William looked at Sienna as he pointed to the chair, beckoning for her to sit down. "In that case, can you tell us more about Virus R?"
Sienna's eyes flashed. "How do you…."
"Your information is made public," Gloria replied instead. She pointed to her laptop. "There are many other researchers whose name has been made public and can be accessed by a lot of people."
However, the fact that there was only a limited place that can access internet was also the truth. Even if it was made public, there would only be a handful of people who could possibly got access to it.
And unfortunately, the group she joined in managed to obtain access to the internet one way or another.
Sienna sighed. "What do you want to know about it?"
Thinking about it, William actually had a lot of questions about Virus R. Country H was a small country, but it was also a pretty advanced country. The research there should have been more advance compared to Country V that was only big but still lacking behind.
"What's the name of the Virus?" Yakov decided to ask first.
"Virus R."
"… It's really only one letter?"
Sienna smiled faintly and nodded. "Yes, the name of the virus is only one letter because those who first developed it didn't know what to name it. As the behavior of those who got infected is similar to those who got rabies, they settled the name to be Virus R."
"And the mutation is caused by Virus R?"
"Not entirely."
"Explain."
"You see, the enzyme that was necessary to create mutation in the base protein was called as…."
"Wait, wait," William stopped Sienna before she could continue. He had an ashen expression. "Please use layman terms. I'm afraid most of us here are bad at biology."
Yakov arched his eyebrows. "I'm not bad."
"That's only you!"
Yakov quickly turned to look at Gloria and Rozan. The two of them rapidly shook their heads as if telling that they were not good at biology.
"WHY? Biology is so interesting!"
"I entered Electrical Engineering so that I can avoid biology."
"…" what kind of reason is that?
"Back in my days, I'm more interested in drawing and designing. I already forgot everything about biology."
"…"
William shook his head when he saw Yakov's expression. The courses that these two took in their university days wouldn't require them to learn biology ever again. Rozan hadn't touched anything related to biology for more than two decades while Gloria must have already thrown it to the back of her head after four years in the university.
Sienna coughed. It seemed that she needed to tone down her explanation. Thinking about the complicated terms that she had gotten used to use, her expression darkened.
How should she explain this one?
"Well… uhm, basically, Virus R alone is not enough to cause the mutation like what you see in the Xermo," Sienna finally settled with this.
"How many viruses have been created by human?"
"There are at least 5 viruses that have been developed as biological weapon."
"…"
FIVE?
William sighed. "Before that, do you know which country developed the virus and whether there's an antidote or not?"
"I don't know."
"...Really?"
Sienna held a helpless expression. "Even though I might be a researcher, there's a limit to what I know. However, I know that Virus R is completely manmade and designed based on rabies disease."
"Tell us more."
"Virus R will attack your nerve but only to a certain degree. The destruction will make you unable to think rationally and only act based on your instinct." Sienna paused for a moment. "You won't be able to think about what you're doing and only know that you need food and water to live."
William's expression turned grave. "They still need basic necessities to live?"
"Yes and no."
Yakov tilted his head. "What do you mean by that?"
"There are some things that Xermo needs to live, but there are also some things that they didn't need," Sienna tried to explain then chose to point at herself. "For example, I need to have food, water, rest, warm clothing, shelter, and so on to live. Xermo will ignore those about warm clothing, shelter, and resting because their brain no longer needs the rest. As for shelter, they'll naturally head over to the area where they felt the most comfortable without the need for a fixed location."
Gloria held weird expression on her face. "How about sickness?"
"They won't get sick."
"What?"
Sienna rubbed her forehead. "You see, we tested Virus R combined by Virus X and Virus E that are developed by other countries. The result shows that the virus will combine and also eat other kind of sickness that can possibly attack."
"R, X, E?" William held an astonished face. "Virus X, E, R, M, O? The initial of each virus is the name of the mutated?"
"Yes."