the monitors behind her.

She reached for her tablet, her stylus scratching frantically across the digital page.

Subject 01 (Self-Administration): 16 September 2025. 02:14 AM.

Immediate mucosal absorption. No anaphylaxis. Localised hyperthermia at the site of entry. Heart rate: 110 bpm. SpO2: 98%. Senses: Heightened. The hum of the centrifuge sounds… melodic.

She stopped writing. Her tongue flicked over the spot where she had applied the sample.

There was something new.

Faint at first, but growing stronger with every beat of her heart. A sharp, distinct, metallic tang — the taste of copper and electricity — was blooming in the back of her throat. It wasn't unpleasant. In fact, it felt like a greeting.

Jenny looked back into the mirror. Her eyes looked the same, but the world around the edges of her vision was beginning to sharpen, the colors of the lab's warning signs — the reds, yellows, and greens — suddenly vibrant, and demanding her attention.

She felt a sudden, inexplicable urge to check her phone. She wanted to hear a voice. Not Rebecca's. Not her mum’s. She found herself flicking through her recent calls until she found the potential donor from earlier.

She didn't press call. Not yet. But as the virus began its elegant, silent work of reweaving her neural pathways, Jenny Thorne was starting to realise she wasn't just an observer anymore.

She was the show.

***

Jenny woke with a start.

The transition from the dream world to the waking one was usually a slow, blurred ascent for her, but this morning it was like a sudden jolt of electricity.

She lay still for a moment, her breath hitching as the residue of the night’s fantasies clung to her like a second skin. They hadn't been her usual, wandering dreams. They were vivid and saturated with a high-definition clarity that made her bedroom in the small flat feel dim and secondary. She had seen a man in her dreams. No, not just a man. An authority.

In the dream, she felt a heavy, honeyed weight of hypnotic obedience. He had used her, and her mind and body loved it. She felt completely, uniquely focused on him. On his pleasure. On his desires. Every time he wanted something, she was compelled to obey. She needed to obey, and oh how she wanted to.

And when she obeyed, her body sang with intense pleasure.

She didn’t remember the dialogue from her dream, but one word stood out: Master.

Then, she swallowed, and reality snapped into focus.

The taste was back.

It wasn't a faint aftertaste like the night before. Now, it was a sharp, biting flavor that coated her entire palate. It was like she’d spent the night sucking on a copper coin while standing in a lightning storm.

And based on its chemical make-up, she realised this was the taste of the virus — or rather, the taste of the virus working.

Jenny sat up, the duvet sliding off her shoulders. She felt... incredible. The usual morning fog, the one that required three cups of coffee to penetrate, was nowhere to be found.

She reached to her bedside table to grab her glasses. Then she sat up, and dropped her feet to the floor. The soft carpet gave the bottoms of her feet intense sensations she had never felt before. Even those nerve endings were more excited today.

While enjoying the friction of rubbing her feet into the carpet, she jotted down some notes in the digital log on her tablet.

Subject 01 – Post-infection: 6 hours.

Subject enjoyed exceptional sleep. REM cycles felt intensive, with dreams focused on submissive-themed archetypes. Awakened easily, with heightened alertness and sensory awareness. No sign of “post-orgasmic” crash. The body feels… primed.

She saved the note, then got up and headed to the small kitchenette. Her movements felt strangely fluid, as though all of her muscles were loose and ready for a workout, despite having had no warm-up or stretching. As she passed the mirror in the hallway, she paused. Her eyes were different. Her hazel eyes were exhibiting changes. Specifically, flecks of blue were appearing.

No, that’s not quite right. It’s like blue light was leaking from her irises.

In the kitchen, Jenny reached for her kettle, but her hand stopped mid-air.

The sound of the morning news was drifting through the thin walls from her neighbour's flat. A male presenter was discussing the FTSE 100. Jenny didn't care about the economy, but as the deep, resonant baritone of the man’s voice filtered through the plaster, she felt a sudden, sharp thrum at the base of her skull. It was a physical reaction, a tiny "click" of alignment that made her knees feel momentarily weak.

"Don't be ridiculous," she muttered to the empty room, her own voice sounding strangely loud to her heightened ears. "Surely you’re imagining it, Jenny. You aren’t having a biological response to some man’s voice.”

But as she dressed for the lab — choosing a cream silk blouse that felt slightly tighter than usual — she couldn't shake the feeling that the "observer" was losing more ground.

She wasn't just watching the virus anymore. The virus was watching her too. And directing her regarding what it wanted.

***

For the next few days, everything about Jenny’s lab sparked sensory feedback for her. The air was warm or cool, or sweet or pungent, depending on the time of day and the actions of the climate control and the passing of different personnel in the corridors. The lights were bright, or faint, or annoying. The sounds were louder to the point of being oppressive, even when she tried desperately to ignore them.

But for Jenny, the other sensory inputs were eclipsed by the taste. The telltale taste was no longer a sporadic visitor. Whenever something particular tickled her thoughts, the metallic tang flowered in her mouth, accompanied by a low-voltage hum behind her teeth that spiked into a full-on electric jolt whenever she drifted in certain directions.

