Chapter 9 A New discovery

Within 36 hours of Scurvy making his first movement, you couldn't tell that it was the same lab. Everything had changed that much there were doctors and scientists being flown in from across the country all kept hush-hush. The whole thing was still top secret but that didn't mean that they didn't have the need for different specialists in their fields. Just as Doctor Bayley had thought Scurvy was under 24 / 7 coverage with its every movement being watched and recorded.

They were still struggling to find a way to collect samples from him. Every time something was lowered into the tank Scurvy would head for it and attack using the blades on its paws to slice right through whatever it was. They tried just stabbing it with a needle but all that did was push the rat and bend the needle before it was cut. It would need to be held by something but everything that was tried was quickly sliced. The closest thing they came up with was some glass tongs that kind of worked at least they were able to get ahold of it until it wiggled free. But even having ahold of it did little good nothing that they used was able to cut the shell. The best hope to cut it was to use a laser but since it was kept in the alcohol that was not really an option unless they wanted to see what fire would do to it.

The testing for its responses was coming along but basically, it was in a nonstop biting mode. Scurvy would try to get to anything that it could no matter where it was. Higher-pitched noises seemed to cause a bigger reaction than lower-pitched ones. But even in the dark and silence, Scurvy seemed to just keep biting. That seemed to be the only constant was that it was biting even if there was nothing to bite at.

They eventually managed to take a robotic arm and get ahold of it just long enough to move it from the tank filled with alcohol to a dry tank. As soon as Scurvy's feet touched the bottom of the dry tank, he sprang back up sinking his teeth deep into the metal. Then he latched onto it sinking its claws and blades. At least this was a benefit to them because as he shredded it all he did was weaken the thing that he was holding, and it was not long before what he had in his mouth let go and dropped him back to the bottom. Scurvy let out an evil growl that sent shivers down the spines of those that heard it. Everyone that was close took a step back without thinking. They quickly maneuvered the robot arm out and sealed the container hoping that that would quiet it a little bit. They killed the lights and left it in silence and after a few minutes Scurvy did indeed quiet down, but it never stopped moving to circle the cage that it was in. The whole time it was snapping its teeth biting even though there was nothing to bite at.

They carefully moved the arm out of the way doing it in the dark and moving it slowly and as quietly as they could trying to not agitate the rat. They carefully examined the robotic arm, and the barbs and blades destroyed it thoroughly, but they were able to find a few cells embedded in the metal of the arm. This was just what they had been hoping and waiting for the samples to be divided up for different types of study. The two main focuses of the study were centered on whether they can get the cells to grow and reproduce. The other was destruction the rat was under 24/7 coverage and had not stopped moving at all it simply just kept circling the cage. Its teeth chattering in a vicious manner.

The more scientists that arrived the more things that they wanted to try, but they all knew things had to be done extremely carefully because they could not risk this thing getting out. So, the scientists wound up in three groups. Each one with a group leader group one would be in charge of trying to stimulate the cells to get them to reproduce. Team 2 was responsible for seeing just what would destroy them. The third team was now studying Scurvy and his reactions to everything. Since there was no way to get anything close to getting more samples, they would have to work with what they had.

Team one simply had failure after failure because even though the cells were moving, they were not living cells. Their genetic makeup was very hard to describe because of the fusion between the rat and the cockroach. It had happened at the genetic level their DNA had bonded and fused together making it some kind of super rat. Even the cells that they had were lightly flexing and when they were put in the fluid, they were able to move slightly. There was no reaction to anything, the fact was it was like a skin cell, and it was dead already. They couldn't even get it to react inside an egg.

Team 2 wound up in the same situation as team one it is extremely hard to kill what is already dead. But they did discover that as far as killing the cells no matter what they did the cells still had movement. The closest thing was to burn them and at least that made them brittle, and they were able to make the cells eventually fall apart. So at least team two got a win they could put the rat in a crematorium and turn it to full power.

