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either more research or development. After what’s happened here, I’d say it accomplished what it was supposed to.”
    “Only too well. You see, there was fear that if we were to release it on the enemy that it might find its way back to us because we had limited control over it when it was airborne.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Once released, wind currents, for example, can blow Pandora almost anywhere. We could potentially harm a friendly nation. You’ve seen how easily it spreads.”
    “Therefore, Pandora can’t be controlled once it’s released.”
    “That’s exactly what all the critics said about the project. The best my colleagues and I were able to do, was to freeze its replication by immersing Pandora in liquid nitrogen. That’s how it’s stored. Before it was released, it would be fed with small doses of a protein supplement which would give it longevity before it came in contact with a potential host.”
    “So it does have a weakness—starvation. That’s why none of it was found by the time we arrived, because it starved to death.”
    “Correct. That’s why it was so important for us to choose this location to set up this compound, far away from any populated areas. Other than starvation, Pandora’s virtually indestructible. Unlike a regular missile, shooting down a missile containing Pandora won’t do anything but release it into the atmosphere where it will inevitably drop to earth.”
    “If you were to feed it a large amount of its supplement, how would that affect its reproduction rate versus feeding it a smaller amount of the same supplement?”
    “An increase in supplement is directly proportional to its reproductive rate. The more food it ingests, the more offspring it produces.” Marx then motioned in the direction of the door. “Judging from the distance between here and where the helicopter was, whomever used this weapon must have fed Pandora with a fair amount of the protein supplement in order for it increase in such numbers that it would’ve reached it so quickly.”
    “But wouldn’t the force of the helicopter’s propellers be strong enough to fan away the microbes?”
    “Not necessarily. As I mentioned earlier, the reproductive rate of a single Pandora microbe is directly correlated with the amount of food it ingests. If a large enough quantity of the complex protein supplement were fed to it, it would not only reproduce so extremely rapidly as to appear as a green-colored explosion.”
    “Which is probably what happened here,” said Fox.
    “No doubt,” Marx nodded. “And the wonderful thing about Pandora is that energy from the parent is transferred to its clones, only gradually decreasing in each generation.”
    “I don’t know which school of thought you come from, but I don’t find anything wonderful about Pandora.”
    Marx gasped at the comment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say it that way. I was only speaking from a scientific point of view.”
    Fox followed her out of the isolation chamber as she continued with the conversation. She put her hands into her pockets. “A few years ago there was a second outbreak, again up in Northern Canada, near the north pole, when two university scientists accidentally exhumed a Pandora-infected prehistoric man, buried under the ice for what could’ve been a few millennia. Their SOS was intercepted by the National Security Agency’s Echelon system. You could imagine the horror I felt when my phone rang soon after.”
    Echelon was the National Security Agency’s computer program that automatically intercepted keywords in regular conversation, either on a regular phone or through cyberspace, used to track potential terrorist threats. The system had been updated to include references to Pandora.
    “I flew up there with a team and fortunately arrived on time to contain the outbreak. I thought that was the last we’d see of Pandora, until now,” said Marx.
    Fox ran a finger over his left eyebrow. “Pandora