While she swallowed down the flavor, she sat at her workbench and triggered her voice recorder. The microscope light cast a bright circle over the slide containing a new sample of her blood. She peered through the lens and was staggered by the exponential explosion of the viral load.

Digital Log: Subject 01

Date: 19 September 2025. Time: 11:45 PM

Status: 72 hours post-infection

I am finding it increasingly difficult to maintain the 'Observer' protocol. The data are clear: the virus hasn't merely infected the host; it has integrated. Viral counts in the bloodstream are off the charts, yet there is no immune response. No fever, no malaise. Instead, the body feels... optimised.

In addition, I am experiencing a phenomenon I can only describe as "active discouragement." When I attempt to formulate a hypothesis regarding a potential neutraliser or a way to reverse the sequencing, my mind... slides away. It’s not a lack of focus. It’s a velvet wall. Certain research paths feel "wrong" or "boring" in a way that is physically repulsive.

Most disturbing is the arousal trigger. I spent twenty minutes today pondering the logistics of a double-blind study without informed consent — specifically, how to "accidentally" expose a friend, or a colleague, or a stranger to a saturated sample.

The moment the thought formed, the metallic tang flooded my mouth like a reward. My heart rate spiked. My nipples hardened and rubbed wonderfully against the lining of my bra. It wasn't a clinical interest; it was a craving. My body is rewarding me for the mere suggestion of spreading the infection. It wants me to find him. It wants me to deliver more of my kind to him.

Jenny paused her dictation. She acknowledged that her scientific judgment was compromised. The virus had mapped her ethics, and was systematically erasing those portions which obstructed the desired path.

She stood up to get a drink, and walked past a small mirror adhered to a cabinet door. She didn't need the microscope to spot the change in her reflection. The hazel of her irises was nearly crowded out. That strange, spectral blue light glowed like a slow-motion nebula behind her pupils.

***

The lab was a graveyard of discarded coffee cups and printouts as midnight approached on the 21st of September. She waited until the weekend to run this particular experiment, in the expectation that no one would be around. Jenny had spent the last four hours rigging an LED array she’d cannibalised from an excess high-speed imaging kit. It wasn't elegant, and it certainly wasn't the precision-engineered device she inferred from the Alexandria notes, but it would provide the specific nanometer wavelengths she had identified in her simulations.

"I’m the only control group I have," she whispered to the empty room.

She sat in her ergonomic chair, the array positioned six inches from her face. She had her digital recorder running and connected her biometric readers.

Her heart pounded in anticipation as she toggled the first switch.

The lab was instantly plunged into a deep, saturated crimson, and the effect hit her like a brick wall. Jenny’s breath caught in her throat. Her muscles didn't just tense; they locked into a state of vibrationless stillness. Meanwhile, the metallic tang in her mouth solidified into a heavy, copper weight that pressed down on her tongue.

She tried to log her thoughts, but she couldn’t speak. She felt trapped in a velvet prison within her mind. There was no fear, and no hope either. There was nothing. She was tethered in her consciousness like a statue in a red room.

The automated sequence shifted, and the vivid red went dark before she was introduced to a blast of vibrant amber.

The stillness broke, replaced by a violent, internal oscillation. Jenny gasped, her chest heaving as her heart rate began to climb. The "biological heartbeat" she had seen in the cultures was now echoing in her chest. The protein sheaths of the virus were shaking, and she could feel the sensation as a rhythmic crawling under her skin.

It was a state of pure transition. She felt raw, unfinished, and desperately expectant. Her skin felt hypersensitive; the air from the lab's vents felt like a sandpaper caress. She was wavering on the edge of something, her body humming like a tuning fork.

Suddenly, there was darkness again on the array. Jenny felt like a puppet with her strings cut. She had no strength to move, and no will either. Her mind scrambled to the idea of reaching out to hit the termination button… and then the final programmed colour flared to life. The lab exploded into a brilliant, lush emerald light.

"Oh... fuck," Jenny groaned, her head snapping back against the headrest.

It was the explosion she had seen in the simulation. The virus didn't just react; it bloomed. A surge of pure, unadulterated pleasure flooded her nervous system, radiating from the base of her skull down to her very toes. It was better than the video, better than any touch she had ever known. The molecular machine was screaming yes! through every one of her nerve endings.

Her irises, already leaking blue, flared with a sapphire brilliance that competed with the green light of the lab. For a few seconds, she wasn't Jennifer Thorne, PhD; she was a **** vessel, perfectly tuned to the biological signal of the **** Virus.

When the timer she’d set finally cut the power, Jenny was left in the dim, grey half-light of the London moon.

She didn't feel exhausted. On the contrary, she felt like she could sprint to Glasgow to brag on her findings, and then dash all the way back. She stood up, her movements fully infused with unusual grace. The metallic taste had vaporised, and what remained was a lingering flavor of satisfaction.

She looked at her biometric data. Even if the colours and sequences were imperfect compared to the other researchers, the effect was still undeniable. Her viral symbiont had been supercharged, and she was feeling the physical and psychological aftereffects.

She felt a buzz as she pondered the next steps in her research, which were burned into her soul. She needed more data. To get that, she needed to bring additional subjects into the study.