Chapter 87: Replacement.

Qin Qianyu rode her bike straight towards the hospital and after flashing through the wards she found the team doing research into the reason why the private ward was on lockdown.

It wasn't hard to find, she only had to follow those wearing hazmat suits.

"Stop! Identify yourself!"

Several armed men held up assault rifles and they were all trained on Qin Qianyu.

Qin Qianyu stayed silent and didn't say a word, instead, she flashes away only to appear behind them and whispered,

"Don't mind me. Besides, knowing my true identity is a death sentence. Just know I hold in my hand, triple zeros and you can call me the Phantom Fox."

" . . . "

The men on guard were a mixture of ADT and DDT, Divine 'Turtle' Defence Team so they knew what type of status a triple zero holder held.

DDT are also a taskforce of the four winds although the teams main focus is on the defence of the country and its interests, it was split in half with one half made up of seasoned military men and women and the other, being scientists and members of think tanks that provide aid to tricky situations such as what was happening here in the hospital.

Qin Qianyu entered unseen and unheard.

She looked around and saw data collected so far along with the worms collected from Yangyang.

Two young looking doctors were arguing while others were going through sheets of data and countering with their own rebuttals and sound theories.

"Helminths parasite!? It's not even singled cell, yet it's multiplied this much like a Protozoan parasitic worm."

"It's not even in a ecosystem or environment suitable for most parasites to thrive in, yet look at it! It's like an ectoparasite!"

"If it's neither of these, could it be all? . . New strands of any and everything are formed on a daily, everyday, why should this worm be any different? An organism of pathogenicity?"

"Impossible!"

Many scientists were arguing over and over, like Qin Qianyu, they too were having a hard time identifying these parasitic worms.

However, hearing the second to last scientist mention that it could be all of them combined to form a new type of parasitic pathogen, Qin Qianyu's mind started ticking over using that as a basis.

"That possibility shouldn't be ruled out,"

Qin Qianyu made her presence known. The men and women in the room turned in confusion to the interloper.

Then surprise hit them when they noticed the "getup" she was wearing, especially the Fox mask.

"How'd you get in here!? . . Someone get her the hell out of here!"

A more senior man called for the guards and they came in. When this person pointed out to Qin Qianyu the guards did nothing.

They turned to Qin Qianyu and asked,

"Your orders ma'am?"

"It's fine, return to your post,"

"As you say."

The guards saluted then turned and left to the astonishment of the others. Qin Qianyu paid no attention to the stares and simply stated,

"Ophiocordyceps unilateralis,"

The scientists looked at her like she was an idiot. They were dealing with parasitic worms not fungi.

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis is an insect-pathogenic fungus which causes what is most commonly known as zombie ants.

However, although a fungus type pathogen that attaches itself to insects, to Qin Qianyu, these worms seemed to follow this idea.

When Qin Qianyu heard all the grumbles and snide remarks she told them these thoughts of hers.

"Just like a pathogen, once it's invaded the body it'll do all that it could do stay inside the host, learning and adapting to hide from the immune system. These parasitic worms are no different."

"All of this we already know, what's the point!"

"My point is, that man there is on the right track with his thinking."

Qin Qianyu said as she pointed to a man with thick glasses aged in his late 20s. He was the one that made the "neither and all" comment earlier.

Qin Qianyu continued. Her thoughts were on the symbiosis.

Her thinking and hypotheses was that these worms could form a connection symbiotically with other parasites which was why it was hard to differentiate them or even categorise them.

"Let's call these parasites Replacement worms for explanation's sake. Now let's look at all the traits these worms have. They all exhibit traits of Helminths, Protozoan and Ectoparasites. Now combine those common parasites with a Replacement worm like how the zombie ant is made."

"A symbiosis of the two, thus creating a hybrid super worm where the replacement worn now not only takes on all the traits of the "host" parasite it has attached itself to, it replaces it completely."

The scientists started to get the idea, it answered some of the questions they all had about the replacement worms.

"So you're suggesting that these replacement worms have systematically replaced the parasites already in the body to become these?"

