Survival Bunker System Developer

The Man from the Future

Dr Helen Rockmiller was frustrated. She didn’t know what she could do. It has been a week but the higher-ups still wouldn’t let her go back. She tried to visit her mentor in the hospital after the incident but nobody updated her about his condition after they banned her from visiting. Also, the guards kept stopping her from entering the campus and her students were spamming her messages asking why her classes were suddenly cancelled. How could she reply to them when she didn’t know the reason herself? It was ridiculous! If something went wrong with Project PXE22, she was the only one capable of fixing it. How could they put another person on the job? Furthermore, they confiscated all her access cards and research journals. It was a good thing the scientist made backups of her own.

Just when Helen thought that things could not get any worse, she received a blackmail message from an anonymous source. Normally, Helen would not entertain such people because they were just hackers trying to phish for information. However, this particular sender was terrifying. They sounded like a terrorist and truly knew what Helen was doing despite how the university tried to keep everything under wraps.

As a scientist, Helen was a curious individual. While the anonymous sender sounded dangerous, the researcher could not help but feel intrigued by what he was offering. Helen Rockmiller was a talented scientist of her generation and the youngest researcher to have any accreditations at Rockfeller University. She was the most popular lecturer and her classes were always full. Dr Rockmiller was also frequently invited to give talks and her most famous work was her theory about DNA evolution. Project PXE22 was something she proposed to her mentor – Dr Fellowes and requested for his help to prove her evolution theory. They were at the most crucial stage of the experiment when Dr Fellowes got bitten by their experiment. Ever since then, the University banned her from having anything more to do with PXE22. This could only mean that PXE22 has become dangerous and knowing that something had gone wrong made her feel anxious. She couldn’t sit back and not do anything. She wanted to contribute but the University’s management remained unmoveable with their decision. Helen couldn’t understand the reason behind their decision but she wasn’t going to sit back and do nothing while PXE22 evolved.

As if her prayer were heard, the scientist received an anonymous text message talking about PXE22 and the theory of cannibals with awakened intelligence. They also sent a lot of details about the secret research journals regarding the project, an excerpt of Dr Rockmiller’s evolution theory thesis and screenshots of her getting barred from entering the campus. The man told her that he wanted to meet her in person at her apartment to find out more about the project.

[It is a matter of life and death so I would recommend you do not keep any information from me.]

Helen frowned and texted back.

[Who are you and why do you want to know so much?]

The anonymous sender sent a reply that made Helen question their sanity. The man who introduced himself as Houston sounded like a nut case but somehow, Helen didn’t think he was completely crazy. His theory about how PXE22 could potentially evolve into something that could threaten humanity into extinction sounded like a sci-fi movie but in reality, Helen understood that it was a real possibility.

[I will come in person with evidence that I am from the past where PXE22 killed everyone. I suggest that you prepare all the research notes about the project and tell me everything you know before it is too late. No funny business, I’m watching you.]

Helen didn’t believe that the sender was watching her until she received the next text message. That scared her badly. It was an image of her standing in her study room looking at her phone with what she was currently wearing. Helen didn’t know how the sender did it but was convinced about one thing. There was no escaping. If she didn’t agree, the sender would still be able to track her down.

[Understood. When do you want to meet me?]

Caleb who was watching the scientist through the hacked laptop’s camera smirked. The scientist was smart but not smart enough for him. Now that she was thoroughly convinced and intimidated, he would cut to the chase and find out everything he needed tomorrow.

[Tomorrow at nine in the morning. What would you like for breakfast?]

Helen didn’t know how to respond to that. Was he flirting with her? Still, to be on the safe side, she declined his offer to pick up breakfast. Caleb didn’t mind. He wasn’t expecting her to trust him that easily. While he didn’t want to come off as a dangerous individual, it was hard to gain her cooperation without some threats. Now that he had her cooperation, he didn’t want to scare her too much. It wasn’t going to be easy to convince Helen that he came from a different timeline and died once but he wanted to ask her about the possibility of a mutant ghoul. There were so many questions and if he could, he wanted Helen to create something to help humanity against the ghouls and to find a weakness to use against intelligent ghouls.

>>Xxx Destiny Aitsuji xxX<<

The doorbell rang and Helen jumped. She checked the time. It was indeed nine in the morning. Nervous and slightly hesitant about her decision, the scientist peered through the peephole to see her anonymous sender for reassurance that he wasn’t out to murder her.

Caleb Houston was a rather decent looking person and Helen relaxed a little after seeing that the man didn’t look like he was a serial murderer. If anything, it made her consider his story a little more. Time travel had always been something scientists were fascinated with.

“Come on in,” Helen said after opening the door. Caleb smiled and thanked the scientist before politely removing his shoes at the entrance. Helen took her time to scrutinise the mysterious man who introduced himself as a system developer.

Caleb allowed the scientist to observe him for a while and made himself comfortable in her home. He bought some coffee and a bagel for breakfast before he drove over. It didn’t take long for him to reach Astoria from Windsor Terrace and was impressed by the number of books Helen had in her apartment. Most of those books were references for her research and some happened to be written by the scientist herself.

“Shall we get started?” Helen asked after she stacked two huge piles of books related to what Caleb asked of her. She had taken the whole night to bring out everything related to cannibalism and evolution, unsure if she should trust such a suspicious person.

