The silence after the Rosa report was suffocating.
No one spoke for a full thirty seconds.
Dr. Brohm broke the stillness, her voice composed but strained. "We need to be very careful with our assumptions. One similarity in cellular structure does not implicate Mirror-Life."
Dr. Nyasha M'kebe from the African Continental Task Force nodded firmly. "Agreed. Mirror-Life has been in circulation for over a decade. If it had this capacity for mutation, we'd have seen global symptoms years ago."
"Exactly," added a European CDC advisor. "It's genetically bound by repair-limiting protocols. Self-contained. It's not designed to replicate endlessly or interact with healthy tissue."
Yun leaned forward. "And yet we found those same repair loop structures imperfect, yes, but recognizable in Elias and Rosa. Something changed."
"Or it was never Mirror-Life to begin with," Dr. M'kebe countered. "CRV-3 could be an extraterrestrial virus. A mimic. Something environmental that only resembles Mirror-Life under stress."
The debate picked up momentum. Screens flicked through old research models. Hypotheses flooded in. Some speculated CRV-3 was a released dormant virus from the past. Others suggested a weaponized virus. A few posited a synthetic hybrid developed by a hostile actor.
No one dared connect it directly to Mirror-Life.
Except one.
Dr. Leon Riedel, who had been quiet throughout the discussion, finally unmuted his mic.
"I've been given full clearance," he said, slowly. "As of this meeting, Novagenic has declassified the early conception history of Mirror-Life."
All eyes turned to his screen.
"I won't waste time with public summaries. What you know as Mirror-Life the miracle cell, the regenerative scaffold it wasn't born perfect. It was iteration 347 of a long, brutal development process."
A series of files populated the screen behind him. Genetic breakdowns. Field notes. Incident logs. All watermarked CONFIDENTIAL – INTERNAL TRIALS.
"Before the version that passed medical regulation, we developed over four hundred experimental variants," Riedel continued. "Most were harmless. Many were inert. Some were... aggressive."
Mariel leaned forward. "How aggressive?"
"One variant ML-Δ7 was the most promising. It replicated rapidly, adapted to nearly any environment, and showed complete rejection of cancerous tissues in both rodents and primates. It cured cancer overnight."
"Then why wasn't it used?" Yun asked.
Riedel's expression darkened. "Because it didn't stop. ML-Δ7 attacked everything. Healthy cells. Bone marrow. Neural pathways. It treated all biology as unstable. It didn't heal it erased."
He pulled up a faded lab memo.
ML-Δ7 – Termination Recommended
"Reactive to all organic hosts. Rapid neural colonization. Signs of autonomous behavior observed. Subject 12 displayed unprovoked aggression. Variant ordered for secure destruction."
Status: Terminated. Containment protocol logged and approved.
A wave of tension filled the room.
"But it was destroyed?" Brohm pressed.
Riedel's hand hovered over the last file. "That's what we believed… until recently."
He opened a final report. It was brief. Sloppy. Hand-scanned. Dated just two days after the termination order.
Unauthorized Movement of ML-Δ7 Sample
One vial missing during transport. Internal review identified Dr. Kael Rademeyer last seen on-site. No digital or physical trace found since. Clearance revoked. Subject classified as fugitive. Sample presumed unrecoverable.
"We never found him," Riedel said. "And due to the program's sensitivity, the incident was buried under layered access protocols."
"You buried a stolen bio-organism that could rewrite human biology?" Yun asked, stunned.
Riedel's voice was hollow. "We were told to protect the brand. Mirror-Life had already entered public trials. A scandal would've set back medicine a decade. We assumed the sample couldn't survive. It wasn't stable."
Mariel's voice cut through the feed. "But if that stolen sample was ML-Δ7 or even a mutated descendant of it then it isn't a parasite."
"It's an early, unregulated version of your miracle," Yun finished. "CRV-3 isn't foreign. It's homegrown."
Everyone went quiet.
The European official whispered, "Then we didn't just create the cure…"
Brohm finished the thought. "We created the epidemic."