Why is Death always smiling? Why is the Grim Reaper happy to do his grisly harvest? It is just because that is what he is suppose to do; he has no other purpose and he is perfectly fine with doing it. Its just a matter now that others get used to it because that's just the way things are.
The same is unfortunately true with malicious proteins, otherwise known as a prion.
A prion is simply a malformed or mis-folded protein. No one is too sure on how the first prion is formed, what causes the first protein to lose its original healthy shape. Regardless, when it happens, the malfunction is never corrected and instead, the first prion starts to effect other nearby proteins. They too become corrupted and malformed. An ongoing reaction occurs, a chain reaction that cannot be stopped. Cells, composed of proteins, start to die and are destroyed. This accounts for the holes in the brain of a victim which start to give it its sponge like shape, hence the name "spongiform encephalitis."
And like death, there is no known cure for it. Doctors can only diagnose it, try to find ways to avoid it and in the worse case scenario, simply ease the passing of those who were doomed to suffer its ravages.
Pelona worked like a madwoman.
Once she knew what she was looking for it was now no problem creating a test to diagnose whether someone was infected with it or not. The computer quickly found ways to identify the new prion form. After some high tech wrangling, she found a quick, simple and effective test. It just required a sample of cerebral spinal fluid. Okay, so a lumbar puncture wasn't the most comfortable or painless approach but when someone is about to have their brain eaten out, a simple needle to the back was the least of anyone's worries. However, the Asari was worried about something else.
How the heck did the original colonist get sick with this? What carried it? Where did it originate from? Time to get back to checking that particular batch of rats.
--
The first animal simply flash-incinerated seemingly the moment the boom echoed out of Lucas' rifle. Now was the moment of truth. All three of the men held their breath. They could hear the rain splashing off their helmets. Harrvok kept his rifle squarely shouldered, preferring to err on the side of caution. If these were stupid animals, he had no problem letting Lucas take them all out. He'd rather they not charge or find out where they were.
"See any more of them, Lucas?" Harrvok whispered above the dull roar of the rain. The downpour was picking up. Not good.
"Still looking." Lucas reported, still peering through his scope. The commando realized that there was one problem with having the wind to their back, keeping any microscopic sprays at bay. They were upwind. It was the one thing any hunter tried to avoid. The creatures would be able to smell them and the spent element zero from the rifles.
"I got two...they know something is up..." Lucas announced quietly. In his rifle, two of the creatures were standing relatively close to each other, at least what he could see. Which one to take out? The rain was interfering with his sights. He took a small consolation in that the water would at least cool the weapon just a little bit quicker. It wasn't sufficient compensation. Lucas went with the one he thought was closer.
Lucas felt the rifle kick and heard the inner mechanisms ready the next round while simultaneously cooling the components. He watched through his scope as the first creature simply explode, the other thrown to the ground by the blast. It opened its mouth, Lucas assumed that it was crying in pain. Can't tell from these distances. That's when he noticed more figures materializing.
Lucas motioned to Harrvok to keep his eyes peeled. Lucas was getting more contacts. A lot more. To make matters worse, he noticed they were all looking at their direction.
"I'm going to warn you men right now...I think they're onto us." the commando cautioned. Chroso flinched as the Dante went off again.
"Y-you mean we should get our weapons ready?" Chroso asked.
"My friend, that should have been done a long time ago. You should get ready to start firing it." Lucas replied. Meanwhile, Harrvok started taking abrupt sweeps with his rifle, still sighting his weapon.
"Lucas, I need you to stop peering through that scope and look at something." the Turian stated quietly.
"What?" Lucas demanded, sounding a bit annoyed. He had just seen those creatures starting to trot towards their direction. He wasn't sure they spotted them yet but he knew that they knew the general direction to go in.
"Look at the horizon." Harrvok instructed, pointing with a talon. Lucas then saw what the Turian field medic had seen awhile ago. At first Lucas did not want to believe it. He even strained the optical implants in his eyes to confirm his worse fear.