Caleb took a look at the thirty-six-year-old scientist. She didn’t look a day past her mid-twenties and had a rather nerdy sense of fashion. He didn’t know if it was a scientist thing but Helen wore a white lab coat even indoors. The system developer did his best not to judge. Everyone had an odd trait or two, even more so for geniuses like Helen Rockmiller.

A flash drive was placed on the table as Caleb pulled out his laptop and started to set it up. Helen gave him a questioning look but Caleb ignored it until he was able to pull up the faces of victims that the police found. He wanted to know if Helen was familiar with any of the victims found rotting away in the park and the sewers. These bodies were most likely the ones that had been infected by PXE22 but he wasn’t going to let her know that just yet.

“Do you recognise any of these people?” he asked and Helen leaned over for a better look.

The scientist clicked to the next picture after shaking her head at the first man. However, looking at the third picture, she paused.

“This is Dr Kennings. He works with the DNA decoding team and is a close aide of Dr Fellowes, my mentor. I work with him from time to time on different projects.”

Caleb nodded when Helen confirmed the information. Dr Kennings was the scientist who visited Dr Fellowes in the hospital and got attacked.

When Helen reached the last picture, she was silent for a good while. Many thoughts ran through her head. She didn’t recognise the man in the first picture or the woman in the second picture but the last two pictures were people she was acquainted with. Why did Caleb show her random pictures of people and asked her to identify them?

“This is Dr Fellowes, the lead researcher of PXE22 as well as my mentor. You should already know this, why are you asking me to identify them?”

Caleb smiled. “I do know them. However, I wanted to know what your relationship was with these four people. Seeing as you only knew those who came from Rockfeller University, I guess you were not informed of the latest news.”

Helen frowned. “What news?”

Caleb opened another folder and showed it to Helen, not wanting to explain it. It was better if Helen saw it for herself.

At first, Helen wasn’t sure what she was looking at. The document looked like some sort of investigation report by the police with a statement from the morgue as well as a picture of a corpse. If she wasn’t a scientist, she might have fainted from the sight of how grotesque the decomposing body looked in the picture. However, she had seen worse in her laboratory so this was nothing.

The first report was the death of the man she didn’t recognise in the first picture. He turned out to be a doctor who worked in Rockfeller Hospital and was a specialist in infectious diseases. The cause of death remained unknown although the morgue’s forensic department included that the doctor’s neck had been broken which was the cause of his death. The body was found decomposing for about a week buried in Carl Schurz Park together with a nurse after the police received an anonymous tip-off. Flocks of birds of all kinds were already eating the decomposing corpses that had been partially dug out and exposed. They were only able to identify the corpse through a DNA test and by matching the watch he wore after his family members verified it.

The second victim was the woman Helen saw earlier. She was the nurse buried together with the doctor in the park. The nurse also worked at Rockfeller Hospital and Helen had a bad feeling. She was not so keen on reading the third report now that she saw the pattern. Rockfeller Hospital was the place that Dr Fellowes was in receiving treatment after the lab accident. She was banned from visiting her mentor and now she had a better understanding of why she wasn’t allowed. Caleb’s vision of the future might now be without evidence and Helen started to dread the news.

The forensic team was able to identify the nurse because her work card was found in her pocket. However, they were unable to find a DNA match for some reason and Helen understood what happened. The strange remarks added by the morgue included bite marks and a chunk of flesh missing from her neck area not done by the birds. Her right arm had been pecked clean by the birds, leaving only her bones by the time the police retrieved her corpse and Helen felt queasy seeing the picture attached.

Caleb was patient and sipped his coffee leisurely after finishing the bagel. Dr Rockmiller would be convinced that he wasn’t a mad person after seeing the report. She might not know what’s going on at the university after being barred from entering but with this news, she should be able to come to a few conclusions. The most damning evidence that his visions of his past life are not lies would be the bite marks and missing chunks of flesh. If Helen was still not convinced, Caleb had prepared video clips that he took about the aggressive birds and the rats at Tramway Plaza. Just last night, Caleb also found a video going viral about strange rats in Manhattan eating pigeons. The video was rather graphic so the website removed it within a few hours but there were still copies of it circulating on the dark web that Caleb managed to download.

Helen looked at the third report and felt sick. Dr Kennings was also dead. The cause of his death was from a wound infection on his forearms with bite marks. Like the nurse, the DNA test failed but they were able to confirm Dr Kenning’s identity after questioning Rockfeller University and confirmed that Dr Kennings had gone AWOL for a long time. The professor’s body wasn’t found in the park, it was found in one of the sewers near the East River.

The scientist had to excuse herself when she read the last report, unable to compose herself when she saw that her mentor was dead. Like Dr Kennings, Dr Fellowes died from an unknown cause even though it was noted that the strange disease transmitted from the rat experiment was the number one suspect. A detailed report about Dr Fellowes’ behaviour while he was in Rockfeller Hospital was attached for further investigation and the cause of his death remained unknown although the DNA tests do not match even after his identity was found. Dr Fellowes’ body was found decomposing and half-eaten by rats in a different sewer along the East River near Rockfeller Hospital.

Caleb allowed Helen some time to compose herself. It wasn’t easy to know the truth but with this, he was more confident that she would be willing to listen to his story and lend him her expertise. The apocalypse has to be stopped and Caleb had a plan.