Mutagen

​ "Sir Emilio, why are we called here suddenly? My group just returned from the coast."

A well-built man asked. He was not a soldier from his appearance, and he had the aura of a man of the sea, a fisherman. His name was Caudillo Alcoseba, a Mutator and the person in charge of leading a group to find food near the coast.

"It is about the group that arrived, I presume."

Doctor Janice spoke.

"A group? Survivors? How many?"

Caudillo asked as he was not present when the group in question arrived.

"Eight people. Four little girls, two men, and two women. I saw them when Officer Emilio guided them to where they would stay."

A lean-bodied young man replied to the fisherman\'s question. He had a pretty handsome face, and accompanied by his lean stature, he looked like an actor. This man\'s name was Denver Briones, an aspiring actor before the outbreak. He was not able to reach his dream, though, since the world had gone chaotic.

"But damn, that woman\'s beautiful." Denver continued. "Is she some international star or something?"

"You better not target them with your shenanigans toward women, Denver." Doctor Janice interjected as she glared at the womanizer in front of her. "If you dare mess with her, we won\'t care what will happen to you."

"Oh, shut up, Janice," Denver argued. "I\'m a playboy, I admit. But I also have my virtues. I don\'t put my hands on women who are obviously taken. Besides, I\'m not stupid. That man leading them had strange powers. He drove the flies around them away without even uttering a single word."

Denver\'s last sentence took the attention of everyone in the room. Some of them looked skeptical. Murmurs began as they started to speculate.

"Don\'t look at with those eyes." Denver frowned. "Officer Emilio is there. Why don\'t you all ask him?"

Finally, everyone\'s attention was back on the leader, who was standing there silently waiting for them to stop their talk.

"You all done?"

Officer Emilio asked.

Everyone fell silent while some let out coughs in embarrassment.

Since everyone was ready to start, Officer Emilio began to speak.

"We will talk about what Denver saw earlier, but the unexpected guests really are the center of this meeting."

"Sir Emilio, did you learn about who they are?"

Another military officer asked. His name was 1st Lieutenant Gerard Cañete. He was pretty much the right hand of Officer Emilio in running this group.

"We only had a brief introduction, but from what they said, it seemed that they had direct connections to the higher people in the military. And when I said higher, they were two Military Generals from settlements in Luzon."

Officer Emilio explained. That, however, made the soldiers in the room surprised.

"Sir, you are not kidding, right?" Gerard asked. "I might believe it if you mentioned General Aguilar that should be leading the Bantayan Settlement or the late General Epifanio that led us. But Generals from military settlements in Luzon? Did they magically fly here?"

"I might think of the same if it only came from their mouths." Officer Emilio shook his head. "But their leader gave me a proper identification document signed by General Faustino of Infanta Settlement and was even stamped with the confidential military seal. I can\'t see any way to fake that seal. I\'m sure you are the same."

"I had heard about that seal, but I haven\'t seen it," Gerard replied. "Is it really the seal?"

"Yes, there is no doubt." Officer Emilio nodded. "The seal is not fake."

With Officer Emilio\'s confirmation, the room became noisy once again. It was not surprising that they had this reaction since the conversation earlier basically said that their guests actually came from Luzon. They traveled over the dangerous seas during this outbreak.

"With how dangerous the sea is, is it really possible?"

The fisherman, Caudillio, asked. He knew how dangerous the sea waters now more than anyone here in this room.

"It might be hard for us, but probably not them." Officer Emilio answered. "Doctor Janice might be able to support this claim of mine."

"That\'s probably the case." Doctor Janice agreed. "They might just be eight people, but except for two people, the others were powerful."

"Wait." The playboy, Denver, interjected. "There are four children with them. Why are there only two weak ones?"

"What are you talking about?" Doctor Janice frowned. "The weaker ones are the two teens. Those little girls you are looking down on might be stronger than you."

Everyone was taken aback at the doctor\'s words.

"You\'re joking, right?"

Denver said awkwardly.

"Do I look like joking to you?" Doctor Janice argued. "You all here knew my ability. I won\'t say anything like that without basis."

The whole room fell silent. On the topic of measuring an Evolver or Mutator\'s ability, none of the people here would be reliable besides Doctor Janice.

***

Doctor Janice\'s ability as a Mutator might be useless in direct combat. However, it was an extremely reliable ability not only to detect Mutators, Evolvers, and the Infected. Her ability could also determine the weakness of an Infected, allowing the fighters to end the threat sooner.

When Doctor Janice activates her ability, she was able to see the concentration of Mutagen in the surroundings. It included animals, plants, people, and even some non-living things.

She could see Mutagen as glowing dust of different colors with her eyes.

In her eyes, Mutagen follows a certain pattern inside a subject\'s body. When she gazed towards an infected, she would see their bodies filled with clumped-up gray-colored dust. These clumps of dust were erratically moving inside the bodies of the infected. These erratic and random movements differentiated the Infected from non-infected creatures, Evolvers, and Mutators.

Unlike the infected, Evolvers had a tamer movement of Mutagen in their bodies. The concentration of Mutagen would be focused on their enhanced body parts. People with faster running speed would have more Mutagen in their legs, while heavy punchers would have more in their arms. Unlike the infected with gray-colored erratic-moving Mutagen, the Mutagen inside an Evolver\'s body flowed like blood inside their veins and was flesh-colored. When an Evolver activated their abilities, the Mutagen would flow faster.

