programmers

"—is the work of a truly sick genius. This team is the best in the system, and it took us weeks to figure it out.
"Additionally, as our counter attacked the infection, it built up more plaque on the module and created more, but subtly different, hallucinations. And it is self-replicating. It degrades with time, of course, but it will keep regenerating toxic levels. And there's a standard biovirus that is symbiotic with it that keeps it fed with the enzymes it needs. We're trying to kill that first. It looks like they feed each other to perpetuate the effect and when they find a module they generate the second effect to disable that, too. It's worse for pilots and interface programmers than for anyone else. We can't prove that was a deliberate design, but I'll put money on it.
"Your efforts here may have saved not only Rob, but the seven others who either have no next of kin or whose we cannot contact and are harder to interact with. We owe you."
"No you don't. It's my duty as a soldier and as his friend." She wanted nothing to do with this disgusting weapon, even as part of the cure. She continued, "I'm guessing you have another counter-agent?"
Rostov ran his fingers through his hair. "Well, actually, no," he said. "The existing therapy is sound and the side effects of additional nano-loading would be very unpleasant. And this agent is very pervasive. We aren't likely to get it all, and the combined effect would manifest again. So the bad news is that he can never fly