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Oh no! Physician, heal thyself!
The third Overwatch lady drawn by
and story commission for 
, sequel to both fav.me/dau5oib and fav.me/dawop5v !
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"Anyoung haseyo! Hi everyone, this is D.Va, coming at you live! First of all, I'm okay! Okay-ish. I'm alive and... healthy. I know that last broadcast got kinda hairy, but you know me! Whether it's a Baneling swarm or an Omnic Colossus, I'm always good in a pinch!
"Okay, I'm already seeing lots of questions in the chat about the video quality, and I'll get to that in a bit. Thank you, StoneQueen27, for the comment about my 'new headpiece', I'll get to that too.
"So, big thank-yous to all the fan clubs and shouts and so on for all the well-wishes. You guys are great, and a big reason why I always play to win, because I don't want to let any of you down!
"Oh, D.VaVidaLoca, I saw your donation drive, and it's very sweet, but all my medical bills are taken care of by the M.E.K.A. corps. But I've sent off a few messages to some of my sponsors who might be up for matching donations to go to an Omnic Relief Fund, so let your donors know and if they keep their pledges I'll be sure to thank all of them!
"Er... Okay, yes, the camera's cut off at my shoulders, and yes, I know it looks like I'm not wearing a top. Again, I'll get to that.
"Ahem! So, ah, what does everyone know about nano-machines? I know we've got more than a few techie D.Vines out there- you all helped me get my M.E.K.A.'s viewscreen to display chat without the UI overlaying it, after all- so maybe you can explain in chat while I, uh, get some stuff together.
"...All right, yeah, thanks. For those listening to this later on the podcast- and haven't been completely spoiled on the big reveal coming up- nano-machines are tiny robots, tinier than microscopic, tinier than the 'Toss edge in the new meta- sorry, I said it, no flame wars in the comments please- that can basically build things on the atomic level. So, for example, a set of properly-programmed nano-bots could disassemble a cup, molecule by molecule, and re-assemble it into a plate!
"So, what's this got to do with me, and the bad video quality, and everything else you've been asking about? Well... Phoo... Okay, here goes, I'm gonna switch cameras now.
"See that? That's me. No, it's not my M.E.K.A., it's me. Yes, it does look like a snail's shell, Jwarud0, very observant. Okay, well, keep watching the right-hand side of it, and I'll bee are bee."
"...So, yeah, I'm back. That wasn't CG, or some weird cosplay, or anything like that you saw on the external feed. That's me now. I live inside the shell, because I'm literally attached to it. Remember when I said 'properly programmed' about the nanobots? Well, the specifics are classified, but let's just say that there are far worse hacks out there than map-hacks and lag exploits.
"I... Okay guys, slow down a bit, chat's going bonkers, lemme scroll up and- oh, ew! Someone please ban that guy with the 'lube' comment. Grow up, perv. Right, so, StoneQueen, I hope you still like my headpiece now that you know it's literally attached to me... as are my earphones. No, I don't mean like with glue or anything, I mean these are my ears now, if you were to try and surgically remove the earphones I'd be left with a flat hole on the side of my head. Like I said, it was the nano-machines. Imagine if two DVD's were put together, with one ring of data from each disc copied over at a time. There'd be absolutely no way you could then go and, say, solder over just one disc's contents, they're just meshed too closely together. That's just what the nanos did, the parts that were me and the parts that were my M.E.K.A. are now so closely intertwined there's just no way to separate them... Believe me, I've been asking around...
"Oh, right! So, yeah, the clothes thing. Well... No, I'm not wearing a top. And PLEASE don't be skeevy in chat about it. Go to slash-M.E.K.A if you have to, I know the kinds of photoshops that get posted there. Anyways, no, no top. And the reason why has to do with the other thing I said I'd address later, the poor video quality. It's actually not the camera or anything, it's actually surprisingly good given what the nanos did to it, but it's just... Well, here, lemme just wipe it off.
"Yeah, so this is... what'd she call it... 'A mucosal gel consisting of a polymer network for integument protection'. Or, you know, in layman's terms, slime. Snail slime. And it's everywhere.There's no way to clean it up, no way to get rid of it, because I just sweat the stuff out, constantly.
"Hah! You think it's gross seeing it, try living in it! But thanks for the condolences, everyone. It's... I've started to get used to it, I guess. Oh, good question in the chat- no, it doesn't bother my eyes, lemme lean in and I can show you. Yeah, see? Two sets of eyelids, so I've always got something keeping the goo off.”
"So back to the- wow, chat's blowing up, what's..."
"..."
"...Ugh, yes, all right, yes, I didn't mean for it to happen like that, but those were my boobs you saw at the bottom of the screen when I leaned in. Yes, they're... considerably larger, and no, I don't know why the nano-machines did that. I'd say they were designed by a pervert if I didn't know who the creator was. No, I can't order some for you! Good grief, who would want to be slimy and helpless forever just to get a bigger rack?
"I... no, that's- ugh. I suppose I should have known better than to ask that question to the internet...
"Okay, okay, moving on, so we can get through this. No clothes because of the slime. Believe me, I've tried, but everything either gets loaded up with slime and super clingy and heavy, or else it doesn't absorb the slime and fills up like a water balloon. I guess the bottom line is, there's not much room in here for anything that can't side along the shell.
"Right, so, I saw someone ask earlier if my antenna do anything, and yeah, they do, actually. Lemme pull up the external camera again and split-screen it... Okay, ready? Look ma, no hands! That's right, I can control the canons, booster, and flight control surfaces without touching a thing. Hahaha, I actually wouldn't know, BluePrintOm3ga, I've never tried to fly like this yet. I agree, though, it seems about as aerodynamic as a breezeblock, so we'll see just how well it actually works. Even if I can't get liftoff, though, I'd probably be the world's fastest snail, right? That's gotta be worth something.
"Yes, the canons still fire just fine. If I wasn't, ah, a 'guest' in my current location, I'd show you all a test-fire. You wanna know something weird, though? The reload access for them is completely gone. There's just simply no way to access it from outside unless you cut into it, which as I've said before is cutting into me, soooo yeahno, not going that route anytime soon. Yeah, weird, right? Except it's not. I mean, yeah, it's weird, but that's just setting up the really weird part I wanted to tell you about. Despite being in a firefight before I got nano'd, despite having fired my canons since in testing, the ammo counter still reads full. And it's not a counter issue, because they've x-rayed me and it shows it's all still in there. The only explanation is that I'm somehow growing them inside me, the nanos taking the food I eat and refurbishing it on a molecular level into more ammunition while I sleep. How crazy is that?
"Hmm... good question, again from Jwarud0. The answer is, I can sleep both inside and outside my shell, and I'm still not a hundred percent sure which one I'm 'supposed' to. Neither one is what I'd call super comfortable, but neither is uncomfortable enough for me to lose sleep over. It'd be nice if I could have some pillows, but if they're slime-proof it feels like I'm sleeping on an umbrella, and if they're not slime-proof I wake up feeling like I'm snuggling up to a giant booger. No, I don't need a snorkel when I sleep, heh. I seem to be able to breathe okay even when my mouth and nose get totally sealed in by slime. Might be something to do with my M.E.K.A.'s old air recycling and filtration system feeding directly into me, the docs say."
"Oooh... ooh, that's a good question, TossMeThrophies. I sure hope this doesn't cost me my Battlenet ranking. I've heard of other people getting cybernetics after accidents and staying in the natural league if they were able to verify it didn't offer any performance enhancements, maybe I can get someone from Blizzard over at some point...
"Heck yeah I'm still gonna stream! Until we get this fixed or figured out I'm basically on leave from military stuff, so I'm gonna try and catch up on the games that've come out, read through all my fan mail- those who sent actual, physical mail, don't worry, it's being appropriately forwarded- and a bunch of other 'I'll get to it' stuff I always promised when I have time.
"What if... what if they never find a way to fix it, huh? Hmm..."
"..."
"..."
"No, stream didn't freeze, I'm just thinking. Yeah, the outer eyelids don't blink on reflex anymore, just the inner pair, can be hard to see.
"...I don't know. Really, I don't. I kind of grew up a pro gamer, and I could probably keep doing that, but being in the M.E.K.A. corps has allowed me to do so much more, for so many people. I dunno... Like I said, the canons still work, so maybe just stick me up on a rooftop in Busan's port and I'll watch for rogue Omnics? I'd like to still do something for the people of Korea and the world...
"All right, well, there you go. The secret's out, I suppose, and thanks to everyone for being so kind and supportive. It's been a rough week... But hey, you know me- I've never been one to gee-gee out of a setback, even when it might look hopeless! I'll try and get a streaming schedule up in the next day or so, once I learn what my doc's schedule for me is.
"Thanks again to all you D.Vines out there, you've really helped me feel better. I'll see you all soon- D.Va out!"
Doctor Angela Zeigler waited outside the room as "D.Va" finished her broadcast, hands in her lab coat. The patient on the other side of the door, once a highly capable pilot and internet celebrity, was among one of her most difficult cases. She turned her head as the lock on the door de-activated, her blonde ponytail swaying behind her shoulders as she looked, and went back into the lab she'd set aside for her. Real name Hana Song, D.Va had been brought to her attention a few weeks ago, after a terrorist attack on an old Overwatch outpost in Gibraltar. It caused no small amount of consternation to Dr. Zeigler that it was her invention, corrupted, that had done this to Hana in the first place, and she resolved to help her as much as she possibly could. Besides which, this was an opportunity not just for her, but for all of medical science. While it's true she'd made great strides in nanobiology, the one limitation she was consistently thwarted by was the gulf between repair and creation.
Given enough of a road map, her technology could repair damage, such as breaks, punctures, degenerative diseases, even bullet holes and the like. But if the damage was too extensive, such as amputation, or there simply wasn't anything there originally, like congenital defects, she couldn't tell them to "make an arm", for example. Cybernetics were a decent stopgap, but true restoration of the body was impossible currently. She thought of Genji Hanamura, who was still coming to terms with his life as a cyborg. His operation- 'resurrection' some of her colleagues had called it- has been the most extensive and experimental, the power requirements one of the few times she'd worn her valkyrie suit inside an operating theater. If Hana had something inside her, given her incredible growths and alterations, that could unlock the ability to create limbs anew from nothing, maybe she could finally give him true peace.
"Hello Ms. Song," Angela said, coming up to the foot of the modified gurney her snail shell rested on. "Was that helpful?"
"You know, it was, kinda," Came Hana's voice, echoing out the bottom of her shell. Angela heard a soft squelching sound, and averted her eyes as the Korean girl squeezed out of the opening. A mystery as bizarre as it was perverse, the formerly petite woman now sported breasts larger than her head, over a dozen of them, all along her snail-like torso. "It's... It's okay, doctor," Hana said, and Angela looked back to see Hana now completely out of her shell, or as completely as it allowed, the outline of her buttocks resting against the outer edge of the shell's entrance. She hadn't donned the poncho-like tarp that was provided to keep her modest without getting ruined by the slime she continuously secreted from her pores.
"No point in worrying about modesty when you're just trying to make me better," She said, all four arms shrugging. "So what's on the agenda today?"
"You're sure you want to begin right away?" Angela asked. While Hana was perfectly healthy, aside from the obvious transformations, Angela knew from her work with Hanamura that mental health was just as important.
"Yeah... yeah, I think so. Getting back online with my fans was a real boost, they were all super supportive," Hana said, nodding. "...Though I just know that little peek of the top of my boobs is going to be allll over the internet in minutes..."
"Well, all right, then," Angela said, tapping a few buttons on her tablet to summon some assistants. "Today I wanted to examine you... your M.E.K.A.'s armaments."
