# Day 5 - 7:17
The medical lab was never quiet enough. Even in lockdown—before lunch, before shift change—the low hum of the refrigeration units and the soft beep of the monitors rattled your nerves. Saanvi Rao glided between benches like someone born in triage tents, her gaze steady until the door crashed open and a wild-eyed Zhao Xun stumbled in.
He dropped a stack of battered notebooks onto the nearest stainless-steel bench. Pages fanned out, some torn free of their bindings, corners frayed from sweat and pocket wear. “You need to see this,” he said, his voice controlled but taut, each word measured.
Dr. Mara Iqbal didn’t look up from her stool. Her gloved hands pipetted blood samples with unshaking precision. “If it’s another pirate distress call,” she said, “give it to Nadia. We’re already two hours behind.”
Zhao took a breath, calm but uncertain. “It’s… not pirates.” He pushed the open notebook toward her. The cover bore the name Blanc in looping black script. Inside front was an index written in four languages. “It’s about us.”
Saanvi left her station, curiosity stronger than protocol. She leaned in, scanning the page. “What am I looking at?”
Zhao flipped to a section titled Breeding Cohort Candidate Profiles. Each entry had a photograph, a series of biometric readings, and notes in precise handwriting. Next to the spa manager—now dead—were the words Exceptional germline, no known autoimmune conditions, prior twins. Another: High IQ, adaptable, previous biohazard exposure—prime for medical management. Nearly every woman on the ship was listed, scored like livestock.
He pointed to a line, finger steady despite the tremor beneath his calm. “Every woman on this ship. We were chosen—like breeding stock.”
Dr. Iqbal set down her pipette, peeled off her gloves, and took the notebook. She leafed through the pages with the same clinical efficiency she used on blood work. Her face remained impassive at first, then Zhao saw her jaw tighten as she hit certain entries.
Saanvi’s hand hovered over the next photo—her own. Under it: Maternal history outstanding. Hormonal profile optimal. Strong family background in medicine. The script was neat, almost affectionate. Saanvi’s lips went pale.
“He wasn’t just screening immunity,” Dr. Iqbal said, tapping a margin note. “He was planning for offspring—exact genetic mixes.”
Zhao swallowed, calm but tense. “There are three more notebooks. French, English, Mandarin. Cross-referenced.”
A sick lull fell over them. Even the fridge’s hum sounded ominous.
The outer door hissed. Elena Márquez drifted in, eyes on her tablet. She paused at the sight on the bench. “Iqbal, you asked for the updated—” Her voice trailed off. She glanced at the open page. “What…?”
Saanvi slid the notebook across the bench. Elena’s fingers traced two lines, her expression hardening. “It’s a shopping list.”
Zhao’s voice stayed even, though his pulse raced. “More like a breeding catalog.”
No one spoke. Zhao laid out the other notebooks, names and dates and private medical data none of them recalled giving.
Elena’s tone turned low and cold. “We weren’t guests. We were inventory.”
A metallic crash announced Kim Minjung’s entrance—grease on her cheek, a cracked wrench in her fist. She took in the notebooks and the grim faces. “What’s the damage?”
Dr. Iqbal slid a notebook to her. Kim scanned it, flipping pages, then slammed her palm on the autoclave until it rattled. “Fuck. He built himself a harem… a damn sperm bank.”
Zhao’s stomach clenched. He exchanged a glance with Saanvi. She spoke quietly, almost to herself: “He didn’t care if he lived. Only that his genes did.”
The cold air bit sharper now.
A slow clap echoed from the doorway. Captain Anaïs Verne stood there, arms folded, eyes like boiled tea. She surveyed them, then the notebooks, then their faces again. “Does this change anything?” she asked.
Silence answered.
Verne stepped in, boots thudding in metronome time. She flicked through a notebook, set it down. “We knew we were a control group. Now we know the parameters.”
“I’m alive,” Verne said. “So are you. That’s the only variable left.” She pointed at the Dawn Meter on the counter, its digital bar already climbing. “Spend another hour angry at a corpse, and we lose the day. We use what we’ve got, or we become a footnote.”
The door slammed as she left.
The women gathered around the notebooks in silence. Each profile hit like a fist—impersonal, relentless, objective.
Dr. Iqbal’s finger tracked a line on genetic diversity. She looked up. “He got a lot right—statistically. But he failed to account for emotional stress, for trauma. Breeding isn’t just biology. It’s whether people can stay together when every instinct screams to run.”
Elena nodded. “If we’re going to survive, we do it on our terms. We rewrite his program.”
Saanvi closed one of the notebooks and set it aside. “No more experiments. No more surprises.”
Kim let the wrench drop. “If the universe cared about that, we wouldn’t be here.”
Zhao took a slow breath—calm, but the tension clear in his eyes. He gathered the notebooks into a tidy stack and pointed at the whiteboard. “Let’s plan a way that doesn’t turn us into the monsters he imagined.”