"Crud..." All along the horizon were small black dots. There were at least twenty of them. Each black dot was one of the creatures Lucas had shot. By now it was pretty certain that those creatures knew exactly where to attack.
"Harrvok, I'm going to take down as many as I can at these ranges. You and Chroso better start firing as they get closer..." Lucas stated, a pang of urgency in his voice. The sniper got back to his weapon and furiously worked the rifle. He prayed it wouldn't critically overheat anytime soon.
--
Julland spat off a few more rounds from his assault rifle before quickly diving back behind the cover of the Mako hull. The heavy rounds from the mounted guns slammed into the rover while spraying water all over from the rain. The Turian instinctively flinched when some of the water droplets hit him, reacting as if he got hit by real shrapnel. Looking over, he saw Shanata and Filara taking their turn before also being driven back behind cover.
"Those mercenaries are starting to cover the guns. We're losing fire superiority and they'll have us pinned down. Why isn't Dalora doing anything?" Shanata demanded. Julland wondered himself.
"Patience, I'm sure she knows what she's doing." Julland ordered. "I hope she knows what she's doing."
In fact, Dalora was still trying to figure out what exactly she was doing. She knew that they were already vastly outgunned from the mounted machine guns and that the arrival of the other mercenaries did not help them at all. What would be the most efficient move for her to do? Preferably, it was hoped she could take out both problems without getting a round planted between her eyes. Her head slowly drifted up until she saw the stream of rounds flying overhead. The former mercenary suddenly got her idea.
Glowing blue, Dalora prayed that her guess would be correct and she lit up a strategically placed singularity field. She could only hope that she guessed right. Her spirits lifted when she noticed the stray rounds, presumably from the mercenaries, starting to slack and the mounted gun rounds beginning to dwindle. Maybe she got it right.
Back behind the Mako, Julland did the best a Turian could to make a full grin. Even the Asari were a little shocked.
"Well, that's effective." Filara commented.
"And insidious...I like it." Shanata added.
"Quick, take out the guns, ignore the mercenaries." Julland ordered, firing his assault rifle. Shanata and Filara both joined in, now relatively safe from the mounted guns.
Dalora had opened a singularity rift right in front of the mounted guns. The powerful suction from the field had lifted the mercenaries off their feet and right into the path of the guns. Their bodies quickly became organic protection as the guns kept firing at where it assumed the hostiles were but now the rounds were stopping right into the bodies of the mercenaries. Taking a moment to regain her strength, Dalora sighed just in time to hear the two guns explode in a shower of debris. That was a relief. A couple moments later, after she was certain the dead bodies had collapsed back to the ground, she saw Julland and the two Asaris rushing toward her direction. She noticed Filara looking forlornly at the broken hull of the Mako. This was going to mean more overtime work for her.
"No time to rest, we have to take that compound out now!" Julland yelled, assault rifle still ready. Taking another breath and nodding, Dalora readied her shotgun, a round already in the chamber, and rushed into formation with them.
--
"They've taken out our defenses, McDowel." a technician announced. The team of computer jockeys and information crunchers waited apprehensively for their commander's next move.
"Should we send the next wave of our men?" another suggested. McDowell only shook his head.
"No. Prepare the combat drones. All of them. Have our men waiting in the other room. Send the drones out on my mark." McDowell ordered, still holding a persona of confidence.
"Yes, sir! They'll never see them coming."
"No they won't...no they won't." McDowell murmured in agreement.
--
Jima had allowed this one circumstance to be the only one to pull her away from the status screens that told her how her away teams were doing. Anxiety was already making good progress dissecting her insides out from her, this wasn't helping at all.
The Quarian doctor was joined by Dr. Hiprotos who was the only other physician informed of Dr. Pelona Sivini's discovery. A prion was going to be another creature altogether. Prions, malformed proteins, simply could not be destroyed the way bacteria or viruses could. In fact, they were much harder to eliminate and it was already almost a given that they would not be able to find a cure for it. In other words, contracting it already put someone beyond hope. They're only option now was to prevent infection. The problem was figuring out where it originated.
