In this world, optical microscopes could only reveal details on the micrometer scale.
To observe anything smaller, such as molecules and atoms at the nanometer scale, researchers had to rely on other instruments.
Observe, yes. Not actually see.
An electron microscope determined the shape of molecules and atoms by interpreting how waves interacted with them.
It was similar to taking an X-ray. The resulting image showed the shape of the bones inside a body.
But an actual bone, removed from the body and examined directly, looked very different from its X-ray image.
Perhaps the difference between a person and their shadow was a better comparison.
In other words, an electron microscope could only show an atom's shadow, not what the atom actually looked like.
It couldn't reveal the finer details!
The Gastrea virus was so incredibly small that this world's researchers couldn't clearly make out its structure, leaving them unable to unravel its secrets.
But equipment more advanced than anything available in this world had finally offered a glimpse of its true form.
Based on those observations, the actual virus might measure only a single nanometer, or perhaps even less. It was frighteningly small!
It also resembled an RNA virus. Such viruses were unstable and mutated frequently, which generally made it difficult to develop drugs that specifically targeted an infection.
The Gastrea virus likewise possessed an extraordinary capacity for mutation, but its behavior differed from the instability of RNA viruses.
Combining years of research with this much clearer view of its microscopic structure, Muroto Sumire had realized that the Gastrea virus actually possessed a stable form of memory.
Yet even that stability was different from what the term normally meant.
It had an ability similar to shape-memory metal!
The virus began with an original form. Upon encountering its first host...
"...If we can find the replication information hidden within it, we can resolve the problem of the Gastrea virus's mutations."
"Um, could you explain that in a way the rest of us can understand?"
It was already the second day of research, and Tendo Kisara simply couldn't follow the doctor's technical terminology.
"You know slimes, those creatures that appear in fantasy novels? In some stories, they can mimic anything they've come into contact with. Now, imagine Earth is a human body, and the people living on it are its genetic material. Changes to that body depend largely on how those people reshape the planet.
"If humanity suddenly turned into a different species, its sense of aesthetics would change too. It would start rebuilding Earth according to those new preferences, until the planet became unrecognizable. In this example, slimes are what cause that transformation.
"A person accidentally eats a slime that has already taken the form of some animal. That animal represents the genetic material of another species. The slime remembers that form, so whoever eats it becomes infected. Its shape-memory properties make the infected person start changing into that species.
"But people don't eat just one kind of food. Several things they eat might actually be transformed slimes. That means they end up mutating into a mixture of two or more species.
"Those mutated people, who now represent the Gastrea virus, then infect the remaining normal people, or genetic material, at an incredible rate. Once all the people who make up Earth's genetic material have changed into something else, the body they create won't be our blue planet anymore. It could become something completely alien."
That attempt to translate the explanation into an analogy came from Kain.
Even he thought he'd made it a little convoluted, but Kisara seemed to understand.
"So? How do we treat it?"
She pressed him for an answer.
"Find a slime that mimics a human and administer it as a vaccine," Sumire answered. "As long as the concentration of that human-mimicking virus in our bodies is higher, we won't have to worry about infection by other Gastrea viruses. If we inject a sufficiently concentrated dose into a Cursed Child, its shape-memory effect could overpower that of the Gastrea virus already inside her and restore her human form."
"Then where do we find a slime that mimics a human? A Gastrea virus that's taken on human genetic information?"
That question came from Shiba Miori.
"Doctor, could there be some among healthy people?"
Satomi Rentaro sounded hopeful.
"Unfortunately, I doubt any exist among the surviving population."
"Why?"
"Because someone infected with a virus that takes human form would have to undergo a complete reconstruction at the molecular level. Imagine your entire body being ground into powder, then rebuilt. That process effectively kills you once. If a dead person appears again afterward, would you really call them the same living person? What comes out is essentially an unconscious clone. Someone in a vegetative state."
Miori and the others felt their hearts sink.
In this day and age, almost no one would keep a person in that condition alive.
Still, that didn't mean there were none. Someone might love the person too much to let them go and have enough power to ensure they remained alive.
Their first priority, then, was to find people in that condition.
"Doctor, if infection means being reconstructed, effectively dying once with no way to bring your original self back, then isn't that like wiping all the data from a computer? How can you call that a vaccine? Are we supposed to save everyone by leaving them in a vegetative state?"
Miori questioned her again.
"Strictly speaking, they wouldn't be in a vegetative state. They'd be more like newborn babies. And if an accident had cost them a part of their body, the reconstruction should restore it."
Sumire amended her earlier explanation.
Even so, almost no one would accept that outcome.
The person who emerged would no longer be them.
"However, using it together with this might allow the two to complement each other and prevent the consciousness from being erased!"
She gave the miraculous medicine in her hand a little shake.
The Elixir.
With it, dismantling and rebuilding the computer might not mean losing all its data.
As new cells formed, creating new storage, the information in the old hardware might be transferred into them.
That was the hypothesis she had developed from observing the decline in the Cursed Children's corrosion rates after they took the Elixir.
Once their corrosion rate dropped to ten percent, however, taking another dose caused a problem. Their consciousness remained awake throughout the transfer, allowing them to feel their nerves being torn apart and reconstructed. The pain was so far beyond endurance that it could kill them outright.
If the Elixir were combined with a Gastrea virus carrying human genetic information, that extreme pain should be avoidable.
The virus's shape-memory properties would allow the information to transfer intact, in one smooth operation. It would no longer resemble a bad internet connection, sending data in fits and starts and causing unbearable suffering along the way.
Of course, all of this was still inference.
Sumire hadn't rested since yesterday. She had developed these theories from the phenomena she observed using the larger equipment Kain had brought over.
Only actual human trials could establish whether she was right.
"So, Mr. Kain, do you know where we could find a Gastrea virus that has exclusively copied human genetic information?"
Sumire suspected he already possessed a human specimen like that and had used it to develop the Elixir.
The relationship between the two seemed too close to be a coincidence.
But if he already had such a specimen, why go out of his way to have her conduct this research?
One possibility was that he didn't understand much about it himself. Perhaps he had stumbled onto the Elixir without knowing the underlying mechanism.
Her question immediately drew everyone's hopeful gaze to him.
"I don't."
The hope in their eyes faded.
Still, Sumire's explanation reminded Kain of something he had once read about another medicine.
The Panacea!
"What is it, Lady Seitenshi?"
Kisara's phone had rung. She answered in a seemingly gentle voice that nevertheless carried a distinctly mocking edge.
Whatever the person on the other end said caused a subtle shift in her expression.
Kain could see her satisfaction at someone else's misfortune. Something she had been waiting for had finally happened.
Which meant Hiruko Kagetane had probably obtained the case.
And he was likely preparing to summon the Stage V Gastrea, Scorpio!
(End of Chapter)
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