Tunnel Rat Chapter 379 (Patreon)

Milo found himself hustled off to the pre-surgery scrub room and given a crash course in scrubbing for surgery: Rhebus style. The first step involved a shower using a decontamination booth that not only cleaned him but took off three layers of dead skin cells. Protective eyewear kept the chemical bath out of his eyes, but the fumes tickled into his nose uncomfortably. His siblings shouted out encouragement.
"Make sure to use the stiff brush to loosen things up."
"And the smaller brushes to get in between your toes."
"That always stings!"
"If your toes don't sting, you're doing it wrong!"

He exited and was wrapped in a very large hot towel and given his first set of surgical scrubs and mask. For all their banter, he was impressed with how thorough they took their preparations. Finally, he was seated with everyone but Nina, observing the surgical arena through a glass window with overhead screens showing different angles and a computer screen in front of him. Nina was sitting next to Belinda's pod with a control station in front of her.

Milo looked at the console in front of him with controls for operating small Waldos and manipulating the tools used for endoscopic surgery. "I have a question..."

Bork said, "Nope, you don't get to run the show. There is a set pecking order. Nina is the head surgeon, and the rest of us are on backup duty today. No brain surgery for you!"

"You don't know how thankful I am for that."

Zander turned and lightly bopped Bork on the head, "Rude. You have to let him ask questions! He was looking for volunteers to practice on."

Bork nodded, understanding finally, "Oh, in that case, I'll volunteer."

Everyone looked at Bork.

"I volunteer Zander as Milo's experimental guinea pig. He doesn't have the mental capacity today to be responsible for himself, so I'll make his decisions for him. Ignore the garbled mouth noises he's making. He's excited about Milo digging around in his frontal lobes."

Onyx considered the statement, "A dangerous precedent, volunteering others. But exciting. I volunteer to watch as an impartial observer and judge whether any of you are responsible enough to make your own decisions. Don't worry, I'll be very fair."

Milo saw that Nina was almost about to begin, and snuck his question into the conversation, "Why the scrubs?"

Algernon answered, "Partly for fun. Partly for practice. But mainly, in case something goes wrong and Nina needs help. You never know when the fun and games end. Being ready can save a life."

A countdown flashed three times, indicating Nina was ready to begin. For the next two hours, Nina carefully used non-invasive surgery to take a set of thin wires up through the nasal cavity and then into part of Belinda's brain, aiming for a point where her scans showed nanites at work modifying her nervous system. She was slow and careful, taking no chances. When finished, she brought out a minute tissue sample that should contain the microscopic machines that were loose in Belinda's body.

"Milo and Zander, you're up. Isolate one of the beasties and start comparing it to our notes. I'm going to close up and then monitor her for the next day. Bork, you're backing me up first, then Onyx. Al is on monitor duty and gets to run Rhebus today."

Everyone saluted, Milo half a second behind the others, "Yes, Head Surgeon!"

A day later, Milo was completely involved in tearing apart, figuring out, and redesigning the nanite crawlers created by Vigo or his Father. They were ingenious in design, but a blunt instrument. They were designed to do one thing only and keep doing it until they registered certain chemical compounds and they shut off. The small piece of tissue had hundreds of them, all working to enhance her nervous system. They were dangerous, with very little in the way of control systems, like a car that kept driving until out of gas, something broke, or it encountered a very specific sign. Milo was sure Vigo had only used them because of lack of time, and his expectation to purge them from Belinda's system at a later date.

Zander was figuring out exactly what the control substances were, testing all of the drugs Belinda had been given and similar compounds. Carefully testing one nanobot at a time, he found three drugs that caused them to alter their behavior. The first put them into a static mode, ready to get back to work. The second caused them to disengage and go dormant, but he wasn't sure for what time period. Theoretically, they could be more easily flushed from the body when dormant. Static nanobots remained attached to the nerve tissue they had been working on, ready to resume. The last chemical reactivated static machines which then searched for nerve tissue to upgrade. 
When he had exhausted all possibilities, he slowly came out of his state of intense concentration, exhausted. 

Bork handed him a large chocolate nutrient shake, complete with whip cream and a cherry. Algernon had come up with them, using the logic that if you needed 4000 calories, you needed a milkshake. No one disagreed. 

"Everything fine?"

Bork looked distressed, "Yes, and no. Belinda is fine. But I'm worried about Milo."

"How so? What happened?"

"He linked into our system and is working with Rusty to examine, modify, and test new versions of the nanobots. And when I say 'Examine, modify, and test', I mean all three lines of thought at once. I'm recording it all because I can't follow it. I think he's separated himself into four people, one in charge of the other three. He has to be accessing some type of advanced form of an Overmind. He's well past our own experimentation. It's driving me crazy trying to figure out how he did it."

Zander looked over to where Milo was working, images on screens flashing past at breakneck speed, fingers tapping keys, and eyes half open. Three empty nutrient shakes sat on a nearby table. "Is he ok, what are his stress levels?"

