A Bio-Weapon’s Rhapsody-Chapter 240: All in a working day saving the world.

A Bio-Weapon’s Rhapsody-Chapter 240: All in a working day saving the world.

My name is Miriam Eversoul, that is the name I go by. The research papers, the Nobel prizes, the rewards, statues, and even the initiatives all have this name.
That was not the name I was given at birth.
My original name was something disgusting that I despise with every inch of my soul. For it symbolizes everything that is wrong in our society.
I was born to a noble house, it was not at the top or was a contender against the Saintsworths or the big houses. But it was near the top, we weren't powerful, but we were rich.
And while growing up I always wondered the same. Why aren't we all treated the same?
Why is that my best friend can't eat with me at the table? Why is that my best friend can't play with me in my birthday party? Why is that my friend and I must hide to play together?
Because she was born as the daughter of our maids? Because she wore the cute black and white dress?
Because she was being trained as a personal maid for me?
Why was it that even though we were of the same age, she had to wake up two, three and sometimes four hours before me?
Why must she prepare my clothes and help me dress and help me?
At the start, I didn't care; I was like most other children, innocent. It wasn't until I wanted to give her one of my dresses that I noticed it.
The next day she was there, with bruises on her arms, smiling as brightly as always, but apologizing.
It was then that I started to see, the cracks within our society.
Yes, we are a meritocracy. The Saintsworths ensured that.
But was that true?
Was it really truth?
No, it was a fancy lie.
For even if the spots at the top would be given to those worthy of said spots, the only people that could participate would be those that were educated and trained for those spots.
What chances had my best friend, no. The girl who was made into my best friend for contending for one of those spots?
If she had to wake up at three in the morning to prepare my clothes, to prepare my breakfast, if when I was sleeping she was working. If when I was eating she was working, if when I was studying... I was working.
And even while I was playing or resting, the time when she could rest, and play with me. She was... working.
None, even if I got her to come with me to classes, she would learn only so much, her questions would never be answered, and in these circumstances, only a true genius could rise above the rest. And while it meant that the right person could still achieve the position they were worthy of...
It meant nothing for the rest.
And while I could help those around me, that help was limited. There was only so much I could help people with, and even that was under the premise that I used the means at my reach, that is to say. The disgusting power that my family could wield.
And while doing so I could ensure a safe haven, it was closer to a toy garden, a place were those under my care would not be abused. A place where those with the power to oppress could not oppress... Assuming they stood below my family in power.
And while it was a useful way to ensure equality in a limited area, ultimately it was a lie.
Why?
"Because it's stupid!" Because there was always above.
"It's not!" I still remember the first day I saw him.
"It is!" A blonde kid roughly around my age, perhaps younger by a year or two, he had blue eyes and an annoying know it all smirk, "And I can prove it!"
"I don't care!" And while I could have dealt with it better, I was also a young kid.
I was around eight or nine? I don't remember precisely.
But that was the first time I knew the kid who one day would be known as Alexanders Saintsworths.
The annoying man of today was an annoying brat then.
But he was right.
What he did was merely show me the true rotten of society, it took him half a day, but he showed me. Our employee that enjoyed equal treatment on my toy garden would leave it and abuse the other employees of the family.
You see, within my toy garden everyone was equal, but even so, someone had to take care of the hard work. So the family still hired gardeners, and the gardeners assigned to my toy garden would slack off and leave all the hard work to others.
The maids would abuse the other servants and pile their work on them. The chefs would abuse of the cooks, the janitors of the others... Those in my toy garden, those that were supposed to be the needy...
We were, in reality, wives and husbands of other servants who worked for my parents; their favorite servants would get to send their family to me, where they would have a lighter load. Their daughters and sons would spend time here, learning and seeing how they could abuse their authority.
"See!" And the annoying brat that was Alexanders would smugly prove his point.
"I hate you!" I don't remember what I did next during that day, but I know that the toy garden was demolished that weekend, and while I couldn't leave the family, I didn't indulge in trying again, not at least while I was powerless.
I spent my early childhood trying to think about how to fix this, but in the end all I could think was that the world was wrong.
So when I started studying I focused in humanitarian studies, psychology, healthcare, medicine, anything that could help make the world a better place.
And when I was of age, I legally changed my name, as soon as I could, I traveled the world, pulling the wool from the eyes of society and exposing as many evil enterprises as I could.
Sadly I was never able to prove anything about the Saintsworths, but my family?
Oh my family...
They hated me to the bones.
