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When I arrived back at the lab, Sarah, Allen and a third person were waiting there. The new guy was an even six, had blonde hair and blue eyes and was dressed in a pair of cargo pants, new work boots and a white T-Shirt and he had a Sig Sauer P226 strapped to his leg. I handed the boxes of research equipment off to Sarah and then looked the man in his eyes.

"Looks like you finally got your robot body", I smiled.

"No thanks to your lazy ass", Magellan said smiling back, "so Martin blew up the ship huh?"

I nodded, "James fill you in?"

He nodded, "yeah, have you seriously been flying this ship without me for the past five weeks?"

I sighed, "I wish I could tell you no."

Magellan sighed.

"Welcome to the party brother", I said patting him on the shoulder and walking to Sarah's lab, where I found her setting up the equipment, Alcatraz was in the room too, only dressed in that black elastic underwear that I'd seen Navy Infantry back home wearing in water training. He was sitting on an exam table and his Exo was in the corner. He looked like he was drunk off his ass.

"What happened to you?", I asked as he got off the table, wobbling a little.

"Martin happened", Alcatraz said as I helped him steady himself, "he hacked into my Exo and froze all of it's systems, Sarah had to take it off and I felt so lightheaded and dizzy without it that I fell and gave myself a concussion."

"Is that why you look drunk?", I asked.

He nodded, "I guess."

"Okay", I said, "that answers two questions, now here's three, why aren't you dressed?"

"Because he's running a serious fever", Sarah said, "last I checked it was 118, James and I put him in the shower and it only came down to 107. Jacob said that taking his Exo off shocked the computers in his head that handle his electronics and made them overheat. He's lucky that they didn't fry his brain. We need to get his Exo back on but if we do that then Martin will have a direct line to his brain, and seeing as how Exo's like his are custom built to fit your body."

"He's screwed unless you can lock Martin out", I sighed.

"Everything is spinning", Alcatraz said in a light pitched voice, sounding as though he was about to pass out, "I'm burning up too."

Magellan and I helped Al get back up on the table, "you stay put here", I told him, "your too badly disoriented to be up and around."

"Don't have to say that twice", Alcatraz said closing his eyes.

He took a deep breath. I looked him over. His skin had a dark red tint and I could see the wires underneath it. There were two pieces of metal in each arm, one between each elbow and shoulder and one between each of his wrists and elbows. There were also two between his waist and knees and two between his ankle and knee. There was a triangular configuration of bolts sticking out of his chest and there were probably more pieces on his neck and back. His hair was matted with sweat and the areas around his Connection parts were red. The metal itself was dark, making me think that it was hot and that was where his systems were funneling most of the waste heat. All and all, my friend was a mess.

"Martin just can't waste any opportunity to fuck with us", I sighed, "if Alcatraz dies then I'm gonna drop that tower into hell with him still in it."

"And I'll help you", Magellan said, "where the hell are we gonna sleep once this is over? We have no ship."

I sighed, "I'll figure something out. Until then I guess we'll do whatever work comes our way. We won't beable to do the amount of custom work we had on that one for a while, but we'll get back there."

"And how long will that take?", Magellan asked.

I shrugged and shook my head", I don't know Magellan. Bridge we'll cross when we get there."

"Well look on the one bright side", Magellan smiled, "before they pulled me out of those trashed computers, I managed to back up all of our music into my runtime files."

I looked at him, "you saved all 45,000 of our songs?"

He nodded, "all 45, 634 of them."

I smiled, "of all the weird shit to pleasantly surprise you. How many more of our files did you manage to save?"

"I got all of our contacts, your jobs and most of our tuning files off the main computer", Magellan said, "I didn't have the time to save most of our older junk files, you know, all the stuff that we didn't want around, but didn't want to trash."

I sighed, "at least we have that, once we get off world, we can find a place to hold up until we can figure out our next move."

"Speaking of next move", Magellan said looking at Sarah, "what's ours?"

"For now", she said, "develop some kind of way to combat Red Star other than killing off those infected. I figure if I can isolate the bonding genes of Red Star's structure code, then maybe I can write a genetic agent to target and dissolve it and tear Red Star apart at a cellular level."

"Such treatments are dubious at best though Dr.", Magellan said, "less than a 5% success rate. For a higher chance of success, you'd want to write an antibody program that orders the parasite to suspend or reverse it's attack on the host system. By doing so your chance at success would jump to the 60 percentile range."

"Reverse", I asked myself, "what about a DNA scissor? I remember learning about them in 9th grade."

Sarah looked at me, "DNA scissors are at best unpredictable. You have to know exactly what Gene to target and know the Genome down to the very last letter before you could even think of trying to write one. Even once you've written it, you still have to formulate the dropper shell and make sure the parasite will attack them. Now having said that...it may not be a bad idea. If I can get my hands on some weakened samples of the Red Star Virus, then maybe I can reprogram them to attack other cells of the Virus."