Qin Qianyu shrugged, it was an idea, and one that fit. She then added,

"Well whatever it is, we need to find a solution to it quickly. If there are eggs laying dormant in the commander we'll definitely need a way to booster his immunity to fight against it since you all agree that, it is parasitic in nature."

Discussions around this continued, as they did so, Qin Qianyu watched how all the worms thrashed about inside the container.

In her lab, the worms she had collected were all docile.

"Have these worms been in this distressed state since they were brought in?"

"Yes, pretty much. Now that you mentioned it they've sort of settled down some since you arrived."

An idea struck her and she walked towards the container housing the thrashing and irritated parasitic worms.

As Qin Qianyu got closer to them she pulled out the replacement "mother" worm she had brought with her and the worms soon started to settle into a state of docility.

"What is this!? . . Where did you get this?"

"I pulled this from the commander after his initial contact with the enemy. It's remained in a dormant state since."

The doctors observed the changes then one of them remarked causing a short but extremely fearful flurry of responses,

"So not only do the replacements hijack other parasites they can also be controlled? . . This isn't natural by any means."

"Could this be the start of true bio warfare technology?"

"A commander replacement worm and its soldiers!"

Panic erupted in the room. As scientists, they knew that parasites can be found almost anywhere on earth. Most are microscopic organisms but there exists ones like these worms also.

Consensus was, if the replacement worms hijacked any known parasite and lay dormant inside a persons body till the command is given for them to act, then everyone would go the way Yangyang did.

It was a scary thought.

"Well we have more information now, let's start out with separating the worms into their most common traits first then test known remedial treatments based on these."

Qin Qianyu stated. Some of the team turned to a certain person as if seeking their opinion on the matter.

"It's a reasonable request. Let's all do as she says. Please be vigilant and do note and log all observations and findings. Back these up to the database and report them all to the lead in your teams."

Qin Qianyu turned to the person that spoke, she was familiar with the man she just didn't notice him till now.

"Dr Cao,"

Qin Qianyu nodded, the elder nodded back.

The scientific team went about their work. Qin Qianyu and Dr Cao walked off to the side and he filled her in on what had happened.

It had all started with her telling the examiner teams to check the commander while he was in transit to the hospital and again when he arrived while Qin Qianyu herself was at the scene of Yangyang's death.

When the teams arrived to a lab here in the hospital it was made aware that the parasites came from a victim and that the commander was similarly involved and could also have these in him.

This sparked the hospital into action as well as the military, namely the taskforce's of the four winds.

"The commander had been sent to a room in the private ward prior to the hospital's decision to implement an emergency lockdown. He's isolated there, the body of the female victim had been incinerated and the other thing has also been done."

Qin Qianyu nodded, Dr Cao continued,

"At present there's a total of 32 people in the private ward, of those, 15 are visitors. We've blocked telecommunications to the rooms, they can't access the internet or send out any more communications as we want to limit this incident and not cause a mass panic."

"So Mu Liang and Lu Mingyu are fine?, that's good. I'll also check in on them while I'm here."

"As you wish,"

"And the commander? How is his current condition?"

"He's weak at the moment but responsive to physical, verbal and visual stimulus's. We've also run a series of comprehensive checks and tests to find any traces of those worms, they all came back negative for any abnormalities or traces."

"It's frequency based!"

A voice suddenly sounded out interrupting Qin Qianyu's and Dr. Cao's conversation. It was the scientist with the thick glasses.

He took a frequency generator then moved the mother worm away. The soldier worms started to react violently to this, then he started the frequency generator and the worms became docile once again.

However, while the solider worms were settled, the mother, or rather, commander worm woke and started reacting violently.

"It seems to know that it's territory is being encroached upon."

"Stop! Turn it off'"

Qin Qianyu immediately shouted, however the man was too engrossed in his discovery to hear Qin Qianyu. She frowned then flashed towards him and smashed the device.

"Bitch! What are you doing."