Hana nodded, and Angela flinched a bit as the articulated cannons on the side of her shell did likewise. "Obviously the Korean army isn't forthcoming with one of their greatest anti-Omnic weapons' schematics, so I can't really tell what's normal and what's not. I was hoping to tap into your expertise as a pilot to help me."
Hana scoffed. "Well, the part that's not normal is all this," She said, an arm gesturing in each of the four cardinal directions for emphasis.
"I- yes, of course, I realize everything has changed slightly, but... how to put this... If you change out all the pieces of a computer except the processor and memory, is it still the same computer? Is it now a new computer?"
"Well, no..." Hana said, her eyes looking up as she thought. "I mean, it's got different capabilities now, but some of the architecture's still- okay, okay, I get your point. So what do you want to know?"
"Well," Angela started as two orderlies entered the lab, "when you arrived, you said you'd been engaged in a prolonged firefight, yet when we were able to access the diagnostics of your M.E.K.A., it said your ammunition reserves were full." She motioned the two orderlies to the back of Hana's gurney. "The tests I'd like to do today are to see if your body adjusted itself so that the ammunition remaining was seen as the new normal, or if your body has somehow found a way to replenish its ammunition biologically."
"Huh... You know, I was really really hungry the first day or so after I got picked up..." Hana mused.
"I noticed," Angela nodded, "And so this will be interesting to see if expending your ammunition again leads to the same effect. Unfortunately, there's no secure route to get all the way from here to the firearms range," She said, gesturing to the door with her head, "So if you'd like to be covered or something for the trip..."
"...Nah, that's okay," Hana said as the orderlies began maneuvering her out of the room. "I'm good in here," she continued, sliding back inside her shell and giving a thumbs-up with her upper-right hand before disappearing entirely inside it. "Catch up on some mail, watch a replay or two... just let me know when we arrive."
* * *
When Hana re-emerged, she found a pair of goggles and earphones next to her shell, and several large blocks of ballistic gel arrayed in front of her. Angela and two orderlies were standing by, each wearing goggles and earmuffs, save for Angela whose muffs were around her neck.
"...You realize I can't take these off, right?" Hana asked, pointing to her headphones with her upper right arm and the earmuffs on her gurney with the lower-right.
"Eye protection is still advisable," Angela nodded, "Though I must admit I'm most worried about those antennae of yours..."
Hana's eyes rose up towards the two blue protrusions coming from the top of her skull, the antenna arching down as if looking towards her eyes. "Yeah, you're right, doctor," She said, "but it feels really weird for anyone to touch them.... dunno how you could shield them, but for now let's just run the test."
"Very well, if you're certain," Angela said. "Into each cube of gel, please fire a round from each of your armaments, including the interceptor rounds from your defense matrix..."
* * *
Angela flitted between the various instruments in her lab, checking the numerous scanners and readings. Hana's ammunition looked fairly standard at first glance, but on closer examination, the peculiar oddities of the merger with her M.E.K.A. became apparent. The projectiles had no indication of being machined at all- the lines between shell, casing, and bullet were purely cosmetic, there were no actual separate components. The molecular composition just changed from one bit to the next, assembled with atomic-level precision by the nanomachines in Hana's odd body. She looked up from the micro-scanner to look at the small Koi fish she'd bought to keep her company on these long nights. It had been Hanamura's idea, in one of their correspondences mentioning how useful they were for calmness and meditation.
"Well, Genji, what do you think?" She asked the fish as she moved on to another station, one of the large-caliber cannon rounds clamped in place. "Feel like as much a mechanic as a doctor sometimes..." Swinging a tool over the workbench, she slowly guided a low-power cutting laser along the length of the round, scoring it without cutting through the metal. She was hoping to dissect the round, see if there were any organic compounds in the weapon or if it was inorganic, basically being secreted as some kind of "waste" by Hana's cybernetic shell. She went back over the scoring with the laser again, keeping a close eye on the temperature readings so she wouldn't accidentally cook off anything volatile inside.
With the round scored most of the way through its thin casing, Angela picked up a monomolecular scalpel- what she would warn to new residents was "frighteningly sharp"- and went to gently cut through the last of the casing and begin her dissection of the odd bio-mechanical ammunition.
At the first penetration into the core of the round, it violently exploded, shattering and sending fragments of it and the device holding it flying through the air. Angela put her arms in front of her even as she toppled backward, registering impacts from all sides as all the other rounds she was studying simultaneously followed suit, even the supposedly inert defensive matrix rounds. Her gloves and safety goggles protected her from the worst of it, but she could still feel the stings of more than a dozen small wounds, to say nothing of the persistent burning on her chin and neck from the heat. As she struggled to her feet, she saw something that made her realize the explosion was no longer even on the scale of important things she needed to worry about as she saw a cloud, like twinkling metallic smoke, billowing towards the ceiling.
"The nanomachines!" She gasped, lurching for the large red lockdown button against the wall behind her desk. With a loud buzzer, Angela heard the grinding and slamming of doors and vents as the lab became entirely sealed off. The larger threat contained- she hoped- She turned her attention to herself, staggering off to one of the first aid stations scattered around the lab, farthest from where the nanite clouds had dispersed from. Holding a less-portable version of her Caduceus staff on a swivel arm. She stood underneath it and activated the trigger, hissing through her teeth as she pulled out the larger pieces of shrapnel, allowing the beam to more easily seal her wounds. She didn't even wait for the beam to turn off before she was off to a locker in the corner of the lab, pulling it open and discarding her lab coat to step into an NBC Suit. She wasn't sure to what degree it would keep out the nanomachines, especially since they'd been only so happy to convert Hana's M.E.K.A., but it was at least some time to think before anything catastrophic happened.
"Dr. Zeigler! Dr. Zeigler! Came the panicked voice of the security chief in her ear. "Are you still in Lab 2-C? We just got report of a contamination lockdown!"
"Yes! Yes, I'm here," Angela said, trying to keep an eye on the silver cloud. It seemed to be settling on the floor, the lab thankfully- at least apparently- large enough for her to get away before contamination. "Song's ammunition exploded upon dissection. Not just one, all of them, at once. Shows some kind of agreed-upon programming. Go wake Song immediately and patch her through to my channel."
"Are you all right, Doctor?"
"Minor burns and lacerations from the initial explosion, but those are trivial. Main concern now is the nanomachines that were dormant in Song's munitions now may not be so. I've managed to get myself into an NBC suit, but can't rule out contamination yet. Do NOT lift lockdown until I say so. Maybe not even then, if they have any adverse effects on my mental state..."
"...Doctor?" The security chief said, unsure of how to process her request.
"We can't rule anything out," Angela said, her breath fogging the visor of her NBC suit. "Deploy diatomic suppressants on lab quadrants two, four, and six through nine."
"I- are you sure, Dr. Zeigler?"
Angela smirked. "Thank you for checking. Yes, my NBC filter should protect me. Quadrants two, four, and six through nine."
"All right... deploying..."
With a whooshing hiss, a thick plume of heavy gas, like a cloud of pale dust, dumped out of the ceiling and settled on the counters and floor around her experiments. As the inert agent settled in a thick blanket over every surface, Angela scanned for any sort of motion, anything that could indicate the agent was being consumed by the nanomachines.
"Doctor Zeigler??" Hana's voice came through her earpiece, apparently having been woken and connected. "Did something happen?"
"Yes, Ms. Song, it did..." Angela said, edging her way around the room. "When I tried to dissect your ammunition, they all exploded, releasing a cloud of nanomachines into the air.
"Oh no!" Hana exclaimed. "Are you okay? Did they get you? Get out of there!"
"My condition is fine, for the time being," Angela said, taking slow, careful steps toward the scorched counters where she was running her experiments. "But I need to know anything you do about your ammunition." If the nanos were to start attacking her suit or filter, she'd at least have enough time to shuck their current meal and escape to get another.
"Uh, well... I don't really know anything in detail. I mean, I can tell you the normal rounds are for tight-dispersal flechettes, and the defensive rounds are blunted sub-sonic rounds..."
"Anything about explosive detonation?"
"No, no, not on any of the units I've ever piloted."
"Hrm... The fact that they all exploded at once shows some kind of deeper programming beyond self-defense, but-"
"Wait!" Hana exclaimed, and Angela could hear some squelching sounds as the snail-woman moved around in her shell. "My first M.E.K.A. commander said that our suits had never fallen into the hands of an enemy. I thought when he said it that, it was just because of the self-destruct functionality, but maybe it's built into the chassis? Like, some sort of tamper-proofing?"
"So... Perhaps this was part of the original programming in the M.E.K.A., and not the work of the nanomachines? Are you sure?"
"Not sure enough to bet my life on it- and certainly not yours," Hana said. "But then again, I hardly know anything for sure after Gibraltar..."
Angela thought for a moment, before switching channels. "Get me a scan of all biological components in this room," She ordered, "Maximum resolution."
She came up to the farthest end of the countertop she had been using, picking up a piece of shattered plastic and examining it closely. The edges all seemed appropriately raw and warped, no evidence of consumption or conversion...
"Scan complete, Dr. Zeigler," The operator said. "Nothing anomalous on the micro level... And you're the only thing picked up on the Macro level."
Angela nodded. "Well, me and-" She started, her heart sinking as she saw Genji's small container next to the centrifuge, broken and nearly empty of water.
"Ohhh, Genji, I'm so sorry..." She said, stepping around the piles of neutralizing agent. The half-submerged Koi's fins flapped weakly as its gills pulsed, trying to push water through to get enough oxygen filtered out of it to live. The eye on the side of the Koi's head twitched to and fro, covered in a light dusting of the neutralizing agent. "You poor thing," she asked as she made her way to Genji's container, lifting the twitching fish from its shattered tank. She wasn't much of a veterinarian, but she knew that the drastic temperature change and dusting by the neutralizing agent would send the poor creature into shock. She looked over her shoulder at the first aid station she'd left on. She knew she'd never use the kind of power it took to charge her beam on an animal, and the results of using it on non-humans were unreliable in any case, but...
She walked the fish over to the first aid station, figuring that it was already as good as dead, so if the poor creature died here it would be more of an ironic euthanizing than an accidental murder.
"Dr. Zeigler?" Came the voice in her earpiece. "Ah... what are you doing?"
Angela thought for a moment, remembering what she had warned about mental changes. "...What does it look like I'm doing?"
"It looks like you're about to put your pet fish under the first aid beam."
"Does that seem dangerous to you?" She asked, recalling her steps mentally to ensure continuity of her cognition.
"...Kind of pointless, perhaps, but no, not dangerous."
"All right then," Angela said, stepping forward and placing the fish under the beam.
Like a time-lapse of butter in a hot skillet, the fish began melting into goo as soon as it went under the beam, the semi-organic slop eating through her suit's gloves in an instant and burning her hands even as she scrambled to shed her suit's gloves.
"Jävla skit!" Angela hissed, feeling a searing heat in her hands. "The nanomachines are still active!"
"Oh no!" Hana exclaimed over her channel. "Doc, get out of anything you don't want permanently attached!"
Mercy scrambled out of her NBC suit, cringing and flinching at the stinging sensations in her hands. Inwardly, she cursed at herself for her overconfidence, for not waiting for every single test to come back negative before allowing herself to even get near the dangerous nanomachines.
"Doc, you might want to switch to PA or something, unless you want this thing fused to your ear..." Hana's voice came through her earpiece.
