"So, besides those neat little [life support] machines that 'Lucille' had me rig up for you --" Silas and the Medic help to lift you into the wheelchair. After checking on your chest for a moment, they begin to push you out of the room, down the dull gray-brown corridors of the mountain fortress, "-- I also invented this thing I like to call a light projector! I'm amazing, I know."
The Medic wheels you into his lab, and besides for the vast amount of scientific instruments crammed into such a small space, you notice many small, white rats in cages, along with the Colossus section you gave him. In the center of the room, facing a wall painted white, is a box with a glass lid. He flicks the light on, and places a slide down on it.
"This is from the...thing you sent me."
There are many black small dots, which make up a stiff, hard wall of a round cell. They are pitch black in the light and they creep along sluggishly, even after all this time -- still alive, still functioning, however weakly. Pieces occasionally break off, only to reform anew.
"Next, is this one..."
It too has many square cell walls, but they are lined up perfectly, and not as dark in color, more transparent. However, you notice similar black dots to the first. Far less, of course, but enough to notice.
"Can you guess what this is?"
"No." You reply.
"This is from a sample of grass from the Thornton Lawns. And this...is a sample of my own blood."
Round cells show up on the wall this time, but there's more of those black dots.
"I discovered -- we are all carriers of the Plague. However, I do believe that it depends on the level -- that there's a certain threshold before we become truly infected." He removes a small device from one the tables. Switching it on, it produces a level of static, faint, but all radios do. A natural thing, caused by man-made electronics, atmospheric conditions, and residual effects from the creation of the universe itself. "Listen."
He holds in the air, producing a simple static. Then, he walks over to the segment of worm you delivered to him.
[11] It changes, becoming more orderly, but it still is static.
"However these [radios] work, so too does the Plague. If enough of it comes together, it seems like it begins to use this principle to organize itself. I've infected rats, and after a certain number, a certain amount of biomass, they start to coordinate. Without it, they simply seek out food, namely complex proteins, mindlessly."
"If they do not get enough food, their metabolism slows to a crawl, and they enter into a dormant period. Technically still alive, but unresponsive to anything besides warmth or motion, that is to say, what data tells them is prey."
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Topic: McCreary's Planet -- (FINISHED) (Read 251844 times)