Thank you to those that reviewed/followed/viewed this story after so long. It's greatly appreciated! I'll try not to leave you hanging anymore!
Six had finished reading over the reports he had brought by midnight and had been left with nothing to do. He wasn't bored, he was used to lying in wait, having been a mercenary and all. Patience was a strong suit of his, especially since he found Rex. Six looked down at he clipboard he had in his lap that he had been taking notes of changes in Rex's sleep on as requested by the doctor.
10:24 : Rolled over onto his back.
11:01: Muttered something unintelligible.
12:15 : Right arm moved from stomach to the bed.
1:38 : Muttered something again, fingers on right arm twitched.
1:46 : Muttered something again.
Okay he was bored.
But, he thought as his sat straight-backed and focused staring at a teenage boy sleeping, it was better for nothing to happen than for there to be a problem on the first night possible. Though maybe it would be better if the toxin would go ahead and cause something so Holiday could work on figuring out an antidote to whatever it was. She said she couldn't treat it until she had some symptoms to go off of, the tests would only confirm or deny her suspicions on it being a head-related something.
Six looked at the clock. It's red numbers glowed 2:18 back at him. Holiday would be coming to relieve him soon, which was good because even he needed to sleep and running on caffeine for the past two days was going to catch up to even him eventually.
He turned back to look at his charge again just in time to see Rex's eyes suddenly snap open with a gasp as he sat up quickly in bed.
Ask and you shall receive, Six, he thought bitterly as he got up from his position at Rex's desk to help him with whatever nightmare he just had. "Rex, it's okay, you're safe," he said as he placed a hand on Rex's shoulder.
Rex didn't respond though, he didn't even flinch when Six put his hand on him and Six moved to get a good look at Rex's face, concerned.
"Rex…" Six trailed off as he saw Rex's eyes were glowing a faint blue as he stared at the wall in front of him.
"Six! What's happening? Rex's nanite levels just spiked!" Holiday's voice came through in a rush on the comm in his ear.
"He's sitting up in bed just staring at the wall. His eyes are glowing blue again." Six stated back just as rushed. He shook Rex's shoulder a bit trying to jostle him back to reality but Rex still didn't respond. He didn't even seem to register anything was happening at all. "Rex!" He yelled as he shook him harder.
"I'm almost there!" Holiday yelled over the comm and sure enough, Six could hear the clicking of her heels in the near distance. "Is he responding at all?"
"No, he hasn't moved an inch no matter how much I shake him!" He replied as he decided to just sit and wait the few seconds more it would take her to fly into the room.
Holiday skidded to a halt as she tore into the room, scanner in hand. Six got out of the way as she ran her scanner up and down Rex's body. "These nanite readings are off the charts! Rex! Can you hear me?" She asked as she shook his shoulder too.
They were both surprised as Rex started to get up from the bed, eyes still glowing, and said almost robotically, "Danger imminent. Nanite recovery attempt in progress. Proper equipment necessary."
"Nanite recovery in progress?" Holiday asked Rex who was attempting to push past Six out the door of his room. "Rex what does that mean? What equipment do you need?"
When there was no response again and Rex tried to force his way to the door again. Holiday stepped in front of Rex and yelled "Rex, snap out of it!" as she slapped him hard across the face.
Six pulled out his magna blades and stepped in front of Holiday as a string of nanites shot out from Rex's chest at the doctor. Time slowed as he sliced his blades in a downward motion to cut apart the string before it could hurt the doctor in any way. Everyone in the room stood stock still, Six and the doctor staring at the nanite-possessed Rex, waiting for him to make another move.
Rex walked calmly to the door and turned left. The two quickly followed behind Rex at a respectable distance, trying not to warrant another nanite attack seeing as clearly Rex wasn't in control at the moment.
"Seems like he's heading to my lab," Holiday said after a minute of walking. Rex's eyes glowing blue and his sluggish movements made for an eerie sight as they walked through the halls of Providence in the middle of the night. Luckily they didn't run into any grunts on the walk that would just get in the way.
Rex turned and walked into Holiday's lab, heading towards one of the computer terminals. He stuck his right arm out and placed it on the keyboard and immediately blue line stretched from the computer terminal through Rex's arm and up to his head.
"Rex, what are you doing?" Holiday asked trying one more time to get through to the boy. Six was standing just slightly in front of her, blades half raised, ready for use if necessary.
"Nanite recovery commence," was all he said as images flashed over the computer screen until it stopped on the nanite scan Holiday had taken a week ago before this all happened.