"Agreed," Angela said, as she finished flinging her suit to the ground, backing into the corner. She looked at her hands, one stained a bright, traffic-pylon orange, and the other chalky white with dark splotches on the fingers. "Turn on the intercom for lab C-2, and begin recording," Angela said as the burning sensation crept down her wrists. "This... might be my last recording," She frowned, shaking her head so her earpiece fell out.
There was silence for a moment, before the speakers in the ceilings crackled to life.
"-you said to me I was perfectly fine, right??" Hana's panicked voice rang out.
"You were, yes," Angela said, turning her hands from back to palm to back again, examining them, "But a sample size of one is hardly a guideline. I have no such guarantees. I'm going to be taking notes, let's hope for the best..."
Angela cleared her throat, checking the time. "Dr. Angela Zeigler, 2:29 AM. Exposed to compromised nanomachines through exploding ammunition. No initial symptoms presented, exposed self to Caduceus Beam energies for treatment of minor burns and shrapnel wounds, dressed in NBC suit, and diatomic neutralizer was released." She arched an eyebrow and examined her hand, seeing the skin between her fingers seemed to be stretching higher of its own accord. "Attempted to resuscitate my pet fish- ah... Cyprinus carpio, that's right- in Caduceus Beam, whereupon it appeared to melt or dissolve, likely spurred on by the presence of nanomachines." She took a breath, trying to get through her notes quickly but clearly. "Symptoms began presenting upon skin contact. Burning, stinging sensations, little in the way of actual pain. Red coloration on right hand, white and black on left hand. Discoloration is progressing up extremities, likely result of nanomachine progress. Perhaps not in bloodstream yet? Different colorations appearing; first indicator of black on right wrist and orange below left wrist..."
Angela sighed, straightening herself up. She'd watched enough people die in her capacity as both surgeon and Overwatch medic. She could handle this. "Observation: According to Hana Song, the one who corrupted the nanobots to begin with had a stated goal of 'healthy, safe, and useless'. The snail-like transformation Song went under seemed to have nothing to do with any proximal flora or fauna, yet my skin seems to be developing colorations closely related to the Cyprinus carpio I held under the Caduceus Beam. Add to that the fact that my interdigital folds seem to be growing, and, well..." Angela cleared her throat as the webbing between her fingers seemed to crawl up towards her second knuckle. "Hypothesis: the dormant nanomachines became activated in the presence of both the nanobiotic rejuvenation of the Caduceus Beam and the necrotizing cells of the dying fish. Both stimuli together, compounded by the unknown effect of the beam on aquatic physiology, has apparently triggered the "healthy" conditional of the nanomachines, though what the intersection of marine and terrestrial biology will result in is unknown at this time. I will continue to keep notes as long as I am able."
Angela paced the far side of the lab, away from the dormant nanomachines. Her mind raced, trying to think of what to do. Her eyes flicked to the display on the wall and straightened up.
"2:32 AM. Elevated heart rate. Unsure of how much, as I don't want to place my compromised fingers on my neck and I can't be assured a proper reading through the compromised wrists. Along with, hmm... slightly elevated respiration. Unsure if this is a result of the nanomachines, or simply a result of stressors at my possible impending mortality."
"Don't say that, doctor..." Hana's mournful voice came over the PA. Angela didn't want to waste words on reassurances yet, but it did remind her of something as she watched the discoloration travel closer to her elbows, still in varying patterns of orange, white, and black..
"Hana, you said that when you were first exposed, the nanomachines dissolved your clothing?"
"Uh, yeah..." Hana replied. "Well, maybe 'dissolve' is the wrong word, since there wasn't anything left over... More like... they ate it? To use elsewhere? That little frilly bit on my back and sides, that's the exact same color of my pilot suit..." She said.
"Right then," Angela nodded, and quickly began undoing the rest of her clothes, taking great care not to touch her skin as she did so.
"Uhm... Doctor?" The security chief ventured. "Sh-should I turn off the cameras?"
"Absolutely not," Angela said as she stepped out of her socks. "This might be vital in our search for a cure." She looked back towards one of the cameras in the ceiling. "If I don't wind up perishing from this, however, please encrypt these and send them to my personal server. I don't want the tabloids getting hold of these and thinking I'm some sort of exhibitionist."
"Er, I understand, Dr. Zeigler," The security chief said, an awkward silence following as Angela examined her nude body.
"The progression seems to be maintaining a steady pace," Angela said, holding her arms out in front of her and rotating them to her sides. "Markings seem to be consistent with a koi fish, but- nngh- Hang on, phalangeal discomfort..." Angela cringed as her fingers burned, and as she brought them close to examine, she could see lines forming in her skin, spreading out from the folds over her knuckles and radiating out to the rest of her fingers. "Epidermal layer appear to be thickening, toughening... Mobility is as yet unaffected, and the sensation- while discomforting- does not appear to be painful. This correlates with Song's experience, though the toughening of her skin didn't bear out such visible differences."
Angela cleared her throat as the colored patterns traveled up to her biceps. "The... infection? Conversion? No real terminology for the process yet... nevermind. The process is nearing my torso, and while I'm not privy to any of the internal workings of the nanomachines besides the odd discomfort, if anything were to happen that could result in a fatality, it would be when they reach my major internal organs. I'm hoping, much like with Song, that the necessary adjustments are made in my physiology without- ahem- without damage." Angela raised her arm, inspecting the pit of her arm as the scales spread over her shoulder. "No fin-like webbing or other changes to the arms are apparent. Mouth is dry, more than would seem logical for the increased respiration noted earlier... Debating acquiring an oxygen BVM, but still worried about the nanomachines 'eating' anything I might come in contact with."
Angela was quiet for a few moments, waiting for some kind of feeling or sensation beyond the now familiar tickling and burning of her skin discoloring and turning scaly. "Are you getting all this?" She asked, sparing a look up at the cameras.
"Yes, Dr. Zeigler," the security office said. "You're sure there's nothing else? No one I should call?"
"Sadly, I'm the foremost nanobiologist on the planet," She replied. "There's no one's expertise I could use right now..."
"I-is there anything I can do?" Hana's voice came over the PA.
"I wish I could say yes," Angela said, examining her hands. "Hmm, 2:36 AM, webbing between fingers seems to have halted just shy of the fingernail bed. Skin is thick but flexible... Could still hold a pen or scalpel, probably... Hmm, but at this juncture, Hana, our reactions to the nanomachines have diverged enough I think only generalities would apply across our respective conditions."
"Okay... if you're sure..."
Dr. Zeigler suddenly gasped, and she started making her way to where the oxygen-giving BVM was stored.
"Sudden... hahh... sudden loss of b-breath, 2:37 AM. Huhh... Just... just once. Breathing seems to... hahh... be returning to normal. Sensation was like both lungs had suddenly collapsed, just for a brief moment." She leaned against one of the lab's cabinets, her hand hovering by but not touching the drawer. "Still wary of giving the machines any more foreign matter to work with... But staying nearby just in case."
Angela tried to calm her breath, tried to stay focused and relaxed. She rolled her shoulders, feeling the scales wrap around her torso from the shoulders like something giving her a skin-crawling hug. If this was as far as things went, she could probably live with it. There were worse skin conditions that people had still led productive lives with.
"Mmmh... 2:40 AM, odd but slightly pleasurable warmth in breast tissue..." Angela glanced down, the outer curves of her breasts framed in orange skin. "Slow but constant growth, haahh... detected. Again in line with Song's experience, but will need to see what difference there is, given a much larger... starting size."
"Hey!" Hana's indignant voice shout out of the intercom.
"Nothing personal, Hana," Angela quickly added, a smile forcing its way to her lips despite the gravity of the situation. "Just math, no aesthetic, ngh, judgments..." she explained as her bosoms swelled out, the temptation to feel them hard to resist."Growth seems to be concurrent with the progress of the skin discoloration, leading me to believe their growth is halfway over at this point... Slight tingling sensation up the spine, nngh, possibly related to other changes or just the combination of a somewhat cold atmosphere and unusual stimulation of, ah, erogenous zones..." Angela swallowed hard and took a few deep breaths, trying to stay professional. "Hm, ah, 2:42 AM... Growth of breast tissue seems to have subsided. Acute size increase, don't have the necessary instrumentation, but at the point where the discolorations from both arms meet above the sternum, each breast appears to be as large as my head... Yet no visible nipples... It would make sense for the nipples to vanish as aquatic species don't nurse their young, but following that logic the size increase had no reason to occur either..."
"These things are perverted, doctor," Hana's flat voice said. "Intentionally or not, they seem to like boobs."
Angela grimaced, but continued, trying to keep her examinations professional for the sake of posterity. "Discolorations continue down the torso, slowly but steadily, followed soon after by the thickening, toughening of the skin into what appear to be scales. Will attempt to isolate one for study later."
Angela turned to a glass cabinet, using it as a mirror. She still wanted to go as long as she could without touching any of her nanomachine-altered flesh to anything they might consider worth incorporating into her, but the transformation was spreading to places she couldn't see, especially with her newly-enlarged bosoms blocking her view of her front.
"2:44 AM," Angela swallowed, "Abdominal area is mostly covered, discoloration reaching up to neck. Throat is continually dry-feeling now- hoping asphyxiation isn't upcoming..." She twisted around, looking over her shoulders. "It appears to be spreading more slowly on my posterior side, shoulders converted but as yet no discoloration over the spine... Possible relation to fatty tissues on breasts and abdomen being more conducive?"
Angela turned back around, craning her neck to look past her high cheekbones. The koi-fish patterns of black, white, and orange were rather pretty in a way... Provided she lived long enough to appreciate them.
"2:4- ahem- 2:47 AM, discoloration is reaching up to lower mandible... Expecting any of the most severe reactions to the nanomachines here... Given the antennae-like structures rooted through Song's skull, the blood-brain barrier will likely offer no protection..." Angela swallowed again, her breaths coming fast enough to nearly be classified as panting. "Oxygen uptake seems to be declining... No tightness in the chest or other respiratory symptoms... Just... is Oxygen not what this new physiology needs? Am I supposed to be respiring from some other method?" Her hand wavered by the cupboard handle, the BVM right inside. "Hana! You've said that even when your air passages are blocked with mucous, you can breathe?"
"Uh, y-yeah, but I don't know how or why!"
"We'll just have to hope the nanomachines make... the same accommodations for me..." Angela said, cringing as she felt a tingling in her ears. "Uh oh... Security, please get into the publicly-accessible educational files and play a cardiac monitor's normal heart-rate rhythm."
"Er... All right, Dr. Zeigler, I'll-"
"Got it," Hana's voice came out, and the rhythmic beeping began piping through the speakers.
"Good.... good, thank you Hana," Angela said, eyes flicking up to the clock on the wall again before she closed her eyes to concentrate. "2:51 AM... Discoloration is reaching ears, slight discomfort similar to webbing between fingers earlier... Establishing baseline hearing acuity in case of negative sensory effect."
Beep... Beep... Beep...
Angela focused on the sounds, trying to calm her rapid breathing. She was starting to feel a little lightheaded, but she still wasn't willing to go for the mask just yet. Just listen to the monitor, she thought as her ears tingled and burned.
Beep... Beep... Beep...
Beep... Beep... Beep...
Bee... Bee... Ee...
Ee... Ee... E...
"Significant hearing loss occurring..." Angela said, brow furrowing as her own voice sounded distant and tiny. "Concurrent with tight, pulling sensations on ears..." She opened her eyes and turned to look in the reflective glass, blinking in surprise at the red and orange-speckled fins protruding from the sides of her head. "Ah... hm. Ears have been transfigured into fin-like fans..." She turned her head, face tensing a bit as the fin-ears flicked back and forth quickly. "Oh, uh, 2:53 AM. Cartilage between the ear's helix and lobule, haah, seems to have served as anchor for the growth... Tragus, antitragus, and concha seem to have, hehh, vanished entirely, leaving only a hole akin to many sensory organs of reptiles... Nnngh..." Angela cringed as the sensation of water in her ears caused her already muffled hearing to pop, losing any sense of hearing beyond the fluid in her inner ears.
