“And humans? What did they get out of it?” Luca said.
“Most of them were sick and dying. Others slaves.” Phillips nodded at Dekker. “The Anubis offered them escape from death and immortality. Like the Mah, they had nothing to lose either.”
Dekker curled his upper lip enough to show sharpened eyeteeth. “If your feigned sympathy is supposed to make me trust you, you’re SOL lady.”
“I’d never expect you to trust me. But I’ll be the first to admit that you—” Phillips tilted her head toward Seung. “—and the Varu were treated unjustly.” She glanced at Nox. “Even the Anubis did what it did because it was threatened.”
“You wanted to destroy Nox.” Dr. Dante glared at her. “Even Colonel Harrington said he was too dangerous to exist.”
“He is.” Phillips’ expression blanked. “He’s exceedingly dangerous, and I’m not sure his existence is safe for anyone. But I’m not here about Mr. Kelli. I’m here because the Senate is about to unleash these things on the public under the belief they can control them.
“The one that went after Dr. Dante has proven their implants are not flawless. If the curs can act independently without guidance, the damage they do will be irreparable.”.
They might have been a shadow to the Anubis, but they’d be deadly to humans. Even armed humans.
They’d leave behind bodies and rivers of blood.
“How do we stop them?” Luca said. “That’s why you’re here isn’t it. Because you have an idea?”
“The only way I can come up with is to trigger the kill switch in the implants.”
“Kill switch?” Dr. Dante sat up a little.
“There’s apparently a safety measure made into the control method. A command that essentially shorts out the neurons. Denton believes that’s why you were able to kill the one that went after you. The cur was mid-process of shutting down when you severed its head.” She shrugged. “Unfortunately, I don’t have access to the resources to tap into whatever system they’re using to control the curs. And that’s assuming it’s even possible to establish a connection.”
Dekker nodded at Dr. Dante. “What’s another way to short everything out?”
Dr. Dante glanced over his shoulder. “Are you asking me?”
“You’re the only scientist in the room.”
“You know more about curs than I do.”
“I’m not the one with a list of degrees.”
Dr. Dante shook his head. “Education means nothing without knowledge of the subject.”
“Would an EMP work?” Nox had seen electromagnetic pulses used to take out a multitude of different electronics.
“That depends.” Dr. Dante said it to Nox. “Do you want to fry everyone else’s brain within the pulse’s range? Because if there’s no electrical components involved, then with the level of an electromagnetic force it would take to affect the implant will kill a lot of innocent people.”
“What else could an implant be made from?”
“Organic materials.”
“What kind of organic materials?”
Dr. Dante cleared his throat. “Well, they’ve used stem cells from frogs to create artificial life designed by computers.”
“You’re kidding?” Dekker looked about as confused as Nox felt.
“No. I’m not. I mean, in the lab when we worked with the ichor, we tried something similar but using primate stem cells in an attempt to connect the ichor with rhesus monkeys. Of course it didn’t work, at least not for very long.”
“And you think building a mechanism to control the curs would be possible using the same method?” Nox didn’t see how.
“Anything is possible. It’s just some things are more improbable. If that’s what they did do, then a normal EMP wouldn’t work. Since they changed the VrK to work with human tissue, then they had to have done something extreme enough to mimic how the bite works and causes a human to Phase out. Those modifications would need to include some sort of connection that allows them to control the curs.”
“Satellite,” Dekker said. “That would be my guess.”