The PX-19 was synthesized. The next step was to test its effect. This was a very difficult step since testing anything on human required a lot of paperworks and questions about ethics, morality were unavoidable. Unless, one had no moral nor ethics in his/her mind.
To Pierre, Human's life or death were just statistics. Those ethics and morality were deemed for those who wanted to feel less guilt or afraid of guilt, which was slowing down or preventing the advancement of science. How could taking an animal lab's live be more acceptable than a human's life? When drugs and vaccines were deployed on a large-scale, some died some lives, no one or a few would question ethics. In the end of the day, a 0.01% fail rate could still cause a hundred deaths globally. Or even 0.0001% fail rate, someone must have died, which could be your loved one, or someone you might know etc.
Saving more life did not mean no death. Otherwise, a war could be considered as a vaccine — a heavy one.
Pierre picked up a jacket and went out to the supply unit.
To get to the unit, he must pass the communal, center unit, which bridged the right and the left wings. People were still at the canteen as he walked past. After entering the right wing and turning left, with a little walk, he was now at the supply unit.
Everything here was automated. One can see a variety of robots. They were carrying and transferring, delivering per request.
Pierre opened the console nearby, changing the authority to the root-level. Enter some command to prevent record, then transfer data from his watch to the console.
( processing )
Robotic handgrip being moved up and down. A few minutes later, all the ingredients for PX-19 were ready in a temperature control bag. His mind was excited right now. Could not wait to see it physically. If one looked at his watch for a heartbeat it must be more than 90 beats per second. Now he simply had to deliver all ingredients to the synthesizer on the left wing.
Upon walking back to the left wing, he noticed some members were decorating the canteen, preparing for Dianne's welcome party. That also reminded him of preparing a welcome speech. Elena said she would draft something and send it by today. He was wondering if she had forgotten it or not.
Upon returning from the supply unit and delivering the ingredients to the synthesizer machine, a pile of paperwork was waiting for him on the desk. Seems like his assistant, Elena, brought it in while he was at the supply unit.
"This is painful." Pierre murmured, after seeing a pile of paperwork.
These paperworks were mostly from military requests, for using some equipment or substances here. It would be much easier if they sent it via e-mail. But they were too afraid of cybersecurity, hacking, as these requests contained some military secrets.
"Letting someone see this or read this is considered secure?" Pierre questioned, no one answered.
He wondered whether Elena had read or glanced at these or not. Her perfume fragrance still filled this room and became stronger as he approached the desk.
Pierre sat down, looking at the paperwork.
…
(Green blink)
…
The green-blink from his watch was visible, suggesting an increase of pleasure hormones, dopamines etc. His mind kept thinking of finding a test subject for PX-19. It must be someone in this institute, so he could track the progress easily.
Elena came to his mind. But she was not qualified because PX-19 demanded the subject to have a strong bond. Otherwise, the drug's effect was overkilled.
The PX-19 was a drug designed for increasing the oxytocin, estrogen, while suppressing progesterone levels, and optimizing other hormones & neurotransmitter levels. So to say, it is designed to increase an affection of a person on another person, whomever he/she was interacting with.
"An affection drug" he murmured, with a glimpse of a smile.
Its effect was quite similar to its precession, PX-17, which was designed for increasing an affection for the subject, he had tested its effect three years ago — when he freshly joined here. The subject was completely transformed with no further drug given. But this time, PX-19 would have a stronger effect. That he aimed to bend someone, who had a very strong bond, to another one.
His laptop screen lit up. Diving into multiple directories, he searched for some old reports on previous works, and opened them up.
[PX-1 Logs]
Purpose: Test for high level of oxytocin
Test subject: a male rat
Subject behavior:
The subject chose to mate with only a single female rat, preferably a monogamy behavior.
Summary:
A high dose of oxytocin, a love hormone, causes a subject to obsess or become addicted to a single influence, i.e., its permanent partner or its first partner. The oxytocin has thus a selective effect on a subject with a permanent partner.
[PX-2 Logs]
Purpose: Test for high level of progesterone
Test subject: a female monkey
Subject behavior:
The subject becomes more aggressive, mood swings, toward its male monkey. During the test period, the subject has no interest in mating even during its mating season.
Summary:
A high dose of progesterone, a pregnancy hormone, simulates a pregnancy conduction on the subject. It cause an unstable mood, depression, irritations, and also low sex drives.
…
Those were reports of his past experiments, starting since he was a highschool. He inputted the details of the PX-19 to an AI model that he had trained using past records. It looked through the profile of members in this institute and suggested to him some potential candidates, suitable for being a test subject of PX-19.
"This will take some time," he murmured.
Another few more blinks from his watch.
His eyes were staring at the pile of paperwork that was shaking as it allured him to take one. Sigh. He decided to start signing or rejecting some of those. It would be much simpler if he could just reject every single of them.
By that time, Pierre had signed the last paper. The last strokes were curled up. He put my pen down. Both hands rest over his lap. Laid my back over to a more relaxing gesture.
"Phww!" He let my breath out.
Another green-light flash from my watch.
It looked like adrenaline was flooding my body right now.
It was now 3:30 PM. One hour had passed. He checked the progress of the PX-19 synthesis through the console. It showed 80% completed – nearly done.
"Almost…" He murmured.
Not long after, the laptop screen brighted up again. The model had finished searching the suitable candidates to test my PX-19.
On the screen, there were two profiles displaying:
[ Elena Ornstein ]
Ages: 30 years old.
Position: Chief scientist.
Martial status: single
[ Freja Feta ]
Ages: 45 years old.
Position: Chief engineer
Martial status: widowed.
Another was surprising,
[ Dianne Scholz ]
Ages: 39 years old.
Position: engineer.
Martial status: married
"Dianne Scholz…" he murmured
"Ugh!" Something stung his body.
He moved a cursor to Dianne, the engineer he met during lunch. She was married, possibly with a strong bond and monogamy tendency. At 35 years old she was not too old and not too young. Her chemical substances might have declined slightly but still operatable. Must have been through experiences. He asked for more data on the subject from the console. The console then processing and gathering all the available data across multiple accessible networks, both private and public domains. Such a convenient when one has earned this authority. In exchange with paperworks and socializing duty.
Not too long. Another brief summary read out
[ Dianne Scholz ]
Degree: Phd, "Artificial intelligence model on human motion model"
Martial status: Married (20 years)
Partner: Markus Scholz (45) – navy soldier (Colonel)
Siblings: No
Daughter: Dakota Scholz (19)
Favorites: Guacamole and Tacos
Hobbies: Surfing
Previous partner(s): None
Other private data was coming out but he had no interest.
Married a navy soldier and now she was working in the isolated island.
Her profile was all he needed for testing the PX-19 effect: strong bond, monogamy, low-sex drive tendency.
"She is perfect!" he spoke to himself,
"Ugh!" Pierre bit his lip.
Multiple green blinks from his watch. Then disappear. His body shook. His hands then lower under the desk grabbing something that had been hiding until this moment.
"Your name was on the list too." Pierre spoke, while looking under the desk.
…
" … Elena "
Upon hearing Pierre's calling her name, Elena faced up to him. Their eyes met. She was kneeling and hiding under his desk since he came back from the synthesize room. She smiled, with a playful expression, while her mouth was full with something thick and white as she tried to swallow.