Prologue

Under the starry night sky, a helicopter banked towards the Taurus Mountains of southern Turkey, its rotor blades chopping through the cold night air. As the aircraft neared the mountain complex, the pilot spoke into his headset. "Control, this is Vector One, requesting permission to land." Moments later, a thick Turkish accent crackled through the radio. "Vector One, radar contact confirmed. You're cleared to land at Pad Three. Welcome back." As the helicopter descended to the structures, scattered lights appeared from the mountainside, revealing small clusters of structures built into the steep, rocky terrain. Just underneath a cluster, a landing pad jutted out of a gigantic crevice on the cliff face, almost seemingly suspended in midair. Several armed guards stood waiting beside the pad.

As the helicopter neared the landing zone, he eased the aircraft gently down onto the concrete. As the rotors wound down, several ground technicians rolled out a metallic cart and approached the cargo door. They slid open the door. Inside, sat a silver refrigerated crate. On the cover, a rectangular sticker no larger than a palm of a hand was neatly placed in the center. Like the crate itself, the label was remarkably plain and nondescript containing only a handful of things: a barcode, a serial number, a small biohazard symbol in the top left corner, and a line of fine print that read:

BA-9 #0184.

One of the technicians retrieved a scanner and scanned the barcode, while another had a clipboard in his hand and was filling out information while continuously looking back up to the crate. The technician with the scanner said quietly "Shipment verified." "Same drop-off next week?" asked the pilot. The technician with the clipboard responded with a shrug "Depends on if Ankara is even sending us anything." The pilot nodded.

The technicians loaded the crate off the helicopter and onto the waiting cart. The pilot got back into the cockpit, spun up the engines, and took off into night sky. The technicians on the ground with the security detail wheeled the cart into brightly lit corridor leading deep into the mount, disappearing behind a massive blast door as it closed shut.

Meanwhile, deep inside this mountain, four scientists dressed in all white protective suits, worked on sampling test tubes and vials underneath bright fluorescent lights, in a windowless room with no way to tell time except a digital clock that read:

01:38

They moved methodically around rows of workstations, shelves and cabinets full of microscopes, stacks of petri dishes, and racks of labeled vials. Along one wall of the room lay a refrigerated storage cabinet with a wide assortment of vials filled with different bacteria samples and cultures, meticulously arranged with precision. On another end there was tabletop with a few incubators, a sink was attached to the wall right next to the incubators. The rows of lab stations were in the center of the room filled with note taking materials, racks of vial and pipettes.

One scientist took a petri dish and placed it under a microscope. "This should be last sample from batch #0183," he said to no one in particular. The lead scientist remarked, "Hm, the next shipment should be here by now." Suddenly a buzz echoed through the room from the outer airlock. "Ah, there it is." Technicians opened outer door, carefully pushed the cart in, making sure that it fully cleared. Then they closed the door and walked away; their work is done.

The lead scientist approached the inner door; she waited until an indicator light above the door turned green, and a click as it unlocked. The lead scientist opened the door, pulled the cart in and re-closed the door, "Here it is. Let's get this over with before breakfast." The scientists carefully lifted off the lid and set it aside on a table. Inside, were green vials arranged in 5x10 racks, with 4 racks layered on top of each other. They lifted the first rack out, and started their work. Grabbing each vial carefully, extracting its contents using a pipette, emptying it onto a petri dish, then analyzing it under a microscope and taking down observations. The process repeated for multiple vials for a few hours, in silence.

Then suddenly, a scientist looking through his microscope muttered under his breath, "Huh, interesting. That's different..." The lead scientist overheard him. "What is?" "Here, come take a look at this." The lead scientist approached the microscope and was anxious to see what her scientist had saw. "That is interesting. That is not supposed to happen..." "No, it is not," replied the scientist. The lead scientist asked, "Which vial is this from?" "This is from vial #3230." replied the scientist. "Okay, we need to get this to Ankara immediately."

Just as she was about to grab a landline on a nearby desk, the room was suddenly plunged into darkness as the lights shutdown. Then suddenly, the sound of gunfire erupted outside the lab. Muzzle flashes can be seen through the window screen of the doors. Suddenly, four masked figures in encapsulated suits can be seen standing on the other end of the airlock. The scientists were frozen in fear and confusion, as the figures carrying suppressed rifles entered the airlock, and closed the outer door behind them. Few long seconds past as the figures waited for the compartment to pressurize, and the inner door to unlock. A buzz and click later, the figures rushed in, a series of muffled pops, and the scientists dropped dead.

The group searched for the vial and one of them eventually finds it on a rack. He puts it in a small cushioned case. "Package secured. Let's move," he said through the respirator. The team made their way to the surface where there was a waiting helicopter. Moments later, they took off and disappeared into night, leaving behind what was left of the destroyed research laboratory.