"Oh," Holiday breathed as she realized what Rex must be doing. She turned to Six, "I think he's trying to write his nanite code back to what they originally were before Van Kleiss got to him. You can stand down."
Six nodded. "Noted," he said as he put the blades away. They stepped closer to Rex to see that a downloading bar had popped up. They watched as it crawled up towards 100%. Rex was starting to slouch more and more as the percentage downloaded climbed and Six stepped forward to steady his charge by placing a hand on his back, glad that Rex's nanites didn't try to attack him for it.
As it reached 100%, Rex's knees buckled and he would have fallen had Six not gently lowered him to the ground as he mumbled, "Nanite recovery complete."
Rex's normal chocolate irises blinked open groggily and he sat up slowly with Six's help from his spot on the ground.
"You back with us, kid?" Six asked as Holiday kneeled down to perform another scan of Rex's body.
Rex blinked up at Six before looking at Holiday and then around the lab, confused. "What's going on?" he asked, sounding very confused. "How did I get to the lab?" He reached up and scrubbed a hand over his face. "And why does my face hurt?"
"What's the last thing you remember?"
Rex sat there silent for a moment, thinking hard about what had happened after he fell asleep. "I had this weird dream. I was on this ledge, or something, and it was dark. I couldn't see anything but I kept hearing voices around me but I wasn't able to make out what they were saying. And then I remember feeling like I was falling… and then nothing, I was waking up here with you guys."
Holiday explained what they had witnessed Rex's nanites doing as Six helped him off the floor. "Well that would explain why I feel so drained, I guess," Rex said "But why did they feel like they needed to rewrite their own code?"
"I was going to wait until morning to go over my findings with you but seeing as we are all awake, we might as well do it now," she said as she walked over to the computer terminal Rex had just used and started to pull up various diagrams.
Six offered a hand up and Rex took it, wobbling slightly when he was standing again before steadying himself with a nod to Six that he was good.
"Is that me?" Rex asked pointing at the image of his nanite flow.
"Yes. Normally your nanite flow is a continuous never changing pace as they travel around your body," Holiday answered, the same diagram Six had seen earlier that day showing on the computer. "And this is what they were doing up until your nanites made a hopefully successful fix to the situation. Your nanites were slowing down as they neared your brain and the speed they were traveling at was significantly slower after I scanned you again earlier."
She pulled up the scan Six had seen of the nanites slowing as they neared the brain and a second one that showed them almost coming to a standstill as they neared the brain.
"They think there's an injury..." Rex said quietly as he stared at the diagrams. "I can normally feel when they move in to fix an injury though, why couldn't I feel it this time?"
"I'm not sure why you weren't able to feel it but I do know that Van Kleiss's toxin has to be responsible for you to not be able to tell such a drastic change is going on in your body. According to the scan I just took though, your nanite flow is leveling out as we speak."
"That's good, though I can't feel that happening either. It all still feels normal. But why would a code rewrite be necessary for this?"
Holiday pulled up the strings of code she had collected from Rex's nanite readings over the past week. She hit a key and all of them started to run simultaneously, more and more 1s and 0s being highlighted in red the more recent the scan, minus the one that had just been taken which only had a few discrepancies. "As you can see in these, your normal code was being rewritten rapidly by the toxin to program them to do something, but what, I can only speculate."
Rex was staring at the diagrams with a hand on his chin, his head tilted slightly to the right, and looking deep in thought. The adults glanced at each other but Rex spoke up before either could make a move in a subdued voice. "He's actually trying to wipe my memory, isn't he, Doc?"
She placed a hand on his shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze. "That's my conclusion, yes."
Rex took in a shaky breath and Six stepped up and put a hand on his other shoulder. They all stood there in silence for a moment, the adults being a rock for the kid who was facing his worst fear. But then Rex straightened up, his face set in a stoney expression. "I need to punch something. preferably now."
Holiday looked slightly taken aback but Six had a slight smile on his face as he said, "I could arrange a simulation for you, we are behind on your training now after all."
"Perfect. Let's go," Rex practically growled, already on his way to the door.
Six looked to Holiday for confirmation and she sighed before saying "Alright. I can monitor him to make sure everything is going smoothly again. You on the other hand need sleep, so set up the simulation and then go to bed."
Six smirked at her. "Yes, doctor."
"Come on! What part of 'preferably now' wasn't clear?!" Rex yelled from the doorway. The adults shook their heads at the kid's antics and followed him out.