A/N: Thank you pallysAramisRios for reviewing! Unfortunately, the holos can't leave the Warehouse.

Chapter 15: Metamorphosis

Soji stared in stupefaction at Agnes, who looked just as shaken to be infected.

"How did this happen?" Rios exclaimed through the Farnsworth. "Agnes doesn't even live here; she's never been to that store!"

Agnes swallowed hard and donned a professional mask of calm as she walked over to one of the work counters and methodically took a scraping of the hardening skin on her arm, then looked at the sample under a microscope. After a few moments, she rocked back.

"The virus is mutating; it's now able to pass from person to person."

"From them?" Soji asked incredulously, gesturing to the deceased victims.

Agnes shook her head grimly. "With the last victim who came in that I tried to help treat. But, now you…" she trailed off with a grimace.

Right, Soji had been exposed now too.

Agnes strode toward the phone and dialed one of the hospital's extensions. "This is Dr. Jurati with the CDC. I am declaring the morgue a quarantine zone, and every staff member on duty in the ER within the past two hours needs to be quarantined and everyone they had contact with since."

Soji's pulse started racing as she listened.

"What about the antivirus?" Raffi asked, jolting her.

"Um…"

"It won't do any good if we can't transfer it from the computer to the human body," Agnes put in, having hung up the phone.

"Is there another artifact we can get from the Warehouse to do that?" Rios asked urgently.

Agnes shook her head. "Adding another artifact to the mix will produce unexpected results. We need to create and distribute the antivirus the exact same way the original was created and distributed."

Soji watched Raffi and Rios exchange grim looks at that and knew what they were thinking—Elnor would be impossible to track.

Which meant Soji and Agnes were going to start turning to clay and eventually die.

"How are we going to find Elnor when we couldn't even find Soong?" Raffi ranted. She'd hung up with Soji and was on the Farnsworth with Jean-Luc now.

"The holograms are hacking into databases and mainframes now," he replied. "Car rentals, plane tickets."

"They can do that?"

"It seems so. They are part of the Warehouse computer, but they can track the information faster and with more intent than I can."

"Huh. Might not need to bother Garcia in the future," Raffi commented to Rios, who was pacing in agitation beside her. She was feeling the desperation too.

The Scottish Rios said something over the Farnsworth, though Raffi didn't understand a word of it.

"They found a social media post of a ninja walking around Salt Lake City," Picard relayed.

The holo said something else indecipherable.

Raffi just stared at the dome screen. "That's…just not even a language," she muttered.

"Castle Hill Park," Jean-Luc said.

Rios immediately whipped out his phone to search for the address. Raffi hung up with Picard, and the two of them rushed off to the park, though realistically, Elnor had to be long gone by now. If the "ninja" was even him. What would he be doing in a park anyway?

Sure enough, everything seemed normal when they arrived. Some people were walking, jogging, riding bikes. No Elnor, though. Then they heard a commotion coming from a bridge underpass, and the FBI in them made them go take a look. To Raffi's astonishment, they found a group of four guys hassling Elnor, who appeared to be struggling to fight them off.

Rios pulled out his badge as he strode forward. "FBI."

The thugs immediately took off at a run, and Elnor staggered back against the wall, only to slide down it to the ground. Raffi moved closer, her jaw slackening in shock as she saw the patches of hardening skin on Elnor's face.

He looked up at them, eyes wide and red. "Help me."

Soji's cell chimed in her pocket, and she dug it out with a frown. There was no one to call her on it except…Dahj. Jaw tightening, Soji answered.

"Hey."

"Hey," Dahj replied uncertainly. "Is everything okay?"

"Um…"

"What's going on?" her twin immediately asked. "I knew I sensed something was wrong."

Soji grimaced. "The case we're on…an artifact animated a computer virus, and it mutated and now…Agnes and I are infected." She heard her sister suck in a sharp breath. "But we're working on a cure," Soji quickly added. "And Raffi and Rios are still out looking for the artifact. We'll be fine."

"You can't lie to me," Dahj said.

Soji's shoulders slumped and she lowered her voice as she turned away from where Agnes was working. "Okay, yes, I'm freaking out a little," she admitted. "I just wish I wasn't stuck in quarantine, that I was out doing something."

"I'm wishing I could get out there, though I doubt I'll be of much help."

"Yeah. Kinda missing when you were a ghost following me around. I always knew you were right there."

"I'm still right here," Dahj said.

"I know." A tickle started in Soji's throat, then trickled its way up until she coughed on it. Red dirt spewed from her lips, and her eyes widened in horror.

"You okay?" Dahj asked, and Soji was suddenly glad her sister couldn't see her now.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she lied. Dahj would know, of course, but there wasn't anything either of them could do about it.

A clatter sounded from the workstation, and Soji spun around to find Agnes sitting on the stool, hands up in front of her and shaking.

"Agnes?" Soji hurried over, only to pull up short when Agnes looked her way; her eyes were opaque marbles with reddish dust sprinkling out of dry tear ducts.

"I can't see," she stammered. Her eyes had turned to clay. "I can't finish the antivirus."

"I have to go," Soji told Dahj. "Love you."

She hung up just as her twin repeated the words back to her.

Soji dragged the keyboard over to herself. "Tell me what to type."

"Help me," Elnor pleaded, arms wrapped around himself.