"_________", Angela said, unable to hear her own voice as she painfully described her complete deafness. "________________."
She looked at herself in the reflective glass again, baring her teeth. Even though the nanomachines had made it up and over the lower lip, her teeth- and tongue, she thought, sticking it out briefly- showed no sign of changes. That bade well for her hopes of still being able to digest food normally...
The deafness would be a pain, but some cochlear implants should help, assuming she still had any kind of eardrum left. But as the scaly skin crept up over her nose and towards her eyes, her breath began to shorten even further. She felt like she was choking, either from the panic of the nanomachines reaching her brain, or perhaps from some physiological change relating to the burning sensation in her nostrils. In either case, it was time to let posterity take a backseat to survivability, and she jerked open the drawer to get to the BVM inside. Tearing the wrapping open, she pushed the mask against her mouth and began steadily pumping the bag, the tang of the oxygen-rich air flowing down her throat. She felt a little dizzy, and leaned herself into the corner to better stabilize herself as she worked the bag. It wasn't even a minute before she felt the tightness pass, but taking the breathing apparatus off proved to be unwise; she felt like no matter how fast or hard her breathing, she was hardly getting any air at all.
A wet popping sensation from her ear-holes heralded the return of the room sounds- humming refrigerant, cycling air, and the steady beeping of the heart monitor track.
"...Hello?" Angela asked. "Testing one two?"
"We hear you, Dr. Zeigler," The security chief said. "Can... can you hear us?"
"Yes," she nodded. "2:56 AM. Unsure if hearing fully restored, but good enough for the time being," She said, having to pause every few words to suck in a few more breaths from the BVM. "Respiratory distress is fairly acute now," She said, "But as the nanomachines are still active, I'm overriding any attempts to- nngh- break quarantine."
As if they had a sense of comedic timing, at the mention of the last 'but' in her speech, Angela's hips began to twist and tingle, the scaling-over flesh swelling and pushing her away from the corner she'd tucked herself into. "S-seems to be, ah, wait... 3:00 AM, swelling of adipose deposits on both interior and anterior hips and thighs, along with buttocks," She said. "Not as sensitive as earlier swelling over breasts..."
Before she could continue her examination, a stabbing pain caused Angela to cry out and curl forward, her BVM falling to the ground as she grabbed the sides of her neck.
"Doctor? Doc, what's wrong??" Hana called out over the PA.
"Pain... Very acute... Both sides of neck," Angela grunted. "Stabbing... like knitting needles.... in one side and out the other..." For the first time that night, Angela's fear of dying to the nanomachines moved out of the academic and into the immediate. She bent down to retrieve the BVM, webbed hand shaking as she grabbed it and put it to her face again. Tears (and perhaps nanomachines) stung her eyes, but when she pulled her other hand away from her neck, there was no blood or plasma or any other bodily fluid on it; whatever was causing the pain wasn't wounding her body in any way, though she admitted to herself in the same thought that cleanly reconfiguring her body to be incompatible to life would leave her just as dead, wounds or no.
Angela grabbed the handle of a nearby cupboard to steady her rise back to her feet, looking to the reflective glass. Her entire head was now covered in the orange, black, and white scales. Her eyes seemed generally unchanged, save for the loss of eyebrows and lashes, and her nose was a little more broad and flat than her Swiss heritage would necessarily reflect. But the real change, the source of the pain on her neck, was a set of three gashes in the skin on each side, layered atop each other like roofing tiles. They were thick, thicker than could be explained by just the flesh separating. She sucked in a breath and saw the three slashes widen and contract, and knew immediately what had become of her.
Angela staggered over to the eye-wash station and pulled the lever, water flushing down onto her face. She turned her neck to try and let the water hit it, but mostly it just pressed the gashes flat atop one another. With a tremble of quickly-overcome fear, Angela opened her mouth into the spray and tried to take the biggest breath she could.
The relief was instantaneous. Some unknown system in her body shunted the water off an unknown branch of her trachea, and as the water coursed out of the gashes in her neck it was like she'd taken her first deep breath since the changes started.
"Dr. Zeigler, I see the emergency eye-wash has been triggered," The security chief said. "What's going on?"
She didn't respond right away, taking as many deep "breaths" as she could while the flow of water sustained itself. Once she felt completely refreshed, she leaned out of the stream to speak.
"Grrbglr," She said, coughing and spitting as the remnants of the water worked their way out of her system, dribbling down her shoulders and between her enlarged breasts. "Gills," She said again, clearing her throat. "The nanomachines gave me gills. I don't think my body is capable of pulling sufficient oxygen from the air anymore..." She moved her head back under the stream for her last few deep breaths before the stream ran out.
"Okay, well, I'll get a team up-"
"NO," Angela said forcefully as she retrieved the BVM. "The nanomachines are still active. Legs are feeling numb. Can't risk breaking quarantine."
"Well, that lab doesn't have any other sources of water, so-"
"Doctor, I'm sorry to interrupt, but did you say your legs were feeling numb? Like, say, they're too big for your skin? Kind of thick but insubstantial, like taffy?"
"Correct," Angela said, mind already working.
"Then you'd better find somewhere to sit or lay down, because that's exactly what mine felt like before they bent backwards and started twisting into my M.E.K.A.," Hana warned, fidgeting inside the screen-lit confines of her biomechanical shell.
Angela's mind raced, trying to figure out how to save her life without risking everyone else's. The showers in the residency bunks were the obvious solution, but just as obviously impossible to traverse safely. The swimming pool in the recreation area was just as bad, and the chlorine might possibly kill her besides. She just needed an area big enough to keep water flowing through her gills...
Angela retrieved her tablet and went through a map of all the labs and offices on this floor, using the BVM to hopefully slow the rate of her oxygen loss. She browsed through each in turn, possibilities forming and dissolving in rapid succession, until finally she hit on one she could use.
"Security, I need you to gather the following materials and then lock down the route from this lab to office Gamma-seven..." Angela commanded.
* * *
The waiting was the hardest part, as the preparations were made; just having to sit and feel the nanobots doing their work while she did nothing. Well, not nothing nothing, she firmed up some of her notes, filled in missing timestamps and the like. But for the most part she just stood by the door, breathing through the BVM often and examining her changes. Her rear and hips had broadened even more prodigiously; had she still been wearing her trousers she was certain they'd have ripped right off her by now. What was most concerning now, at least on the lower half of her body, was the steady, alien ache in her legs, like bone pain but not painful in the classic sense. She kept high-stepping with one leg and then the other, trying to gauge any changes that might be happening. Given the rest of her changes, she was sure it'd reflect the koi's physiology somehow, but since she still retained her hands and fingers, it was obviously not a one-to-one transformation. Still, she kept her notes and records, tried to keep herself calm to conserve oxygen, and waited.
"We're ready, Dr. Zeigler," The security chief finally said over the PA. Angela nodded, not wanting to waste the breath on words, and took a step to the door.
The moment she put leverage on her leading leg it folded like a rubber band, pitching Angela into the containment door and then to the ground, her shocked cry and grunts of pain using up precious oxygen, her chest already feeling tight again. She pushed herself up onto her hips, looking down at her legs. The left one still seemed mostly solid, but the right leg flopped around, the flesh spongy. She groaned internally and reached up for the door controls, undoing the lockdown from her side of the room.
True to his word, the hallway was empty, all exits locked down save for the one leading to gamma-seven. And right in front of the door was a hover-gurney, which Angela had originally asked for merely as a precaution. Thankfully she had done so before it became a necessity. She reached up and pressed the "lower" button on the corner of the gurney until it had descended enough for her to clamber onto sans solid legs, the electric blue anti-grav generators humming and making a small breeze blow from it like they always did when pushed so close to the ground.
Angela crawled up onto the gurney, biting her lip as her breasts mashed into the cold, sterile metal. She'd definitely need to find something to do about that if she was ever going to be able to work again...
She heaved herself up to the front of the gurney, her multicolored legs resting limply at the other end. She bent her knees up, and her feet stayed on the gurney, her shins forming little more than an arch. Angela just shook her head and squeezed the bulb of the BVM to get her some more oxygen.
With the gurney at its lowest setting, Angela was able to use her hands to basically paddle the floating slab down the hallway, the small claws on her fingertips a non-insignificant help to her ability to get traction. As she felt the pulling sensation on her legs, she tried to keep them apart, even as her thighs stuck together and her toes lengthened and splayed apart from each other. She wasn't even bothering to look, now; she couldn't afford to waste the breath needed to record her observations.
It was a delicate balance; using two hands she could move the gurney much faster and with more accuracy, but only using one hand allowed her to pump the BVM into her increasingly inefficient air-breathing lungs. The physical exertion of dragging herself along was burning up her oxygen much faster than before. What I wouldn't give for another eye-wash station, she thought, grabbing the corner of the hallway intersection and dragging the gurney around to face down the hallway. She went to hook her foot around the edge of the gurney to help swing it around, but almost wound up sliding her hips off the edge. As she flopped around to regain her balance, she realized she could no longer move her legs independently from one another above the knee. Angela redoubled her efforts, claws digging through the paint and into the composite of the wall until she finally managed to get the gurney properly aligned.
It was only a few dozen meters to the lab she needed, and she would need every molecule of oxygen she had left in her to get there. She used a steady rhythm, pulling with one hand, squeezing air with the other. Pull, squeeze, pull, squeeze. She was already feeling dizzy, letting the gurney drag and bump against the walls as she bumbled her way forward, the single lit laboratory the sole focus of her heavy-lidded eyes. Gotta stay awake... Gotta keep going... Gotta... gotta keep pumping, Angela thought, her curiously-unaffected hair falling in front of her face as her head jostled back and forth on the gurney. She was barely squeezing the BVM anymore, fingers numb and weak.
The gurney banged against the doorjamb, Angela half-pulling and half-falling past it. There, just a handful of meters away, was the rehabilitation clinic's hydrotherapy chamber. Angela dragged herself hand over hand, her gills twitching furiously as they tried to get oxygen out of the air. Her feet, which had thinned and merged into a broad, flat fish tail, slapped against the tile floor, trying to to push her along She heaved herself up the chamber's small ramp, flopping and gasping. Not like this... not so close... Angela mentally pleaded as she lurched herself against the inside of the glass enclosure. The control panel was just above the corner of the glass, but it was meant to be chest-high on an average human. Lying there slumped against the glass, Angela had no hope of reaching it. Elbows quivering like a plucked guitar string, Angela pushed herself up off the ground, dragging her large tail back close to her, sitting on it like a drunk snake attempting to coil itself. Her fingertips could just close around the top of the glass enclosure, but that still left more than a foot between her hand and the primed start button. Angela took the deepest breath she could, shaking and swaying from dizziness, and then pushed off with her tail, pulling down on numb hands to reach as far out of the enclosure as her weakened, transformed body allowed.
Crack!
Angela had no breath left to catch as the glass on the side of the enclosure broke, never meant to hold that much weight. Her closest hand slapped desperately at the control panel as she fell back to the ground, the world dimming as a distant hum began.
THIS IS NOT THE END OF THE STORY! PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE DOCUMENT TO SEE THE ENDING!