Bork shrugged, "Less than half of yours. He's fine. Nina thinks that working this hard is what keeps him sane. I already sent Mama a supply of nutrient shakes. She worries a lot about him."

"Well, get me another shake. I'm going to take a look at his notes, use the micro-fabricator to create one of his designs, and see what it does. I've learned more about nano-design today than in the last five years. And once this project is over, we should sit down and have a long talk with him about what he's doing. Can you imagine how much more we could do with all of us operating like that?"

"I do, which is why I also put in a huge order for the ingredients Algernon uses to make his shakes. Chocolate, vanilla, or passion fruit this time? Or would you like an assortment?"

"Go with the assortment, with extra cherries."

When Milo finally disengaged fully from the Rhebus computer system, he saw Rusty wave and disappear, anime music that had been playing in the background slowly fading away. The alphabet was all around him, also looking exhausted. "What happened?"

Nina had huge bags under her eyes. Bork and Algernon were nodding in place, awake but not talking, and hooked to I.V. drips. Zander was going over a schematic with Onyx and sipping a milkshake. Milo realized he was famished.

Nina handed him a similar dessert. "Here, eat this. Good for you, and you've already eaten nine of them, and I had you on a drip for a few hours. You've been in a continuous state of hyper-awareness for thirty-three hours. Is this normal for you?"

"Sort of. These are great cherries!"

"We get them from Italy where a little family farm grows them. Great stuff. They were getting squeezed by ORGOFARM to sell out but an anonymous investor stepped in to save them. They're doing better now, we got them out of some bad deals. In return, we get all the cherries we can eat. Our dividends go to a law firm and several local politicians who look out for the family. We go through a lot of cherries when we work hard. How much do you remember of what you did when you separated your thought processes?"

"All of it. I don't forget things, not important things, at least."

"Interesting. None of us can argue with the results. We have a working prototype for the new NanoRhebusBot. All the patents have been applied for and we paid extra to have them sealed, which costs a lot and will drive Technodyne and Alchemarx crazy wondering what we're up to. Once we do some testing, we'll begin human trials. I think we have something here that will solve a lot of problems."

"Including Belinda?" 

"Absolutely. Zander has found the chemical controls and anything inside her is dormant now. I want to keep her on daily supplements to make sure until we get them all out of her system. Her father did shoddy work, letting something lose he couldn't turn off completely."

Milo finished his shake and noticed that there was a large plate of snacks nearby. No one seemed to mind when he took the whole plate and started eating it. "That's what bothered me as soon as I saw it. Primitive receptors, with little control. It was an unfinished project and he turned it loose on her before she was born. I hate shoddy work like that."

"Well, your version is much better. Improved communication and control and we'll be able to use them for several neurological disorders including Perkins-Rudolf Degeneration."

"Which is?"

"Pod disease. There are millions of people suffering from it and the only person trying to do anything about it is your buddy Wally. I think he'll be happy with this new treatment. I estimate it decreases treatment time from five years to twenty months with 57% better results, especially in the worst cases."

"I'll have to talk to him then. How long before Belinda is up?"

Nina yawned, "Give her another two days and I won't worry at all about releasing her. We'll run tests and keep her monitored, just in case. I want her to continue her physical therapy, without any enhancements from your suit, and then I'll do a complete scan of her nervous system. She has a unique physiology, similar to us, but not quite. I think that's part of the problem. She grew and matured, the doctors kept mucking with her drugs to keep her an invalid, and the nanobots were cycling from active to inactive. So get some rest, I want you in your pod and sleeping for the next twelve hours."

"I have work I should do."

"I'll tell Mama. She's called three times already, inquiring about you and Belinda. I doubt security would stop her if she decides to come visit."

Milo thought it was better not to find out. "What about Genesis? I have work to do there, too. I have to help dig a tunnel to the new underground pirate base before the Engineer teams get their new drill machines running."

"Underground pirate base?" Zander perked up his ears and looked excited.

Onyx said, "Told you it was a cool game."

"I need to know more, for, uh, science and stuff."

Nina looked at the two of them. "I'm still leery about that game, but I'm weakening. I miss bounding over the rooftops."

Milo looked at Onyx, "Captain Squint is looking for a good airship pilot. He tried doing it himself and ran into a building."

"That was a sweet ship, I'd love to take it out for a good flight."

Bork and Algernon scooted their chairs and I.V. stands closer to the conversation. "When?"

Nina looked at the anxious faces, "We have work to do, and need rest. But I don't see why rest can't be done in a pod that's hooked to the game. We can cycle in a couple of people at a time. And you slackers need to catch up. Onyx and I are up to Level 6!"

Bork looked at Milo, "And you?"

All of the alphabet looked at Milo, waiting for his answer, "Close to Tier 4 and Level 21."

Everyone looked at each other. Bork stood and loudly said, "We must close the unfair gap between our levels, brought on by our slacking. Adventure calls."