Rilley remained still, seated because of the pain he still felt after the anesthetic had worn off. In his hands, he held the sheets containing the results of the test completed only minutes earlier. His perseverance, along with the enormous research expenses, had finally produced satisfactory results. And yet there was not the slightest trace of happiness on his face over the thing he had sought so desperately. On the contrary, he looked grim.
The particle could not stabilize itself on its own within the ordinary state of matter. It seemed that, in order to remain present, it needed to assume some kind of order within its basic structure, and that order was only made possible by the energy and structure of a complex biological system.
That unusual particle was not born inside the collider, which led him to believe it had always been there, hidden in a state decoupled from the observable universe. It manifested only when the system reached a specific vacuum resonance and, at the same time, came into contact with a biological matrix capable of sustaining its interaction. Without that living substrate, the particle remained invisible and inert.
Apparently, the special particle did not destroy tissue through mere contact. In reality, it used it as a medium of anchoring. Upon interacting with an active biological matrix, it induced a resonance that progressively broke down cellular organization and converted that loss of stability into a release of high-frequency radiation. The more complex and active the tissue, the more efficient the conversion became.
Within the quantum domain where it remained decoupled, there was no structure equivalent to the chemical, electrical, and cellular organization of living matter, so the particle could not complete its transition without that requirement. As a consequence, this strange particle had never been able to appear anywhere else in the world, or at least there were no accessible records of anything like it.
"What were the chances of this?" he asked himself, feeling as though he were being made a fool of.
Certainly, this was an extraordinary and deeply strange universe. But even extraordinary things ought to possess some kind of more solid logic. What he had before him was the equivalent of taking a casual walk and stumbling across hundreds of thousands of dollars lying on the ground, only to be able to spend them without consequence. And the most absurd part of that example was not that he could spend the money without provoking some tax investigation. The truly absurd part was that, among so many people on the street, among all those who had already passed by that exact place, only he had been the one able to find that money in the first place.
If one analyzed the logic of such a situation, it became obvious at once that it had been arranged in advance.
Perhaps he was simply being too paranoid. Perhaps it was nothing more than a stroke of incredible luck. Perhaps it was merely coincidence. But how much coincidence could there really be in something like that? Had his luck truly improved so much in this second life?
And the fact that he had found exactly what he was looking for, something that at first glance fulfilled every one of his requirements, only made him more uncertain. He knew there could not be that much coincidence. That alone proved that this whole arrangement had been aimed specifically at him.
But why?
What could the existence behind such a scheme possibly gain from it?
Discarding every overly optimistic possibility, only one answer remained.
That in a world filled with gods and beings beyond even them, some higher existence had taken notice of him.
It had chosen him as a target.
That was already beyond anything he could control. By the time he realized it, he was already inside the game, and perhaps not as a player, but as a piece to be moved.
Now, the question for Rilley was no longer how to escape all of this. At this point, he knew that leaving freely was simply impossible. The real question was whether he could abandon everything, leave the project behind, and pretend nothing had ever happened. But when he thought of his parents, and of the many disastrous futures that loomed in a world like this, he knew he could not simply cover his eyes. Before a thirst as desperate as his, he was all but forced to drink from this sweet poison to quench it.
So, in the end, Rilley resigned himself and took what had been placed within his reach.
He gave the strange particle a name: «ULTRAX», an acronym for «Ultra Latent Transitional Resonance Anomaly X». He knew very well that he first had to understand what he was truly dealing with, and to determine that, far deeper study would be required.
He then looked at the remaining sample of that thick, dark red fluid and still felt the pain left behind by the first extraction. Rilley could not be so cruel to himself. He decided he had to find a way to cultivate cells to use in experiments for study and analysis. This was outside his field, and he was not some multidisciplinary genius like the other great minds of this universe.
After consulting experts on the matter, they recommended creating an artificial microenvironment capable of maintaining and expanding certain cells derived from bone marrow. Rilley had always known how to listen and take every opinion into consideration. By doing so, he could clarify his doubts and, after long reflection, make the best possible decisions.
He also turned to his mother and presented the problems he was facing, as well as his ideas for forming a plan that would allow him to see where to begin. As a specialist in biology, she naturally gave him excellent advice—or rather, she practically solved the problem for him. Her recommendation was simple:
build a bioreactor.
She even handed him detailed schematics and procedures, ones that had already produced good results in her company.
The bioreactor blueprints his mother gave him were extremely precise, and so technologically advanced that Rilley found himself slightly confused by terms and procedures he did not recognize. Although he was a biochemistry student, the truth was that these schematics were far beyond his current level. He felt no shame in admitting his ignorance where it existed, so once again he turned to experts to help him build the bioreactor.
For the time being, his main objective was to expand a cell population derived from marrow so he could take small samples and study how «ULTRAX» responded.
