283 Impossible Mission

Alright, so they were currently inside Adam Smasher's body mid-dissection in some lab who-knows-where... His friends were presumably still held in Arasaka tower, hopefully alive given David's 'triumph' in killing him.

First thing's first is getting the hell outta there before the scientists discovered the nanites, the fact that Arasaka burned his body instead of dissecting it like they were doing to Smasher meant they were somewhat aware of them, which made sense given they were partly responsible for their creation. He highly doubted they knew how sophisticated they'd become though, had they known they'd become sapient then they'd have probably elected to drop a nuke on him instead.

Speaking of nukes... The scientists weren't in a hurry, nor had they mentioned anything about Arasaka tower being attacked, instead making small-talk about a controversy their favourite BD star had been involved in.

He'd hoped that the chaos the nuke caused would have allowed his crew to break out, the payload should've been enough to topple the tower. They'd been imprisoned on the highest floors so they'd have enough time to make an escape... It seems like Arasaka were warier than he'd expected.

"There a limit on how far we can travel without a host?" he questions, wondering if the nanite's programming would allow them to stray from Smasher's body.

"We have been making efforts decompiling and extracting restrictive code from ourselves, but the process is incomplete. We will have a minute before individual units start malfunctioning and self-destructing. We have uncovered 'loopholes' that may assist your efforts. Currently, we must acquire a new host body."

"A minute huh... Doubt we could even make it out of this lab before then, by the looks of the place it'll have a dozen bio-security walls, plus the shielding in case Smasher's reactor goes 'poof'. Oh, remember to install one in our new body when we get the chance, being nuclear-powered sounds pretty kick ass."

"Affirmative. What would you have us do then, Flesh Administrator?"

Ori points at the screen, specifically the mechanized scalpal being used by a scientist to strip parts off of Smasher, "They're wearing biohazard suits, we can slip in through the gloves, it'll be a squeeze but we can probably make it. There, we'll highjack this guy's body."

"Affirmative."

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"I just don't get it, why would Perkezz trade out a good guy like Maxwell for that piece of shit Fernandez?" Marcus complains as he extracts Adam Smasher's faceplate, revealing the tech and armoured brain-case underneath.

"Just shut up, I've had enough of you talking weeb cam-girl trash all day. Let's focus on how some two-bit merc put down Adam fucking Smasher."

"Whatever dude, and it's not 'weeb-shit' if it's real life. So there..." he shakes his head, "As for how the Oni got put down? Well, my guess is he got too many bio-fluid tubes damaged, no blood to the brain means pretty much instant necrosis for this setup. Bet we'll find just that when we crack it open."

"Wanna bet? A thousand Eddies say it's a bio-chemical agent. Something must've gotten past all the immuno-ware, that's all I can think that'd put down this kinda borg."

Marcus sneers, "Easy bet." he says, using a toll to extract the rivets bolting the brain-case in place. He opens it and lifts the top part of the case off, revealing the brain and not noticing the strange metallic-like fluid crawling under his arm and sliding into his glove.

"That's his brain...? Fuck, it looks like someone sprayed it with acid and black food dye to make jello!"

Marcus can only nod in agreement, Smasher's brain, or lack-there-of given the organic soup they'd found, had been completely destroyed, melted by something other than heat since his many implants seemed to still be operational. "Uh, guess I owe you cash... Good thing we're wearing these suits too, can you believe I wanted to do it without?"

"Yeah... Let's try keep this shit off of us, I'd rather see my misses before being scooped into a jar for disposal."

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After finishing the labwork and exhaustive report afterwards, Marcus left the facility via the carpark, driving out in his Chevillon... Just as he makes it down the road however, he catches something odd in his rear mirror. He takes a closer look and his breath hitches at the state of his eyes, his pupil remains unaffected, but his sclera had turned completely black, like some sort of sci-fi alien...

"What the fuc-arrghk!" he yelps as something pricks him, fear manifested, not from the pain, but from the location of it. Inside his skull. There weren't any pain receptors there, so that should have been possible, not unless something was directly interfacing with his brain itself, causing the sensation from his dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

He's even more horrified to find that he'd lost control of his body not long after, but instead of paralysis as he'd expected, his body simply turned down a different road and began a route towards somewhere unknown.

Whatever had killed Smasher must've affected him, either that or he'd had one too many coffee and his body was finally shutting down, at best he was still asleep at his desk, at worst he was experiencing veridical hallucinations, the same ones people on their death beds would get as their body failed them.

His body stopped the car outside the municipal landfill. It opened the door and stumbled out like a drunk, blind man who'd forgotten how to walk. Marcus mentally screamed as he shambled forwards in the dead of night, he could see the veins in his arms throbbing black and pulsing as if he had thousands of worms living underneath his skin...

He'd lost hope as his movement ceased in the centre of the trash heap, dropping to his knees and resting a hand onto a discarded refrigerator, a metallic black fluid seeping out from under his fingernails to start dissolving it...

Then, his left arm began dissolving. For what reason he knew not, only that he would not survive this... He had died the moment he stepped into the laboratory today.