The Altered.

Chapter XXV.

Bri's group hung back, talking amongst themselves confusedly as everybody else seated themselves around Percy. Miles, even though he was busy, was feeling claustrophobic in the busy room. He'd tugged Percy's shirt off with Luca's help, and how his eyes were flashing triumphantly.

"I knew it!" he declared.

"What is it?" Lia asks, as confused as everyone else.

"Look." Miles traced carefully along a pale scar that circled around Percy's arm, halfway between his shoulder and his elbow. "He's got a prosthetic arm."

Miles had his knee on Percy's hand to keep the thing from twitching as he showed everybody what he'd noticed.

"What?" Eira sounded disbelieving. When Miles looked up, Aaron and Lia also looked uncertain about it.

"Guys, I'm serious. See this?" he pointed to the scar again. "It's where the prosthetic was surgically attached. I did a whole extra-curricular unit on robotics. These things are so fucking expensive, I'm telling you. But they look almost exactly like a real arm, and obviously Percy is rich. These things are insanely rare to see - most people just have normal prostheses. But this is a whole 'nother thing."

"I've see them before," Luca said softly. "On videos on the internet."

"Thank you, Luca." Miles was glad somebody at least believed him. "They take months to design and are made for each client personally. We can ask him for whatever details you guys need when he wakes up, but for now you need to believe me. Lia, you noticed how this arm, in particular, was playing up, right?"

She nodded slowly, still looking unconvinced. "What does it mean?"

"This prosthetic acts exactly like a real arm. They can pick things up and feel pain and everything. You know how?" He knew nobody did, so he continued, "Because there's a chip in this kid's brain that's linked to the prosthetic. Our brain controls our body parts and receives pain signals and all that, right? Yeah. Well, since this arm is fake, Percy's real brain can't do that. So a small chip is attached to his brain and it senses everything that this arm does. It looks identical to an arm and it can literally do everything that a real arm can do. Only thing is, it won't bleed or anything. If you break this arm, it's done for good and he'd have to get a new one. So it's... almost exactly like a real arm."

"Slow down," Aaron said, "you said there's a chip in his brain?"

"Yeah." Miles' shining eyes bore into Aaron's, willing him to understand. "Remember our theory about the virus? How it's affecting the Altered only because they're the only people with computers in their brains? And how all the electricity and stuff is off?

"Oh, shit," Lia breathed, understanding melting into her features. "So you're saying that if this virus affects affects all kinds of computers, and Percy has one in his head -"

"Exactly!" Miles exclaimed. "That's exactly it. The chip in his brain is literally doing what all of our electricity and the Altered are doing. It's making him lose control and it's effecting his arm most because that's what it's primarily meant to control."

"Why is is whole body being affected, then, and not just his arm? And why is he sick?"

Miles desperately pieced together a suitable-enough analogy. "Think of it like this," he started. "When a computer gets a virus, it typically comes from just one software or program. But real quick, it starts to attack the whole computer system."

Lia sat back, her face a mask of mingling emotions.

"You're such a geek," Aaron muttered, rubbing his temples.

"Yeah, lucky I am, too," Miles shot back. "Or none of you would understand. In case you didn't understand a single thing I just said, here it is: Percy has a chip in his brain and because this crazy infection is affecting all computers, it's affecting Percy, too. It's got his arm bad and his body isn't used to losing control over a part of itself, so it's kind of all starting to shut down. His body is kind of attacking itself to get rid of this, and it's making him sick."