"I fail to see how a DNA scissor will play a part in any of this", Magellan said.

"The vaccine would contain the weakened virus cells as a base component", Sarah began, "these cells would carry the Scissors to other cells and latch on, implanting the Scissors into the other cells before dying. The Stage 2 cells with the scissors would then have the genes for reproduction cut and replaced, the result would reprogram them in to cells that attack and destroy Red Star. When they duplicate, they would seek out other cells as hosts to implant nuclei into, the nucleus would then split into as many parts as I program it to, forming Anti Bodies for the Red Start virus, which would then seek it out and destroy it. Once the parasite, virus, whatever Red Star is, cleared the host's system, the anti bodies would then program every cell in the hosts body to attack or resist Red Star infection, leaving the host completely immune to further attacks from the virus."

Magellan nodded, "if formulated properly this would be a very powerful Vaccine and the science behind it could be used to combat even things like cancer, however, if once protein or Genome is misplaced the vaccine could lead to severe illness and even be fatal to the host. Further more, I see this research as taking long periods of time, which is something we don't have."

"Then that means I can't miss my first throw", Sarah said checking Alcatraz's temperature, "which also means I need to get to work, which means Sky, you'll be watching our little soldier here."

I nodded as Magellan continued on his rant.

"I highly doubt that you can succeed on your first try doctor", he said, "a vaccine as complicated as what you describe requires large amounts of formulation and research."

"The lab provides Magellan", Sarah said, "you'll be helping me with this. Trial and error is part of the scientific method. If it means I gotta shot myself with a deadly virus and place my hopes on a cure that I put together myself, then so be it."

Magellan shook his head, the human side of his AI now overshadowing the machine, "that's just...retarded Sarah. Your really willing to shoot yourself with a fatal virus and then a cure that you put together on a workbench?"

"I put your ass back together on a workbench", Sarah said, "you turned out fine."

"Point taken", Magellan said sighing, "guess we have a lot of work to do then."

"Take Alcatraz back to the lounge and stick him in front of a fan", Sarah said, "I know your not supposed to do that to bring down a fever, but it would help with his headache and might help to cool off his electronics. Cover him up if he get's too cold, just get his temperature below a hundred, if gets past 110 again we'll never get it back down."

I nodded and lifted Alcatraz to my shoulder. He didn't feel that heavy, but I could feel the heat radiating through his skin and his heart pounding in his chest. His breathing was shallow too. I guessed that his body had gotten so used to the Exo augmenting it's abilities that it didn't feel right without it. This was one of the reasons why Aegean said he never had an Exo operation done, even though Dad had said he should because it would make him a better solider. I entered the lounge and set Alcatraz, who'd now woken up, in the bean bag he'd been sleeping in and put the fan in front of him.

"Why the fan?", he asked wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"Sarah said it might help cool your electronics", I said switching it on, "let me know if you get too cold and I'll turn it off."

He nodded as I sat down on the couch and took the radio off my back. I had a sore spot on my back from where the metal had rubbed off the Chitin and my head felt like someone had engraved the pattern of the radio harness onto it.

"Make this thing more comfortable to wear", I said handing it to Jacob.

"Will do", Jacob said heading from the lab to the Machine shop.

I started getting dressed as Matt and Alcatraz started talking.

"You look like hell Al", Matt said.

Alcatraz laughed, seeming as if he was having trouble breathing, "I feel like I have a red hot rock sitting on my chest. I need my Exo back before my body shuts down."

"Man if this is what losing an Exo does to you then I don't want one", Matt said.

"Just don't lose it", Alcatraz said shifting on the bag, seeming as if he were trying to push weights off his chest, but knew there weren't any there to begin with, "and you won't end up like me."

Matt laughed a little, "yeah, there will be plenty of laying around the house in my underwear after I get married and have a couple of kids."

Alcatraz took a deep breath, "it's all I can stand against my skin at the moment. I feel like I'm on fire."

"Tyler will try and get your Exo working as soon as he's done at the 300", Allen said, "just hang in there brother. Losing the Exo might suck, but you won't die from it."

"Are you sure?", Alcatraz asked, "cause I feel like I'm going to if I don't get plugged back into it soon."

"I'm sure", Allen said, "I used to have one, but it got fried in an EMP blast and I remember being in your exact position for days while my body adjusted to the disappearance of the augmentations."

Alcatraz sighed, "I hope I get mine back before then. Now please guys, stop taking, my head hurts."

Alcatraz closed his eyes and Matt came to sit by me leaning into the back of the couch.

"How long till we get out of here Sky?", he asked.

"Soon", I answered, "at least I hope so."