The longer I was stuck on the planet, the less I liked it. About half way back to the hotel, a really bad rainstorm came out of...well hell if I know. Once second the sky was blue, then about five minutes later it was like someone in heaven had ripped the side of their huge swimming pool right open. I normally didn't mind the rain, but you have to understand, the 80 pounds of gear I normally carried was more like 200 when waterlogged. When you added in the fact that the truck mike was driving had lost all traction in the rear, and the truck was rear wheel drive, you start to see the problem. When we did make it back to the hotel, we found that the activity level had been reduced to almost nothing except the medical tent, which was open and using rubber tent pads to keep the inside dry. It looked quiet inside, the doctors standing in the entry way talking. The tank drove into the parking garage and parked by the other tanks, idling for a few seconds before dying. Ryu was down there with Sarah waiting for us.
"I'm assuming the storm took you by surprise no?", Ryu asked.
"Yep", I said hopping off the tank, "One second it's clear and the next it's dumping an ocean on my head, nature on this planet is a bitch. By the way, we encountered a new type of....zombie, I guess."
"What do you mean?", Sarah asked.
"Hey..", I said turning to the tank commander.
"Steven", he said.
"Do you have the video of those ghouls from the tunnels on your PDA?"
"Right here", Steven said tossing it to me. I flipped through the video files, found one with the tank's barrel in the lower left hand corner and hit play before handing it to Sarah. She watched the footage about 3 times before handing back to me.
"I have something important to show you", she said, sounding dead tired, "come on."
I followed Sarah to the back of the garage and up a flight of stairs to a room on the 22nd floor that had been converted to a lab. There was a large counter in the middle of the room which was flanked by three more counters and cabinets that formed a U shape around the room. There was a large chemistry set on the middle table, while computers, chips and monitors lined the back one and the counter on the left side was stacked with paper and the one on the right, an exam table, had black blood on it.
"You just get done with a specimen?", I asked motioning to the exam table.
"Yeah", Sarah said, "I was testing a few different chemicals to see what would happen, but that was before I found this."
She picked up a remote, pointed it at a TV and hit play. The footage that rolled was of a cell, which I assumed was from Agent 41, consuming a few red blood cells. Then I watched as it seemed to spit out another cell that was an exact clone of itself.
"What the hell did I just watch?", I asked.
"Progress", Sarah said, "this is important, this is important in ways you can't even comprehend."
"How so?"
"The cells of Agent 41 don't multiply like normal, instead of splitting apart, whenever one of them get's enough to eat, blargh, and there's another one. One makes, two, two makes four and on and on. However, the key point here is that, upon further inspection, I found that there is so, so much going on underneath their shells."
"Like what?", I asked.
"Remember in eighth grade science when you learned that an atom is mostly empty space?", Sarah asked.
"Yes", I said.
"So think of the Agent 41 infection as an Atom, you have the cell, electrons and a nucleus, the rest is empty space."
"I'm sensing a but coming", I said.
"Agent 41 isn't empty space", Sarah said, "the only way to kill an A41 cell is to destroy the nuclei, or it's brain. It's amazing Skyline, each cell in Agent 41 is it's own, sentient organism, Martin has taken the best of both our species and shrunk it down into an incredibly efficient, nigh unstoppable super virus capable of overcoming even the most toxic of environments, even Acidic blood. Each cell has it's own immune system, so what I thought was the cell turning acidic to counter the DNA scissor a while back, was it's own version of white blood cells. I'm convinced that, since fresh A41 cells are much weaker than their mature counterparts, I can use this to my advantage."
"How?", I asked.
"What happens when Immune systems get thrown out of whack?", Sarah asked.
"Lots of really bad shit", I said.
"Anything come to mind?", Sarah asked.
"Leukemia", I said, "and that disorder when the immune system attacks the body, can't remember the name though."
"Okay", Sarah said, "now here's where things get interesting, so pay attention. The number of leukocytes in the blood is often an indicator of disease, and thus the WBC count is an important subset of the complete blood count. The normal white cell count is usually between 4 and 11 × 109/L. In the US this is usually expressed as 4,000–11,000 white blood cells per microliter of blood. They make up approximately 1% of the total blood volume in a healthy adult, making them substantially less numerous than the RBCs at 40% to 45%. However, this 1% of the blood makes a large difference to health, because immunity depends on it. An increase in the number of leukocytes over the upper limits is called leukocytosis. It is normal when it is part of healthy immune responses, which happen frequently. It is occasionally abnormal, when it is neoplastic or autoimmune in origin. A decrease below the lower limit is called leukopenia. It weakens the immune system and since the IS of A41 is a near complete match to a normal human, I suspect that if I can weaken it enough, I could modify and turn any virus you can think of loose on 41."
"How do you expect to do that?", I asked.
"Agent 41's immune system works like this, when a white blood cell tries to attack it in an otherwise healthy person, the cell releases it's own cells that attack the White blood cell before it can dissolve it. With some time, I could modify a virus lager than 41 to be immune to it's defenses, attack and consume it. It wouldn't work on those who've already succumbed to it, but it would effectively cure anyone in the early to late stages of infection."
"Okay", I said, "my brain hurts now but I'm pretty sure I get the gist of things, what about those guys from the bridge?"
"Their immune", Sarah said, "I haven't yet been able to isolate the cause as to why, I'll get back to you when I do. By the way, Tyler's on our floor, floor 25, said he has something for you."
"Ryu gave us a whole floor?", I asked.
"Hotel's pretty big and there ain't a whole lot of people here", Sarah said, "so yeah, why not?"
"Sarah", I said, "I think you should take a break, you sound like your dead."
She sighed, "I can't, I'm the only one who understands anything about 41. The longer it takes us to get a cure in hand, the more people die."
"And if you kill over from exhaustion, we all die", I said, "take a break, when was the last time you ate anything?"
She shrugged, "The lifeguard tower."
'I'll bring something by for you later", I said, "if you need anything, don't hesitate to call me."
I turned to leave, stopping in the door way, "oh...and before I forget, have you had a chance to look into the spider things?"
"Not yet", she said, "I suspect it's the same deal with them as humans though."
I nodded and left the room, taking the stairwell up to floor 25, where I found Alcatraz waiting for me, noticeably taller, slightly skinnier and looking refreshed. He had his Exo back and was wearing a military style uniform designed to fit underneath it.
"Looking sharp Al", I smiled.
"Feeling like it too", Alcatraz said, "the Exo isn't uncomfortable to wear anymore, Tyler's just down the hall looking for you."
I nodded and walked down the hallway, finding A cluster of wires that led into Tyler's room, which was a mess of computer chips, moniters and wires.
"The hell is going on in here?", I asked.
"The magic of programming", Tyler said, "I'm coping my version of CHDISK into the hotel's system. It will get everything to function as one big PC. No where near as powerful as the 300, but it should more than do it's job."
"Sarah was rocking an impressive rig as well, your doing?", I asked.
"Yep, finished it just before you got back", Tyler said.
"She said you had something for me?", I asked.
"Yep", Tyler answered tossing me what looked like a radio that had been combined with a PDA.
"I've only got one of those, so don't lose it, kay?"
"What the hell is it?", I asked looking it over.
"A Personal Radio/GPS/PDA all rolled into one", Tyler said, "can do pretty much everything at once, when you turn it on, you pick the function from a screen and switching modes is as simple as pressing the "function" key."
"Cool", I said, "that all you had for me?"
"Yep", he said, "that's it for now."
"In that case, I'm gonna go get lunch."