The Virus

[Crash Override]

*Back on his room with everything in boxes,he started to search and study diferent languages in his notebook,trying to find out anything.*

-Hm..this virus is a little complicated...*Making a small model of nervous system in the screen*
-Wait...what i know about this? Think,think,think......I hate mindstorms. Looks like that i lost my night *Begin to digit some things on the computer*

[Ivan2006]

After putting the results of what the text is not from on Marcus' desk, Hope ran another test, searching for regularities in the text to try finding out its meaning.
She knew that certain combinations would propably pop up over and over, as it propably was a program, but if it was complex enough, it would depend on the programming language if anything would turn up.

[Ivan2006]

Did I say something wrong or is everyone waiting for Fenway to say something?
Hello? Someone here? Anyone?

[҉]

Did I say something wrong or is everyone waiting for Fenway to say something?
Hello? Someone here? Anyone?

It hasn't even been 12 hours. Give it time.

[Ivan2006]

Oh, right.
I didn´t think about the fact I already was online this morning (in my timezone)
Back to topic.

[cats]

'Nakar watched as the room emptied, save Marcus and Hope. The feles rose from her seat and approached the specimen cabinet on the side of the laboratory opposite of the two conversing scientists. The hermetical seal was broken as she opened the container and extracted a glass tube of infected brain tissue, then restored as she closed the door. She slid the vial in a robe pocket and glanced at the two humans. They were adequately distracted by some small metallic objects. 'Nakar left the room and continued to her quarters, stopping in the doorway to enter the code for quarantine-lock. It would be activated with a sudden, profound change in neural activity, infection, just in case.

The specimen container 'Nakar placed in a sealed sterile examination chamber. She rolled up the sleeves of her indigo aristocrat's robe and slipped her arms into manipulator controls. Mechanical arms in the container responded to her movements. The manipulators opened the jar and sliced a minuscule sample off of the tissue, then placed the sample on a microscope slide. She looked on the microscope viewscrene in the chamber control array and found several nanides in the tissue. She decreased the sensitivity of the manipulator controls and grasped one of the tiny automatons, pulling it from the dead flesh. The manipulators removed the robot from under the microscope and placed it in a small container filled with a liquid polymer, which hardened around the microscopic metallic organism.

'Nakar removed her arms from the control array and opened the chamber, retrieved the now-hardened polymer, and resealed the chamber. She took the minuscule prison to an electronic examination apparatus and slid it into the device. Electricity pulsed into the semiconductive polymer, through the parasite. Data began to flow onto the screen. Characters from the nanobot's code were compared to those of other known languages. After an hour or so, there had been no matches.

[Crash Override]

*Jeff was a little confused. Certains things dont work well with his brain*
-Thats a interesting development. And i dont have my whisky...*He ewas trying to orgnanize his room*

[Ivan2006]

Hope remembered she actually just got a collection of the symbols instead of an actual text.
Then it struck her: normally, code extracted from a program doesn´t bring up unknown letters when decompiled.
Quickly, she ran to lead researcher Marcus and asked for a copy of the decompiling software that was used in obtaining that stuff.
She was almost entirely sure it was bugged or hacked or something. Definetly not working. Or at least configured incorrectly.
That definetly wasn´t a normal decompiling result...

[Professor Fenway]

Markus raised an eyebrow at Cambles, and then nodded. "Just sit in the chair right here," he said. He motioned to a formidable looking chair. Cambles looked at Markus, and then the two nearby guards, and then sat down. It pulsed for a moment before clicking off. Markus looked at the data-feed from the computer and nodded. "That's it. You missed the orientation meeting, so i'll send you what we covered on it on the holo-pad you should have received."

"Thanks doc," Cambles replied. He left. Markus thought he was rather peculiar, but he couldn't identify what caused that.

//LATER//

Markus listened as Hope explained the decompiler and how it should have returned legal character inputs. "It's certainly possible," he said. "But how would we get the correct decompiler data?"

"Maybe it isn't encrypted," Hope said. "Maybe it's a riddle, not a password." Markus thought for a second, and then brought up the fraction of code. The symbols were still daunting. Markus put the selection through several filters, superimposed it, rearranged, but nothing. Frustrated, he hit his fist on one of the buttons on the computer- which happened to be the Reverse Polarity button. The computer started sparking, and Markus backed off as several electrical lines began arcing. He pulled Hope behind a data rack as the arcs became larger, expecting an explosion. Reversing the polarity was only meant to be done under strictly controlled circumstances. No explosion.

He looked from behind the data rack at the computer. It had stopped arcing, and the monitor was now glowing a sickly green glow. He slowly approached it and glanced at the screen. The data was still the same, only reversed in direction. He shook his head. "We almost killed ourselves for nothing."

"Wait a minute," Hope said. She approached the computer. She applied several filters to it. A static filter did nothing, a noise filter the same. Then she tried a red filter. The characters reformed into new ones... recognizable ones.

"What..." Markus copied the characters to his clipboard. "These are Old Roman!"

"Old Roman?"

"The empire we came out of in a bloody civil war. They were fairly reclusive. The language is dead, but we have files somewhere." He noted something on his holo-pad and sent the characters on the screen to the translation lab. "We should have this decoded in no time." He turned to Hope. "Nice work. In the meantime, I have work to do." He returned to the computer. Hope left shortly after.

The note said: Run the virus on a Positronic Computer.

