The Shrink Program

Chapter 111

Nearly everyone in the room exchanged stunning looks as if to say "what is this Bee crap and how is it working?"

"I-it... Ah... It works like this...." Garmen stuttered, a little taken aback that I actually had a legitimate question. "Inside one of them, Winkle I believe, all the bees and the queen bee work together to mimic a super queen. The nanotech is designed to read different stimuli in Winkles body and send out a message to Peri's Queen Bee, who reads the message and sends out responding command to her Bees."

"So If Winkle got hurt, the Nanotech inside his body would react to the pain, sending a command to the Nanotech in Peri, telling them to protect him..."Artemis murmured speculatively, seeming interested in the technicalities. "Which may result in Peri becoming stronger and gaining better reflexes or something to that extent."

"Right." Garmen nodded, a relieved look on his face. Finally, he could talk to someone with a brain. "So this is how Peri and Winkle are still able to use their nanotech with the system down. Of course, compared to the system, the Link can only send simple commands."

"Okay...." I muttered, a confused frown on my face. It was a lot to wrap my tiny head around after all.

"So Peri and Winkle can still sort of use Nanotech even without the system... And they used it to save you somehow...?" I questioned uncertainly.

Garmen sighed. "Normally, if my body were to be invaded by anti-Nanotech, the system would command my own Nanotech to defend itself. That not being the case, my Nanotech became nothing more than sitting ducks. That is why Winkle sent Peri's nanotech into my body to fight off the anti-tech."

"How?" Artemis asked before I could send him the "shut up, it's too complicated" distress signal.

"First of all, Winkle had to be infected with anti-tech." Garmen explained, gesturing over to the other man."Once his own nanotech came under attack, his core would send a message to Peri's to attack the anti-tech in return, indiscriminative of whose body the threat was in."

"But when the hell did all this happen?!" I exclaimed, utterly confused. "You were only in the room for like, five seconds."

"Ah... Actually, Maddison, they arrived only a little while after Jack turned up." Nigel began sheepishly.

"What." I hissed, turning my suspicious gaze on him, making him wince at my expression.

"Well, you see, I sort of run into them when we split up. They were hiding on the other side of the desk...."

"Ah, so that's why you didn't come out right away when Jack called." Artemis murmured. "You were distracting him for them."

"Yeah," Nigel admitted, sending me nervous looks out of the corner of his eye.

In fact, the entire room fell into silence as everyone waited for that tidbit of information to set me off.

Instead of exploding, I just stared at Nigel in badly veiled amazement.

"Wow, Nigel. And here I was, utterly convinced that you were just a cowardly, two-faced imbecile. Who would have thought that you could do something actually helpful for once?"

I patted him on the back. "I'm officially upgrading you from my dog to lowly minion. Make me proud expendable minion number three."

Nigel smiled a huge smile full of sunshine, ecstatic at the backhanded compliment.

"She has to be one of the scariest kids I've ever met." Havoc whispered to Garmen.

"I second that." Peri murmured.

"Quiet or she'll hear you," Garmen muttered, and when the three men noticed that I was looking at them, they suddenly found themselves very busy inspecting the paint on the ceiling.

With a sigh, Reece climbed to his feet. "After I realised that Peri and Winkle were here, it was only a matter of time. We had to keep Jack distracted long enough for them to finish helping Garmen. Havoc here arrived right at the very end."

"Just in time to be no help at all," Garmen muttered, earning a pout from Havoc.

I silently contemplated all the new information as the two supervisors promptly started bickering, my arms crossed as I stared at my lap.

A part of me couldn't get over the feeling that I was missing something. Not just something, but lots of things. It just felt like this entire situation was filled with holes, but I couldn't quite grasp the questions that could fill them.

Privately, I hoped that I would be able to figure out what I was missing soon. I really didn't want it coming back to bite me in the butt like last time...

"But....how did Winkle get infected with the Anti tech?" Artemis questioned curiously.

All the supervisors in the room except Havoc froze. Even Nigel averted his gaze to the floor.

"Its classified information," Peri said cheerfully, trying to cover up the sudden nervousness in the room.

"What are you talking about?" Havoc asked, glancing between the others in confusion. "It's not that important. The fastest way would be to exchange fluids, like blood or Sa- Oh." Havoc cut off with a blush, his eyes widening."Oh."

"Don't you dare!" Winkle growled from his side of the room."Don't say another freaking word."

"Relax Winkle!" Peri soothed. "It's no different from resuscitation..."

"Shut up, you're not helping!"

I blinked incomprehensibly, looking between the supervisors and observing their different levels of mortification.

I don't want to know.

Garmen lowered his gaze to the floor, his eyes empty of emotion. "In my defence, I was unconscious."