As we put that other conversation off and get back to reality, Mitch was in the process of copying the files in my thumb drive into his laptop—even though I told him to keep it—but he started playing the short clips—that had finished transferring besides the larger files—I played for everyone else from the first meeting I had with my group.
The two thought I had definite proof from the digging I did even before it started but all of those were simply clues or allusions that could somehow correlate to what we were currently experiencing.
"What are some of those images?" Bartow asked.
"Some random newspaper clippings and the like that somehow alludes to the same thing."
"That doesn't help us much either..."
Mitch nodded, "Aside from knowing it's just as unravelable as it's confusing. It's either we are against a super genius who was able to make different strands in one lifetime to cause chaos or a very large group doing pretty much the same thing."
I chimed in, "It's either of the two really but we could also say that it could just be one simple thing at first before it turned to what we're facing right now."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm not a scientist, okay? I only have the basics down but take a cold for example, the moment we gain resistance to that particular strand, the only way we'd get a cold again is from a different strand but causing the same experience.
Well— there are some cases were you could reinfect yourself with the same cold—though it is very hard—the 'easy' way to do it is having an immune system low enough for the antibodies we have for that particular cold to not kick in or lose its effect."
Bartow was already smoking but Mitch was looking at me solemnly before he opened his mouth:
"I do understand that but what does that have to do with this?"
"Ah— I'm still getting on it but are you also familiar with coinfection?"
"In regards to colds?"
"Of course. If we know how it actually works, it opens the whole to almost the same number of possibilities. It's gonna sound sci-fi-ish right now but imagine if we could command a horde with one look or—"
"Flip a tank like it's nothing!"
I chuckled, "That's right. Or not even needing to sleep—"
Then Oscar interjected, "Or be immortal."
Mitch looked a little taken aback, "That's... That's promising actually, I would've loved to see my kids grow."
I got taken aback as well from his statement, "You... You will, right? You don't look that old."
"Hah! I mean... You know, I'd like to see them grow up and have families of their own and see their families grow up and on and on... I'll jump on that chance the first time it lands on my lap."
"Eh. I would've loved that too so I could see the endings of the things I used to binge before the world ended but yeah, that sounds actually good too. I'd want an off switch though."
Bartow's ears perked, "Off-switch? What's the point?"
"Are you sure you wanna have this kind of conversation now?"
"Fuck it, at least I could understand some of it now since we're in fantasy land!"
"Hah! Depends on the type of immortality. Do just not get even older or do we move bodies? Are we just moving our consciousness around or could we store them in a thumb drive like this? What if we lost an arm? Can we grow it back or better yet— what if we're just a head and got thrown at the bottom of the sea?
Are we just stuck there forever?"
"Alright, stop! Stop! Stop! You're making me even more confused! One at a time, alright?!"