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Part One: Nano-Hacked
Part Two: Slugbra
Part Three: (Here)
Part Four: Still Beneath The Sands
Part Five: Mother May I
Part Two: Slugbra
Part Three: (Here)
Part Four: Still Beneath The Sands
Part Five: Mother May I
Small Mercies
"Anyoung haseyo! Hi everyone, this is D.Va, coming at you live! First of all, I'm okay! Okay-ish. I'm alive and... healthy. I know that last broadcast got kinda hairy, but you know me! Whether it's a Baneling swarm or an Omnic Colossus, I'm always good in a pinch!
"Okay, I'm already seeing lots of questions in the chat about the video quality, and I'll get to that in a bit. Thank you, StoneQueen27, for the comment about my 'new headpiece', I'll get to that too.
"So, big thank-yous to all the fan clubs and shouts and so on for all the well-wishes. You guys are great, and a big reason why I always play to win, because I don't want to let any of you down!
"Oh, D.VaVidaLoca, I saw your donation drive, and it's very sweet, but all my medical bills are taken care of by the M.E.K.A. corps. But I've sent off a few messages to some of my sponsors who might be up for matching donations to go to an Omnic Relief Fund, so let your donors know and if they keep their pledges I'll be sure to thank all of them!
"Er... Okay, yes, the camera's cut off at my shoulders, and yes, I know it looks like I'm not wearing a top. Again, I'll get to that.
"Ahem! So, ah, what does everyone know about nano-machines? I know we've got more than a few techie D.Vines out there- you all helped me get my M.E.K.A.'s viewscreen to display chat without the UI overlaying it, after all- so maybe you can explain in chat while I, uh, get some stuff together.
"...All right, yeah, thanks. For those listening to this later on the podcast- and haven't been completely spoiled on the big reveal coming up- nano-machines are tiny robots, tinier than microscopic, tinier than the 'Toss edge in the new meta- sorry, I said it, no flame wars in the comments please- that can basically build things on the atomic level. So, for example, a set of properly-programmed nano-bots could disassemble a cup, molecule by molecule, and re-assemble it into a plate!
"So, what's this got to do with me, and the bad video quality, and everything else you've been asking about? Well... Phoo... Okay, here goes, I'm gonna switch cameras now.
"See that? That's me. No, it's not my M.E.K.A., it's me. Yes, it does look like a snail's shell, Jwarud0, very observant. Okay, well, keep watching the right-hand side of it, and I'll bee are bee."
"...So, yeah, I'm back. That wasn't CG, or some weird cosplay, or anything like that you saw on the external feed. That's me now. I live inside the shell, because I'm literally attached to it. Remember when I said 'properly programmed' about the nanobots? Well, the specifics are classified, but let's just say that there are far worse hacks out there than map-hacks and lag exploits.
"I... Okay guys, slow down a bit, chat's going bonkers, lemme scroll up and- oh, ew! Someone please ban that guy with the 'lube' comment. Grow up, perv. Right, so, StoneQueen, I hope you still like my headpiece now that you know it's literally attached to me... as are my earphones. No, I don't mean like with glue or anything, I mean these are my ears now, if you were to try and surgically remove the earphones I'd be left with a flat hole on the side of my head. Like I said, it was the nano-machines. Imagine if two DVD's were put together, with one ring of data from each disc copied over at a time. There'd be absolutely no way you could then go and, say, solder over just one disc's contents, they're just meshed too closely together. That's just what the nanos did, the parts that were me and the parts that were my M.E.K.A. are now so closely intertwined there's just no way to separate them... Believe me, I've been asking around...
"Oh, right! So, yeah, the clothes thing. Well... No, I'm not wearing a top. And PLEASE don't be skeevy in chat about it. Go to slash-M.E.K.A if you have to, I know the kinds of photoshops that get posted there. Anyways, no, no top. And the reason why has to do with the other thing I said I'd address later, the poor video quality. It's actually not the camera or anything, it's actually surprisingly good given what the nanos did to it, but it's just... Well, here, lemme just wipe it off.
"Yeah, so this is... what'd she call it... 'A mucosal gel consisting of a polymer network for integument protection'. Or, you know, in layman's terms, slime. Snail slime. And it's everywhere.There's no way to clean it up, no way to get rid of it, because I just sweat the stuff out, constantly.
"Hah! You think it's gross seeing it, try living in it! But thanks for the condolences, everyone. It's... I've started to get used to it, I guess. Oh, good question in the chat- no, it doesn't bother my eyes, lemme lean in and I can show you. Yeah, see? Two sets of eyelids, so I've always got something keeping the goo off.”
"So back to the- wow, chat's blowing up, what's..."
"..."
"...Ugh, yes, all right, yes, I didn't mean for it to happen like that, but those were my boobs you saw at the bottom of the screen when I leaned in. Yes, they're... considerably larger, and no, I don't know why the nano-machines did that. I'd say they were designed by a pervert if I didn't know who the creator was. No, I can't order some for you! Good grief, who would want to be slimy and helpless forever just to get a bigger rack?
"I... no, that's- ugh. I suppose I should have known better than to ask that question to the internet...
"Okay, okay, moving on, so we can get through this. No clothes because of the slime. Believe me, I've tried, but everything either gets loaded up with slime and super clingy and heavy, or else it doesn't absorb the slime and fills up like a water balloon. I guess the bottom line is, there's not much room in here for anything that can't side along the shell.
"Right, so, I saw someone ask earlier if my antenna do anything, and yeah, they do, actually. Lemme pull up the external camera again and split-screen it... Okay, ready? Look ma, no hands! That's right, I can control the canons, booster, and flight control surfaces without touching a thing. Hahaha, I actually wouldn't know, BluePrintOm3ga, I've never tried to fly like this yet. I agree, though, it seems about as aerodynamic as a breezeblock, so we'll see just how well it actually works. Even if I can't get liftoff, though, I'd probably be the world's fastest snail, right? That's gotta be worth something.
"Yes, the canons still fire just fine. If I wasn't, ah, a 'guest' in my current location, I'd show you all a test-fire. You wanna know something weird, though? The reload access for them is completely gone. There's just simply no way to access it from outside unless you cut into it, which as I've said before is cutting into me, soooo yeahno, not going that route anytime soon. Yeah, weird, right? Except it's not. I mean, yeah, it's weird, but that's just setting up the really weird part I wanted to tell you about. Despite being in a firefight before I got nano'd, despite having fired my canons since in testing, the ammo counter still reads full. And it's not a counter issue, because they've x-rayed me and it shows it's all still in there. The only explanation is that I'm somehow growing them inside me, the nanos taking the food I eat and refurbishing it on a molecular level into more ammunition while I sleep. How crazy is that?
"Hmm... good question, again from Jwarud0. The answer is, I can sleep both inside and outside my shell, and I'm still not a hundred percent sure which one I'm 'supposed' to. Neither one is what I'd call super comfortable, but neither is uncomfortable enough for me to lose sleep over. It'd be nice if I could have some pillows, but if they're slime-proof it feels like I'm sleeping on an umbrella, and if they're not slime-proof I wake up feeling like I'm snuggling up to a giant booger. No, I don't need a snorkel when I sleep, heh. I seem to be able to breathe okay even when my mouth and nose get totally sealed in by slime. Might be something to do with my M.E.K.A.'s old air recycling and filtration system feeding directly into me, the docs say."
"Oooh... ooh, that's a good question, TossMeThrophies. I sure hope this doesn't cost me my Battlenet ranking. I've heard of other people getting cybernetics after accidents and staying in the natural league if they were able to verify it didn't offer any performance enhancements, maybe I can get someone from Blizzard over at some point...
"Heck yeah I'm still gonna stream! Until we get this fixed or figured out I'm basically on leave from military stuff, so I'm gonna try and catch up on the games that've come out, read through all my fan mail- those who sent actual, physical mail, don't worry, it's being appropriately forwarded- and a bunch of other 'I'll get to it' stuff I always promised when I have time.
"What if... what if they never find a way to fix it, huh? Hmm..."
"..."
"..."
"No, stream didn't freeze, I'm just thinking. Yeah, the outer eyelids don't blink on reflex anymore, just the inner pair, can be hard to see.
"...I don't know. Really, I don't. I kind of grew up a pro gamer, and I could probably keep doing that, but being in the M.E.K.A. corps has allowed me to do so much more, for so many people. I dunno... Like I said, the canons still work, so maybe just stick me up on a rooftop in Busan's port and I'll watch for rogue Omnics? I'd like to still do something for the people of Korea and the world...
"All right, well, there you go. The secret's out, I suppose, and thanks to everyone for being so kind and supportive. It's been a rough week... But hey, you know me- I've never been one to gee-gee out of a setback, even when it might look hopeless! I'll try and get a streaming schedule up in the next day or so, once I learn what my doc's schedule for me is.
"Thanks again to all you D.Vines out there, you've really helped me feel better. I'll see you all soon- D.Va out!"
Doctor Angela Zeigler waited outside the room as "D.Va" finished her broadcast, hands in her lab coat. The patient on the other side of the door, once a highly capable pilot and internet celebrity, was among one of her most difficult cases. She turned her head as the lock on the door de-activated, her blonde ponytail swaying behind her shoulders as she looked, and went back into the lab she'd set aside for her. Real name Hana Song, D.Va had been brought to her attention a few weeks ago, after a terrorist attack on an old Overwatch outpost in Gibraltar. It caused no small amount of consternation to Dr. Zeigler that it was her invention, corrupted, that had done this to Hana in the first place, and she resolved to help her as much as she possibly could. Besides which, this was an opportunity not just for her, but for all of medical science. While it's true she'd made great strides in nanobiology, the one limitation she was consistently thwarted by was the gulf between repair and creation.
Given enough of a road map, her technology could repair damage, such as breaks, punctures, degenerative diseases, even bullet holes and the like. But if the damage was too extensive, such as amputation, or there simply wasn't anything there originally, like congenital defects, she couldn't tell them to "make an arm", for example. Cybernetics were a decent stopgap, but true restoration of the body was impossible currently. She thought of Genji Hanamura, who was still coming to terms with his life as a cyborg. His operation- 'resurrection' some of her colleagues had called it- has been the most extensive and experimental, the power requirements one of the few times she'd worn her valkyrie suit inside an operating theater. If Hana had something inside her, given her incredible growths and alterations, that could unlock the ability to create limbs anew from nothing, maybe she could finally give him true peace.
"Hello Ms. Song," Angela said, coming up to the foot of the modified gurney her snail shell rested on. "Was that helpful?"
"You know, it was, kinda," Came Hana's voice, echoing out the bottom of her shell. Angela heard a soft squelching sound, and averted her eyes as the Korean girl squeezed out of the opening. A mystery as bizarre as it was perverse, the formerly petite woman now sported breasts larger than her head, over a dozen of them, all along her snail-like torso. "It's... It's okay, doctor," Hana said, and Angela looked back to see Hana now completely out of her shell, or as completely as it allowed, the outline of her buttocks resting against the outer edge of the shell's entrance. She hadn't donned the poncho-like tarp that was provided to keep her modest without getting ruined by the slime she continuously secreted from her pores.
"No point in worrying about modesty when you're just trying to make me better," She said, all four arms shrugging. "So what's on the agenda today?"
"You're sure you want to begin right away?" Angela asked. While Hana was perfectly healthy, aside from the obvious transformations, Angela knew from her work with Hanamura that mental health was just as important.
"Yeah... yeah, I think so. Getting back online with my fans was a real boost, they were all super supportive," Hana said, nodding. "...Though I just know that little peek of the top of my boobs is going to be allll over the internet in minutes..."
