Suits and Slimes

Hideki Laboratories has been at the forefront of biotechnology for years as a satellite operation of Hideki Technology, but most only know of a few of their breakthroughs that proved to be profitable, usually medical applications for ways to better administer **** treatments to particular parts of a body via 'smart pills', or 'organic bandages' to help a patient's recovery by making it seem like their injuries were nonexistent.

Few had ever met the reasons behind those successes. Their names are listed as Dr. Zoe Hildebrand and Dr. Chloe Walker on the whitepapers for each of those, but those identities were simply for their protection. Zoe and Chloe weren't the doctors that discovered the materials needed for those medical breakthroughs--they were lab-created beings that enabled those breakthroughs to be possible!

Subjects AEGIS rev.Z and BioPolymer 4.39-C, dubbed 'Zoe' and 'Chloe' by the labs, were created in an effort to demonstrate early revisions of the medical advancements that Hideki Labs had dreamed up. As part of Project Inside Out, one of the secret undertakings of the lab, scientists had come up with two very specific use cases in medicine: could biological material enter the body to intelligently repair it from within? Could it encase and protect the body on the outside?

Before Hideki Labs found ways to miniaturize and specifically target certain applications using the research they learned from the two projects, the original concept was that intelligent beings, such as Zoe and Chloe, would be able to treat patients in tandem. Chloe, a being composed entirely of malleable slime, could repair internal injury or fight disease. At the same time, the living bodysuit called Zoe would envelop a body to protect external wounds and serve as a means to prevent reinjury during recovery.

The labs found that solution to be too cost-prohibitive, and they received pushback when it came to whether public reception could handle the radical ideas Hideki Labs proposed. Chloe was a transparent green woman made entirely of gelatinous slime, a being unlike anything most humans had ever encountered, would they allow such a being to fully enter their body--and briefly give up bodily autonomy--even if it meant the possibility for a cure for their medical conditions? And in focus groups, people thought they were being shown a trailer for a horror movie, not a medical procedure, when they saw video of Zoe open up her body to be worn, seeing that she was hollow on the inside and not just the cute, bubbly brunette they had first witnessed on the screen.

Project Inside Out was cancelled, but Zoe and Chloe stayed around, fitting into new roles in the company. Their files were marked confidential and kept hidden in Hideki Labs' records, right at the same time that Dr. Hildebrand and Dr. Walker suddenly were hired onto the team out of seemingly nowhere. After all, who better to assist on the development of new biotechnology than the two that share the same features?

You've been at Hideki Labs for a few years yourself, although you were hired on long after Project Inside Out had been cancelled. What you knew of Dr. Walker was that her research into a gel-capsule for medical treatment that somehow could dissolve and still pinpoint the target site to apply medical treatment within minutes was nothing short of astounding. And Dr. Hildebrand's adaptive-grafting bandages were somehow able to look so much like the patient's own skin that you needed a microscope to find the edge of the organic bandage.

While you didn't directly work with the two doctors, you saw them roughly on a weekly or monthly basis, it seemed, depending on the time of year. They were hard to miss--Dr. Zoe Hildebrand was a lovely brunette woman, whose personality seemed to be all over the place depending on what day you saw her. Sometimes she was cold and distant, other times talkative and carefree, and you could never really tell how to predict what mood she might be in. Dr. Chloe Walker was a lot easier to read, and she was certainly a confident blonde woman who knew how to take charge in a situation--although she often had to repeat herself when one of the lab assistants were too busy focused on her curves to register her instructions. Fortunately, she seemed very patient and level-headed during those little breakdowns in communication.

You'd never had the chance to really see them in action, though, only ever instructing others. No one you worked with seemed to have ever been on a project with them, either, so what they did in the labs was a mystery to everyone at your level of security clearance. More than one of your colleagues assumed they weren't actually doctors, like it was some kind of PR stunt or coverup that they were here at all, but no one could prove it since no one's seen them during the times when they are said to be conducting research.

That was all about to change, however... because someone had been admiring you from a distance, and one morning at the office, you were sent an email requesting your presence on R&D floor 5.

Zoe and Chloe's floor.