"Then I did a skin test!" The doctor in a mask stretched out his arms and gestured to them a "very big" concept, "You have no idea what stage this thing is in now!"
"Well... Connie, you know we are not professionals in this area..."
Hitzfeld tried to remind her as tactfully as possible to speak more human language next.
This is also where she truly believes that she is inferior to the hook-nosed detective... In order to study bloodstains, the other party can specialize in a small part of medicine and master it, but she has been trapped in the field of perfume making and medicine, and has not had time to make related start-ups.
Maybe I shouldn't think about studying this in depth enough?
The knowledge that detectives need is originally unpopular... If a piece of knowledge can be used frequently in investigating a case, it seems unreasonable to delay...
She had decided to start studying the bloodstains after returning from Talignan.
"How should I tell you?" Sixus was so anxious that she turned around and around. Then she suddenly had an idea. "Oh, right, I can use those infectious diseases as examples first!"
Fortunately, the facilities in the laboratory were very complete, and there was actually a small drawing board behind the curtain outside the isolation area. The two walked through the curtain, found a chair to sit down, and began to watch Sixus's exaggerated painting on the drawing board.
"Let's first look at some of the most exaggerated infectious diseases now." The mixed-haired loli looked at the two of them.
"Hemorrhagic fever, fever, leprosy, and plague." Hitzfeld read out the few words she wrote and carefully studied the small words marked below. She suspected that the fever was cholera and the leprosy was the smallpox she knew.
Cholera is characterized by rapid dehydration. Once the disease begins, the patient may suffer from vomiting and diarrhea within a few hours, excreting a large amount of water and causing electrolyte imbalance in the body. This is very similar to the symptoms of heat stroke.
Like smallpox, leprosy can cause blisters on the body, and the progression from onset to severe illness is also surprisingly similar - both start with blurred vision, then a few days of last moments of vision, and finally crazy blisters start to appear. Even if you survive by chance, you will be disfigured.
She didn't know much about hemorrhagic fever and plague. She knew nothing about the former, and the latter... She knew that plague was probably the most lethal infectious disease, and it was also called the Black Death, but she didn't know any of the details.
"When I was young, Sarah's hygiene wasn't that good... I focused on studying these little cuties... I mean, viruses, and basically understood how they work."
Sixus knocked on the board with a serious look on his face.
But the beginning of "When I was young" sounded very strange coming from her mouth. Xia Yibing's mouth twitched and she took great effort to hold back her laughter.
She has received professional training and cannot smile...it would be too unprofessional no matter how you look at it...
"The human body is relatively immune to viruses." Sixus didn't understand what she was thinking, and continued to talk nonstop, "First of all, we have the greatest organ, the skin, to protect us. Secondly, there are some microscopic killers hidden in the flesh and blood tissue under the skin, which can directly kill the invading virus through physical fighting, exploding themselves, etc...."
What she said was really good, lively and interesting. Hitzfeld originally thought that he would have to work hard to understand some of the knowledge, but after her description, he almost understood it at once.
Then she was a little surprised - this era had just entered the electrical revolution, but breakthroughs in medicine and biology had already reached this level?
What are killers at the microscopic level? Although she didn't understand, she knew that it was probably referring to white blood cells and macrophages... Sarah's biomedicine was ahead of the times to be able to achieve this level of research, which seemed a bit unscientific.
Unless this is also prehistoric technology.
Hmm... It's possible that it was recorded in some ancient book dug out from the ground, just like the technology of that small battery...
"Don't be distracted? Okay?"
When she came to her senses, she saw the mixed-haired loli standing in front of her, hitting her on the head with a stick made of rolled up newspaper.
"Bang!" The sound was crisp and pleasant.
Xia Yibing licked her lips and said nothing, but silently took the stick from Xixus.
Sixus glared at her, and without further ado, he continued pointing forward: "After breaking through all immune defenses, guess how our bodies will respond to the invasion?"
"Died with blood coming out of all seven orifices." This is Xia Yibing.
"Fever." This is Hitzfeld.
"You really should learn some cross-industry knowledge, Sheriff." Sixu immediately began to mock the woman sarcastically, "lest you lose face in a small competition with your subordinates or lovers and hurt your deeply hidden self-esteem~"
"Bang!" Xia Yibing raised her hand and hit her on the head with a stick.
"Why are you hitting the doctor?"
"I'm not happy with you, so I'll just hit you."
Sixus didn't dare to act rashly with the woman, so he took a few steps away from her and returned to the previous topic: "Anyway, Aisuen is right, our response is to have a 'fever'."
"Why?" Xia Yibing frowned, not quite understanding. She had always thought that fever was a simple symptom, a complication caused by the virus.
"Well... I think this is because the higher the temperature of the living environment, the more difficult it is for the virus to survive. Our instinct knows this, so the body deliberately raises the temperature to kill the virus." Hitzfeld said intermittently.