But couldn't touch me. Meritocracy.
The ultimate shield was meritocracy, nothing I did was illegal, and everything I provided was true, so they couldn't raise a finger against me.
"So, wanna work for me yet?" The issue was that Alexanders kept bothering me.
Through middle school, university and when I started traveling the world.
I always refused of course, first dead before working for the Saintsworths.
Or so I had planned.
When I turned 22 the high council of the Saintsworths came to me, they offered a position within a secret project of the highest order, and the data they provided...
It could make the Saintsworths an enemy of the state to most world powers... Not that they would do anything against the Saintsworths.
But what they wanted was for me to accept Alexanders next invitation, they would provide me with clearance to any building I could walk into. Not intel into their hidden facilities, they wouldn't tell me where the doors this master key opened. But they were giving me a master key.
What for?
They wanted me to either distract or delay something that Alexanders was making.
They never elaborated on whether it was this project or not, but they wanted me to be a pebble on his path. Would I accept?
"So will you work for me? I am getting tired of asking." Alexanders had asked me a couple days later, the data I had gotten thanks to this key was real, and I proved it by walking into Alexanders office.
"Yes," I had answered, making the man stutter for a second.
"Hahahahahah," And the man actually laughed, "I knew you would say yes."
"You have been asking me for all my childhood," I had answered.
"Because I knew you would say yes," Alexanders answered with that know it all smirk, "I told you so."
The work he had given me was simple, way too simple.
"You want me to... police...you?" He gave me a list of possible rogue facilities within the Saintsworths, facilities that he suspected were making illegal weapons, biohazards, human experimentation... the works. "Why?"
"I want you to do what you do best," Alexanders answered with a feral smile, "I want you to go and be a bleeding heart, I give you the keys to my kingdom... Go and ensure we are following the rules of society. I want you to prove to the world that I am not the evil dragon they think I am."
"...it's because the rumors." I couldn't help but laugh at myself, "You want me to police you because you can't deal with the rumors."
It was stupid.
Ridiculous.
A joke.
Alexanders Saintsworths, nascent scion of the Saintsworths, the most powerful man on Terra Nova. Gave me the keys to his kingdom so I could prove to the world that he was not the evil dragon the world thought he was.
And I took that deal. I had the key to all the facilities managed by the High Council of the Saintsworths, and now I had the key to all the facilities managed by Alexanders.
There was no door within the Saintsworths I couldn't open now.
So I worked.
I worked harder than ever. I could now investigate everything I suspected. Within the first week, I opened twenty new hospitals in places of need, and schools and orphanages were opening left and right.
The size of the slums shrank as fast as the authority of the Saintsworths could manage. And all around the world new orphanages bearing the Saintsworths emblem and my name spread far and wide.
I knew of course, I was spreading the Saintsworths influence all across Terra Nova. But it was the price I was willing to pay, the government wouldn't help those who needed it. The Saintsworths wouldn't do it either.
So I would make them do it.
If the government didn't want a Saintsworths base within their territory, they only needed to ensure their people were safe, that they didn't need orphanages, hospitals, or schools.
And if the Saintsworths didn't want me to look their way, they only needed to keep everything in order. Everyone won.
That was what I would do, and I thought nothing complicated would happen. I even went as far as to set up shop in the latest pet project of Alexanders.
A floating artificial island in the form of a nine-pointed star. Each point of the star being its own district, and each district joining in the middle at the administrative heart of the city.
A set of Nine laboratories at the base of that administrative center. Each spreading in a direction of the nine points.
All innocuous in name and focus, and their number and reason for being labeled at the base of the elevator that joined them with the ground level.
1-Genetics and Eugenics
2-Humanitarianism and Pharmaceutical Development
3-Weapon Development
4-Artificial Intelligence
5-PR and a Tour facility
6-Psychological study
7-Energy and Resource development
8-Robotics, Cybernetic, and Engineering
9-Space Exploration
As soon as I showed interest in it, I was assigned the second laboratory. Even if we were a laboratory only in name, as we focused more on the research and development of safe and cheap medicine for the world at large. Nothing that was made under my watch would give money to the Saintsworths, as all was made to be sold as cheaply as possible.
We had to give samples of our research to the Fifth laboratory for the expositions and help the first laboratory and the sixth laboratory from time to time.
But that was fine.
It was in a normal day while thinking about how ridiculous my life was that I found her.
An unconscious child wearing an oversized body armor covered in blood, with rips and gashes all over the place, her skin was fair, but one could see caked blood both on her and on the body armor.
