A surprising success

"...so she's a slime? She looks more like glass. All the pictures I'd seen of slime people are, uh, messier."

Amanda chuckled a little as you and she worked through gene sequences in the processing unit on the lab table. The proteins Zoe's DNA could make were so foreign to you, it was impossible at times to really understand their purpose, especially the ones that apparently helped facilitate extra-dimensional strangeness... you didn't need to know how exactly they worked, just how different they were from Revision Y's folded proteins, so you could splice in the correct parts of the DNA sequence to a new chain. Fortunately, scientists had previously identified the problematic proteins, or this would have taken much longer than an evening.

"She's not always so well-defined, no. Get her flustered or nervous and she gets a little more traditionally gooey. But she's very good about keeping her composure, and staying in her specific shape. At least, when she's not inside my body."

You blinked, and shook your head as you went back to the protein. "I should have known that if adaptive bandages came from Zoe, then the smart gelcaps must have had a similar origin. Still, I wouldn't have expected both doctors... and you, of course, being the face for one of them, that must be odd!"

You chatted with Amanda for a little while longer, as you two constructed the new sequence for Revision Y. Seventeen new or revised proteins wasn't too terrible, although Zoe and Chloe took a second pass at your sequence to be absolutely sure your edits were viable. The fewer changes, the easier it would be to perform the genetic replacement procedure.

While the doctors reviewed your changes, you hurried over to Kazumi, who was almost upside-down with how she leaned over the edge of the couch, reading the instruction manual for the cryo chambers. "Think you're up for this, Zumi? Or is it a little much?"

"The machine's pretty easy. It's mostly the sequences that need to be done precisely, so all these things are timed carefully. If there's any good time to actually do this genetic injection it would be... here, second phase recovery. First phase is really just bringing the organic tissue up to a living temperature. Second phase involves the replacement of what's essentially antifreeze from the cells, which is the perfect time to do a DNA swap anyway it looks like. The other phases after that involve encouraging the cells to reawaken, and then bringing organs back to functioning, and then the nervous system after all that... that's the wakeup phase. All of it is timed out... but if the gene replacement vehicles can be deployed in about ten minutes in the tissue? It shouldn't interrupt the rest of the procedure."

You nodded, and waited. Zoe was not rushing through anything, so you and Kazumi played a few games before they came back by you two. Zoe held up a beaker in her hands. "Viral delivery of new genetic material is ready, we triple-checked the sequence. Care to come downstairs?"

Everyone headed over to the elevator, heading down into the sub-floors. Sub-level 4 contained a whole array of cryogenic samples, and the entire floor was naturally chilly, causing you and Kazumi to shiver a bit as you wandered past the glowing chambers of ice-filled substances. Zoe and Chloe searched for the proper cryogenic tank, once they located it the reconstitution machine rolled over to clamp onto the chamber. Kazumi took over from there, typing furiously at the console keyboard, creating subroutines on the fly for one phase of the sequence while the other was still active. The ice began to melt, though you couldn't see whatever was going on in the tube very easily, as the liquid was only semi-transparent. You could just make out the silhouette of a human-like being, floating in the tank.

"Phase two, coming up. Time to do a DNA swap!"

Chloe took the beaker from Zoe, and in a move that apparently surprised only you and Kazumi, she poured it into herself. You almost thought the whole experiment was ruined... until you realized just how much of a team effort this was. The green slimegirl actually climbed into the tank through an opening at the top, dropping in--despite the chilly temperatures affecting her ability to move swiftly in a liquid-like state, she still seemed to envelop the form inside the cryo-chamber, embedding the viral delivery modules throughout the body. If at least 80 percent of the cells could have their genes swapped, that could be enough for Revision Y to show improvement after waking up.

Kazumi peeked closer at the chamber, smiling as she did so. "She's beautiful... maybe it's the fact that she's still partly frozen, but her skin looks like it is made out of snow... Yuki. It's the perfect name for her, if she didn't already have one. It means snow, and also it works in the whole naming thing."

Zoe nodded with a smile. "Yuki's a lovely name. I don't know that she had one, Rev Y was all I knew she was called. My own name wasn't chosen until later in the experiment phase."

After Chloe finished her delivery of the viral DNA modules, she exited the chamber with time to spare before the next phases in the unfreezing process could complete. The next few steps passed quickly, particularly since any slowdown in the process could damage the cells while they were being restored. Fortunately, Hideki Labs had automated the unfreezing process with careful precision, so all of the vitals that you could detect from a bodysuit were reading normal--or at least, roughly the same as Zoe's, since she was monitored to help give you a baseline. There wasn't a heartbeat, but various other electrical signals seemed to 'hum' in either body.

And then, Revision Y--Yuki--opened her eyes as the chamber opened in the front, frantically climbing out of the cold chamber with a wild expression. You could see some scars on her arms, along lines where supposedly her body had trouble sealing up again, you guessed. She didn't seem to be able to hold a defined shape at the moment--her hair, face, and body kept fluctuating in proportion, skintone, and facial features, which seemed strange.

The expression in Yuki's eyes was hard to read, but she seemed scared, and it was unpredictable what a scared person might do when they seemed cornered by five people crowding her tank.