"Give us the amulet," Rios demanded.

Elnor's jaw visibly tightened.

"How did he even get infected?" Raffi wondered aloud.

"Wh-what?" he stuttered. "What's happening to me?"

"You were drawn out here by the women who died, right?" Rios said instead. "That's what's happening to you. Now hand over the artifact."

Elnor slowly reached inside the fold of his jacket and pulled out the amulet, which Rios snatched away from him. "Help me," he repeated.

"Yeah, alright," Raffi muttered and stepped in to pull him up off the ground.

"You're—" Elnor coughed, "—not going to neutralize it?"

"That won't reverse this. The amulet animated a computer virus that jumped to people. We need it to animate an antivirus."

Rios glanced over his shoulder at them. "We've both been exposed now," he pointed out.

"Yeah," Raffi replied grimly. "Let's hope that antivirus works."

They made their way back to the SUV and then headed for the hospital. Raffi called Soji on the Farnsworth to let her know they were on their way with the artifact.

"Thank God," Soji breathed. There was faint coughing in the background, and Soji's expression tightened. "Hurry," she added.

"What about the antivirus?" Raffi asked.

"It's ready."

With one hand on the wheel, Rios pulled out his cell and called the hospital. "This is Agent Rios with the FBI, I need a path to the morgue cleared. … Yes, I know the hospital is under quarantine; we're coming in with another case. Clear a path and make sure we don't run into anyone. You can seal the entrance behind us."

Raffi's jaw tightened as they approached the hospital parking garage, wondering whether security would do as they were told.

Rios drove all the way up to the loading bay for the morgue, and there was no one around. He hopped out of the car and sprinted to the doors; they were unlocked. Raffi helped Elnor out, and Rios waited for them before ducking in to help support the flagging kid. Then they hobbled down the hallway toward the morgue, which was still under lockdown.

"Soji!" Rios shouted through the doors. "Let us in."

Soji appeared at the small window and hurriedly unlocked the doors, and they shuffled inside. Rios handed her the amulet, then moved past her to rush to Agnes, who was slumped on the floor against a cabinet.

"Now what?" Raffi asked as she helped Elnor over to a slab.

"Um, I don't know," Soji faltered. "How do I make the artifact work?"

"Intent," Rios said.

"But how do we get it from the computer to us?" Raffi asked next.

"Same way it transferred initially," Soji replied. "Optically." She sat down in front of the computer and took a deep breath. "Okay, here goes nothing…"

She typed the activation code into the computer, and the amulet around her neck began to glow. Energy suddenly poured out of the screen and swept over all of them.

"Agnes?" Rios asked urgently.

Dr. Jurati blinked slowly several times, and then her opaque eyes cleared and returned to normal, and the cracks in her cheeks smoothed out. "I'm okay," she said, somewhat unsteadily.

Rios gripped her arm and helped her stand.

Raffi turned to Elnor, who was holding up his hands and watching his dried skin replenish.

"What about everyone else?" Rios asked Soji.

"I sent the antivirus through the security system," she replied. "It would have distributed through every camera in the hospital, inside and out."

Elnor slid off the autopsy slab. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Raffi slipped her set of handcuffs out of her back pocket and shoved the kid around so she could cuff his hands behind his back.

"What is this?" he exclaimed.

"You work for a mad scientist who murders people and steals artifacts," Raffi rejoined. "We're taking you back to the Warehouse for questioning."

Agnes contacted the hospital administration and security, taking charge over the situation. Rios stuck close to her as she ventured out to ensure everyone had received the cure and there were no new cases. It took a couple of hours to verify the crisis had been averted, and then Raffi and Soji took Elnor out to the car for the drive back to the Warehouse.

"How'd you even get infected?" Soji asked, echoing Raffi's earlier question. "The virus was in the women's computers that were hacked."

"I visited the victims' homes," Elnor freely admitted. "I found they all had receipts for the SuperBuy, and I tracked Tyler down from there."

"Too bad you don't use those skills for good," Raffi remarked.

"My skills are used in whatever way my employer needs," he said. "Though I agree, it is a shame we are not on the same side."

With that, he suddenly pulled his arms forward, having slipped his cuffs, and he drew the sword from his back that Raffi hadn't taken off him because she'd deemed him properly restrained. Raising it straight up, he bent the light around him and completely disappeared.

"No!" Raffi lunged, heedless of catching herself on the edge of the blade. But it didn't matter; the kid had taken off. "Dammit!"

She and Soji stood in the garage for several minutes, waiting to see if Elnor was going to attack them and try to take the amulet again. But he didn't. Furious, Raffi stormed back inside to find Rios.

He was still glued to Agnes's side as she stood at a nurse's station signing paperwork, but he finally moved away from her to come meet Raffi and Soji.

"Elnor escaped."

His brows rose sharply. "Seriously? And the artifact?"

"Still have it," Soji answered.

Rios shook his head. "Well, there's that. And we did save everyone, so that's a win in my book." His gaze drifted back toward Agnes. "Listen, you two head back to the Warehouse without me; I'll rent a car."

Raffi furrowed her brow. "Why?"

Rios looked over at Agnes again, who glanced up at that moment and smiled his way.

Raffi grinned. "It's about time."

Rios just smirked and walked away.

Raffi turned to Soji. "Guess it's just us girls."

Soji smiled mischievously. "Can I drive?"