"I sense no trace of Brainiac within him."
Richie wanted to believe the Martian Manhunter's diagnosis.
He really did.
But Brainiac had been inside him in both mind and body. The supervirus had filled his enhanced brain to make him a living processor. It had overshadowed his mind with its own personality and stored information until it nearly extinguished his own individual self. Brainiac's accumulated knowledge was still in Richie's head even if he couldn't feel the presence of the malicious program itself. He knew what the horns of Xixians looked like. He was fluent in the common scientific language of the settlers of the fourth moon of the gas giant Talenda. He'd heard the musical screams of the Radddd collective in his nightmares.
It also didn't escape his notice that the only piece of technology the Justice League removed from his flesh was the thin control disk fused to the skin of his nape. Richie remembered the metallic plates and circuitry that covered his skin as the program used him to build the tech it needed. From the data leftover in his brain, he was painfully aware that Brainiac liked to use backup plans in case of failure. Any piece of circuitry made by or even just in contact with the supervirus for a short amount of time could be infected with its code. The League should have scanned his body with x-rays or with magnetic imaging and removed any cybernetic present. But no all that happened was his lil buddy BacPac's entire programming getting deleted and a quick mind scan.
No, he couldn't believe Manhunter's diagnosis.
He thought about telling the big name heroes about their mistake. That thought was stamped down by his self-preservation instinct that reminded him that the League was willing to do whatever they had to do to stop Brainiac. Sure it was more logical to sacrifice one life for billions (or much more than that since Brainiac is a space-faring monster). But it was his life and alternatives to his cessation looked a lot better than cold logic. Surely there were things he could do to resist the supervirus better the next time it tried to absorb the planet's data.
A cold shiver ran down his spine and he sat up in bed at the frightful conclusion that squirmed up from the depths of his mind. Brainiac would come back eventually. The evil program was one of the most intelligent beings in the universe and could regenerate from even a single line of its base code. Richie knew from having it inside him that Brainiac preferred to use a network of drones to complete tasks. Somewhere out there in the far reaches of space, there are likely drone ships of Brainiac that were yet to be encountered. Or ships that no world has met and survived.
Richie climbed out of bed and started putting on his Gear costume. He needed to get to the gas station... to his lab. He needed to build something that could scan his insides.