The Altered.

Chapter LXXVII.

"How can we turn it off ourselves?" Bates asked. Everybody who hadn't been engaged before was now on full alert.

They could really walk back out of this tower as heroes.

If they did things right.

"We need to get to the Motherboard room," Miles said. "Which is where we were headed before. But now, we actually have an idea as to what we're supposed to do.

"My best bet is that everything in the room will be corrupted and probably unwilling to function. That's because of the virus. All we need to do is find something that works, figure out a way to get an antivirus onto it - and one that's powerful enough to destroy a fucking big virus - and hook it up to everything else."

"Are we sure this will destroy the virus in the world?" Lia checked. "Or just in our city?"

Miles grimaced. "I'm not one hundred percent sure anymore. But this tower is the only one that has access to and connects to all of the other towers in the world, so I'm hoping we can somehow completely obliterate this virus from the world all at once."

"The longer we wait, the less time we have to try and get this working," Percy acknowledged, starting to walk back towards the door. "We should leave."

Miles agreed. He took a step forward to go after Percy, and the rest of the group dispersed, understanding the urgency of their next task. As they broke away from the lab and pushed their way back into the hallway, the group started chattering quietly amongst themselves. Judging by the tone of all the hushed whispers, everybody was starting to fret. To some degree, that same fear was in Miles - but for the first time tonight, he was also getting excited.

Kano pulled up beside Miles. "I have a question," he announced.

Miles nodded, prompting Kano to go on.

"When we install the antivirus," he said, "that'll erase the virus, right? But Marissa did that, and it managed to kill the microchip entirely. How does eliminating the virus mean that the computer will die?"

Miles thought a little bit on that one. He hadn't given it a second thought earlier, but now that Kano was bringing it up, he had to consider it. "I assume it's because of the amount of energy it'll take," Miles replied unsurely. "I mean, the virus is probably taken a massive toll on the microchips right now; they're not made to handle anything external like the virus. And once the antivirus is circulating through it, battling the virus... there's surely no chance that the little chip'll survive."

Kano seemed to be following along. "Will that hurt the Altered?"

Miles gnawed on the inside of his cheek. "I don't know," he admitted. "We can only hope not."

In reality, Miles was sure that it would hurt the Altered. Or at least sap their energy from them. Not to mention that without the computer functioning in their head, they'd be completely Unaltered again... it was hard to say what kind of chaos that would leave the world in.

"Is this it?" Miles heard Lia ask from the front of the group.

Percy, who was struggling to read a plaque on a dark door, replied, "I think so."

Miles moved away from Kano to find his way to the front as Percy started to fumble with the buttons by the door, trying to open it. "Will it let us in?" Miles asked.

"I'm not sure. This is probably a highly secured -" Percy stopped upon noticing something. "Oh, shit."

Miles noticed at the same time Percy did. The ID pad on the door read, Administrator Marissa Vega identified. Access granted. And below that, read, Registered visitors will be granted access upon identifying themselves.