The experts did not disappoint him. Following the plans and instructions, they succeeded in building a complete machine: a state-of-the-art bioreactor that contained six essential components.
The first component was the central culture chamber. A sealed capsule with transparent walls that allowed observation, where the living microtissue was housed.
The second component was the scaffold. Inside the chamber there would be a kind of porous mesh or matrix. It had been specially designed so that he would not simply have a floating block of marrow, but rather a three-dimensional porous support where the cells could adhere and survive more effectively.
The third component was the perfusion circuit. Fine tubes connected to a reservoir of nutrient medium were installed in the reactor. That liquid would circulate continuously or in pulses, supplying oxygen and nutrients while removing waste. This prevented the center of the construct from being deprived of oxygen or degrading too quickly.
The fourth component was the reservoir and control module. At one side were the culture medium reservoirs and a module that regulated the system's temperature, flow, and composition. All of it existed to maintain extremely stable conditions, because even small variations tended to affect the viability of the tissue or sample.
The fifth component was the constant monitoring system. The apparatus possessed oxygen, pH, and temperature sensors, as well as pressure and flow readings, all for the purpose of monitoring the system's condition in real time.
The sixth component was the stimulation system. Electrodes were included alongside a specially calibrated pulse module designed to simulate bioelectrical activity, with the aim of better preserving tissue function and guiding its organization.
Unfortunately, the cultivation of the cells did not go well in the first attempts, which meant that Rilley had to keep extracting more marrow from his own body. Of course, he tried to ease the burden by using marrow from other people, purchasing it at a higher price than the amounts usually offered by medical institutions. Even so, the appearance of «ULTRAX» particles was nowhere near as intense when compared with samples taken from his own body.
Rilley could not understand whether there was something personally special about him, or whether his genetics influenced the phenomenon in some way. He did not dare ask his parents for marrow samples to confirm it. Knowing what the procedure felt like, he would never ask them to submit themselves to something so torturous.
He set those doubts aside, though inwardly he remained suspicious of whatever it was that had allowed him to discover «ULTRAX» in the first place.
Once cultivation inside the bioreactor succeeded, a new series of experiments and tests began, all with the goal of studying the «ULTRAX» particle phenomenon and understanding it more deeply.
Admittedly, the cultivated samples produced lower yields than the samples taken directly from his own body, but even so, they were still better than the samples taken from other people.
These experiments allowed him to discover that «ULTRAX» did not respond strictly to biological matter and high cellular activity, as he had first believed. Rather, it seemed more strongly drawn to environments with high biological renewal potential. That was why it could barely be detected in skin, only through a unique signature. In blood, it could be sustained only in an unstable manner. But in bone marrow it reached its highest level of activity, where primitive cells and their microenvironment attracted and stabilized it for longer periods.
He also realized that «ULTRAX» seemed to be highly abundant at the quantum level, which led him to theorize whether it might be a special particle or element spread throughout the entire universe. Rilley assumed that the elusive behavior of «ULTRAX» stemmed from some intrinsic property.
He noticed that, no matter how large the sample was, there seemed to be a limit to the chain reactions during its appearance. This led to collapse and intermittence in its manifestations over a very brief interval, almost impossible to perceive were it not for the frequency meters. That indicated that, during its appearance and subsequent chain reaction, there came a point at which the particles attempted to join together, perhaps to form more complex structures. But something prevented them from doing so, forcing them to disperse and repeat the process indefinitely.
Rilley theorized that «ULTRAX» particles were relatively stable while they remained isolated, but the moment they attempted to cluster after appearing, in order to form more complex structures—something more akin to molecules or quantum networks—they reached a threshold of interaction so weak and unstable that those bonds collapsed almost immediately.
That led him to doubt whether it was truly a particle at all, or whether in reality it might be an entirely new complex element, one completely hidden from macroscopic systems. Although he had decided to treat it as a new element with special characteristics, the truth was that he was not certain of its nature, and had only called it that for practical reasons.
But now the doubt had fully settled onto the table:
what exactly was «ULTRAX»?
Unlike other elements, which could take form and manifest visibly at the macroscopic level, this one could not.
His collapse theory seemed, at least on the surface, to explain why «ULTRAX» did not manifest naturally in the macroscopic world like the other known elements. Any attempt at condensation would come apart before anything visible or tangible could be formed.
Likewise, following the logic of his own hypothesis, this would explain the impossibility of extracting it from its quantum environment. The moment one attempted to isolate or concentrate it outside the collider's extreme conditions, the supposed «ULTRAX» structures would immediately disintegrate due to the lack of the special environment required for their manifestation, returning their energy to a silent background state within the system.
Faced with the theory that current technology was incapable of extracting or manipulating the «ULTRAX» element, Rilley was not satisfied. Unconvinced, he continued his studies all the same.
Even more so because he knew, or at least strongly suspected, that the properties of this new element could perfectly resolve the needs he had been chasing all along.