The OAM Virus
Chapter Three.

“No…,” cried out the first life form. “Please do not harm her, that is my partner, my wife, and she is with child, it is because of her and my child’s future that we risked everything to come and seek your kind out.”

I sensed the truth within his words and realised my acute hearing could actually hear another heartbeat from within the female before me, yes, she genuinely was with child.

“Elisa please, please do not harm her or my child, we were unsure of how we would be received, and after witnessing my brother’s death by those affected humans, we honestly thought it best to remain unseen and followed you back, to observe how you were all surviving, and to see if we could further help you, please we honestly mean you no harm.”

Using my technology, I transformed my appearance back into my human form and assisted the heavily pregnant female to her feet. “I apologise honestly we did not mean to deceive you, we were trying to survive and protect our unborn child,” said the stranger.

I looked at the life form before me and extended my hand in friendship, and as I did the tension from within the room ceased. “It was your hormones that originally gave you away, we are used to seeing other life forms, only I remained in alert status, and as for my team members, I hope they learnt a valued lesson, we are at war, so take notice always of your surroundings.”

She paused only for a few seconds to ensure her team was listening, and then continued talking, “yet you reacted upon seeing me enter the room, and as for your partner or wife, her fear heightened as she realised you had been detected, and although I genuinely could not see her, I could then sense her fear and used that to ascertain her whereabouts.”

There was stunned silence from within my team members, and I looked at each of them. “Now you can see what it means, to actually become the animal you mimic, a true wolf has millions of senses unknown to the human race and as such you are almost blind without them, that is why I became aware of others within this room, and of at least, another five further life forms as of yet undetected even now by all of you.”

No sooner had I spoken, and the female life form called out to the children who were hiding in the room, and they all materialised before the team members, and it was from here that Elisha Wilson smiled. “Had these life forms have been armed and had ill intent, every one of you would now be dead, that is why I called you here for this urgent meeting.”

The scientist who had risked so much to bring his family here was named, in being Ashmead, and he introduced his family to us. Sati was his wife and starting from the oldest to the youngest he named his children. Ashraf, Armand, Alex, Adrien and Ashley, and then he named the daughters as Gilly and Tessa.

We all stared in stunned silence as we realised this small group could have terminated each and every one of us had they so desired.

“How was it your brother was killed,” I enquired, and Ashmead lowered his head and I saw a tear flow from one of his eyes. “He deliberately sacrificed his life, taking as many affected humans with him so we could remain undetected and escape, we also knew you would pick up our shuttles entry into your space, as we designed not only your original bodies but much of the equipment from within this base station, so we knew you would investigate and enable us to follow you back to safety.”

“Ashmead explains why we risked so much to return and try to help them,” said Sati his wife. “Yes, Sati I was coming to that.” He paused and cleared his throat, and looked to see if we were all listening.

“We were not consulted about abandoning you here upon the earth nor of the destruction planned, and we believe the core leadership were aware of our feelings and as such we were among the first ordered to establish a colony on Mars.” I could sense no falsehood within his tonal reflections and as such, and as far as I could tell, he was telling us the truth.

“Well many of our early colony became affected and died, yet for some, and at the time reasons unknown, my wife and I remained healthy, in fact so much so, that Sati conceived a child. We knew this was impossible…, yet it happened and we decided to keep this knowledge from central. As over 92% of the colony had already died, and I reported Sati, as among the victims, and continued with my research.”

Ashmead rested a moment as his wife reached forward and took hold of his hand. It was from there that Sati picked up the story. “Incredibly I gave birth to my first son within only three months, and he was born reptilian yet bipedal and human looking, and we soon discovered the reason for our survival.”

Sati paused and took a drink of water before continuing. “We were among the very first to carry out genetic tests upon Captain Smith, and unknown to us we had also become infected, yet for unknown reason the virus remained dormant and never developed until we were assigned a posting to Mars, and from there we started to evolve into the creatures that you now see and as we are now standing before you.”

Sati looked at her husband and he nodded his head indicating yes. “We believe the virus has some form of inherent intelligence, and it somehow knew we were suitable hosts, and how we as yet cannot explain, but believe it knew that we were also disdained to visit Mars.”

Such knowledge sounded impossible, yet I could detect no deception within her voice, and we ourselves had earlier observed unusual qualities from this virus and of which we ourselves, could not explain.

I realised that I was a perfect example, although we all had been deliberately infected by the early scientific experiments, I had somehow developed abilities above and beyond that of others, and I had noticed that three fellow team members were secretly communicating through telepathy, while knowing other team members were unable to ascertain their unique abilities, only I could hear their thoughts and listen in to their conversations, also unexplainably somehow know they could themselves not detect my ability to eavesdrop on their conversations.

I also had realised such abilities were not designed by our technicians and had to somehow be an inherent gift from the parental gene, as given to us from this alien virus. I also realised, yet how, I honestly cannot say or explain, that the initial infected of the OAM virus, were rejected for advanced development and rejected by the parental gene, and only a mutated form devolved them into the creatures they initially became.

I paused and accepted a drink of water, and then I continued listening. It was at that moment that thought had dawned upon me and that my mind opened to that of the group of alien visitors, and I became aware they, in turn, were aware of my thoughts, emotions, feelings and intended actions.

“Yes child,” said yet another voice from within my mind, the alien virus was engineered and planted, knowing that a race advanced enough to obtain space flight and to travel to another planet, was a possible risk to our kind, and as such we took precautions to protect ourselves and to engineer a virus that holds an intelligence, and which can isolate the gifted and those who would advance your race, while destroying and de-evolving all who offered such a threat.”

I paused and hesitated to take in the information just gifted to me, and I knew the visitors from within the room, and Elisha Wilson had heard the exact same words, yet the three telepathic members of my team were unaware of what had just transpired, and this made me realise that there was either yet another life form within this room of which was undetected even by me, or that this virus had just communicated directly to a selected few, and revealed its intended objectives.