Although she only had a vague understanding of this, she still understood the principles of colds and fevers.
Sixus was very satisfied with her answer and kept glancing between the two of them, but this time he didn't dare to make any sarcastic remarks.
"Right." She nodded. "That's right... Normally this temperature rise is enough to kill most viruses, such as common colds. Only those particularly troublesome viruses will cause a high fever... The higher the fever, the more powerful the virus is."
"Unfortunately, these infectious diseases are very serious."
She returned to the drawing board and continued to point at the pictures and annotations: "Fever, this disease is quite special. The virus usually enters the human body from the esophagus, bypassing the outermost defense mechanism, and can resist stomach acid corrosion... During the invasion, it will make the immune system mistakenly think that it is insignificant, but when it moves to the intestines and begins to attack, it is too late for the immune system to react."
"Because it will extract a certain element from the human body. Because this element has a mysterious absorption effect, it will also absorb other elements from the blood vessels and tissues to maintain balance, which will directly lead to vomiting and diarrhea."
“Then there’s the crazy hemp.”
"The leprosy virus can capture those microscopic cells that fight viruses. The hemorrhagic fever virus is the same... except that the latter is more domineering and violent. They both cause persistent high fevers. The difference is that the leprosy virus ultimately attacks the skin, while the hemorrhagic fever virus ultimately attacks everything it touches."
"I've heard of hemorrhagic fever..." Xia Yibing said thoughtfully, holding his chin in his hand.
"This disease seems to have a nickname called the Living Dead Disease. The disease develops very quickly. The symptoms are that the organs and flesh in the body begin to soften into pus and blood. Even though the body is already dead, it is still possible for it to react under the control of the virus."
Hitzfeld looked at her strangely and noticed that she was looking at him from the corner of her eyes from time to time while she was talking.
"..." Although he remained expressionless on the surface, Hitzfeld quickly and subtly adjusted his expression, revealing just the right amount of "admiration and worship".
"So now you understand the basic principles of these viruses..." Sixus nodded.
"There's also the plague." Xia Yibing reminded her.
"Plague...that's not within my research scope!" Sixus said in a low voice, suppressing his dissatisfaction.
"You said before that you were an expert..." Xia Yibing muttered softly, "If you don't understand, don't write it down..."
Sixus was furious. It was really annoying that this person always sabotaged things!
Do you understand what division of labor and cooperation means?
Sarah has such a large scope, and it is amazing that she can be responsible for studying so many large infectious diseases alone... It would be fine if this person couldn't see it, but why is he so sarcastic!
"Let's get back to the point." Hitzfeld coughed, "Um...are these things related to the Mimic's organization?"
"Yes!" After glaring at the women, Sixus took them back to the inner room and pointed at a small sealed piece of... something that looked like raw pork.
"This is a vehicle for skin experiments," she said.
"Originally, the best method would be to use human skin cultured in a petri dish for the experiment, but we don't have the conditions right now. Let's just use this for now... Come and see if there's anything abnormal on the surface of this thing."
The two men moved closer and found that there seemed to be some living creature under the skin of the raw pork, and the skin kept wrinkling and wriggling.
It's a bit disgusting... Hitzfeld looked at the doctor, not sure what she meant.
"First of all, no matter how troublesome the virus is, if there is no wound on the surface of your skin, it will most likely be unable to do anything to you." Sixus said, "But this tissue fluid is different...completely different!"
"For the first 10 minutes of the experiment, nothing really happened. I sealed it up and went to do something else... But when I came back a little later, I found it had become like this - the tissue fluid directly penetrated the surface of the skin, and they fused!"
Fusion...
His eyelids twitched and Hitzfeld felt a sudden palpitation for no reason.
"Isn't this wrong?" Xia Yibing continued to ask.
"Of course it's wrong! This isn't right!" Sixus slammed the table hard, "Come over here again!"
She took them to the corner of the room, found a protrusion covered with black cloth, and lifted the obstacle above it.
Below was a box-shaped glass container, inside of which lay a gray mouse with its four legs facing up. It was obvious that it had been caught at short notice.
"Just in time, I found it by the windowsill..." The mixed-haired Loli took a breath, "I tried to attach tissue fluid to its surface fur - note, before that, I repeatedly confirmed that there were no wounds on its body, and then guess what happened?"
"do not know."
They all answered like this.
"Pollution..." Sixus narrowed his eyes.
"It's an invasion! It's assimilation! Decomposition and replication directly from the microscopic realm! There is no war in this process! There is no resistance from the immune system, no fever, nothing! This is a kind of death! It will slowly eat its brain!"
"..."
"..."
Hitzfeld frowned, silently savored this statement, and looked up and said, "I remember they weren't like this before, right?"
The mimics, the mimics in Sixus's memory can also... well, alienate and soften their limbs to a certain extent, just like kneading plasticine to become the shape of food, but they have their own entities.
