The Virus

[Professor Fenway]

After hearing Kayntor's story, he shook his head. "Nobody in our facility would do something like that," he said. "But I am curious as to how they managed to get access to base controls. May I see the holo-pad?" Kayntor handed it to him.

"It won't turn on, and you don't have..." Kayntor started to say. Markus had already booted it and overrode the security.

"Hmm, there seems to be hardware not... hold on." Markus shut off the holo-pad and removed the casing, revealing an extremely complex set of circuitry and data-spheres. He scanned it, and then reached into the minuscule device. He pulled out a thin, nearly transparent sheet of carbon fiber. "Here's the problem. Someone's been tampering with it." He reassembled the device and turned it on. Nothing out of the ordinary. "Follow me."

After a minute or so, they entered one of the many unused test chambers. Markus opened up one of the computers and inserted the sheet into an empty data port, made sure the computer was disconnected from the base's data net, and then booted it. It hardly did so, and kept returning division by zero, floating point, and exception errors. "I knew it."

"You knew what?"

"This isn't THE Virus, it's A virus. Someone programmed it, put it in this chip, and then inserted it into your holo-pad. It was obviously made specifically for the holo-pad, given all these errors." He looked at the computer, which was still fritzing out. "Definitely not NeoRoman though." He pulled out the sheet and crushed it. "We don't need this." He then sent it through a hole in the wall marked incinerator. "So that's that. I'm not sure who would do such a petty thing, but we will keep an eye out. I'll scan the security database for any other violations and investigate it."

"Thanks, Markus." Kayntor then left for his room. Markus then returned to his own office. After entering the code and submitting a cortex scan, he entered. He failed to notice the missing data sheet.

(NOTE: Cortex scan is the next-step up from retinal. It scans the brain, verifies a pattern, and makes sure the person is A- Conscious, B- Willingly opening the door, and C- Not under the influence of any sort of mind control, intoxicant, etc etc.)

(Also, all luggage scanned and such, so Vinyl, any experiments with potential for catastrophic damage had been deactivated and removed.)

[Vinyl]

((The experiments were all in essence the same with one changed variable and were designed to test the CX-30 neural implant when exposed to a variety of situations and their affect on the implant. The reason she brought them with her and they're ongoing is because most of them require near-constant observation or contact to complete or the situation is slow. Such as what happens to the implant when say, the brain become unconscious due to their constant link to the mind, sort of like how MMOs require constant internet connection. Plus she was informed of these procedures and thus removed any possibly damaging ones from the list of ones to bring so as to avoid any malfunction with the experiment.))

[Iv121]

Jacob entered Markus's office "Can I help you dc. Davidson ?" "Actually yes, I would like to examine the body of the dead crew member from the crashed rigate" "He is in the medical lab" answered Markus. In the medical lab Jacob began to scan the brain area of the victim. He carefully read the data from the scanning until he found what he looked for - a faint EM signature indicating an active tissue. He began to cut the tinny tissue out of the subject's brain. He took one of the canisters and put the tissue in it, closing carefully, then sew the open tissues to return the body to its original form. He ran to the microscope to look at the tissue. The tissue itself was dead as he could expect yet it wasn't what he looked for. Markus entered the lab to look at Jacob's work "What are we looking at ?" "Call the other scientists" he said. The scientists came to the med-lab.

"sit down please." said Jacob as he calibrated the screen to show the picture from the microscope. "I'd like to talk with you about this" he pulled out a closed canister with the "NC-5" mark on it and put it under the microscope. On the screen appeared the small creature - It had 10 parts resembling legs, a plating covering its back and finally a head. It wasn't an ordinary head though, it was shaped as a flattened triangle." "What is this ? Is this mechanic ?" "Yes it is mechanic, and now I'd like you to see this" he took out the canister with the NC-5 marking and put the tissue canister under the microscope. The screen now showed another creature, it was identical to the previous one. "What are they ?" asked one of the scientists "The first one is a nanite, extracted from an alien ruin on Aurora station, the second one is a nanite extracted from the dead crew member's body. Those nanites are unique, they attach to live brain tissues through various points of entrance, like any other microbe or infection. Once they attach to the brain they can actively give control to a 3rd party over the body. At Aurora station the infected people became mindless zombies as no one controlled them but here ... here we have someone controlling them. Not only those nanites can attach to brains of living creatures but it can also attach to computers and electronics, using the same framework to connect to them and using machine code to control the computers, the perfect virus. It can spread itself through bodies, through computers and cyberspace in a code form, but the worst part is that if they find a facility capable of creating nanobots they can reproduce".

"I might know how the virus escaped the quarantine. One nanite caring it attached to one or maybe more crew members, the nanite could control the body to go to restricted areas and using the computer framework give it access to the quarantine zone. The detector couldn't detect it because the victim was full conscious, did it from his own will that was created by the nanite. It became an integral part of the victim's brain and so it was impossible to differ it from normal brain activity, unlike mind manipulation through EM waves. The only question that remains is how an Alien nanite appeared on board the frigate ... and who did it. Another important question would be if the overmind controls those nanites"

[Iv121]

Oh and I also archived the screen data for you:

Spoiler:

[Ivan2006]

After checking the situation by contacting the EES Lightning with Jeff, Hope grabbed a box and went to Lead Researcher Marcus.
"These hairclips I have here contain a miniature version of the technology used by the EE on the Orbital Friendship Cannon.
They are constructed to counter the specific psionic frequency used by Overmind in case the Virus took control of it.
However, due to their short range, they have to be worn directly on the head.
It ticks every ten seconds, thus not actually preventing mind control, but limiting it greatly.
I brought 20 pieces as I didn´t know how many researchers would come.
What do you think?"