Mutators, on the other hand, had a thicker concentration of Mutagen in their mutated body parts. It allowed Doctor Janice to speculate the Mutator\'s ability before even knowing it. Depending on the Mutator and mutation, the Mutagen\'s pattern in their bodies would be different.

A good example was when Doctor Janice looked at Officer Emilio with her ability. The Mutagen inside the officer\'s body was concentrated on his skin and had a brownish color. Furthermore, instead of a fluid-like movement, the Mutagen on his skin moved slowly. Once Officer Emilio activated his ability, the Mutagen would stick together and clump up all over his skin. It was a fascinating sight watching the Mutagen forming what seemed to be a solid wall.

Last were non-infected beings. Everyone had Mutagen inside their bodies, and non-infected humans were an example. Non-infected creatures had a sparse amount of Mutagen in their bodies. Furthermore, they moved like colloids in the air, random but not erratic. It seemed to be in something like a dormant state as there was also no glow coming from Mutagen in non-infected individuals.

The ability that Doctor Janice had was an interesting and helpful one.

However, her ability also allowed her to see that the Mutators and Evolvers were not exactly perfect. If she was to ask as to how to describe it, it was like transplanting an organ to another person. The transplant might be successful, but rejection could appear and affect the patient. Mutagen was the same.

From what she saw, although the Mutagen formed patterns inside a person\'s body, it was never perfect. Putting Officer Emilio as an example once more, the Mutagen concentrated on his skin moved slowly as if it experiencing some friction. Furthermore, when a particle collided with each other, both would be thrown in different directions, stopping the pattern temporarily. It was the same with others and was bound to happen from time to time.

In fact, Doctor Janice had never seen anyone that had Mutagen flowing smoothly inside their bodies that it created a perfect pattern.

Well, she never saw one until today.

It was when she saw the leader of the group that arrived earlier, Mark.

Doctor Janice saw that inside Mark\'s body, there were four concentrations of Mutagen.

So far, Doctor Janice only saw people with two different kinds of Mutagen concentration inside their bodies. After all, there were people that were Evolvers first before becoming Mutators. When they became Mutators, their abilities as Evolvers never disappeared, making them stronger than Mutators, who were just regular humans before getting bitten.

Mark, however, had one concentration of an Evolver ability and three concentrations of Mutagen, indicating three Mutator Abilities.

It was extremely shocking for her.

The Evolver concentration on Mark\'s body was on his flesh, all over his body. Doctor Janice could not exactly guess what it was since it could be an enhancing ability or it could also be a regenerative one. Strangely, however, was how active the Mutagen in his flesh. Although they did not have a bright glow as a Mutator\'s concentration, the glowing dust was rapidly flowing inside the fibers of Mark\'s flesh.

On the other hand, the three Mutator abilities were distributed differently. One was on his blood, while the other was on his bones. The last one was strange as it was actually all over his whole body. What allowed Doctor Janice to differentiate the four concentrations was their color.

The Mutagen in his blood was colored reddish black. On his bones, it was also reddish-black but had a brighter color of red. On the other hand, the last concentration strangely had no color. Furthermore, the last concentration gave the doctor a feeling that it was ready to accept other colors anytime but would not change into it. Instead, it would make the color it absorbed transparent too.

It was strange.

The strangest thing, however, was all those four Mutagen concentrations did not display any sign of collision and were in perfect harmony. And to say, it looked beautiful as the patterns flowed naturally without any disturbance.

As for the beautiful girl and the children, they were different from Mark. The patterns in their bodies had some interruptions.

Nonetheless, she could not ignore the fact that the beautiful girl not only had an Evolver concentration but also two Mutator concentrations in her body.

The two girls, the green-haired one and the second youngest girl, were definitely Mutators. However, their Mutagen concentration was too thick that it made any Mutator in this school pale in comparison.

Next was the second oldest girl. Unexpectedly, she was just an Evolver. However, the concentration on Mutagen in her body was even more than a regular Mutator, making it safe to treat her like one. Furthermore, she shared the same pattern as the Evolver concentration on their leader. It was as if she inherited it from him.

Lastly, among the four girls, the youngest was the strangest. Mutator? It was possible but Doctor Janice could not properly tell. Why? It was because the Mutagen concentration on her body was the thickest among the group. Her whole body was covered with Mutagen. She might as well become an embodiment of Mutagen at this point.

Unfortunately, there was no way for Doctor Janice to tell without asking directly.

***

Doctor Janice explained some points of her observation, leaving unconfirmed details behind. As she told everyone that Mark alone might be able to kill everyone in this place, they felt stifled. There was no way that she would joke about this.

"You all hear me, right?" Doctor Janice continued. "Do not provoke them if you all wanted to continue living."

"You all heard her." Officer Emilio supported the doctor. "Besides, their group could also be our ticket to continue on our journey to Bantayan."

"Our ticket?"

Denver asked the question that was in the mind of everyone inside this room.

"Apparently, their goal here was that town that blocked us from continuing on. Those Tamawo bastards that occupied the town and blocked the road."

Officer Emilio explained.

Hearing that, everyone\'s expression changed. If they were really their ticket out of this place, they would be glad not to offend them in the slightest.