Your offer was too good to refuse

"I'd be foolish to let this slip away," Dr. Brooks mumbled. The director of Hideki Labs was coming around to this opportunity before him. If it worked, it meant all four of the Project Inside Out experiments, combined together into a fifth form with a human core, could usher in something completely new. At the very least, he knew that your ability to resist the damage that Lina and Tina would currently do to a normal human meant a safe way to study them as they were designed to be--connected to hosts--rather than as independent beings. "I guess we're headed back to floor 8. Dr. Yelm, go tell Dr. Vega to gather up her team, and get Lieutenant Collins to follow too. We're all going downstairs for this one, all hands on deck."

You smiled. It felt good that you were being given this chance. You ran a hand along Tina's exterior, feeling her practically purr at this development, which in turn ran a delightful little pulse of pleasure into your body.

As you walked toward the elevator, still wearing Tina--she didn't even want to consider letting go of you right now when one of the scientists asked her about it--you were given a quick rundown on what to expect from the nanites. Lina was temperamental, but eager, and didn't understand certain aspects of biology. Tests on living tissue had proven immensely destructive in a petri dish, but you had a lot of advantages on your side that the other scientists hadn't considered. They had concerns about nanites trying to climb through the skin of a human, which wasn't a problem when your Zoe-body could allow safe passage. Tina herself was designed with nanite integration in mind, as her armor was deliberately porous in places to create pathways for the nanites to travel, allowing machinery to become easy to integrate into Tina's biology. Even the transparent 'visor' that made up Tina's helmet was carefully made with channels that nanites could turn it into a heads-up display, or make into a shield that blocked radiation from entering the visor, and so on.

Everyone hurried after you, the whole team curious. The elevator was full the first trip down to floor 8, and it would have to shuttle back and forth a couple times to fill things up as you entered the lab again. This time, inside the futuristic lab, when every head turned, it stayed turned. Every scientist who saw you not long ago recognized what you had accomplished, and scrambled over to you and Dr. Brooks to get filled in on the details.

Dr. Brooks had to do a lot of talking to settle everyone down, but clearly the team was excited to see their work suddenly take a massive leap forward. "Now, now, everybody, we need to make sure that Dr. Ternion is safe for us to even undergo this. I was hoping we could have kept things a secret about her identity, but clearly this isn't the time for that. Her physiology is different from a normal humans, so I want you to run some numbers to figure out if this is feasible."

"Different how?" Dr. Avery asked.

"I'm the combination of Zoe and Chloe with a human host. Fully integrated, body and mind. And I'll be happy to demonstrate anything you'd like, but I would really like to see this through first. At the very least, I want to meet Lina, face-to-face, no windows. I'll do it with Tina sealing me up if I have to, but I want to talk to her directly."

The scientists seemed nervous about that prospect. "In theory, you should be okay..." Dr. Avery said. "Your slime and bodysuit, er, components, they give you a significant healing factor if things go wrong. But if she gets excited, it's going to at least be painful if she gets into your core. We're still working on behavioral processes with her."

You looked toward Dr. Avery. "Since she's designed to integrate with biological components, would it be possible to interface with a series of the nanites? I'm already using my human brain to regulate aspects of both Zoe and Chloe in me, via Chloe's slime. Mixing nanites with slime could at least allow me to share the same neural pathways, if she can interpret the signals."

There was a sudden silence. These sorts of ideas hadn't come to them until you'd spoken them, because they never thought about Chloe's biopolymer in the ways you'd used it. Then there was a flurry of activity, with lots of chatter among all the scientists in the room, as well as the military personnel. Dr. Brooks just sort of waved his hand. "No use talking about it here, go figure it out at your stations!"

All the scientists went to work, as you returned to the interview room, taking a seat on the ground. You didn't wait for Dr. Avery to call the nanites forth, they had lingered in the area for some time and had sped back toward the window when they recognized your face. Lina formed her physical, glittering body again, also in a seated position in rapt attention of you.

YOU CAME BACK

You smiled, nodding, reading the words plastered on the window. "I did. And I might have a surprise for you. You know what your purpose is?"

The silvery nanite cluster nodded as words appeared again. Mechanical enhancement of host and exterior bio-suit a.k.a. 'Tina'.

You nodded again, looking closely at Lina. "Well, I'm going to be that host. I've brought Tina with me. And we are going to figure this all out together, if you trust me. We'll combine into one being, all of us working together."