The fact that they had a way to destroy it brought a sigh of relief. The study of the cells revealed that they were a mixture of shell hair and bone all compressed and made dense and that is what made the substance harder than steel. But that was why it was still able to be burnt but had no luck when they tried even the strongest acids.

The third team started off very slowly, they found that its sight was very limited and since it was not breathing it had no sense of smell. The first test that they ran was to have the lights on and they tried to figure out just what it could see. It was able to track movement in the room as long as the lights were on but only limited movement when it came to noise. The tank was tall enough that the rat couldn't jump out but then the lid was removed silently in the dark and the rat had no idea that it was gone. Since they had established that it was trapped while the testing was being done the lid could be left off. This gave them the ability to quietly lower things into the tank and truly test what it could see here smell and what its reaction to different things would be.

The first thing they lowered in was a small remote light that was not on to test its reaction time. The light was set to a quick pulse on and then off once the button was triggered. As soon as the light came on Scurvy jumped and pounced on it biting it in half bits of the light wound up scattered across the bottom of the tank. The next thing that they tried was a sound device they wanted to check its hearing and at first, nothing happened but as they raised the sound as soon as Scurvy heard it, he was drawn to it and destroyed it as well. The next thing that they put in was different types of food. Many were very appetizing to smell and a few stunk but none were even noticed until they hung one and made it move then Scurvy quickly took chunks not really eating but destroying it. Simply shredding it to the bottom of its cage.

Next up was the live testing to see what reactions Scurvy would have once introduced to other living things. The tests went pretty much as they had expected anything that was put with him. He would rip it apart as soon as he discovered it and could catch it. The scientist did take note that it was gradually moving slower and stiffer as time went on. They started with putting bugs in the cage with Scurvy and there was definitely a difference in how it was moving.

The first cockroach that was put in it was in while the light was on. Scurvy was able to see that something was put in. He came toward it slowly since he couldn't tell for sure where it was and as the cockroach raced around the cage scurvy caught its movement and heard it as it hit some junk that was in the bottom of the cage. That drew Scurvy right to it and with one quick swipe, the cockroach was sliced in half. Scurvy quickly grabbed the front half and bit off the head for the first time, he stopped all other movements. As they watched he seemed to be drawing something out with each chew and for a few moments it was peaceful it almost seemed to drift off to sleep. Within 2 minutes Scurvy started moving again as if awoken from asleep but now was moving a lot stiffer and slower it was like the blood that was in it was congealing and the muscles were being torn apart trying to move.

With all the cameras that they had trained on the tank, they could see it from every direction whether the lights were on or not. They covered the roach in a slightly radioactive die so that when they made it completely dark, they could track it and its movements. They wanted to make sure that they could get it all on film so it could be studied more carefully later. Once everything was ready, they let the roach go into complete darkness. Just as they had assumed Scurvy continued to circle the tank in his never-ending circling. Passing completely unaware that it was even in there until the cockroach managed to make some noise due to trying to scurry under a piece of junk that was sitting there. They knew what that meant that Scurvy would be trying to track it based on the sound that it was making since he was unable to see it at all. The only thing was sounds and what it could manage to hear. As the roach moved and made some noise scurvy was able to go where it had been. Scurvy knew that something was near and didn't stop moving at this point it was not moving fast but it was constant never stopping the cockroach was easily able to sprint ahead of it but would have to keep stopping and resting. It was not long before Scurvy was on top of it when it made enough noise for Scurvy to hear it and with one swoop it sliced the roach down the center. Once again Scurvy clipped off its head in one bite.

This time in the dark they noticed something that they had not seen before as it ate the head of the roach and it just stood there it seemed to have waves of energy as it chewed the energy seemed to move threw out its body in waves making it all the way to its tail. Each wave seemed to merge with the others and wound up giving it a soft mellow glow. That seemed to calm and relax the rat and once again it made the rat seem to go to sleep and just stop moving as if it was a tranquilizer or a painkiller. Whatever was happening it was sedating it, that is all they could tell.

