Quote:Yoshida took a deep breath to steady himself, and gestured at the image

on the screen. "I recognize that, of course. It's the Leontophonous

virus that freed boomers. But what's it doing in my head?"

Silver shook his head. "Actually, it's not. It's close, mind you, but

there's subtle differences. What you're really looking at there is

technically Leontophonous-B. It's based on two source materials: The

nanite tech which freed boomers worldwide, and the nanite upgrade

technology Katsuhito Stingray gave to his daughter so he could map her

mind.

"The difference, however, is that Leontophonous-B isn't designed to free

anything. It follows the pattern of the original nanite infusion,

replacing key nodes in the human brain, which can theoretically lead to

enhanced mental development, greater intelligence, and so on. But with

the addition of the modified Leontophonous nanotech, it also allows the

programmer to institute mental blocks. They can even program behavioral

modifications, all without the beneficiary being aware they have them."

The image shifted a few times, showing clusters of them in the human

brain. "Get enough of them in one place, and you have an effective

replacement for the Overmind Control System. Not only do you have a

technology which can be used to institute boomer-based mind control on

the human populace, but you can use the same Leontophonous-based virus

to reinfect the boomer populace with a new kind of mind control program

they can't stop. Especially since Leontophonous-B seems to have a kind

of antivirus program running in it which recognizes the Alpha variant

and neutralizes it on contact."

"So... What was it doing in my head?"

Silver smiled and shook his head. "You're obviously still in a lot of

pain, or you'd have realized it by now. *You* were the test subject. The

boomers you sent out on the mission... I know what you know, and I know

that our benefactors wanted the mission boomers to include the

Leontophonous nanovirus. I'm sure they told you they were using the

Alpha variant, and that they wanted to see what you could do with

unshackled boomers. But what they were *really* doing was testing the

dependability of the Beta version under combat conditions, where boomer

brains are most likely to slip the leash. If Leontophonous-B remained

firmly in control of the boomers even in the middle of a losing fight,

it would give them an ironclad grip on whoever they gave it to."