The Virus Within- Changing

Tests

Nathan joined us on the trip. He kept to himself in a storage room. He had made himself a makeshift bed. He hardly ever got out except at night.

Once or twice I had caught him slipping outside. Or more accurately, I caught a glance of his shadow as he headed into the forest.

Nobody bothered him. His sister went into one of the spare sleeping places.

We had nothing to do. So I got bored. I was staring up to space half the time, and reading the other half. But I was bored all the time. There's only so many times you can read Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian before your brain turns to mush.

Needless to say, I was jubilant when a scientist, Jacob, came up to me.

"Is it okay if I conduct a few blood tests?" He asked nervously.

"Sure," I said, not looking up from my book. Then my brain registered what he said and I looked up. "Wait, what?"

"Is it okay if I conduct a few blood tests?" He repeated.

"Two things: What for and what do I have to do?" I set the book down.

"I want to see if I can find out some more elements of the Phantom virus, and I just need you to donate blood." He paused. " And I want to get some from Nathan to compare."

I considered for a second before replying. "Sure. I'll try to convince Nathan."

I stood and came into Nathan's closet. He was resting when he opened his eyes and asked, "What?"

"One of the scientists wants a blood donation from you and me so he can compare and research Phantom cells."

He was silent for a moment before nodding. "Okay."

I led him back to Jacob.

"He's willing," I said.

"Great!" Jacob exclaimed. He led us to the lab. There was a lot of equipment lying around.

He put on a surgical mask and gestured for me to sit down first.

He swabbed a spot on my arm and lifted a syringe. I closed my eyes.

I wasn't fond of needles or pain. After the age of eight, I never rode on a bike unless absolutely necessary, realizing that every month, I got skinned at least once while riding.

There was a sharp pain, and then it was over.

After Nathan took his turn, Jacob nodded. "Thanks. This will really help."

"How long will it take?" I asked.

"A few hours."

"Okay. I'll come back in two hours." I headed out to my bedroom.

It turned out it took me longer. Mark was causing trouble, messing up my bed, Seth's bed, and Jake's bed. I tied him up with rope while we tidied up the place and we ignored him as he shouted insults. Once we were all done, we untied Mark, and he promptly tried to ruin it again. So I had to turn him into the adults.

By the time I got back, Jacob had finished a report. He gave it to me wordlessly and I took it.

I hid in a storage closet and read it.

The results were surprising.

The virus evolved specifically for each person and their environment. The one that I had was somewhere between stealth and defense. I supposed that was because now everyone knew that I was an Assassin and I no longer had to hide much I could shift my capabilities. Jacob had also noticed a significant difference between Nathan and my cells. He had shown pictures. Nathan's cells seemed to be tangled up, in tube-like shapes, in complex configurations. Mine looked in the same pipe shapes, but they seemed to interlock and were more orderly than Nathan's.

I wondered why. After a few seconds, I drew a blank, so I returned my attention to the report.

It turned out that some cells in my body were so-called power cells, cells that generated extra energy and altered my body so I could use a sonic snap.

I walked out enlightened.

The next day, we stopped at a stronghold. I stretched, walked around, and promptly took my laptop and hid on the roof.

I got very bored after a while, so I decided to research things about zombies and Phantoms.

I browsed for a bit before coming onto a website that had its name changing constantly. I could only read it if I put all my concentration into it. So I read.

Phantom Assassin Data was what it was titled. I immediately clicked on it.

There was a map of North America. Most of it was colored gray. A legend sat on the side. It labeled a dot as an Assassin, and there was a bar to the side that was rainbow colored, with red at the left end, fading to orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, and gray.

At the bottom to the left side, it said newborn, and the other side said 50 years, so I interpreted that as age.

I checked out the map. There were a lot of dots on the east side of the USA, but Mexico had tons. Canada had specks everywhere, but it seemed that the virus was weak to the cold. The west coast of the USA had a lot of dots, but further inland, there seemed to be only a few scattered around.

I had a sneaking suspicion that I wanted to confirm, so I zoomed into the west coast, quickly singling out Campfire Stronghold, and lo and behold, there were two dots. One from me, and presumably one from Venta.