Irving Waters - The Wuhan Mission

Vaccinations continued around the country including rural areas. Wuhan was left until later. The vaccination committee didn’t understand why Wuhan was being left to the end, but when they did arrive in Wuhan to begin work, they were shocked at the extent of the viruses spread, and even more shocked at the number of bodies that were being incinerated.

It was clear that Wuhan had been left until the end, very late considering the fact that the first cases were found there for a reason, but none of the committee talked about it. As was often the case, in their midst would be a lurking Party informant watching them, reporting back anything unusual that any individual did or said.

Xue Lin appeared to be working diligently when Dr. Wu arrived early at the Institute building. He eyed her suspiciously, surprised to see her there before any of the other lab assistants. It was only 8:15am.

His work in the Biosafety Level IV area had all but come to an end, having already handed over samples of the Yellow Virus, the vaccine and the antidote to the Chairman’s scientists, for secure storage.

All that remained was to box up his paperwork concerning the remaining contents of the biohazard safe: the Yellow Virus, the vaccine and the antidote. Someone from the Government was coming this morning to pick them up and transport all of it to a secure storage facility. By lunchtime, there would be no evidence of any virus development in this lab. The only witnesses were him, Jimmy and the three scientists.

Last night he had made up his mind to destroy the Red Virus, for the good of humanity. He would put it in the incinerator later in the day.

He would now wait for an opportunity to travel to America, perhaps to retrieve his daughter’s body and belongings, or if that never eventuated, he would remain in China and accept his fate, whatever that would turn out to be. His sadness was getting on top of him today. He hadn’t slept enough, and was drinking too much in the evenings. He had never felt so alone.

Dr. Wu passed by Xue Lin’s cubicle, and he greeted her informally standing behind her while placing a hand on her shoulder. She swiveled into him slowly, without pulling him off balance, and looked up at him with a coy smile.

“Good morning Doctor Wu! How are you feeling today?” she asked him, seeing the sadness in his eyes.

“I am fine, Xue Lin. Your smiling face always gives me hope for a better world.”

Xue Lin asked him for help, drawing his attention to her computer where there was an administrative botch-up that she had made before last Friday. He bent over her, even closer than usual. She winced a little at the stale smell of cigarettes and his night’s drinking binge. She used her razor sharp ceramic scissors to snip his lanyard and slide his security pass away from him and into her lab coat pocket. She needed to make dead sure that he remained outside the lab until she had cleaned up the security guards, one of whom had just left his post to go to the break room for his usual morning cup of green tea.

“I’m just going to make a cup of tea. Would you like one?” She asked Dr. Wu as she stood up and offered him her desk chair, so that he could more comfortably work on the administrative bungle that she had made for him.

“Yes, Xue Lin, that would be wonderful, thank you honey,” he said as he looked closer at the mess she had made of the files on her computer. As he watched her perfect ass strut away from him toward the break room he thought to himself: “I’m still glad I chose her, even though she was a disastrous lab assistant.”

Xue Lin entered the break room as the guard poured hot water from the urn into a cup that had “World’s #1 Dad” printed on it. He moved out of her way when his cup was full, and said stiffly: “Good morning comrade. You are in very early today.”

Xue Lin poured water into two cups, as she replied: “Good morning comrade. Did you shoot anyone today?”

“Not yet, but it’s very early still.” The guard smiled a violent smile, thinking that she was the only one in the lab who didn’t seem scared of him, and she was cheeky. She was unperturbed by the machine gun that hung from his sling. It struck him as odd.

Holding the tiny vial with the clear roofie liquid that she had pulled from her lab coat pocket, Xue Lin knocked one of her cups to the floor. It fell smashing to pieces while she reached back emptying the contents of the vial into the guard’s cup. His attention was on the broken cup. She apologized and grabbed a dustpan and broom from under the sink as the guard watched and picked his own tea up and began sipping it. She quickly swept up the mess and then grabbed a mop. Mentally she was keeping time from the first sip the guard took of his tea.

As Xue Lin filled another cup from the urn, the guard finished his tea and left his dirty cup in the sink.

“I’ll see you later comrade,” he said to her as he left the break room to return to his post at the Biosafety Level IV security door where his colleague was waiting for him, still on duty.

Xue Lin quickly set a countdown timer on her phone to tell her very roughly when the guard should be about to keel over at his post. She had to be ready to move on the other guard as he had not taken a break. She would have to take him down herself, preferably without the sound of gunfire.

Outside in a van, the Tool Man had just commenced the video loop on the building’s closed circuit TV. Any security personnel watching monitors would now be seeing the same repeated ‘ten minutes’ from when Xue Lin and Dr. Wu were at her cubicle together. If they paid attention, they might think it was strange that Dr. Wu was at her cubicle for so long, but besides that, everything would appear normal, unless of course, the other staff started to arrive at work, which would be soon.

Xue Lin returned to her cubicle where Dr. Wu had just stood up, having remedied her faulty work.

“Here’s your tea sir.” She smiled sweetly at him as she stood close, looking him directly in the face, holding his attention as she asked him: “Do you wanna go outside with me and smoke?”

“I didn’t know you smoked Xue Lin!”

“I just started again,” she said batting her eyelashes at him. Dr. Wu just noticed that she was wearing makeup for the first time since her job interview. She was devastatingly beautiful.

“Sure, let’s go and smoke.”

The two of them passed through the security turnstile next to the metal detector and walked out of the building immediately smelling the awful aroma of Wuhan smog.

Xue Lin lit a cigarette and had a look at her countdown timer. She had seven minutes to finish the cigarette, take out the front security guard and then the remaining guard. It was going to be very tight.

They smoked in silence. Dr. Wu seemed preoccupied as he powerfully inhaled his cigarette. Xue Lin waited until he finished and threw the butt on the ground.

“Let’s go!” she said abruptly, throwing her half smoked cigarette a few feet into the bin.

Wu followed her back into the building. She was moving briskly now.

“You go ahead, I have to grab something from my locker,” she said, ushering him ahead of her as she peeled off to the left.

Dr. Wu went ahead through security, patting his pockets in search of his security card, and wondering why Xue Lin had become so matter-of-fact and hurried since their cigarette.

Xue Lin went to her locker and grabbed the backpack, throwing it on, and then moved up the hall to the metal detector. The metal detector beeped obnoxiously as she walked through it. The security guard stood up and slowly came around the machine towards her.