[Error]

Cambles sat in his quarters, going over the briefings on their work and objectives. He transcribed the whole (unclassified) bit into Latin, and compiled the data and sent it via tight-beam transmission to a nearby Commonwealth prowler. From there, the vessel left the system for home.

[Professor Fenway]

Markus oversaw the scientists, from a nuclear-hardened blast chamber, as they loaded the virus-infected file into the computer. NeoRoman scientists, of course. It was loaded and the data transferred. As planned, the Positronic Computer suspended in a magnetic field emitted several radio waves as it communicated. He looked at the datafeed. The display was corrupted, yet pieces of the screen were rearranging themselves. Eventually it completely restored screen function. He found the virus file. It was certainly active, but not doing anything. He smiled, and then opened a decompiler program and tried to access the Virus. Blocked and obfuscated. He wasn't too surprised. The computer told him the virus was attempting to spread, but it's data was corrupted and therefore easily stopped and destroyed by the antivirus. He checked the logs. These fragments were not obfuscated at all. He told the computer to collect and put together the fragments into one unencrypted file, using data matching, sequencing and patching. It started doing so. He sat down, and watched as the file was assembled. 25%

[Prototype]

Omega began to twitch, he dismissed it as a side effect of the faulty stasis.

[Vinyl]

An urgent message for Dr. Kelly came in directly from Novum. It seemed to be a news broadcast...

[Prototype]

:::MESSAGE:::
:::THETA TO OMEGA:::
>_New orders, we are exterminating all organic life
:::MESSAGE END:::

:::MESSAGE:::
:::OMEGA TO THETA:::
>_I take orders from Alpha, not you
:::MESSAGE END:::

[Professor Fenway]

Markus analyzed the data from the completed decompiler. Old Roman, for sure. The virus certainly wasn't able to properly infect antimatter computers. It was incredibly complicated, and it was taking some time. He saved his progress then shut off his holo-projectors. He got up and made it in his mind to grab something to eat. Halfway to the door, the lights shut off. He tripped over a cord as the room was plunged into total darkness. The emergency light came on a second later. He scrambled up and grabbed the emergency communicator. He was about to dial security when the intercom came on.

"The entire base network has been compromised by the virus in a corrupted message from Novum! NeoRome is being inform-kKKKZKzkkzkkzkKKZKKkkkkzzzSSSshh-" It faded to static. The lights returned. Markus attempted to open the door. It refused to open for him. A small whirring noise caught his attention. He turned around and ducked, just as a high-intensity particle laser shot out of the automated defense system. The door caved in and blew out as the laser hit is, revealing a large hole. Big enough to fit a man. Markus dove through as the turret fired again. Fortunately for him, it missed.

He emerged in a chaotic hallway. He saw several scientists running toward some guards. He began to follow, but stopped short when the guards opened fire on the scientists. They slumped to the floor, dead, and one of the guards spotted Markus. He raised his weapon, and Markus raised his hands. Apparently this was enough. The four guards ran to Markus, covering each other as they moved through the hallway.

"Markus!" The leader exclaimed. "What the hell is going on? The scientists started attacking us, the defense system is shooting everyone, and nothing is working!"

"You heard the intercom," Markus replied. "The Virus has gotten Novum! Our base is infected! We need to get out now!" Knowing the base layout by heart, he began weaving through the facility. He encountered Omega in the security checkpoint, mowing down several scientists with his Jigsaws. He turned towards Markus as he approached and raised the Jigsaws, then lowered them as they didn't attack.

"The facility has been infected," Omega said. "It appears your scientists are being controlled as well."

"Overmind, I should have known," Markus replied. "We're evacuating the base."

"Probably optimal," Omega replied, eyeing two security drones that were approaching the group from down the hallway. The guards opened fire. The bullets merely reflected off of the unit and kept approaching. Omega ran towards the units and caught the first in his left Jigsaw, then smashed the second with it. He dropped the husks on the floor and proceeded to follow Markus to the landing pad.

Markus was nearly shot by Jacob's security guards as he entered the landing bay with the posse. They had found Hope, Shi'Nakar and Jefferson enroute to the landing pad as well. Markus surveyed the crowd of people at the landing bay. He identified most of the VIP researchers in the crowd, but there was no time for a headcount. A large cruiser landed in their midst and opened the cargo bay, just as several high-security combat drones burst through the barred entry doors. The guards opened fire as the drones began ripping through the crowd. Markus and the researchers piled onto the cruiser as the drones murdered nearly all of the survivors. They almost didn't make it, as the cargo door was closing too slowly. But one of the guards, Markus identified as UTA's, jumped out of the back and onto the oncoming drone, then shooting the AI core with his rifle. The door closed and the cruiser took off.

Markus finally did a headcount in the room. 4 NeoRoman researchers, 2 NeoRoman guards, 4 UTA guards, all the VIP researchers from other empires... wait.

Dr. Linn Kelly was missing.

//ELSEWHERE//

The expeditionary force into Novum is unmanned. It isn't usually. In fact, it was manned when it entered Novum space. That isn't important. The 10 ships followed each other in a spread formation, pausing on the edge of FTL capable space. The drives charged up, and each ship warped in a different heading. Slight, but over great distances, massive differences. Were there someone to analyze their jump patterns, each would have been headed to the capital of every major empire, including NeoRome. But there wasn't anyone.