Page 32 of Rescuing Ally: Part 2

“Everywhere they went.” The picture crystallizes in my mind. “Everything they touched. What else failed soon after?”

“Our phones,” Gabe interjects, stepping forward. “Remember? Right after Ally plugged her USB drive into her laptop. Both our phones started draining faster than normal.”

I nod once, the memory precise.

Everything Ally, Malia, and Malikai touched after returning from Kazakhstan subsequently malfunctioned.

Doc Summers frowns, her expression shifting as she accesses a memory. “There’s something else. The medical scanners.”

“What medical scanners?” Forest asks, turning toward her.

“The ones we used during the initial assessment of the Kazakhstan survivors,” she explains, her words gaining momentum. “They weren’t catastrophic failures, just—glitches. Calibration errors. Signal dropouts. I thought it was just equipment fatigue from the field deployment.”

“When was this?” I ask.

“Immediately after extraction,” she replies. “On-site, before transport back to HQ. Standard medical protocol for all rescued hostages.”

“That would make the medical scanners patient zero,” Mitzy says, already updating her timeline. “Even before they arrived at Guardian HQ.”

“They were packed back up with the rest of our gear and haven’t been anywhere else. The likelihood of them transmitting whatever this is to other systems is virtually nil. However, Guardian Grind and Ally’s computer and the connection with Malikai all point to the fact that each one of them was an epicenter of spread.”

“What about the other rescuees from Kazakhstan?” Walt asks.

Doc Summers shakes her head. “None of them came to Guardian HQ. They went to The Facility, where they were processed, treated, and offered standard rescue services. Ally, Malia, and Malikai were the only ones who came here.”

“Which means whatever is causing this came back with them from Kazakhstan.” I look at Gabe. Ally. Our Ally. Used as a vector for Malfor’s infiltration.

“Mitzy,” Sam says, “gather all potentially affected devices. Full forensic analysis. Isolate and destroy.”

“I don’t think isolation protocols are necessary,” Mitzy says, already moving. “If these devices are carrying something, it’s already spread throughout our systems. It’s better to examine them in their current state. Not to mention, we shouldn’t destroy anything until we know what we’re dealing with.”

“Get it done.” Sam accepts Mitzy’s expertise.

I’m like Sam. I want to burn everything to the ground, but what Mitzy says makes sense. The first step in destroying an enemy is understanding them, and there’s a lot we don’t understand right now.

Hours pass.

Mitzy’s lab is a fortress of advanced technology. She gathers equipment and sets up diagnostic systems. Ally’s laptop sits on the central workstation, surrounded by our phones, the register component from Guardian Grind, and circuit boards from various failed systems throughout the facility.

“If there’s something embedded in these devices,” Mitzy explains as she initializes the diagnostic sequence, “it has to be microscopic. Our standard security scans would have caught anything larger.”

I watch as she methodically scans the laptop’s components. Power regulation system. Battery connection points. Circuit boards. Nothing appears unusual at standard magnification.

“Nothing visible at baseline,” Mitzy mutters, frustration evident in her voice. “This doesn’t make sense. Something is affecting these systems, but I can’t find any physical or digital evidence.”

“What’s the maximum resolution on that scanner?” Gabe asks, his eyes fixed on the display.

“Standard electronic microscopy tops out at around 10,000x magnification,” Mitzy responds, “but we rarely need to go beyond 1,000x for component analysis.”

“Push it higher,” I instruct, a hunch growing despite the lack of visible evidence.

She gives me a questioning look but complies, adjusting the equipment. “2,000x… 5,000x… still nothing but standard electronic components.”

“Keep going,” Gabe insists, leaning forward, hands braced on the workstation.

“Interesting.” She increases magnification, zeroing in on what appears to be corrosion along one of the connection points.

“What’s that?” I ask.