Nanjing, Jiangsu Province October 3, 2031
Li An woke to the sound of light rain tapping against the window.
And for a moment,She didn't move,wrapped in a blanket that still smelled faintly of detergent and sunlight, she stared at the ceiling. Her apartment was quiet except for the distant hum of traffic and the occasional elevator chime from the hallway.
From the kitchen,the kettel began to whistel.Li An sat up slowly,brushig her hair back with one hand and slowly,she reached for her phone out of habit,swiping through muted messages and social media.
By the time she walked to the kitchen,the kettle had gone silent. She poured the hot water and watched the tea leaves bloom in the pot like the tiny storms,her phone suddenly buzzed from Another encrypted message from Nanjing Sanyu the biotech firm that had hired her on a contract so vague. Too much money for too few hours. And always the same request: don't talk. Don't ask. Just watch the data.
Li An wrapped her blanket tighter and stepped onto the balcony,she sipped her tea slowly, watching the city shift and breathe. Nanjing was always a place of layers of old temples hidden behind shopping centers, gardens tucked between concrete towers. Even in autumn, something always bloomed. The leaves along the road outside had started to turn yellow, but the air still carried traces of summer heat.
A couple argued below her window, gesturing over a cart of eggs. A delivery drone buzzed overhead trailing a soft hum.The world felt normal.
Li An was beginning to understand something strange is moving under the calm.She pulled her blanket and turned away from the balcony. Her mobile blinked again with unread email notification from Nanjing Sanyu.
These emails consisted of Some routine logs lab tests, charted symptoms, geographic clusters. Others were harder to ignore. Like the patient files without names. Just initials. Just numbers. One had simply been labeled "non-responsive, cognitive drift."
Li An hadn't seen that phrase before.
She'd meant to ask about it in her last message to her supervisor, but the thought had gone out of her head under the usual reply:" Thank you for your diligence. No further action is required."She didn't like working in the dark. But she'd grown used to it.
Li An rubbed her temples, the screen's cold light washing over her face. She glanced outside again habit, maybe. But something in the street below had changed.
The couple was gone. So was the egg cart.
Only the drone remained, now circling back over the same block for the third time, its blinking light red instead of white.
She frowned.
Her eyes returned to the files. She opened one—Patient File 0520.
No name. No age. Just an entry:
Symptoms: Elevated neural latency, momentary disassociation, repetitive vocalization ("It's not done, it's not done").Location: Zhonghua Road Sector 6Status: Observed, not admitted
The log ended with a timestamp. 2:04 a.m. This morning.
Sector 6 was only three subway stops away.
Li An hesitated before closing the file. She reached for her tea, now cold. Something about the phrase repeated vocalization clung to her thoughts like some mantra. She imagined someone sitting upright in bed, whispering the same line over and over, eyes wide in the dark.
"It's not done."
While hearing these voices in head,she opened another file More symptoms. More missing names. Another entry:
Patient File 0508 – "Loss of time awareness. Subject repeatedly attempted to 'reset' surroundings. EEG irregular. Transfer pending."
There was a blurred image attached. Just a corner of a hospital bed and a clipboard on the floor. No people. But scrawled across the floor tiles in something that looked like chalk—or something worse—was the word: VIREX.
It was the first time she'd seen that named in any official document. No metadata. No classification code. Just that word, all uppercase, staring up like it had been waiting.
A soft knock jolted her.
Li An froze.
It wasn't her door,her building used a keycard system. No one knocked. It was Her balcony window.
She turned, slowly.
A pigeon.
Just a bird, wet from the rain, feathers clumped awkwardly. It stared at her through the glass as if it had been watching her the entire time.
She let out a breath and laughed—quiet, shaky.
The screen lit again. This time, not an email.
A live message.
Incoming: Secure Conference Call — Priority Clearance Level Z.Below it: Join within 3 minutes.
Li An had never seen that level before. Z. Not A. Not Red. Just a single letter that didn't belong to any protocol she knew.
She hovered her finger over the ACCEPT icon.
Rain tapped the window harder now.
She clicked it.
A black screen. Then audio.
A voice—distorted, male, tired.
"You're seeing it now, aren't you?"
Li An said nothing.
"They called it Virex. But it's not just a virus."
The voice paused. As if deciding whether to continue.
"It's a behavior. A pattern. A trigger."
"And it's spreading."