Bee Virus

A laboratory has been researching a virus to get rid of invasive species of hornets which are killing the indigenous bees and other wasps’ species. However, they realised that while it is efficient against those invasive species, it is also lethal to the bees and indigenous species. As your team of interns realise that, there is an accident and one of the air-born virus container cracked. Infected air is leaking slowly. The lab ventilates automatically every 20 minutes. Soon the lethal virus will leave the laboratory through the vents - directly into the flowery meadows. You need to go to the control room and find a way to close the ventilation shafts as soon as possible. (You can do it with one button, but which one?) Then you need to clean the laboratory of viruses using neutralizing gases. The key to activate the neutralizing gas is ... Actually, where is it?

You are a group of young scientists and interns in a modern virology laboratory under the UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) organization. The big day is coming soon, a virus will be implemented to eliminate the giant Asian hornet’s invasion. Maybe your boss will even be nominated for the Nobel Prize? The project is technologically and biologically very advanced – the virus should affect this specific type of hornet only and be completely safe for other species.

As usual, you showed up an hour before everyone else to get the lab ready for work. First you checked the email box: among the others there is a message with new report (and warning), that the virus is also extremely deadly to bees and that the project should be handled with special care. Especially given that, just outside of the laboratories there are flowering meadows teeming with bees.

As it was bound to happen someday – one of the interns accidentally dropped a sample container. You immediately called the head of the project. You could hear him running and gasping for breath. The only words you caught because of the poor connection were “Hurry, close the vents!! I’ll be there in an hour, but it will be too late by then if the virus got out. Activate the virus-neutralizing gas. The activation code is in my safe. Write down the code to the safe … “. Then the connection was broken. You tried calling a few more times, but it went to voicemail immediately.

The code is probably written in the professor’s notes. The drawers in his desk are locked, except for one, maybe there will be a clue? Let’s first close the vents, and after look for a code. If the virus finds its way outside the laboratory, instead of the Nobel Prize, you will be blamed for the end of the bees, and with it, the collapse of a majority of the agriculture system, resulting in worldwide famine.