Chương 106: Chapter 105 – Microscopic Assholes

"Well, there you are, you little bugger," Alex said as he isolated the virus through the microscopic view finder.

"Let's just get you out of the pool and see what happens when you swim alone," he chuckled, before carefully extracting the sample and placing it on a fresh slide and covering it with another.

"Don't want you swimming away on me." He went to another piece of equipment and placed the slide inside a slot.

"Let's just see what you are made of, because we know it's certainly not sugar and spice and everything nice," he said, pressing some buttons watching the machine come to life.

"How's it going?" Elena asked, walking into the room. Alex turned to face her and Elena immediately started laughing.

"Love the eyewear, it makes quite the fashion statement." Alex flipped the lenses up to the top of his head, opening his eyes wide.

"Yeah, those definitely aren't made for distance," he snickered.

"Well to answer your question, I have one of our friends in SEDA right now, I should have some results in a little bit."

"Sadie who now?" Elena asked, not having a clue what he was talking about.

"Not Sadie who, SEDA, Spectral Elemental Decomposition Analyzer, is going to break down this little beast into the most basic forms and tell me what it is truly made of. From the smallest microbe to the most microscopic of trace elements. We will know more about it than its own mother by the time I get done with it," Alex chuckled, raising his eyebrows up and down.

"Alrighty then," Elena said, before sitting down.

"How close are you to cracking this thing?"

"Once I am able to confirm or dispel my suspicions, I will be able to answer that. Right now, your guess is as good as mine," Alex said, turning his chair back to the machine to see if any preliminary analysis was available. Seeing the screen was still blank, he turned back to Elena.

"How's Mikale doing?" he asked.

"Still locked in his quarters?"

"Yeah, poor guy, I feel like such a heel for dumping all that on him. I had no idea he was clueless or lost so much," she said, sadly.

"Regina is trying to talk to him now, but he won't open the door," she sighed.

"I might just have to give her the key. If anyone understands it's her. She might be able to help him through it."

"Finding a cure may not bring the ones they lost back, but it will hopefully prevent them from losing anyone else," Alex said, turning back to the still blank monitor. The SEDA suddenly began to ding, capturing Alex's attention. He looked at the monitor as it began producing line after line of data.

"This is it," he said to Elena, let's see what this baby is made of.

"Well, you cheeky little devil," Alex said as he began reviewing the data.

"On the surface it is one hundred percent organic, but when you put some of these organic materials together mixed with a smattering of technological knowhow you create a completely cybernetic nanobot," Alex said.

"That was how they were able to get it through the portal. Shirley is capable of scanning whatever is in the transport, but I don't think she has the capability of stripping it down to the molecular level needed to detect something like this." A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Elena looked at him, her face blank.

"Alex, I have no idea what any of that means." Alex thought about how he could explain it in terms she could understand.

"Okay the virus isn't a virus, it is a teeny tiny, itsy-bitsy, living computer with proverbial teeth. My guess here is that it has been programmed to target and destroy parts of the, in this case, goblin genome. My best guess here is the so-called cure was a code delivery system that told it to fix what it destroyed then to either destroy itself or shut down and the so-called vaccine just negated the original coding." Elena's eyes widened.

"Alex, so if I am understanding you correctly, the vaccine and cure were codes to either adjust the original code to fix what it destroyed or to merely disable it. Does this mean that it could be sent a code to reactivate it?" Alex had not even considered this possibility; his face went white.

"In theory, yes," he said slowly.

"That is a horrifying thought, but I can't lie to you and say the potential is not there, because it is. If Blackwood wanted to, he could release something to reactivate the nanobots to resume their original programming and render the so-called cure or vaccine worthless."

"If this particular nanobot was hard coded to target and attach specific portions of goblin DNA, that means it would have to be modified to attack another species, correct?" Elena asked.

"Yes, that would mean Blackwood would need DNA samples or genetic material from someone of that species in order to re-code the original nanobot to attach to that particular species. Why?" Alex asked, unsure of what Elena was getting at.

"What if the unicorn was supposed to do that, not only infect, but extract a genetic sample from whomever it, for lack of a better term, bit? It wouldn't have mattered if it bit Thai or Celestia remnants of their genetic matter would have been on the needles. That would explain why they were coming to the house, it wasn't necessarily an attack as it was a retrieval," she said, puzzle pieces falling into place. Alex's eyes widened, it made sense, perfect sense.

"Elena, this is worse than I first thought. The nanobots are self-replicating, so the unicorn, if your theory is accurate means that the plan was to infect someone with it, it would begin replicating and spreading. Those infected would be asymptomatic spreading it even further. Once Mordak had a genetic sample from either Celestia or Thai he would have what he needed to modify the coding to attack that species.

All he would have to do is release something with the new coding and in a matter of a few days the whole realm could potentially be wiped out."

"Alex, the other question here is, how did he get it here to the elven realm in the first place? The fairies had the teleports on lockdown. This means someone from the fairy realm had to bring them here. Mordak's people are incapable of jumping boundaries as far as we knew. Mikale had shut down their transport and as far as I know his system is still down, so…" she broke off.

"We need to devise a destruct code for the nanobot. Some way to shut it down or obliterate it before it becomes active. We have no idea how many of those stupid toys are out there, who has them or if any of them were successful in infection or extraction. Mikale needs to get off his pity pot and help me devise a way to eradicate this before we have a multi-realm epidemic on our hands. From the look of things, we don't have a whole lot of time to do it.

You need to reach out to Jasper and apprise him that he has a traitor in his midst. He needs to know that the threat is far worse than we originally thought," he said, with pure panic and desperation in his eyes.