"Well, all right, then," Angela said, tapping a few buttons on her tablet to summon some assistants. "Today I wanted to examine you... your M.E.K.A.'s armaments."
Hana nodded, and Angela flinched a bit as the articulated cannons on the side of her shell did likewise. "Obviously the Korean army isn't forthcoming with one of their greatest anti-Omnic weapons' schematics, so I can't really tell what's normal and what's not. I was hoping to tap into your expertise as a pilot to help me."
Hana scoffed. "Well, the part that's not normal is all this," She said, an arm gesturing in each of the four cardinal directions for emphasis.
"I- yes, of course, I realize everything has changed slightly, but... how to put this... If you change out all the pieces of a computer except the processor and memory, is it still the same computer? Is it now a new computer?"
"Well, no..." Hana said, her eyes looking up as she thought. "I mean, it's got different capabilities now, but some of the architecture's still- okay, okay, I get your point. So what do you want to know?"
"Well," Angela started as two orderlies entered the lab, "when you arrived, you said you'd been engaged in a prolonged firefight, yet when we were able to access the diagnostics of your M.E.K.A., it said your ammunition reserves were full." She motioned the two orderlies to the back of Hana's gurney. "The tests I'd like to do today are to see if your body adjusted itself so that the ammunition remaining was seen as the new normal, or if your body has somehow found a way to replenish its ammunition biologically."
"Huh... You know, I was really really hungry the first day or so after I got picked up..." Hana mused.
"I noticed," Angela nodded, "And so this will be interesting to see if expending your ammunition again leads to the same effect. Unfortunately, there's no secure route to get all the way from here to the firearms range," She said, gesturing to the door with her head, "So if you'd like to be covered or something for the trip..."
"...Nah, that's okay," Hana said as the orderlies began maneuvering her out of the room. "I'm good in here," she continued, sliding back inside her shell and giving a thumbs-up with her upper-right hand before disappearing entirely inside it. "Catch up on some mail, watch a replay or two... just let me know when we arrive."
* * *
When Hana re-emerged, she found a pair of goggles and earphones next to her shell, and several large blocks of ballistic gel arrayed in front of her. Angela and two orderlies were standing by, each wearing goggles and earmuffs, save for Angela whose muffs were around her neck.
"...You realize I can't take these off, right?" Hana asked, pointing to her headphones with her upper right arm and the earmuffs on her gurney with the lower-right.
"Eye protection is still advisable," Angela nodded, "Though I must admit I'm most worried about those antennae of yours..."
Hana's eyes rose up towards the two blue protrusions coming from the top of her skull, the antenna arching down as if looking towards her eyes. "Yeah, you're right, doctor," She said, "but it feels really weird for anyone to touch them.... dunno how you could shield them, but for now let's just run the test."
"Very well, if you're certain," Angela said. "Into each cube of gel, please fire a round from each of your armaments, including the interceptor rounds from your defense matrix..."
* * *
Angela flitted between the various instruments in her lab, checking the numerous scanners and readings. Hana's ammunition looked fairly standard at first glance, but on closer examination, the peculiar oddities of the merger with her M.E.K.A. became apparent. The projectiles had no indication of being machined at all- the lines between shell, casing, and bullet were purely cosmetic, there were no actual separate components. The molecular composition just changed from one bit to the next, assembled with atomic-level precision by the nanomachines in Hana's odd body. She looked up from the micro-scanner to look at the small Koi fish she'd bought to keep her company on these long nights. It had been Hanamura's idea, in one of their correspondences mentioning how useful they were for calmness and meditation.
"Well, Genji, what do you think?" She asked the fish as she moved on to another station, one of the large-caliber cannon rounds clamped in place. "Feel like as much a mechanic as a doctor sometimes..." Swinging a tool over the workbench, she slowly guided a low-power cutting laser along the length of the round, scoring it without cutting through the metal. She was hoping to dissect the round, see if there were any organic compounds in the weapon or if it was inorganic, basically being secreted as some kind of "waste" by Hana's cybernetic shell. She went back over the scoring with the laser again, keeping a close eye on the temperature readings so she wouldn't accidentally cook off anything volatile inside.
With the round scored most of the way through its thin casing, Angela picked up a monomolecular scalpel- what she would warn to new residents was "frighteningly sharp"- and went to gently cut through the last of the casing and begin her dissection of the odd bio-mechanical ammunition.
At the first penetration into the core of the round, it violently exploded, shattering and sending fragments of it and the device holding it flying through the air. Angela put her arms in front of her even as she toppled backward, registering impacts from all sides as all the other rounds she was studying simultaneously followed suit, even the supposedly inert defensive matrix rounds. Her gloves and safety goggles protected her from the worst of it, but she could still feel the stings of more than a dozen small wounds, to say nothing of the persistent burning on her chin and neck from the heat. As she struggled to her feet, she saw something that made her realize the explosion was no longer even on the scale of important things she needed to worry about as she saw a cloud, like twinkling metallic smoke, billowing towards the ceiling.
"The nanomachines!" She gasped, lurching for the large red lockdown button against the wall behind her desk. With a loud buzzer, Angela heard the grinding and slamming of doors and vents as the lab became entirely sealed off. The larger threat contained- she hoped- She turned her attention to herself, staggering off to one of the first aid stations scattered around the lab, farthest from where the nanite clouds had dispersed from. Holding a less-portable version of her Caduceus staff on a swivel arm. She stood underneath it and activated the trigger, hissing through her teeth as she pulled out the larger pieces of shrapnel, allowing the beam to more easily seal her wounds. She didn't even wait for the beam to turn off before she was off to a locker in the corner of the lab, pulling it open and discarding her lab coat to step into an NBC Suit. She wasn't sure to what degree it would keep out the nanomachines, especially since they'd been only so happy to convert Hana's M.E.K.A., but it was at least some time to think before anything catastrophic happened.
"Dr. Zeigler! Dr. Zeigler! Came the panicked voice of the security chief in her ear. "Are you still in Lab 2-C? We just got report of a contamination lockdown!"
"Yes! Yes, I'm here," Angela said, trying to keep an eye on the silver cloud. It seemed to be settling on the floor, the lab thankfully- at least apparently- large enough for her to get away before contamination. "Song's ammunition exploded upon dissection. Not just one, all of them, at once. Shows some kind of agreed-upon programming. Go wake Song immediately and patch her through to my channel."
"Are you all right, Doctor?"
"Minor burns and lacerations from the initial explosion, but those are trivial. Main concern now is the nanomachines that were dormant in Song's munitions now may not be so. I've managed to get myself into an NBC suit, but can't rule out contamination yet. Do NOT lift lockdown until I say so. Maybe not even then, if they have any adverse effects on my mental state..."
"...Doctor?" The security chief said, unsure of how to process her request.
"We can't rule anything out," Angela said, her breath fogging the visor of her NBC suit. "Deploy diatomic suppressants on lab quadrants two, four, and six through nine."
"I- are you sure, Dr. Zeigler?"
Angela smirked. "Thank you for checking. Yes, my NBC filter should protect me. Quadrants two, four, and six through nine."
"All right... deploying..."
With a whooshing hiss, a thick plume of heavy gas, like a cloud of pale dust, dumped out of the ceiling and settled on the counters and floor around her experiments. As the inert agent settled in a thick blanket over every surface, Angela scanned for any sort of motion, anything that could indicate the agent was being consumed by the nanomachines.
"Doctor Zeigler??" Hana's voice came through her earpiece, apparently having been woken and connected. "Did something happen?"
"Yes, Ms. Song, it did..." Angela said, edging her way around the room. "When I tried to dissect your ammunition, they all exploded, releasing a cloud of nanomachines into the air.
"Oh no!" Hana exclaimed. "Are you okay? Did they get you? Get out of there!"
"My condition is fine, for the time being," Angela said, taking slow, careful steps toward the scorched counters where she was running her experiments. "But I need to know anything you do about your ammunition." If the nanos were to start attacking her suit or filter, she'd at least have enough time to shuck their current meal and escape to get another.
"Uh, well... I don't really know anything in detail. I mean, I can tell you the normal rounds are for tight-dispersal flechettes, and the defensive rounds are blunted sub-sonic rounds..."
"Anything about explosive detonation?"
"No, no, not on any of the units I've ever piloted."
"Hrm... The fact that they all exploded at once shows some kind of deeper programming beyond self-defense, but-"
"Wait!" Hana exclaimed, and Angela could hear some squelching sounds as the snail-woman moved around in her shell. "My first M.E.K.A. commander said that our suits had never fallen into the hands of an enemy. I thought when he said it that, it was just because of the self-destruct functionality, but maybe it's built into the chassis? Like, some sort of tamper-proofing?"
"So... Perhaps this was part of the original programming in the M.E.K.A., and not the work of the nanomachines? Are you sure?"
"Not sure enough to bet my life on it- and certainly not yours," Hana said. "But then again, I hardly know anything for sure after Gibraltar..."
Angela thought for a moment, before switching channels. "Get me a scan of all biological components in this room," She ordered, "Maximum resolution."
She came up to the farthest end of the countertop she had been using, picking up a piece of shattered plastic and examining it closely. The edges all seemed appropriately raw and warped, no evidence of consumption or conversion...
"Scan complete, Dr. Zeigler," The operator said. "Nothing anomalous on the micro level... And you're the only thing picked up on the Macro level."
Angela nodded. "Well, me and-" She started, her heart sinking as she saw Genji's small container next to the centrifuge, broken and nearly empty of water.
"Ohhh, Genji, I'm so sorry..." She said, stepping around the piles of neutralizing agent. The half-submerged Koi's fins flapped weakly as its gills pulsed, trying to push water through to get enough oxygen filtered out of it to live. The eye on the side of the Koi's head twitched to and fro, covered in a light dusting of the neutralizing agent. "You poor thing," she asked as she made her way to Genji's container, lifting the twitching fish from its shattered tank. She wasn't much of a veterinarian, but she knew that the drastic temperature change and dusting by the neutralizing agent would send the poor creature into shock. She looked over her shoulder at the first aid station she'd left on. She knew she'd never use the kind of power it took to charge her beam on an animal, and the results of using it on non-humans were unreliable in any case, but...
She walked the fish over to the first aid station, figuring that it was already as good as dead, so if the poor creature died here it would be more of an ironic euthanizing than an accidental murder.
"Dr. Zeigler?" Came the voice in her earpiece. "Ah... what are you doing?"
Angela thought for a moment, remembering what she had warned about mental changes. "...What does it look like I'm doing?"
"It looks like you're about to put your pet fish under the first aid beam."
"Does that seem dangerous to you?" She asked, recalling her steps mentally to ensure continuity of her cognition.
"...Kind of pointless, perhaps, but no, not dangerous."
"All right then," Angela said, stepping forward and placing the fish under the beam.
Like a time-lapse of butter in a hot skillet, the fish began melting into goo as soon as it went under the beam, the semi-organic slop eating through her suit's gloves in an instant and burning her hands even as she scrambled to shed her suit's gloves.
"Jävla skit!" Angela hissed, feeling a searing heat in her hands. "The nanomachines are still active!"
"Oh no!" Hana exclaimed over her channel. "Doc, get out of anything you don't want permanently attached!"
Mercy scrambled out of her NBC suit, cringing and flinching at the stinging sensations in her hands. Inwardly, she cursed at herself for her overconfidence, for not waiting for every single test to come back negative before allowing herself to even get near the dangerous nanomachines.
"Doc, you might want to switch to PA or something, unless you want this thing fused to your ear..." Hana's voice came through her earpiece.
