Angela is sixteen before any real progress is made with her growth issue, and still not a millimetre taller than seven years prior. Oh, the solutions she and her adoptive family come up with over the years are plenty, but are all quickly discarded.
The first and most obvious one - removing the device in her chest - the Lindholms dismissed as soon as they suggested it at the very beginning of their research into the technology. Too dangerous, they said, and turned out to be right with the discovery of its recycling function. Without the unit to handle this process, the old and faulty nanites would remain in Angela's body up until and beyond the point of breakdown, poisoning every inch of her. A transfusion wouldn't help, at least not with certainty, since the machines are tiny enough to permeate not just her blood vessels, but every kind of tissue, even her brain. The network cannot be safely shut down, as it performs all functions of normal blood that Angela doesn't have. Not to mention the question of whether or not she even has a natural immune system anymore.
What they're left with is slowly, arduously, finding, isolating, and documenting each and every unique string of code tangled in the ball of twine that Mrs. Lindholm takes to calling Spaghetti Angelese, much to her adoptive daughter's thinly veiled disgust.
It's a lot of work, and a lot less exciting than Angela had once thought, but the things they learn are nothing short of revolutionary. Many sub-functions have the potential to change the world forever all on their own.
Take for instance how the device attached to her heart functions as a manufacturing plant for autonomous microscopic robots. It's a brilliant invention on its own, and entirely deserving of a Nobel prize Uncle will never have. It's also among the less radical of technologies in Angela's body. That prize undoubtedly goes to the inner workings of the nanomachines themselves.
The adults initially assumed, as did she, that the fabricator simply scoops up trace metals and microplastics she eats and breathes to produce her nanites with. It would be relatively simple to do, and so of course it turns out not to be the case. Uncle never was interested in simple solutions. What the fabricator does instead is cannibalise the biological cells in Angela's blood to somehow make very much synthetic nanites, somehow without blowing her up, who then consume the leftover cells for energy.
In other words, there's an alchemist's stone attached to her heart.
The potential uses for such technology are virtually limitless. If blood can be turned to silicone, then what's to stop the nanites from refashioning lead into gold? Dust into water. Water into wine. Sawdust into pork. Burnt sunny side-up into a soft-boiled egg. If her nanites actually break down molecules to arrange their atoms into a different pattern? Nothing. The age of scarcity would end. Not immediately, maybe not even quickly, but inevitably it would end.
Her adoptive parents seem a lot less enthused about it than she.
"No-one can know how it works. Ever. Not now, not in a hundred years. Understand?" Mrs. Lindholm cups her cheeks with trembling hands and the most intense look Angela has ever seen on her white as a sheet face. It would feel nice if she didn't look so scared. "The nanites are one thing, this is- I don't even know." There's a note of hysteria to her strained laugh.
"Is it bad?"
"No. No I mean, it's-, it's just…" the woman trails off, clearly in search of words and trailing circles on Angela's cheeks with her thumbs. "This technology is something people would do anything to get."
"Isn't that the same as before, then?"
Her adoptive mother draws in a shaky breath before answering.
"No." She shakes her head. "No it's not. Nanites are revolutionary for medicine, this would change… everything. The way the whole world works. It's not just bad people who'd be after you. Everyone would. Governments would. Understand?"
Not really. This feels exactly like the sort of thing she should go to Overwatch with. If it's so world-shattering then surely they would be able to help use it to bring a better future about? She'll have to talk about it with Mr. Lindholm. But for now, if Mrs. Lindholm says not to tell anyone, she won't be telling anyone.
"Okay."
The promise, naturally, does not include Angela's other adoptive parent. It does, however, extend to never talking about it over the phone with them, or through text, or around Brigitte or in public. Eye to eye conversations away from any electronic devices with microphone or camera only. Mr. Lindholm's reaction is much like his wife's, the difference mainly in that he briefly hugs her instead of holding Angela throughout the whole conversation.
It bears saying not all the discoveries they make are quite as significant. More often than not, the functions they find are rather less extraordinary. Recycling, for example, occurs wholly inside the fabricator unit. Which, given the nanites' apparent capacity for rearranging atoms, is perplexing to say the least. The red light, they think, appears to work as excess energy discharge. Like they suspected, each and every one of the microscopic machines is part of a greater computing whole, endlessly exchanging data between each other and the metal heart in an imitation of a neural network. How they have enough computing power for that fit inside objects just slightly larger than monocytes is anyone's guess.
They finally make a breakthrough just months away from Angela's high school graduation.
"I think I got it." Mrs. Lindholm announces with what must be the second-biggest smile she's ever seen the woman wear. She sported a similar expression when Angela first came to see newborn Brigitte, but also looked far worse for wear after her labour.
"This one." The woman points to the screen. "It's sending out commands to E22 and A1, and has a connection running at all times with A7." Ah. The immunological, restorative, and mapping codes respectively. "Remember how A7 always gives slightly different data? Well, this one runs a check against its database on that data, and then sends the result forward. If what I'm assuming is correct, there's got to be an executable somewhere in here that should upload a new blueprint to run the checks against. The issue's in here, I can tell."
It takes Angela a good few seconds to process the news.
"You mean it just- tears up any new cells I have?"
"It appears that way." Mrs. Lindholm turns her bloodshot eyes away from the screen to again grace Angela with her smile. "Don't worry, we'll get you growing again in no time at all."
The no time at all turns into weeks of checking and double checking, sometimes even with Mr. Lindholm's help, before they can finally move on to live testing.
Live testing on rats, that is. Angela remembers all too well the potential Uncle's tech has for developing what she can only scientifically call super-mega-ultra cancer.
They draw her blood and have Mrs. Lindholm disable it while Angela goes on a walk with her sister, so that the process doesn't interfere with the workings of her own body. Once Brigitte is taking a nap afterward, they begin their experiment and inject the pet-store rat with the inert nanites before turning them back on.
Immediately the rodent goes ballistic in its plastic cage, erratically zipping around and squealing like mad. The cause soon makes itself known as smears of itself are being left on the container's floor and walls in the rat's wake.
"Angela-" Mrs. Lindholm moves to block the view from her eyes.
"I want to see," she protests. It's her nanites. She has to know what they do, and it's just a rat. She's seen much worse.
"But you shouldn't. Go out, I'll call you when it's… when it's done."
"But-"
"No buts. Go."
Nine minutes pass before the workshop doors open again, and the woman ushers Angela inside looking five years older compared to just minutes ago. She asks her no questions. None are needed. The red mush left smeared across the cage's surface in the rodent's absence tells her exactly what's happened.
"Maybe we should try turning on individual codes one by one?" Angela suggests in the following silence.