They have a body, bones, and a "basic plate". And the process of eating people is relatively direct, which is probably similar to that of wild beasts - after all, it was mentioned in the dream: [You can always find piles of gnawed human bones in urban areas].
But now this model has changed drastically.
There is no longer a base, no longer a fixed form, but it has transformed into a threat that can only be seen in the microscopic field.
Just like the ball of meat paste that flew over at the beginning, it was only a tiny bit big... It seems that they have completely changed their physiological structure?
With Hitzfeld's meager knowledge of biology, she couldn't understand what this change meant.
"No...don't you understand?" Sixus said fiercely in a whispering tone.
"They... they have not only completely changed their structure and form, but also their habits! How could such a thing happen without hundreds of millions of years of evolution? I even suspect that this Mimic is not the same creature as the one I encountered!"
She did have that suspicion.
Apart from the fact that they are both called Mimics and can both mimic human appearance, there is no similarity between the two. This is not possible normally, and it goes against all common sense in multiple disciplines.
"Calm down," Hitzfeld comforted her, "They can't explain the extraordinary either."
"No! Supernatural is also a subject!" Sixus shook his head.
"It's not as mysterious as you think! Remember the 'missing things' I mentioned before? I have always believed that this is a loophole left over from the last era... Some key elements in the past disappeared, causing modern humans to be weaker than ancient people... But that is not irreversible, there are always some tracks and traces... Maybe it's on the spiritual level... We can capture it, we can feel it, and the touch creates the extraordinary..."
She started to say something incomprehensible again, and Hitzfeld couldn't help but feel a headache: "So what is our conclusion now?"
"The conclusion is that Kaloni did not lie." Sixus said quickly.
She pointed at the skin and the dead mouse. "This means that every drop of tissue fluid in that thing is part of its body. They are fixed and unchanging. This is different from the meat monster you mentioned. It will just spread all the way to your brain in this way, eat your brain, and replace you mentally. From then on, it can control any parasite to become like you."
This does not require the face of the original body - Hitzfeld can understand the meaning, this is indeed somewhat different from Braceworm.
"If they are all really Mimics, I can only say that this is a different kind of mutation."
Hitzfeld's brows twitched, and he and Xia Yibing noticed that the dead mouse in the box seemed to tremble.
This was not an illusion. Soon, the mouse turned over and stood up. After looking around, it showed its fangs at them.
“They lose the ability to reproduce, but at the same time, every bit of them is immortal.”
Sixus's voice continued to be heard.
"Unless you burn them to ashes, as you did, they will continue to exist."
"Maintain this number and status forever."
Chapter 85 Method
Just as Sixus was talking endlessly about what a great miracle this was and how impossible it was, the waiter brought in a large iron box.
This thing was tied up tightly with three layers of chains inside and outside. They came to the living room on the first floor and found Russell half-squatting with his left sleeve raised high, trying to open it.
"It's not that difficult." He said when he saw the three people coming over, "Don't forget what my job is. As long as the lock has a mechanical structure, it can be solved by me."
As he was talking, the lock of the iron box made a slight "ding" sound. Russell naturally opened the door and found speechlessly that there was a new, smaller box inside.
It seems that this is not mental labor, but pure physical work.
Ten minutes later, they finally opened all the boxes used for nesting dolls, and then even more speechlessly took out a letter from the top. The content was so brief that it only had one sentence: The Mimic's weakness lies in body temperature.
"Pa!" After seeing these words, Xixus slapped his forehead, looking extremely regretful that I had not thought of it in advance.
"What's going on?" But Xia Yibing didn't understand. She remembered Xixus saying that the mimicry magic in virus form can directly invade the surface of the skin and assimilate and integrate with the organism's own defense system. During this process, the body will not have any reaction, which means there will be no fever at all.
"That's exactly the problem...!" Sixus shouted, "Yes, their hosts don't have a fever... but in some cases, not having a fever is strange in itself!"
"I mean, if they need to use fever to confirm their identity, then they have to lock them up with patients with colds and wait slowly, and considering that the transmission of colds is a probabilistic event..."
"No... no... that's not how it should be understood!" Sixus shook his head frantically, and said in an even more fanatical manner: "Remember the conclusion we reached before... 'They are unchanging and indestructible, and can live forever without external interference'?"
"At least they have to eat," Hitzfeld muttered.
Sixus ignored her and continued to gesture: "So we can see from the tissue fluid that no matter what shape or form they become, even if they are decomposed into blood, water and flesh... Anyway, as long as they don't turn into ashes, they can be regarded as 'still existing'."
"Their forms have changed. They are monsters at the microscopic level. A fixed form is not important. Therefore, the extract we used for the experiment can be said to be a part of the Mimic itself. This part is what requires us to ignore it and it will 'not change'."
"You mean, the Mimic's body temperature won't change either?" Hitzfeld understood a little bit.
