Ark 3 - Vaccine

Right after Shu Ning had put the sleepy and overly satisfied Shi Yong into bed and left him in Shi Juan's care, he followed Hu Jin towards the labaratory. It was an unconspicious building, blending in perfectly with the surrounding houses and only the guards standing stiff at the front door told people that it was not your average lodging.

Hu Jin stepped up to the entrance of the building and showed the stern looking men guarding it his identification. With a nod they were allowed to pass and Shu Ning got draged down a flight of stairs just to step into an elevator and drive up all the way to the top floor.

"The top floor can only be reached by this elevator and it unfortunately only has two stops. The basement and the top floor."

"i thought you didn't accept the job, so how do you know so much about this?"

"The chief showed me around a few times already. Just in case I said yes."

An embarassed flush spread across Hu Jin's cheeks as he caughed into his fist making Shu Ning smile at himself in understanding. It seems that his dear friend actually really wanted to participate in the development of the vaccine and also wanted Shu Ning to work on it with him. For a second he wondered if he should be angry that he fell for such a scheem, but looking at the sheepish face of his companion made him relent in th end.

After the doors of the elevator finally opened they were met with a large room, bursting with people wearing lab coats, running about and talking amongst each other. For a moment the crowd stopped what they were doing when the newcomers arrived but quickly turned to ignoring their presence.

Shu Ning whistled in amazement as he carefully made his way through the mass and took in the mostly occupied tables and their cluttered surface. At some point the crowd lightened a bit and Hu Jin turned towards him in a 'tada' gesture, pointing at the table that would be theirs in the foreseeable future. It was smaller than the others they had passed and put in the far off corner of the room.

"Did the chief give you this spot?"

"Oh no. That was.... umm..... Well, I do not remember his name anymore, but he was introduced as the head scientist of this labaratory. He is responsible for everyone inside of this room and the chief placed me into his well loving 'care'"

Shu Ning roled his eyes when Hu Jin lifted his hands to put quotes around the word 'care' and shared a small mocking smile with the other.

"Come on then."

Like this they got themselves settled into the live of a scientist. Most of their days from then on were spend inside of the lab documenting their progress, washing their tools, taking care of mutated plants and using their busy schedule as an excuse to avoid most of the other occupants of the room. They rather liked staying in their own little bubble in the corner and not beeing bothered overly much. Though, from time to time people would still draw closer to their table, looking at them in dissatisfaction and scorn, before leaving in a huff again when neither Shu Ning nor Hu Jin reacted to the obvious provocation.

A few months after they had settled into this new routine and when most of the other scientist had already left for the night, Xu Dan came stroling into the room. The guy had a bright smile on his face and carrying a carefully wraped bundle in his arms. With a short survey of the room he made his way towards the table of Bancho, the head scientist, -That was at least what Hu Jin decided to call him by as neither of them could be arsed to actually remember that guy's proper name - and dropped the package onto the table.

(Authors note: Bancho means Boss of a gang)

"Still working? I told you to take it easy. Overworking yourself is not good for your health or for humanity. You are the only one who is actually capable of developing the vaccine after all. Come on, I've brought something to eat for you."

Bancho gratefully unwraped the bundle on the table and greedily breathed in the heavenly smell. Without another word, he started shoveling the food into his mouth, spilling most of it over his lab coat in his haste. Xu Dan took a seat beside him and could barely cover the disgust in his eyes.

While those two sat there in companiable silence Shu Ning had placed down the scalpel he had been holding moments before to watch them making eyes at each other. It was not the first time Xu Dan had entered the lab on his own. At the beginning there were too many other people in the room that the male was barely noticable, except that he had not bothered to cover his civilian clothes with a lab coat like everybody else. From then on Xu Dan could be seen strutting about the place a lot. Picking up the head scientist from work, bringing food and other gifts for him and just plain visiting him during his shift. All in all it was very suspicious behaviour for the other as he would not do such nice things without ulterior motives.

Shu Ning nudged Hu Jin with his elbow to grab his friends attention. With a painfull wince the latter looked up from his gadgets to glare at his companion.

"That hurt."

"Yes, yes. My appologies. Xu Dan is here again."

"And? That's nothing new."

"Have you tested our prototyp yet?"

Thrown off by his friends's sudden change of topic Hu Jin frowned in bewilderment. He quickly looked over their cluttered table for a small black book which he then slid towards the other once he found it. With ease Shu Ning thumbed through it and it didn't take long for him to find the page he had been looking for.

"Seems like the testing phase of our Vaccine is almost complete. It's not perfect, but it's good enough for now."

"Good enough for what exactly?"