[Crash Override]

After checking the situation by contacting the EES Lightning with Jeff, Hope grabbed a box and went to Lead Researcher Marcus.
"These hairclips I have here contain a miniature version of the technology used by the EE on the Orbital Friendship Cannon.
They are constructed to counter the specific psionic frequency used by Overmind in case the Virus took control of it.
However, due to their short range, they have to be worn directly on the head.
It ticks every ten seconds, thus not actually preventing mind control, but limiting it greatly.
I brought 20 pieces as I didn´t know how many researchers would come.
What do you think?"

- i would use a hairclip. Danmit,i will use my cloacking robe that mantain a limiting field of alpha waves,limiting how my brain is controlled.

*He said accompaning miss.Hope,as he dont want to be in her room forever*

[Professor Fenway]

Markus shook his head as Jacob finished his talk on the Nanites. "We haven't detected any of these Nanites entering or leaving the complex, save the ones you brought in. As such, it is likely not a problem." He pulled up a sensor map of the remains of the Halifax. Only a molten crater. "As you can see, we incinerated the entire area around the Halifax's destruction site. If there were any additional Nanites, they would have been destroyed." He closed the map and returned to the table. "We will keep an eye out for suspicious behavior, as always, and these Nanites. But, since you're all here, I'll run down on what we've discovered."

He pulled out his holo-pad and synced it to the table, where other holographic images began appearing. "The Virus is written in a foreign computer language, yet unknown to our systems. Due to it's viral nature, we've been forced to use old Analog computers for research. We managed to obtain a small amount of code from it, which I will show." He tapped something, and several characters revealed themselves over the table. Judging by the looks, nobody recognized it. "I thought as much." He removed the characters and tapped something. "I forwarded to you a copy of the characters. I recommend checking with your respective empires for any knowledge or database entries on them. But for now, lets move on." He switched the screens.

Now the hologram showed a detailed cross-section of a mind completely converted by Overmind. "This is the late control phase of Overmind, about 1 hour into control start. As you can see, the entire brain has been converted into a super-computer structure. The computer structure does not appear to retain the cognitive functions of the host, but we're not sure if that is a result of the conversion, or another factor. It will blindly follow any order given, no matter how difficult or threatening."

He then zoomed in on a section of the brain, revealing some sort of structure. "Overmind has another effect, where the efficiency of food processing is tuned to nearly 100%. Even normally insoluble materials, such as pure carbon, will be absorbed by the affected body. We believe this structure is responsible. The extra materials have been seen to flow here, but no activity has been observed to date in all three of our permanent specimens." He then closed the hologram.

After explaining the method Overmind uses to control subjects, answering questions, and related topics, he finally dismissed the assembly. Hope shortly approached him.

"Could I have a moment of your time?" Hope asked.

"Yes."

"Alright then." Hope reached into a small box and pulled out what appeared to be hair clips. Markus raised an eyebrow. "These are built using technology acquired through EE's Orbital Friendship Cannon. I thought it may be useful."

"I suppose they could. It may not, though." He sighed. "Do you mind giving a few over for testing? We may be able to identify its limits."

"That's fine. Let me know if they're of any use." Hope then left the room, leaving Markus with three clips. He put them into a nearby envelope. He also took the container with the recovered Nanite. He sent both to a dedicated research lab for detailed analysis, and then left the room.

[Iv121]

"So how did the meeting go ?" asked the Sergeant "Average to say the least. They are stuck inside the box, can't see the whole picture. What threatens me is not the nanite itself which I'm rather familiar with but the fact it ended up in this facility with the super virus loaded into it and a direct connection to the overmind if my assumptions are correct" "Someone brought them in ?" "It is a possibility, a good way to find out is to know more about project overmind and how it is linked with the aliens."

[Error]

Cambles walked into the main lab and raised an eyebrow towards Markus.
"I'm here. I believe I was to take a personality test?"

[Ivan2006]

Hope walked back into her room, looking at the symbols she got a copy of.
Having arrived there, she checked the symbols with her database.

searching symbol origin...
searching Mobian Alliance...
searching Time Lords...
searching Xorda...
searching Black Arms...
searching old earth civilizations...
searching Strigiforme...
searching Alterans...

The list went on a lot longer, but didn´t bring up any proper match.
Hope printed out the list and went to Marcus, as a list of cultures known for not using that system is the best she could get.

[Iv121]

Jacob attached the data on the symbols to the request to compare them with the alien glyphs back at UTN command. "I’m not xenologist" he thought to himself "but I bet my wine rack it will be a perfect match".

[Prototype]

Omega woke up from stasis:

"Damn machine, I told Alpha this one was on the blink"

Omega was confronted by the sudden realisation that he had missed quite a lot.

[Professor Fenway]

(OOC: Lightspeed, please stop plagiarizing text and stuff. As such, your thing is invalid. Don't do it again.)

[Crash Override]

(OOC: Lightspeed, please stop plagiarizing text and stuff. As such, your thing is invalid. Don't do it again.)

[OCC: Sorry,i dont knowed that someone already used it >< Im really sorry DONT KICK ME T-T

[Professor Fenway]

(OOC: I don't mean that. I mean you plagiarized it from a little known game. I know, because I searched it. Be creative.)