"Agreed," Angela said, as she finished flinging her suit to the ground, backing into the corner. She looked at her hands, one stained a bright, traffic-pylon orange, and the other chalky white with dark splotches on the fingers. "Turn on the intercom for lab C-2, and begin recording," Angela said as the burning sensation crept down her wrists. "This... might be my last recording," She frowned, shaking her head so her earpiece fell out.
There was silence for a moment, before the speakers in the ceilings crackled to life.
"-you said to me I was perfectly fine, right??" Hana's panicked voice rang out.
"You were, yes," Angela said, turning her hands from back to palm to back again, examining them, "But a sample size of one is hardly a guideline. I have no such guarantees. I'm going to be taking notes, let's hope for the best..."
Angela cleared her throat, checking the time. "Dr. Angela Zeigler, 2:29 AM. Exposed to compromised nanomachines through exploding ammunition. No initial symptoms presented, exposed self to Caduceus Beam energies for treatment of minor burns and shrapnel wounds, dressed in NBC suit, and diatomic neutralizer was released." She arched an eyebrow and examined her hand, seeing the skin between her fingers seemed to be stretching higher of its own accord. "Attempted to resuscitate my pet fish- ah... Cyprinus carpio, that's right- in Caduceus Beam, whereupon it appeared to melt or dissolve, likely spurred on by the presence of nanomachines." She took a breath, trying to get through her notes quickly but clearly. "Symptoms began presenting upon skin contact. Burning, stinging sensations, little in the way of actual pain. Red coloration on right hand, white and black on left hand. Discoloration is progressing up extremities, likely result of nanomachine progress. Perhaps not in bloodstream yet? Different colorations appearing; first indicator of black on right wrist and orange below left wrist..."
Angela sighed, straightening herself up. She'd watched enough people die in her capacity as both surgeon and Overwatch medic. She could handle this. "Observation: According to Hana Song, the one who corrupted the nanobots to begin with had a stated goal of 'healthy, safe, and useless'. The snail-like transformation Song went under seemed to have nothing to do with any proximal flora or fauna, yet my skin seems to be developing colorations closely related to the Cyprinus carpio I held under the Caduceus Beam. Add to that the fact that my interdigital folds seem to be growing, and, well..." Angela cleared her throat as the webbing between her fingers seemed to crawl up towards her second knuckle. "Hypothesis: the dormant nanomachines became activated in the presence of both the nanobiotic rejuvenation of the Caduceus Beam and the necrotizing cells of the dying fish. Both stimuli together, compounded by the unknown effect of the beam on aquatic physiology, has apparently triggered the "healthy" conditional of the nanomachines, though what the intersection of marine and terrestrial biology will result in is unknown at this time. I will continue to keep notes as long as I am able."
Angela paced the far side of the lab, away from the dormant nanomachines. Her mind raced, trying to think of what to do. Her eyes flicked to the display on the wall and straightened up.
"2:32 AM. Elevated heart rate. Unsure of how much, as I don't want to place my compromised fingers on my neck and I can't be assured a proper reading through the compromised wrists. Along with, hmm... slightly elevated respiration. Unsure if this is a result of the nanomachines, or simply a result of stressors at my possible impending mortality."
"Don't say that, doctor..." Hana's mournful voice came over the PA. Angela didn't want to waste words on reassurances yet, but it did remind her of something as she watched the discoloration travel closer to her elbows, still in varying patterns of orange, white, and black..
"Hana, you said that when you were first exposed, the nanomachines dissolved your clothing?"
"Uh, yeah..." Hana replied. "Well, maybe 'dissolve' is the wrong word, since there wasn't anything left over... More like... they ate it? To use elsewhere? That little frilly bit on my back and sides, that's the exact same color of my pilot suit..." She said.
"Right then," Angela nodded, and quickly began undoing the rest of her clothes, taking great care not to touch her skin as she did so.
"Uhm... Doctor?" The security chief ventured. "Sh-should I turn off the cameras?"
"Absolutely not," Angela said as she stepped out of her socks. "This might be vital in our search for a cure." She looked back towards one of the cameras in the ceiling. "If I don't wind up perishing from this, however, please encrypt these and send them to my personal server. I don't want the tabloids getting hold of these and thinking I'm some sort of exhibitionist."
"Er, I understand, Dr. Zeigler," The security chief said, an awkward silence following as Angela examined her nude body.
"The progression seems to be maintaining a steady pace," Angela said, holding her arms out in front of her and rotating them to her sides. "Markings seem to be consistent with a koi fish, but- nngh- Hang on, phalangeal discomfort..." Angela cringed as her fingers burned, and as she brought them close to examine, she could see lines forming in her skin, spreading out from the folds over her knuckles and radiating out to the rest of her fingers. "Epidermal layer appear to be thickening, toughening... Mobility is as yet unaffected, and the sensation- while discomforting- does not appear to be painful. This correlates with Song's experience, though the toughening of her skin didn't bear out such visible differences."
Angela cleared her throat as the colored patterns traveled up to her biceps. "The... infection? Conversion? No real terminology for the process yet... nevermind. The process is nearing my torso, and while I'm not privy to any of the internal workings of the nanomachines besides the odd discomfort, if anything were to happen that could result in a fatality, it would be when they reach my major internal organs. I'm hoping, much like with Song, that the necessary adjustments are made in my physiology without- ahem- without damage." Angela raised her arm, inspecting the pit of her arm as the scales spread over her shoulder. "No fin-like webbing or other changes to the arms are apparent. Mouth is dry, more than would seem logical for the increased respiration noted earlier... Debating acquiring an oxygen BVM, but still worried about the nanomachines 'eating' anything I might come in contact with."
Angela was quiet for a few moments, waiting for some kind of feeling or sensation beyond the now familiar tickling and burning of her skin discoloring and turning scaly. "Are you getting all this?" She asked, sparing a look up at the cameras.
"Yes, Dr. Zeigler," the security office said. "You're sure there's nothing else? No one I should call?"
"Sadly, I'm the foremost nanobiologist on the planet," She replied. "There's no one's expertise I could use right now..."
"I-is there anything I can do?" Hana's voice came over the PA.
"I wish I could say yes," Angela said, examining her hands. "Hmm, 2:36 AM, webbing between fingers seems to have halted just shy of the fingernail bed. Skin is thick but flexible... Could still hold a pen or scalpel, probably... Hmm, but at this juncture, Hana, our reactions to the nanomachines have diverged enough I think only generalities would apply across our respective conditions."
"Okay... if you're sure..."
Dr. Zeigler suddenly gasped, and she started making her way to where the oxygen-giving BVM was stored.
"Sudden... hahh... sudden loss of b-breath, 2:37 AM. Huhh... Just... just once. Breathing seems to... hahh... be returning to normal. Sensation was like both lungs had suddenly collapsed, just for a brief moment." She leaned against one of the lab's cabinets, her hand hovering by but not touching the drawer. "Still wary of giving the machines any more foreign matter to work with... But staying nearby just in case."
Angela tried to calm her breath, tried to stay focused and relaxed. She rolled her shoulders, feeling the scales wrap around her torso from the shoulders like something giving her a skin-crawling hug. If this was as far as things went, she could probably live with it. There were worse skin conditions that people had still led productive lives with.
"Mmmh... 2:40 AM, odd but slightly pleasurable warmth in breast tissue..." Angela glanced down, the outer curves of her breasts framed in orange skin. "Slow but constant growth, haahh... detected. Again in line with Song's experience, but will need to see what difference there is, given a much larger... starting size."
"Hey!" Hana's indignant voice shout out of the intercom.
"Nothing personal, Hana," Angela quickly added, a smile forcing its way to her lips despite the gravity of the situation. "Just math, no aesthetic, ngh, judgments..." she explained as her bosoms swelled out, the temptation to feel them hard to resist."Growth seems to be concurrent with the progress of the skin discoloration, leading me to believe their growth is halfway over at this point... Slight tingling sensation up the spine, nngh, possibly related to other changes or just the combination of a somewhat cold atmosphere and unusual stimulation of, ah, erogenous zones..." Angela swallowed hard and took a few deep breaths, trying to stay professional. "Hm, ah, 2:42 AM... Growth of breast tissue seems to have subsided. Acute size increase, don't have the necessary instrumentation, but at the point where the discolorations from both arms meet above the sternum, each breast appears to be as large as my head... Yet no visible nipples... It would make sense for the nipples to vanish as aquatic species don't nurse their young, but following that logic the size increase had no reason to occur either..."
"These things are perverted, doctor," Hana's flat voice said. "Intentionally or not, they seem to like boobs."
Angela grimaced, but continued, trying to keep her examinations professional for the sake of posterity. "Discolorations continue down the torso, slowly but steadily, followed soon after by the thickening, toughening of the skin into what appear to be scales. Will attempt to isolate one for study later."
Angela turned to a glass cabinet, using it as a mirror. She still wanted to go as long as she could without touching any of her nanomachine-altered flesh to anything they might consider worth incorporating into her, but the transformation was spreading to places she couldn't see, especially with her newly-enlarged bosoms blocking her view of her front.
"2:44 AM," Angela swallowed, "Abdominal area is mostly covered, discoloration reaching up to neck. Throat is continually dry-feeling now- hoping asphyxiation isn't upcoming..." She twisted around, looking over her shoulders. "It appears to be spreading more slowly on my posterior side, shoulders converted but as yet no discoloration over the spine... Possible relation to fatty tissues on breasts and abdomen being more conducive?"
Angela turned back around, craning her neck to look past her high cheekbones. The koi-fish patterns of black, white, and orange were rather pretty in a way... Provided she lived long enough to appreciate them.
"2:4- ahem- 2:47 AM, discoloration is reaching up to lower mandible... Expecting any of the most severe reactions to the nanomachines here... Given the antennae-like structures rooted through Song's skull, the blood-brain barrier will likely offer no protection..." Angela swallowed again, her breaths coming fast enough to nearly be classified as panting. "Oxygen uptake seems to be declining... No tightness in the chest or other respiratory symptoms... Just... is Oxygen not what this new physiology needs? Am I supposed to be respiring from some other method?" Her hand wavered by the cupboard handle, the BVM right inside. "Hana! You've said that even when your air passages are blocked with mucous, you can breathe?"
"Uh, y-yeah, but I don't know how or why!"
"We'll just have to hope the nanomachines make... the same accommodations for me..." Angela said, cringing as she felt a tingling in her ears. "Uh oh... Security, please get into the publicly-accessible educational files and play a cardiac monitor's normal heart-rate rhythm."
"Er... All right, Dr. Zeigler, I'll-"
"Got it," Hana's voice came out, and the rhythmic beeping began piping through the speakers.
"Good.... good, thank you Hana," Angela said, eyes flicking up to the clock on the wall again before she closed her eyes to concentrate. "2:51 AM... Discoloration is reaching ears, slight discomfort similar to webbing between fingers earlier... Establishing baseline hearing acuity in case of negative sensory effect."
Beep... Beep... Beep...
Angela focused on the sounds, trying to calm her rapid breathing. She was starting to feel a little lightheaded, but she still wasn't willing to go for the mask just yet. Just listen to the monitor, she thought as her ears tingled and burned.
Beep... Beep... Beep...
Beep... Beep... Beep...
Bee... Bee... Ee...
Ee... Ee... E...
