The Fallout ii

~ Inside the lab, Marx found the others gathered. Helick, Garrick, Zigor, Ichiro, Shea, and Anabella with Martha and Philippe facing the room. Martha started the briefing once Marx took his seat.

“As you all know, we finally figured out what the virus was—is,” Martha corrected herself. She was wearing a white lab coat, her honey blonde hair in a pile on the crown of her head. As Anabella said, the events of the last eight months brought about changes in everyone. For Shea, she had gone cold towards the humans, for Martha, she was more self-assured. When she spoke, she did so with authority. Confidence. She, too, had grown. “As we also explained,” she said, referring to Philippe and herself, “the mechanics of it are genetically coded to the DNA of the vampires targeting what we call the primitive gene.”

“It being genetically coded,” Philippe picked up, “m