This made them curious to see what was going to happen when they put in something bigger. They pretty much knew that whatever was put in would be killed but not only killed shredded and eaten based on what they had already seen. The next up was a mouse; they decided to have the lights on for a few reasons first they wanted to give it a fighting chance to get away. Second, they wanted to see if it would attack something that was close to its species. Although they knew this could be a bloody one and they might have to clean out the tank after.

As soon as the mouse was brought close to the tank it went wild jumping around in its cage. It started squealing in sheer terror as they tried to dump it out into the other cage. It tried its best to stay in the cage that it was brought in. They had to reach into the cage and pull it out. The normally docile mouse wound up biting through the outer glove and almost pierced the inner glove before they could get it to drop into the tank. It was screeching at the top of its lungs and that drew Scurvy right to it and again with one swipe of its blades it lopped off the head and sent it flying into the side of the tank. At this point, the body seemed to be of no interest to scurvy even though it was still moving it seemed to know that there was no fight left in it and it was just moving meat. In its last death thralls, it managed to kick something and make more noise that caught Scurvy's attention. Scurvy turned and sliced through its body cutting fur skin meat and bone along with everything else the swing of its blade didn't even slow down.

Once the mouse stopped moving Scurvy left it there to rot with no interest and went back to circling the cage. Then he came across the head of the mouse; they all heard the crunch of the scull as he bit threw it. Scurvy scooped out the brains and then seemed to stand still savoring every second. It seemed to be stuck in time unable to move except to only chew slowly this time the glow that came from him was more intense and with every chew Scurvy made a pulse of light all the way to the tip of his tail. The light seemed to shine in every blade that it had it gleamed and glistened. The roaches that it had consumed only took a matter of a few seconds whereas the mouse was taking minutes moment after moment they quietly watched and recorded it. One of the techs knocked a tray off the lab table with a loud crash right next to the tank. Scurvy did not move but continued to eat chewing very slowly making the most out of its meal. By the time he was done, there was not a single brain cell left behind in the empty skull.

Seeing the reaction, they determined that it was the brain matter that it was after. Since it did not react to sound they quickly tried to test movement. When Scurvy was in this state there seemed to be nothing that they could do to have it react to them. Which was perfect for them to be able to move it and analyze everything that was left in the cage. But first, they had to time and study just how long the effect would last and if it was changed based on the size of the brain that it was consuming. They timed it and it kept Scurvy busy for 36.3 minutes and after it was done chewing it still did not move for another 5. This made things very easy to set it on to relocate Scurvy as long as they have their timing down.

They decided to go with a rat for the next test estimating the size of the brain would extend the amount of time that they would have to move it. They quickly prepared another tank and got a robotic arm ready before they even tried to start the next test. They didn't want to take any chances of it getting away or even getting out of the tank. When everything was prepared a cage was brought in with a large rat in it. As they entered the room and took a few steps the rat went into a panic screaming at the top of its lungs jumping wildly running circles around the edge of its tank running as fast as it could. Scurvy let out a bloodcurdling growl, the rat had a heart attack and fell over dead.

The lab tech jumped at the sound and pissed his pants it was just a good thing for him that he had the protective suit on. He asked, " What do you want me to do now? The rat isn't moving."

Over the speaker came a voice and spoke, " Drop it in and clear the room. We want as much time as we can get to move it to the new tank."

As the rat hit the bottom it almost landed on Scurvy, he ran two blades threw it removing a big wedge-shaped chunk before it had even a chance to collapse into a puddle of flesh and bone. Scurvy sliced open the head and removed the brain then once again it froze in place as it chewed slowly.

The robot arm easily scooped up Scurvy and placed him into the new tank Scurvy did not move an inch. Then next they tried to cut a sample but nothing they had was strong enough to cut threw just like before. Before they knew it their time was up and Scurvy started moving again and went back to circling the cage.