"For Xu Dan obviously. Play along, alright?"

Shu Ning glanced at the nearby table where Bancho had finished eating the meal prepared by Xu Dan and was now animatedly telling the other a story. With a wink he gestured Hu Jin to take out the solution they had been working on and clread off the rest of the table. Then, when everything was more or less shoved into drawers, he raised his voice slightly while keeping his eyes trained onto his friend.

"Finally our work has paid off. The chief will be very happy to hear this. With a vaccine at our disposal humanity will be saved."

"Yes. Think about all the people that could be saved with our invention. We should go and notify the chief immediately, so that we can present it in the meeting tomorrow. if everything goes well, we can start mass producing it by tomorrow night."

"Let's do that in a second. First we need to put the vaccine away so that the cleaning staff doesn't throw it out."

Shu Ning grabbed the bottles in front of him while standing up and making his way towards the exit. All the while he was very aware of the hot gaze trailing after him as he walked into the elevator. Hu Jin got in after him and together they made their way into the basement.

Once they arrived at their destination Shu Ning took out a round container he had secretly taken with him and coated one of his fingers with the transparent gel inside. Under the confused gaze of Hu Jin he smeared it onto the glassy surface of the tubes in his hands and then placed them inside of their allocated safe.

Satisfied with his work, Shu Ning took Hu Jin by the wrist and then pulled him out of the building before the other man could ask any questions. Outside it had already long gone dark and the streets lay silent before them as most other humans had gone to bed by now. Only one other person could be made out standing silently on the other side of the street.

After noticing the two exit the building the dark form approached them from the other side of the road. An annoyed expression marred the otherwise handsom features and before Shu Ning could instinctively back away from the figure coming up to them his arm was already forcefully seperated from Hu Jin's and held in an iron like grip.

"What are you still doing working at this hour?"

"Zhao Yang. What are you doing here?"

"You did not come back for dinner and Shi Juan and Shi Yong were getting antsy. It is not good to neglect your health like this, so I came to pick you up."

Shu Ning's mouth twitched at the corners as the man's expression turned sour. He reached out the hand currently not being squashed and placatingly patted the man's arm. Sighing Zhao Yang unclenched his fingers and soothingly rub his thumb over Shu Ning's wrist.

"You know. It's actually good that you came here. That way I don't have to explain my plans twice."

With a serious expression Hu Jin scooted closer to the other males and Shu Ning grabbed on to each of their shoulders to form a tight circle. Eventhough no other soul could be seen in their vicinity he still lowered his vioce to a whisper as he started his explanation.

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It was long past midnight and no workers could be seen or heard mulling about the building anymore. Everything lay silent and dark infront of them as two shadowy figures made their way down the halls. Tiptoeing past the tightly shut doors and boldly winking at the camaras they knew didn't work, the two silhouettes stopped at a wall lined with rows upon rows of lockers.

"Which one is it? Which one of these belongs to them?"

The smaller of them impatiantly truged up and down the path as he surrveyed the identical looking compartments. When his companion pointed towards one of the saves, he practically jumped onto it in haste. With quick fingers he punched in a four digital number and grinned devilishly when the doors actually swung open.

The space that had opened up to their eyes was filled with sheets of paper that were hazardly stuffed into the safe and after rummaging around a bit a couple of tupes appeared in the middle of the chaos. With satisfaction the smaller shadow pulled them out and pushed them into the taller man's arms.

"Go and do it."

"Are you sure? This could be the chance for humanity."

"Of corse I'm sure. You will develop a Vaccine yourself in no time, so there is nothing to worry about. I just do not want that guy to succeed in it. Go on and do it allready."

Hesitating for a moment more the latter pulled out a bubbly liquid from his pocket and after tugging the cork from the glassy bottles in his hand he poured a few dropps of the fluid inside. For a few seconds the pair just watched the contents of the tubes in silent but when there was still no visible changes to the solution after a few more minutes the smaller man grabbed at it impaitiently and began to violently shake it.

"Why is it not doing anything?"

"Stop. What are you doing. Are you nuts? There are not supposed to be any changes. Otherwise they would notice it once they look at it more closely."

With relief the taller man watched as his companion sheepishly placed the tubes back into the compartment and locked the door again. After the task was completed, he waved his hands towards the figure at his side and directed him to follow behind. Grumbling under his breath the other male complied and they made their way down the dark hall and up the stairs together. Once outside of the building the smaller man turned towards one of the side alleys, not saying another word to his companion, who just silently watched as the back grew smaller and smaller in the distance. With a rueful sigh he turned in the other direction and started to slowly track back home.