The One-Room Apartment on the Sand

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The sample was named “Cor Ouadae 17-C-B”.

At the Yazuno Central Environmental Research Institute, research into this biospecimen proceeded along three main lines of inquiry: What are its characteristics? How can it be proliferated? What sort of being is it, in the first place?

All in all, they knew close to nothing about it.

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Even its origin was dubious.
Dr.
Nagasue, who brought the sample to the laboratory three years ago, had gone missing the following year without telling anyone of his whereabouts.
To top it off, its cellular structure did not resemble any of the multicellular organisms known to man.

One of the researchers described it as resembling “a display sample of chicken tenderloin.” His fellow colleagues had chortled wryly in agreement.
Indeed, it looked no different from a piece of chicken tenderloin one could find in the supermarket’s frozen section.
While both resembled food, one was made of plastic resin and silicone, while the other of something completely alien.

Nevertheless, there were certain things they had discerned about it.

The cells comprising the sample were all totipotent cells, which meant that they were capable of differentiating into all other cell types.
When inserted into the wound of another organism, it transformed itself into a replica of the organism’s cell and aided with the cell division process.
Subsequently, it became a part of its host (and on the surface, the wound would appear to be healed perfectly).

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One of modern medicine’s goals is the reproduction of totipotent cells.
It would have been the achievement of the century had they been able to replicate such a function in other cells via research into this special specimen.
In the modern world, however, the buzz generated by any discovery could be a double-edged sword.
Thus, while there were high hopes for this research, it was also being conducted in secret.

Till date, they were still unable to find a way to cultivate the sample in its unchanged state.
As such, the