A woman in a white business outfit stands in an office, gazing out of the window overlooking the city bathed in sunlight. A small, smug smile plays on her thin lips. She hears footsteps. "Yes?" she addresses serenely before her visitor can even take a breath.
"It has spread," the man in the doorway states. "Starting in Augustus, Maine in the United States, they should work their way around the world in no time."
"Perfect," the woman purrs. "That should give me the time I need to perfect round two." For the first time in this conversation, she faces the man. "Are they ready to run the tests on my pets?"
"Yes, ma'am," he replies.
She smiles dangerously and turns to the window once more. The man senses she has no further interest in his words and no further questions, so he leaves her to her thoughts. "Perfect," she repeats silkily, greedily surveying the city below.
"Magnus," Will says, putting down his newspaper. He is sitting the den, Helen Magnus being across him on the couch.
"Yes?" she says in her proper, English accent.
"Did you see this?"
"No, I did not." Magnus puts her paper down as well and leans in towards Will, hoping it's something interesting.
"Check it out. It's reports of people getting stung by a strange, new species of bug. '"Within a minute, there was a giant growth…welt…thing on my arm, roughly the size and shape of a chicken egg," Dehlia Dailey of Hartford, Connecticut had explained frantically she rushed to the hospital around noon yesterday. Two hours later, she died of the rapidly-spreading…poison? Doctors are still clueless as to what exactly this new phenomenon is. Movement of the insects seems to have started somewhere in the northeast of the United States and they're making their way around the world at an alarming rate, leaving in their wake thousands dead.' Do you think they're abnormals?"
"Will, I think you just might be onto something. It does, indeed, sound like abnormals, but I can't help but wonder why this is happening all at once. Why are they all of a sudden massacring people if they've been there? It just doesn't make sense to me."
"What if they weren't there before?" Will proposes. "Do you think someone introduced it?"
"That's my hunch. We'll have to look into it. I'll have one of my doctor friends from that area send me a specimen if he can. Keep an eye on the reports until then. Great work, Will," Magnus approves, getting up.
"Thank you," Will responds, the sides of his mouth lifting slightly at the accolade.