Worst of all, she was holding in her hands one of the masks that the villains gave to their minions. Meaning... Either the facility was under attack (An imposibility as this facility was the most safeguarded secret within Terra Nova), or she had been brought here by a third party.
The little girl was light, getting her into the lab was easy enough. And the robotic helpers that roamed these laboratories did short work of her armor and clothing.
A quick examination showed... impossibility. Material crafting of artifacts, items that shared special abilities thanks to the new energy called Mana being seeped into them was nothing new.
The Saintsworths stood at the forefront of it, so she as a lead of one of the nine most important laboratories had access to some of them, she even wore one right now. A bracelet that could link to the Saintsworths private databanks, the same one that all the scions of the clan heads within the Saintsworths used.
But these clothes? All artifacts, not even a super villain would wear this many. The worst of it? They all were mundane material. Their make was seeded rich with mana, but no attributes had been given to the clothing as far as Miriam could see.
It was as if someone had used Mana to simulate mundane materials and cared not for a more thorough inspection, granted. She only could know this because the advanced means that the Saintsworths had to analyze matters at hand. And she was aware of this because she had requisitioned the most advanced scanners the Saintsworths could get their hands on.
The only other person capable of this much was probably the blonde asshole and the high council.
So the first thing that she did was to delete the results and ensure that the artifacts to be moved to a less advanced laboratory for study.
"Check the make and find me the creator," She had told to her assistant while ensuring no one could see the little girl that was sleeping inside her office.
After putting that in motion, she moved the little girl to one of the containment cells, one that was modeled to deal with core users who had bad triggers and were underage.
They had made it to deal with MS2, the girl who had a bad trigger and had escaped in transit, but it should do for this little girl.
She had the telltale signs of a Core User within her body, a higher than average mana density, but unlike most Core Users, hers was stable, too stable.
Another message sent while waiting for the girl to awaken and Vivian was roped into it, she would prepare to analyze and check the girl for anything out of order.
Miriam wouldn't risk it, not with something like this, this was a little girl who was probably a pawn in something, something that was aimed at her, had one of those black site owners finally decided to strike against her?
She would find it soon enough, the readings on the girl said that she was waking up, the EKG reading that was showing on her eyes showed the brain of the girl finishing the sleep cycle. She could curse and hate the blonde asshole, but the contact lens that allowed her to interface with the Saintsworths network were a godsend, more so if they allowed her to evaluate someone in real time.
What followed was one of the most weirdest interactions she had ever had. Be it the part where the little girl had declared that she, Miriam Eversoul, was a 'Mom person'.
She wasn't married nor had any children, and most of the kids she interacted with would rather never see her again or just think of her as a friend. It didn't help that most were people she had rescued from the most hideous and dark places humanity could have.
After that they talked a little and Miriam was able to get Alexa to reveal her family, that was the first issue that was brought, she was the daughter of Thaddeus and Callista Saintsworths.
The alleged sister of Alexanders Saintsworths.
Of course the girl didn't use the names of the Patriarch and Matriarch of the Saintsworths, instead she merely called Alexanders her Brother.
Which was impossible, the Matriarch of the Saintsworths hadn't shown her face in ages, and the Patriarch rarely came to the public eye. If he had sired another child he would have come to flaunt it as he did so many years ago when the blonde asshole was born.
But the girl said that, and Miriam wasn't one to dismiss such claims, for more impossible these were.
The truth would come to the surface one way or another, besides, she had planned to give the girl a medical check, so that would serve to prove the truth of the matter one way or another.
Getting her to the lab wasn't that hard, the issue came from the check up results, as they brought more impossibles to the case, perfect health, as Vivian had stated, was impossible. Miriam had never ever considered that an impossibility, but thinking about it did sound reasonable. She herself was sure there were wounds and marks from her time growing up, bruises and scratches that left minute wounds.
And as if that wasn't the end of the issue when they decided to verify they found more truth and issues, there was something going on with this impossible girl.
And they needed to find what it was, even if it meant ruining the friendship that they could attempt to salvage. Eleanore had the keys to the answers, as one of their oldest friends had said. Confirming the theories that she had read about how the Core Power of the most dangerous member of Haephestus Forge worked.
And her friend had said that she was willing to do it, all for the sake of the world, of a safe environment... And with some luck, they could ruin Alexanders Saintsworths day as an extra. All in a working day saving the world.

Chapter 240: All in a working day saving the world.