John took a proverbial breath and looked around the room. He needed an ally, and Shahim saw it too and stepped up.

“Agent Hunt is right.” said Shahim, “Clearly this is a very disturbing turn of events, and we should all thank Agent Wilson for discovering it. But before we jump to wild conclusions based on this purely circumstantial evidence, we need to know more about what the humans are up to. Agent Wilson has the right idea, we need to gather more information on the matter and gain a deeper understanding of how widespread this condition is. I suggest that each Agent acquire a sampling of various humans’ blood, let us say one hundred samples, over the next week, and then we can reconvene and assess how widespread this phenomenon really is.”

Some in the room were nodding, but many were clearly not going to be mollified by this plan. Preeti Parikh offered up a point, “I feel I should point out that reports of Malaria and digestive illnesses have dropped off significantly in India, it is all over the news here. The government is calling for an inquiry. It seems unlikely that the two incidents are unlinked, and if they are born of the same cellular defense, then that would indicate that this would appear to be very widespread indeed.”

John kept up the pressure, trying to keep the room with them, “Indeed, this is clearly an epidemic of some sort. We must get more information and we must do it now. I second Shahim’s motion to have each Agent gather a hundred blood samples and provide them for analysis. We do not have much time. We should do this in no more than a week and reconvene then to decide if we need to take forceful action.”

The AI responded to the seconded motion by automatically initiating a vote, but Lana sat firm, silent and unresponsive. The AI ignored her silence, the votes of the other Agents enough to pass the motion.

<Motion passed. All Agents are ordered to obtain a hundred blood samples from their surrounding areas and submit detailed imagery within the next seven days. We suggest that a random sampling method be used when selecting donors, and that no samples be taken from humans that Agents have daily interaction with to avoid unnecessary risk to the mission.>

Well, that should keep them busy for a while, thought John. But Agent Lana Wilson was still silent and John’s avatar glanced nervously at Shahim for a second. He was about to speak again when Agent Lana spoke, “While that is a … pleasantly conservative plan, I would like to suggest an alternative.”

She looked around the room and then said, “Arbiter, what options do we have to counter this cellular defense if it is as widespread as it would appear?”