Later, after the others had gone, Zhao sat alone in the corner outside of the lab with a window looking out to the sea. He wasn't thinking about the journals anymore. He was thinking about his mother's hands.
The way she'd peel oranges for him when he was sick—slow, careful, making sure to get every bit of white off. She'd lay the slices on a plate in a little spiral, and he'd eat them one by one while she sat beside him, not saying much, just... there.
He'd never thanked her for that. Never thought to. It was just what she did.
He wondered if she'd peeled an orange for herself, these last weeks. If anyone had sat with her while she was sick.
He closed his eyes and let himself miss her. Just for a moment.
The lights flickered as the ship’s generators cycled to backup. In the hush that followed, the lab felt smaller, more urgent. The survivors exchanged determined glances—no longer guests, crew, or inventory, but people refusing to be reduced to a statistic.
Outside, dawn set the water ablaze. Inside, they got to work.
# Day 5 - 7:51
The others left the lab, trailing exhaustion and grim resolve. Saanvi Rao stayed. She perched on the tall stool, scanning the wall screen where the Dawn Meter results for every treatment session danced in flickering blue and red.
She stared at the patterns until they blurred, running columns of numbers in her mind. She’d always been a quant, the kind who saw a graph before she saw the patient. Now, every data point felt like a gun to the head.
She scrolled back to the first two sessions—the failures, the collapses, the humiliations. She marked the upticks in viral activity, then the rapid spikes after stress events. She layered on hormone panels, cortisol and norepinephrine, and watched the curves rise in perfect sync.
The puzzle was right there, so close to solvable it made her jaw ache.
She tapped her stylus on the countertop. “If stress hormones fuel the virus, what counters stress?” she asked the empty air. “Endorphins? Oxytocin? Something’s got to dampen it.”
She combed through her own blood draws, searching for fluctuations after physical activity, after the failed attempts at “treatment.” There was a dip. Not much, but real—a small window where viral load trailed off, not up.
She muttered the numbers aloud, calculating ratios, plotting the next steps.
She didn’t hear Dr. Iqbal until the door hissed open and the air changed. The doctor came in with a tray of fresh samples and a look that could freeze seawater. Enjoying the story? Read on at novelping.com.
Saanvi swiveled. “You got a minute?”
Iqbal set the vials in their rack, peeled off her gloves, and wiped her brow. “Depends. Am I about to be handed another existential crisis?”
Saanvi grinned, though it felt forced. “Maybe just a medical one.” She yanked up the hormone chart, overlaying it on the viral spikes. “See this? Every time stress hits, the virus takes off. But there’s a trough—here, here—right after sex hormone levels rise. Not just testosterone. All of them.”
Iqbal looked skeptical. “Correlation is not causation.”
“Sure,” Saanvi shot back, “but it’s a start. What if we could hijack that dip? If we can push the body into a sex-hormone dominant state, maybe we buy time. Slow the progression.”
Iqbal crossed her arms. “You want to fuck the disease out of existence?”
Saanvi almost laughed, but the truth was right there. “It’s not about the act. It’s about the chemistry. I remembered the owner kept a stash of performance drugs—Viagra, hormone injectors, all the fun stuff. Nadia inventoried it last month. I say we use it.”
Iqbal took that in. “On who?”
Saanvi locked eyes with her. “Me.”
The word hit like a slap. Iqbal’s mouth opened, then shut. “You’re not a guinea pig.”
Saanvi tapped the Dawn Meter reading. “Zhao’s the only immune, but he’s one guy. He can’t keep everyone alive long term. The curve says we lose half the ship before the first rescue. But if we can suppress the virus with chemistry—if even one of us can get a zero reading, even for a day—we can multiply the effect.”
Iqbal shook her head. “This is speculative. Dangerous.”
“Everything on this ship is dangerous. You think waiting around for Zhao to make the rounds will work? The numbers say otherwise.”
Iqbal stared at the ceiling. She looked like she was praying for patience, or for Saanvi to give up and go to bed. She did neither.
“If we do this, we follow the protocol,” Iqbal said. “I draw your baseline, I monitor you every hour, and the second you go tachycardic I pull the plug.”
Saanvi smiled, for real this time. “Agreed.”
Iqbal moved fast now. She set up the monitor, fitted Saanvi’s arm with the digital cuff, drew the baseline with practiced hands.
“You sure you want to do this?” she asked, voice low.
Saanvi nodded. “I’d rather risk my life than be inventory.”
Iqbal loaded the first syringe. The blue liquid inside shimmered under the fluorescent lights. “If this works—” she started.
“It’ll work,” Saanvi said.
The two women locked eyes again—one with the certainty of data, the other with the certainty of responsibility.
Iqbal injected the dose, and Saanvi watched the numbers on the screen.
They waited.