Qin Qianyu punch him in the gut causing him to double over. She picked him up by the hair. His face was twisted as he shouted out foul obscenities at Qin Qianyu. The other scientists were about to intervene till Qin Qianyu simply pointed to the mother worm.

The worm had exploded inside its container.

"How did it . . It wasn't on purpose I swear!"

The man changed his tune after seeing what his little experiment had caused. His ego had gotten the better of him due to Qin Qianyu's acknowledgement to his idea.

Qin Qianyu just looked at him and sneered, she then replied,

"Your orders were to divide the worms and provide remedial treatment in order for the team to correlate the collected data. No other orders or authorisations were given to you."

"You may have singlehandedly destroyed our chances to remedy this situation!"

Qin Qianyu tossed the man aside and picked up the leftover contents within the container.

"Who's the leading biologist here?"

Dr Cao and a woman stepped forwards.

"Just you two?"

"It's just me ma'am, Dr Cao is this hospitals staff appointed to our team, the others are on assignment at Shenlong, they couldn't make it."

"Alright, well you two are going to be busy. See what you can extrapolate from the remnants of this. If you can, try clone the cells and cultivate another of its kind."

"I understand."

Qin Qianyu took a portion of what was left over then handed over the container to the pair,

"And someone come deal with this foul mouth, arse breath, no ears, prick!"

" . . . "

Qin Qianyu says as she pointed out to the man with thick glasses.

"Wait! It was an honest mistake!"

"Your "honest mistake" has jeopardised the integrity of this entire group and what was trying to be achieved, which is a solution to a possible biological terrorist attack on our country and its people."

"Those were just guesses, it doesn't mean anything,"

Qin Qianyu's lips turned into a sneer as she pointed accusingly at the man, then to the agitated worms,

"Doesn't mean anything!? The body that these came from was a sleeper planted right next to the commander of PIT, and that "commander" worm was pulled out of the commander of ADT and you want to say it doesn't mean anything? I think it's meaning something, you could even be a sleeper planted into DDT for all we know sent in to disrupt any or all our findings into a workable solution."

" . . I'm not, it was just an honest mistake, truly, you can ask anyone here, I'm just a scientist, nothing more I swear."

"Mhm, a scientist for a military taskforce that can't even follow a simple command moments after you've been given one."

The man was soon dragged out and placed under arrest pending an internal investigation.

Dr Cao approached Qin Qianyu,

"It could have been a mistake you know,"

"Mhm, I know, but it's a mistake that has now increased the danger levels for Lu Mingxi, Mu Liang, and the commander."

Only a portion of the worms had been divided so far and each of them were in a distressed state now.

Without the commander worm around, all the other worms had become unruly.

Someone asked if they should make use of the frequency generator again. They all looked to Qin Qianyu she just shrugged,

"Unfortunately, It's the only option afforded to us at this current juncture, let's just hope they don't all explode."

The worms were still thrashing about violently, none of the frequencies were working, not even the one that had worked previously.

"Just imagine all of that happening inside a humans body,"

" . . . "

Everyone that heard Qin Qianyu looked to the container and all of them felt a little fearful at the thought.

The frequency generator wasn't working now, so they had to try something different.

While some where working on a solution to Calm down the worms, others were starting treatment trials with what was already divided and some where brainstorming potential ideas for treatment overall.

"Whatever we develop will need to have a way to draw them towards the stomach and flush them out with the faecal matter."

"A pied piper of sorts?"

"Swarm intelligence!"

A lot of ideas started coming out, when Qin Qianyu heard swarm intelligence a light went off. She pointed to the man that mentioned swarm intelligence.

"It was biologically engineered! . . We can't rule out the possibility that the commander worm was cultivated, then it was implanted with a set of instructions. Attack, defend, and self sacrifice."

Everyone else started working along those lines of thoughts.

"Dr Cao, I'll leave the rest to you guys, I'll head to the ward now. Good luck to the pair of you, I hope something will come out of all this."

"Thanks for your insights, we now have something to work towards."

Qin Qianyu said no more she entered a hazmat suit and left towards the private rooms or the VIP ward.