"All right Pelona, you remember which batch the rat came from?" Dr. Hiprotos asked as all three of them rushed back towards the labs.
"Yes, box number 43." Pelona announced.
"Good, we'll pull up the history of those rats and hopefully that'll narrow down where the prion is hiding." Jima agreed. All they needed to do was read what those rats had been exposed to. Pelona nodded her head as she opened the doors to the labs.
"Right, should be a fairly simple operat-...oh no..." Pelona stated softly. The very first thing they they saw coming in were the rat cages. The rats of cage 43 were clearly stumbling around and losing motor control. However, it looked like the rats in cages 44 and 42 seemed to be suffering the same effects. So were all the rats in the 40s row. In fact, it seemed that all the rats in all the cages were acting that way. Some were stumbling into the glass walls, others staggering in incoherent, aimless directions. Others were very much dead.
"This...does not narrow down where the prion is at all." Hiprotos stated through gritted teeth, fear and frustration mingling in him.
"No...but this might help..." Jima stated softly, pointing out one particular box of very sick rats.
"What's so special about that one?" Hiprotos demanded. Pelona suddenly recognized it and clearly became very pale.
"It's the control box...these rats should have had nothing in common with the other rats. They weren't suppose to be exposed to anything that might have infected them." Jima explained.
"Right, but they're clearly infected." Hiprotos stated. Pelona simply kept both her hands over her mouth to prevent her from screaming. Or sobbing. Perhaps both. Regardless, the prion was showing that it wasn't going to let this become any easier.
--
Harrvok was breathing in heavy, ragged breaths. He was surprised Chroso didn't simply lie down and die of a heart attack. The Salarian was trembling fitfully, even under the thick skin of his armor. The Turian once again shouldered his rifle and took one last defensive sweep before he was convinced they got every last one of the creatures. Satisfied, he lowered his assault rifle, spent wisps of element zero still trailing from the hot barrel.
"You all right, Lieutenant?" Harrvok asked.
"Yeah, great. Just great." Lucas panted, also heavily exerted. His left hand still clutched a bloodied survival knife. His other left hand held tightly to the Dante rifle. Open slits along the side of the rifle was clearly billowing out burning hot air. The Dante had critically overheated just a few minutes ago from the stress of constant fire. Normally, the rifle would expel the heat in steady shots but once exerted, the rifle would start storing heat in its internal heat sinks. Exert it too much and the rifle simply would shut down while all its energy focused to remove all the heat. Lucas had to resort to the survival knife.
"No one got bitten, right?" Harrvok asked.
"Nope." the commando answered confidently. Chroso simply flopped his head in the negative.
"I don't think so either, but don't try to be heroic, act in denial or shrug it off. If you really think you got bit, now is the time to talk." the Turian battlefield medic warned. He was greeted with the same set of answers.
"All right..." the Turian stated, removing the radio from his back and staring at the pile of bodies scattered around them.
"I better take a sample." Harrvok announced.
"Thank God they don't have any armor, otherwise this wouldn't have ended so well." Lucas murmured, keeping his eye on his still incapacitated sniper rifle.
"I've never seen these things around here before. Well, is that it? Can we turn around?" Chroso demanded.
"I wish, but no. We still have to find the field agents." Lucas replied.
"Judging by the former behavior of these things, we're only looking for what's left of them." Chroso grumbled.
"One part of me says don't talk like that." Lucas retorted.
"What do the other parts say?" the Salarian inquired.
"You're probably right."
Meanwhile, Harrvok was busy collecting swab samples from both the open wounds of the creatures and saliva from the large, beetle like jaws. He looked up at the lonely building outlines on the horizon as he finished.
"We better continue." Harrvok said.
"Right. I'll take point." Lucas answered, once again taking the lead.