"Significant hearing loss occurring..." Angela said, brow furrowing as her own voice sounded distant and tiny. "Concurrent with tight, pulling sensations on ears..." She opened her eyes and turned to look in the reflective glass, blinking in surprise at the red and orange-speckled fins protruding from the sides of her head. "Ah... hm. Ears have been transfigured into fin-like fans..." She turned her head, face tensing a bit as the fin-ears flicked back and forth quickly. "Oh, uh, 2:53 AM. Cartilage between the ear's helix and lobule, haah, seems to have served as anchor for the growth... Tragus, antitragus, and concha seem to have, hehh, vanished entirely, leaving only a hole akin to many sensory organs of reptiles... Nnngh..." Angela cringed as the sensation of water in her ears caused her already muffled hearing to pop, losing any sense of hearing beyond the fluid in her inner ears.
"_________", Angela said, unable to hear her own voice as she painfully described her complete deafness. "________________."
She looked at herself in the reflective glass again, baring her teeth. Even though the nanomachines had made it up and over the lower lip, her teeth- and tongue, she thought, sticking it out briefly- showed no sign of changes. That bade well for her hopes of still being able to digest food normally...
The deafness would be a pain, but some cochlear implants should help, assuming she still had any kind of eardrum left. But as the scaly skin crept up over her nose and towards her eyes, her breath began to shorten even further. She felt like she was choking, either from the panic of the nanomachines reaching her brain, or perhaps from some physiological change relating to the burning sensation in her nostrils. In either case, it was time to let posterity take a backseat to survivability, and she jerked open the drawer to get to the BVM inside. Tearing the wrapping open, she pushed the mask against her mouth and began steadily pumping the bag, the tang of the oxygen-rich air flowing down her throat. She felt a little dizzy, and leaned herself into the corner to better stabilize herself as she worked the bag. It wasn't even a minute before she felt the tightness pass, but taking the breathing apparatus off proved to be unwise; she felt like no matter how fast or hard her breathing, she was hardly getting any air at all.
A wet popping sensation from her ear-holes heralded the return of the room sounds- humming refrigerant, cycling air, and the steady beeping of the heart monitor track.
"...Hello?" Angela asked. "Testing one two?"
"We hear you, Dr. Zeigler," The security chief said. "Can... can you hear us?"
"Yes," she nodded. "2:56 AM. Unsure if hearing fully restored, but good enough for the time being," She said, having to pause every few words to suck in a few more breaths from the BVM. "Respiratory distress is fairly acute now," She said, "But as the nanomachines are still active, I'm overriding any attempts to- nngh- break quarantine."
As if they had a sense of comedic timing, at the mention of the last 'but' in her speech, Angela's hips began to twist and tingle, the scaling-over flesh swelling and pushing her away from the corner she'd tucked herself into. "S-seems to be, ah, wait... 3:00 AM, swelling of adipose deposits on both interior and anterior hips and thighs, along with buttocks," She said. "Not as sensitive as earlier swelling over breasts..."
Before she could continue her examination, a stabbing pain caused Angela to cry out and curl forward, her BVM falling to the ground as she grabbed the sides of her neck.
"Doctor? Doc, what's wrong??" Hana called out over the PA.
"Pain... Very acute... Both sides of neck," Angela grunted. "Stabbing... like knitting needles.... in one side and out the other..." For the first time that night, Angela's fear of dying to the nanomachines moved out of the academic and into the immediate. She bent down to retrieve the BVM, webbed hand shaking as she grabbed it and put it to her face again. Tears (and perhaps nanomachines) stung her eyes, but when she pulled her other hand away from her neck, there was no blood or plasma or any other bodily fluid on it; whatever was causing the pain wasn't wounding her body in any way, though she admitted to herself in the same thought that cleanly reconfiguring her body to be incompatible to life would leave her just as dead, wounds or no.
Angela grabbed the handle of a nearby cupboard to steady her rise back to her feet, looking to the reflective glass. Her entire head was now covered in the orange, black, and white scales. Her eyes seemed generally unchanged, save for the loss of eyebrows and lashes, and her nose was a little more broad and flat than her Swiss heritage would necessarily reflect. But the real change, the source of the pain on her neck, was a set of three gashes in the skin on each side, layered atop each other like roofing tiles. They were thick, thicker than could be explained by just the flesh separating. She sucked in a breath and saw the three slashes widen and contract, and knew immediately what had become of her.
Angela staggered over to the eye-wash station and pulled the lever, water flushing down onto her face. She turned her neck to try and let the water hit it, but mostly it just pressed the gashes flat atop one another. With a tremble of quickly-overcome fear, Angela opened her mouth into the spray and tried to take the biggest breath she could.
The relief was instantaneous. Some unknown system in her body shunted the water off an unknown branch of her trachea, and as the water coursed out of the gashes in her neck it was like she'd taken her first deep breath since the changes started.
"Dr. Zeigler, I see the emergency eye-wash has been triggered," The security chief said. "What's going on?"
She didn't respond right away, taking as many deep "breaths" as she could while the flow of water sustained itself. Once she felt completely refreshed, she leaned out of the stream to speak.
"Grrbglr," She said, coughing and spitting as the remnants of the water worked their way out of her system, dribbling down her shoulders and between her enlarged breasts. "Gills," She said again, clearing her throat. "The nanomachines gave me gills. I don't think my body is capable of pulling sufficient oxygen from the air anymore..." She moved her head back under the stream for her last few deep breaths before the stream ran out.
"Okay, well, I'll get a team up-"
"NO," Angela said forcefully as she retrieved the BVM. "The nanomachines are still active. Legs are feeling numb. Can't risk breaking quarantine."
"Well, that lab doesn't have any other sources of water, so-"
"Doctor, I'm sorry to interrupt, but did you say your legs were feeling numb? Like, say, they're too big for your skin? Kind of thick but insubstantial, like taffy?"
"Correct," Angela said, mind already working.
"Then you'd better find somewhere to sit or lay down, because that's exactly what mine felt like before they bent backwards and started twisting into my M.E.K.A.," Hana warned, fidgeting inside the screen-lit confines of her biomechanical shell.
Angela's mind raced, trying to figure out how to save her life without risking everyone else's. The showers in the residency bunks were the obvious solution, but just as obviously impossible to traverse safely. The swimming pool in the recreation area was just as bad, and the chlorine might possibly kill her besides. She just needed an area big enough to keep water flowing through her gills...
Angela retrieved her tablet and went through a map of all the labs and offices on this floor, using the BVM to hopefully slow the rate of her oxygen loss. She browsed through each in turn, possibilities forming and dissolving in rapid succession, until finally she hit on one she could use.
"Security, I need you to gather the following materials and then lock down the route from this lab to office Gamma-seven..." Angela commanded.
* * *
The waiting was the hardest part, as the preparations were made; just having to sit and feel the nanobots doing their work while she did nothing. Well, not nothing nothing, she firmed up some of her notes, filled in missing timestamps and the like. But for the most part she just stood by the door, breathing through the BVM often and examining her changes. Her rear and hips had broadened even more prodigiously; had she still been wearing her trousers she was certain they'd have ripped right off her by now. What was most concerning now, at least on the lower half of her body, was the steady, alien ache in her legs, like bone pain but not painful in the classic sense. She kept high-stepping with one leg and then the other, trying to gauge any changes that might be happening. Given the rest of her changes, she was sure it'd reflect the koi's physiology somehow, but since she still retained her hands and fingers, it was obviously not a one-to-one transformation. Still, she kept her notes and records, tried to keep herself calm to conserve oxygen, and waited.
"We're ready, Dr. Zeigler," The security chief finally said over the PA. Angela nodded, not wanting to waste the breath on words, and took a step to the door.
The moment she put leverage on her leading leg it folded like a rubber band, pitching Angela into the containment door and then to the ground, her shocked cry and grunts of pain using up precious oxygen, her chest already feeling tight again. She pushed herself up onto her hips, looking down at her legs. The left one still seemed mostly solid, but the right leg flopped around, the flesh spongy. She groaned internally and reached up for the door controls, undoing the lockdown from her side of the room.
True to his word, the hallway was empty, all exits locked down save for the one leading to gamma-seven. And right in front of the door was a hover-gurney, which Angela had originally asked for merely as a precaution. Thankfully she had done so before it became a necessity. She reached up and pressed the "lower" button on the corner of the gurney until it had descended enough for her to clamber onto sans solid legs, the electric blue anti-grav generators humming and making a small breeze blow from it like they always did when pushed so close to the ground.
Angela crawled up onto the gurney, biting her lip as her breasts mashed into the cold, sterile metal. She'd definitely need to find something to do about that if she was ever going to be able to work again...
She heaved herself up to the front of the gurney, her multicolored legs resting limply at the other end. She bent her knees up, and her feet stayed on the gurney, her shins forming little more than an arch. Angela just shook her head and squeezed the bulb of the BVM to get her some more oxygen.
With the gurney at its lowest setting, Angela was able to use her hands to basically paddle the floating slab down the hallway, the small claws on her fingertips a non-insignificant help to her ability to get traction. As she felt the pulling sensation on her legs, she tried to keep them apart, even as her thighs stuck together and her toes lengthened and splayed apart from each other. She wasn't even bothering to look, now; she couldn't afford to waste the breath needed to record her observations.
It was a delicate balance; using two hands she could move the gurney much faster and with more accuracy, but only using one hand allowed her to pump the BVM into her increasingly inefficient air-breathing lungs. The physical exertion of dragging herself along was burning up her oxygen much faster than before. What I wouldn't give for another eye-wash station, she thought, grabbing the corner of the hallway intersection and dragging the gurney around to face down the hallway. She went to hook her foot around the edge of the gurney to help swing it around, but almost wound up sliding her hips off the edge. As she flopped around to regain her balance, she realized she could no longer move her legs independently from one another above the knee. Angela redoubled her efforts, claws digging through the paint and into the composite of the wall until she finally managed to get the gurney properly aligned.
It was only a few dozen meters to the lab she needed, and she would need every molecule of oxygen she had left in her to get there. She used a steady rhythm, pulling with one hand, squeezing air with the other. Pull, squeeze, pull, squeeze. She was already feeling dizzy, letting the gurney drag and bump against the walls as she bumbled her way forward, the single lit laboratory the sole focus of her heavy-lidded eyes. Gotta stay awake... Gotta keep going... Gotta... gotta keep pumping, Angela thought, her curiously-unaffected hair falling in front of her face as her head jostled back and forth on the gurney. She was barely squeezing the BVM anymore, fingers numb and weak.
The gurney banged against the doorjamb, Angela half-pulling and half-falling past it. There, just a handful of meters away, was the rehabilitation clinic's hydrotherapy chamber. Angela dragged herself hand over hand, her gills twitching furiously as they tried to get oxygen out of the air. Her feet, which had thinned and merged into a broad, flat fish tail, slapped against the tile floor, trying to to push her along She heaved herself up the chamber's small ramp, flopping and gasping. Not like this... not so close... Angela mentally pleaded as she lurched herself against the inside of the glass enclosure. The control panel was just above the corner of the glass, but it was meant to be chest-high on an average human. Lying there slumped against the glass, Angela had no hope of reaching it. Elbows quivering like a plucked guitar string, Angela pushed herself up off the ground, dragging her large tail back close to her, sitting on it like a drunk snake attempting to coil itself. Her fingertips could just close around the top of the glass enclosure, but that still left more than a foot between her hand and the primed start button. Angela took the deepest breath she could, shaking and swaying from dizziness, and then pushed off with her tail, pulling down on numb hands to reach as far out of the enclosure as her weakened, transformed body allowed.
Crack!
Angela had no breath left to catch as the glass on the side of the enclosure broke, never meant to hold that much weight. Her closest hand slapped desperately at the control panel as she fell back to the ground, the world dimming as a distant hum began.
THIS IS NOT THE END OF THE STORY! PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE DOCUMENT TO SEE THE ENDING!
Mature
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She looks rather cute as a koi mermaid