Per Presidential Order 1602, Transparency Through Declassification Act, the Committee of Unifying National Transparency, with members from the NSA, CIA, FBI, and Congress; have reviewed the below report. After our thorough review, we have deemed that this report doesn’t contain any sensitive information, or any information that could be deemed a threat to the USA or her allies. This report is hereby released in full, with no redactions. No names or events have been changed. The committee strongly believes that no person of sound mind would believe that the below actually happened.
It is January 27th, 2021, Richard “Rick” McAlister has just entered his father’s lab. Located on the outskirts of Morgan Hill, California, their goal was to make an antidote for the ever changing Covid. Ran by BioTech, the lab known as Mirai, was close to a breakthrough.
Rick was taking a year off before beginning college. He wanted to be a scientist and to get a jump start on this goal, so he decided to take an internship with his father, Dave. Rick always bragged about how rich they were with his mother a VP of Operations for the North American Division of Famigerate Advanced Technologies and Engineering and his dad being the head scientist and researcher at Mirai, his family was well off. Rick had an extremely poor personality that would sometimes stray into the bullying territory. Standing at 5’8” (172.72cm) 142lbs (64.41kg) was very lanky and not very imposing. With short black hair and light blue eyes, he had an exceptionally soft face that easily expressed his emotions.
Entering the Mirai, Rick walked past the reception desk and immediately went to his dad’s office. Dave, being 6’6” (198.12cm) and weighing 230lbs (108.86kg) of all muscle, he was both brains and Muscle. He was an imposing person whose sheer presence was felt even in the largest room.
Perplexed as to why his son was standing in his doorway, David turned to directly talk to Rick.
Dave was dressed in his lab coat and had a pile of things in his arm. He was clearly getting ready to go to the lab.
Dave asked, “Hey, you weren’t supposed to be here until 1pm. What’s up?”
“Hailey wouldn’t leave me alone and I wanted to get out of the house.”, Rick Responded with a slight annoyance in his tone.
Dave sighs and looks at his son while rubbing his head. “You should have called first. Fine, get your coat and PPE on and meet me at lab 4. We have some fresh samples in, and I would like to begin evaluating the new formula.” Dave walks out and heads to the elevator.
Rick smiles as he watches his dad leave and inwardly smiles. He heads to the locker-room. As he heads down the long corridor, he passes a couple of people. They avert their gaze as they walk past. Entering the locker-room, Rick goes to his locker and throws on a lab coat and his biohazard approved PPE (Personal Protective Equipment). After getting dressed he heads back down the corridor and to the elevator.
When Rick entered the lab, his dad tasked him with grabbing some chemicals needed for the test. He left the lab and headed to the storage room down the hall and began gathering the chemicals. As Rick was gathering the necessary chemicals he tripped and crashed into several shelves. He received several lacerations and some of the chemicals got into his skin. As he went to get up, he slipped and bumped his head on a shelf. A medium vial fell and broke on impact with his head, coating him in what was labeled “Nanites – Ineffective/To be discarded.”
With an exasperated sigh, Rick mumbled “Fuck, how bad can my luck be?”
Dave was heading down the corridor to the bathroom when he heard a loud crash coming from chemical storage. His head dropped as he shook it before rushing to make sure whoever, more than likely it was Rick, was ok.
As Dave entered the room, he could smell various chemicals and saw broken glass and liquid all over. He then saw Rick over towards the wall in the front. He was banged up and was bleeding in several spots. Luckily this storage room didn’t have too many hazardous chemicals and were stored in the back of a locked cabinet. Luckily the chemicals that did break were mostly benign. He grabbed the phone and started the emergency spill procedure. A loud alarm sounded and a feminine automated voice sounded the alert. “There is a chemical spill on Chemical Storage 4E. This is a level 2 storage. No hazardous chemicals have been detected in the spill. As a precaution, the ventilation for corridor 18 has been shutoff. All personnel not involved in the clean-up are asked to avoid the area until the clean-up is finished. We apologize for this inconvenience, and we will provide updates as they are received. Thank you and have a wonderful day.”
Dave shook his head. This would be a mark against the lab and no matter how little this affected the lab, it would still ruin the lab’s perfect accident-free record. At least there was a positive aspect to all this, most of the chemicals were ear marked for destruction and disposal. This means that the chemicals were more than likely written off. So, the lab would bare minimal cost in the cleanup. He walked over to his son and inspected his injuries.
“First things first.” Dave said in a calm manner, “You need to go to the showers and clean all these chemicals off. None of them are harmful to humans. After your done cleaning, make sure you head to the infirmary and get those cuts taken care of.” Rick looked at his dad and just gently nodded and walked off to the showers.
As he began to shower another situation was brewing in the storage room. When Rick fell, he moved a counter with some equipment causing the plugs to hang just barely on the outlet. The outlet being 240 volts was causing a shortage between the metal prongs and the outlet itself. To make matters worse, due to the ventilation being shut down, the chemicals began to transform into a gaseous state and began to mix.
After a few minutes, the gas to oxygen ratio hit just right and a spark at the shorted plug ignited this mixture causing an immediate explosion, shaking the building. The automated emergency system immediately kicked in. The voice, now direct and rather forceful, began “All personnel, evacuate the building immediately. This is not a drill.” This kept repeating as emergency sirens and alarms blared and the sprinklers and emergency ventilation turned on. At the same time the system sent a level 2 emergency code to first responders, but it was too late. The explosion caused several tanks of nitrogen and some pure oxygen to rupture and in no time a cascading effect was inevitable. As more explosions rocked the hillside more and more chemicals began to leak making the fires and following explosions ever more powerful.
As first responders began to arrive on the scene, they realized that the fire was much larger and more intense than the 2nd alarm fire that was first reported. The fire chief from Morgan Hill radioed in raising the alarm from 2 to 5. Within an hour several more fire departments and law enforcement had arrived. Air raid sirens sounded in the vicinity and a State of Emergency was declared by the Governor making everyone in a 20-mile (32km) radius to evacuate.
It took first responders several hours to get the blaze under control. They were finally able to go in and begin the search and recovery process. After several more hours, all they were able to find were burned and crushed bodies. As they got to what looked like remains of a shower room, they saw that there was another male body. As they reached the body, they realized that he was breathing. A helicopter evac was immediately ordered and he was transferred to San Jose Medical Center. The young man would later be identified as Richard McAlister.
Rick was rushed into surgery and his family notified. His doctors were pleasantly surprised by how little damage there actually was. Besides having a low body temperature, there were some major cuts and broken bones, yet there was no major interior damage. They assumed that he had a guardian angel looking out for him, but maybe it would be better to call this the devil’s luck. The one thing that puzzled them. They pulled his medical record, it listed his height as at 5’8” (172.72cm), but when they measured him, he was 5’4” (162.56cm)
After leaving the emergency room, Rick was transferred to a private room where he could recuperate and better be observed. His Family would arrive within minutes and his mother wouldn’t leave his side, even as the doctors weren’t sure if he’d ever wake up.