--
Defeat. Bafflement. Despair. Anger. Frustration. Utterly demoralized. These were just a few ways to describe what Jima, Pelona and Dr. Hiprotos were feeling as they all sat around staring at the lab rats of the control group. Of course, someone could point out that if they felt that bad, someone could only image what the rats were feeling but that would have to wait for another day.
"How in the world could the control rats been infected? Prions can't be transmitted through the air, can they?" Hiprotos asked in exasperation.
"Never heard of one. Although that doesn't mean we can rule it out, I still think it's unlikely." Jima commentated, her head resting in a paw as she stared at the dying rats, hoping to get an epiphany.
"I don't get it. The control group was not exposed to anything. The system monitor history shows that they were not exposed to any contamination, even airborne ones. What's going on?" Pelona whined.
"There's got to be something we overlooked." Jima murmured. Pelona simply wanted to collapse and give up in helpless tears. She realized in the back of her mind that she had never been this emotional over her work. Another more secret part of her told her that it was because she was upset for Harrvok's safety but she quickly shuffled that to a small part of her soul that becomes victim to denial. Before Jima could respond, Dolphos sent a transmission to her.
"Noble Spectre, this one has good news and bad news to report to you." the Hanar announced.
"Bad news first." Jima stated quickly before her emotions would cause her to lock up.
"The bad news is mingled with good news. Julland and his team have passed the first wave of marauders and are making their way into the compound. The bad news is that this one will no longer be able to track them via satellite with them inside a building."
"But I thought satellites could do that." Jima argued.
"This one must admit that these are not military grade satellites." the Hanar replied blankly.
"Oh. Sorry. What's the good news?" Jima asked sheepishly.
"The innovative Merjj and his engineering team have smartly rigged up a drone that will send the necessary supplies for Julland's team to repair their electronics. It will be launching in two minutes and will arrive on their location in another two minutes." Dolphos announced.
"Wonderful. How about Lucas and his team?" Jima asked.
"They have made it within the village grounds. They have reported no serious trouble yet."
"Very good. Let me know if anything critical happens." Jima ordered.
"This one understands clearly. Shiloh out." Dolphos ended the transmission. Jima was just about to take a quick breath to steady herself when she noticed Pelona's head bolt up from resting in her arms.
"What? What's the matter?" Hiprotos demanded.
"Dr. Sivini, it looks like you have an epiphany." Jima commentated.
"Oh-Oh goddess...I...I just..." the panicked Asari desperately shot off from the table and rushed back towards the lab. Jima and Hiprotos scrambled after her.
"My gosh, is everything going crazy around here?" Hiprotos growled.
"I'm starting to wonder what sanity looked like myself." Jima mumbled.
--
Diplomacy went out the window. Chroso was a bit intimidated by the soldiers' abrupt approach to examining the buildings of the village. Harrvok would simply kick the doors in while Lucas would immediately step inside, pistol and knife drawn and take a quick sweep. They systematically swept each house and building. None of the hellhounds, (which Lucas took to calling the creatures) bodies, or more importantly, signs of Eulias and Siera, could be found. After the last building was finished, Lucas replaced the two weapons to retrieve his rifle. Now, the two soldiers were leading the way with a determined gait. The Salarian immediately sensed that things were going to go from bad to worse.
"Well, that's everything? What more do you boys want? There's nothing else I can help with here." Chroso said as firmly as he could. Truth be told, he was just scared out of his wits.
"Actually, your talents are probably going to become more desperately needed in a couple minutes." Lucas announced, his rifle sweeping in every which direction as they walked towards the fields.
"Why?" Chroso demanded. Harrvok decided to answer, also stubbornly clutching his assault rifle.
"Because there's a hole in the field that opened up. We have to check it." the Turian replied.
"A hole? You boys dragged me out here to look at a dent in the earth?" the Salarian spat.
"I have a feeling its more than a dent in the earth. If Eulias and Siera are not around here and not sending out radio calls, then that dark pit may be more than a hole in the ground." Lucas answered. Chroso gulped. For the first time in his life, he wished he wasn't an archaeologist.