“But the tests provided some surprises,” Magnus said, picking up the explanations again. “The first was that the nanos saw the effects of age as an injury or illness, something that needed repair. And because we reach our peak at somewhere between twenty-five and thirty depending on the person’s physiology, the nanos reversed the physical age of any host older than that, returning them back to that peak stage.”

“The fountain of youth,” Allie murmured.

“Yes. It must have seemed like that at the time,” Magnus agreed.

“What were the other surprises?” she asked.

“The nanos did not self-destruct and leave the body as expected,” he answered solemnly.

Allie wasn’t really surprised to hear this. Everyone she’d encountered seemed perfectly healthy, yet had the silver sheen to their eyes that she could only guess came from the nanos they carried inside them, so she simply asked, “Why?”

“Because the nanos did not ever consider their work done,” Magnus said. “If they had been programmed to simply do one thing like repair a specific wound, or remove cancer, they would have finished their job and self-destructed, but they were programmed to keep the body at its peak. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the body is constantly taking on damage, even if only minute. Inhaling pollutants, damage from the sun, and the simple passage of time cause damage in the body that the nanos feel they have to repair. They don’t see their work as ever done, so do not self-destruct.”

“Okay,” Allie said slowly. She found this fascinating, even wonderful in a way, but still didn’t understand how this life-saving advancement had ended up with them having fangs. “But where do the fangs and stuff come in? I mean, peak isn’t the crazy strong Stella was when she was tossing me about like a doll, or the speed she could manage. That’s freaky speed and strength, not peak human abilities.”

Magnus grimaced, but answered, “Right. Well, as I said, the necessity for extra blood to make the needed repairs and such was expected, and patients given the nanos as treatment were also given blood transfusions to make up for that. However, because the nanos didn’t self-destruct but continued to work in the body, the need for extra blood continued as well.”

“You see, the nanos use more blood than the average body can produce,” Leonora explained.

“Yes.” Magnus nodded. “It was a problem, but not insurmountable at the time. The scientists simply gave the patients daily blood transfusions to make up for that.”

He paused then, and Allie stared at him expectantly. Nothing he’d said had seemed to her to explain the fangs.

It was Leonora who said, “The nanos were developed in Atlantis several millennium ago.”

Allie’s head shot around at that, her eyes wide. “What?”