Back at Hideki Labs

There was no doubt that you slept amazingly well last night! You woke up, propped up on the couch, to the smell of cooked breakfast. James had already taken the liberty of getting you ready before you'd become conscious, it would seem--you were already showered and in a clean change of undergarments. You smiled, wondering what he got up to in the shower... before realizing the time! You ate breakfast with your husband, before you departed for work. James typically logged into his work remotely, so he was still in pajama pants by the time you left.

Upon arrival back at your new lab on floor five, you were greeted by Chloe and Emily conversing with another woman, with the Hideki Tech logo on her shirt. She seemed to be carrying what looked like a rudimentary metallic helmet in her arms.

"Ivy, meet Kazumi Ishida, she oversees Project Rhino from the Tech campus."

"Ah, you're James's wife, right?" Kazumi said with a bright smile, reaching out to shake your hand. She was peppy, though like Emily, she had a fairly average body type, perhaps a little slim and short, compared to most of the other women on this floor. It didn't seem to bother her, you assumed that she'd been connected with one or more of the wearable women around here and probably could do so again anytime. "Good to finally meet you. He told me you were a cutie!"

You blushed a little and grinned. "Yeah, well, he's the sweetheart of the two of us."

Kazumi set the helmet down on your new desk, along with another stack of notebooks and a stack of photos. "Just thought I would stop by and bring you a few things so you could get started on the interface. I know you're really familiar with the Ascend gear, which is a great start, but what we're really looking for is being able to augment a person to not just move the armor, but use and interpret sensor data that is unique to the machine. The Ascend was designed for people to move people but we have to go way beyond that here."

You nodded, looking briefly at the helmet. It looked only like the internal components, you assumed the plate armor would encase this as well later. Reaching out, you felt along the top of it. "So then I'm guessing you've got neural drivers with more throughput than what the Ascend nodes had?"

"Not until you help design them," Kazumi said with a wink. "James said he's worried about the power requirements for all these connections, as well as cooling--all the connections are going to cause a lot of heat and if we can't keep the temperature of the head down then we'll be sunk on this design. Our proposal is a fully enclosed suit, not even a lovely green slime girl could get inside the seals, but we'll have to still be able to transfer that heat out of the inner layer."

You felt a shiver overcome you, as you realized quickly that you weren't alone in your body. "Hey boss, James here," you were made to say. Ah, it felt nice to have your husband in your body to chat right now! He walked you around to the other side of the helmet, pointing at it. "I actually had a thought on that, we could transfer that heat down to the rest of the body as part of the climate control unit for the lower body when operating in cold environments, maybe? That would be useful heat to retain when it's getting sucked out."

Kazumi blinked, looking at you for a moment to figure out if you were serious. She glanced at Chloe, who simply nodded. "Uh, yeah, I could see that. Distributing it into the climate control layer works for below freezing temperatures, but we want this suit to be able to operate in **** heat, too. That's going to be extra heat to dissipate, we're probably talking about an external module at that point. I don't know that soldiers want to lug around an extra AC unit on their backs..."

You felt yourself tapping your chin, though your thoughts were empty. Kazumi and James, via you, discussed a variety of tech parameters that were outside the scope of your side of the project, but eventually decided to work on it further when Kazumi went back to the Tech campus.

"Alright, I'm out of here. James, take good care of your wife, maybe give her the rundown of the interface that's been designed so far so she knows the power constraints?" Kazumi pat you on the shoulder, though you realized it wasn't meant for you. It was surreal to watch Kazumi treat you as if James really was here--usually people still treated you like Ivy, since that's what they saw, even when James moved you around. Kazumi seemed far more familiar with this level of bodily combination than you realized. "Also! Hey, a group of us often head to Fifth Down for drinks after work. Now that everyone's on the cool-kid projects, you two could join us? It's usually a couple of us from Tech, a couple from Labs, it's a good time. I'll be ordering the big plate of nachos for the table, they're incredibly good."

You felt yourself nod, as James accepted the offer on your behalf. "We'll... be there!"

Kazumi grinned. "Good, I'm glad. See you around!" Kazumi waved and headed out of your lab, escorted by Chloe and Emily.

You felt yourself take a seat, before you covertly ran your hands along your legs lovingly. "Good luck for the rest of today, sweetie, I hope you get settled in. When you want to talk about the interface, ping me and we'll connect again, alright?" James couldn't help himself, taking one final squeeze of your chest before he vanished. He's so insatiable... and you couldn't help but grin about it, looking around to see if anyone was watching through the glass lab wall...

Back in control of yourself, you started to flip through the notebooks, looking at all the details. Most everything came from the tech side so far, so all of the specs left considerable wiggle room for whatever biological material Chloe and Zoe would be designing. You turned to the binder from yesterday to see if there were more details, but by the time Zoe stopped by to chat with you, you seem stumped already.

"So Kazumi's worried about not frying someone's brain, but there's going to be this whole middle layer of organic material, right?" you asked Dr. Hildebrand as she sat across from you.

"Yes, that's right. It's not really the pilot's brain that we're concerned about, to be honest. The internal design of the armor will consist of an entity, much like me. ...brace yourself, for first-timers this can get pretty bizarre." Zoe's warnings didn't do much to help--as she seemed to split apart, you gasped! And then stared into her hollow interior structures.

"...And then so you're fully wearable? Connected to a body inside?"

Zoe nodded. "Completely connected. My wearer would think my body is theirs if they didn't know any better. It'll afford a pilot some protection, since we're planning on building some really durable bodysuit layers, like me. ...Well, kind of like me, there will be a lot more muscle and natural strength to augment the armor itself. But the environment control part... regulating a really stable temperature inside the armor for the bodysuit feels like it's going to sink this project."

You crossed your arms, as the gears started to turn. "This might be a stupid question since I haven't read files on your physiology yet, but... if you're talking about temperature regulation, I'm guessing you're warm-blooded. Does a bodysuit have to be?"

There was a brief pause, as Zoe furrowed her brow. "...Interesting. To answer your question, I'm a bit of a mix, the parts you see are indeed warm-blooded, but that's for my wearer's sake. With a cold-blooded bodysuit, we could probably generate a lot of heat since the suit will need to absorb that. Then the climate layer could actually be inside the bodysuit..." Zoe stood up, mumbling to herself for a moment more, before she snapped out of it and looked at you. "I will say that I don't know that we could make a cold-blooded bodysuit, nor what it would look like in the end. But, I like the way you're thinking already!"

You beamed a bit. So far, so good..! You didn't even realize you were going to spur an idea like that, but sometimes when someone is so used to their work being a certain way, it takes someone unfamiliar with the work to jolt them in new directions. Maybe it was a good thing that you hadn't read the files yet!

Zoe started to leave, but stopped again. "Oh, right. About drinks tonight. Some of us might need help getting there."

You quirked an eyebrow. "Oh, uh, well I have a couple extra seats in my car, depending on--"

"Not exactly what I was meaning," Zoe said with a wink.