N-A-A Chapter 7 Writing Reports
Chapter 7 Writing Reports
It took Perfitter almost an hour longer than he had anticipated to finish dealing with the four researchers who were in the early stages of infection.
It's not because the operation itself is too difficult.
The dual intervention process, which had been validated on the first and second soldiers, actually worked even better on the researchers in the early stages of infection.
The filaments in their bodies had not yet penetrated deep into their tissues, and the pull on their souls during the removal was relatively minor. Shabel didn't even need to finish reciting the requiem before those black filaments were completely removed one by one by Perfit using human transmutation, and then thrown into a hydrogen peroxide bottle, turning into grayish-black flocculent sediment.
The person who really slowed things down was the second one.
The researcher, who was in his early forties, was Archibald's doctoral advisor, whom he had brought from Langton University.
He refused treatment.
"If you can't prove how this thing infected me," he said, sitting on the hospital bed, his lips already pale from the infection, but his tone still maintained the stubbornness of a seasoned scholar, "then I shouldn't accept any new treatments that haven't been proven."
You just mentioned that this black liquid affects both the body and the soul. Do you have any experimental data? How many successful cases are there? What is the sample size?
Perfit stood by the bed, wiping the remaining black filaments on his fingers with sterile gauze, and looked at him for about three seconds.
"The current sample size is five," she said, "and you're the sixth."
"And what about the confidence interval?"
"Professor, I'm confident in my technique," Perfit said, tossing the gauze into the nearby trash can. "Your infection is still in its early stages. The filamentous material is concentrated in the subcutaneous tissue around the wound and hasn't yet invaded the lymphatic system."
Based on the current rate, they will spread upwards along the blood vessel walls in about three hours.
Once it enters your cerebral cortex, my dissection technique may not be able to guarantee complete removal.
At that time, the only thing I can still do for you is 'compassion'.
She didn't emphasize the word "compassion" when she said it, but the doctoral supervisor's expression clearly changed—not because he was threatened, but because of the overly calm look on Perfit's face when she said the word, which made him feel like he was being treated as a specimen that hadn't yet turned into a zombie.
He eventually extended his arm, allowing Perfitter to peel away the veins that had begun to turn black.
Once all four of them had finished, Perfit threw the last clump of filaments he had extracted from the researcher's body into a wide-mouthed jar, and then took off his gloves.
Her forearms were so sore she could barely lift them, and two hours of continuous mental exertion had left her temples throbbing.
Standing next to her, Sabel's expression wasn't much better: beneath the sleeves of the judge's robe, the hands that had been holding the holy emblem were visibly trembling slightly.
The two looked at each other, neither of them spoke, and each silently drank the rest of their energy-restoring potion.
"No one else will be infected tonight," Perfitt said, placing the empty bottle on the tray. "If no new infections are reported tomorrow, we can start writing the report."
"Write a report." Sabel repeated the word, her tone carrying a hint of barely perceptible fatigue. "What the church needs is not a report, but an explanation."
"If I included your analysis of those black, thread-like substances in my report to the cardinals—saying they were traces left in the world after some kind of divinity had vanished, and did not belong to any existing deity—they would send me to the Inquisition for a faith trial."
"So how do you plan to write it?"
"I will write truthfully: the holy water and the consecration ceremony have an observable, phased effect in suppressing the spread of infection, but they cannot cure it when used alone." Sabel hung the emblem back on her chest. "As for the reason for this effect, I suggest you explain it. After all, you were the first person to see its complete structure under a microscope."
Perfit did not respond.
Through the ventilation opening in the corridor, she could see that it was completely dark outside.
She has only slept for less than four hours since last night.
But she also knew that if she didn't compile the experimental data and preliminary conclusions into a written document tonight, the Royal Academy of Sciences would reinterpret everything in their own way tomorrow. She couldn't let that happen.
"Professor Archibald," she turned to the experiment director standing at the other end of the corridor, "I need a quiet room, paper and pens, and enough hot tea. I'll write up the preliminary analysis report tonight."
"I can have someone vacate a lounge on the second floor of the base for you to use." Archibald took off her glasses and wiped them, clearly not expecting that this seventeen-year-old girl would still have the energy to write a report after working for nearly ten hours straight.
"In addition, send all the medical records of infected individuals in the isolation ward to that rest room. I need the infection time, symptom changes, treatments used, and corresponding effects recorded in each medical record."
How detailed are you planning to be?
“So detailed,” Perfitt picked up his small suitcase and walked down the corridor toward the stairs, “that if anyone asks me about ‘confidence intervals’ again, I can just throw a whole stack of medical records in front of him.”
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The lounge was small, containing only a table, two chairs, and a steam lamp.
Perfitter spread the medical records out on the table, rearranged them according to the stage of infection, then laid out the papers and began writing the first paragraph of the report.
She wrote very quickly. As someone who was used to writing papers in her previous life, she was no stranger to the genre of analytical reports.
What truly made her pause and reflect was the need to reconcile two completely different cognitive systems in this report: one was the language of alchemy and modern medicine, used to describe the physical infection mechanism of the filamentous polymer; the other was the language of theology, used to explain its simultaneous erosion of the soul.
She could use the results of her microscopic observations and human transmutation perception data as evidence for the former, while for the latter she could only rely on the exorcism ritual records provided by Sabelle and the analysis given by the Emerald Record—and the existence of the Emerald Record was something she had to keep strictly confidential.
Therefore, when she wrote the chapter on "The Dual Structure of Infection Mechanisms", she deliberately broke down the analytical conclusions of the Emerald Record into several more fragmented inferences, each of which was supported by historical records in church archives or observational data from this experiment.
This way, even if conservatives or church members question her conclusions, they cannot directly attack her chain of evidence.
In the third hour of writing, Sabel pushed open the door and came in, carrying two cups of hot tea.
She sat down opposite Perfitt without saying a word, but pushed one of the glasses toward Perfitt, then opened the Book of Words, stopped at a spot where a note was tucked, and lightly traced a few lines with her fingernail.
"You can copy the original text of these heretical files if you need to quote them." She pushed the Bible to the center of the table. "If necessary, I can add my signature to the report."
Perfit looked up at her. A co-signature—the highest level of endorsement a judge could give. This meant that if the report was later found to be heretical, the co-signer would bear the same responsibility as the author.
"Thank you," Perfit responded briefly, then lowered his head to continue writing.