Knock her out and pursue your own interests

But instead of continuing to toy with Kelly Lancer, having established that you could, in fact, control her fully, you simply made her lose consciousness, and she slumped over, hovering in the zero-gravity environment, thoroughly asleep.

Since you'd incorporated Tina and Lina into yourself just earlier that day, you hadn't had a moment's rest. Rushing from one spot to another, getting caught up with the military... all you wanted was a moment to yourself, to reflect on what you were, and incapacitating the Captain while in low-Earth orbit was the most expedient method of doing so.

At your core, of course, was Emily Lockard, one-time lab tech at Hideki. Her existence hadn't, of course, been some sort of complete violation of all known physical laws, but without her, you wouldn't be able to exist as you were. It was her mind that provided the central hub of the gestalt, coordinating your use of the reality-defying abilities of your other parts.

There was, of course, Dr. Chloe Walker, a genius scientist who, unknown to almost anyone, had in fact been made entirely of living slime. Capable of shapeshifting, possessing others, and even, to an extent, shapeshifting those she possessed, you knew that if you ever needed to evade detection entirely, her abilities would be key in allowing you to assume an entirely new identity.

Then there was Lina, a mechanical counterpart to Chloe, a nanite cloud who in becoming part of you had effectively fused with the slime. You hadn't tried it yet, but if Lina's nanites worked on electronic equipment just as effectively as Chloe's slime worked on living beings, you were quite certain that, at need, you could infiltrate any computer network in the world.

There was also Tina, a mechanical exosuit so strong that only a being like yourself, reinforced from the inside by Chloe Walker's slime, could withstand the pressure she imparted, and thus realize the benefits of her symbiosis, which made you almost completely indestructible, capable of withstanding, you hoped, even the harshest and deadliest conditions.

And finally, Dr. Zoe Hildebrand, also a scientist and Chloe's equal, who had in truth been a living bodysuit. Her creation had quite possibly been Hideki's finest achievement, as within her form was a space that, as far as you knew, was effectively limitless. Your mouth quirked as from your merged memories came one of Chloe constantly altering her voice and masking her phone's number while ordering take-out repeatedly from every restaurant in the city, having it delivered to random locations to be picked up by Hideki interns, and then consumed by Zoe. All on Hideki's research dime, of course, since Zoe wanted to see if she could estimate a limit to her capacity, but even after cleaning out every pantry in the area, Zoe couldn't even tell that she'd had anything to eat.

In short, you were a unique being, born of Zoe and Chloe's need to be joined to a human like Emily, and of Tina and Lina's desire to be part of a greater whole than themselves.

And floating there, in space, watching Kelly Lancer drift gently in the cockpit, you realized that you liked being unique.

Not just unique in the sense of your particular form of gestalt hybrid, but unique in a broader sense, in the sense that your very existence violated reality's precepts, that it should be impossible to do what you could, even to be who and what you were.

And to remain unique, you realized that you might have to resort to some rather drastic measures.

There were only a handful of organizations that dabbled in the same sort of fields Hideki did. Any of them could, potentially, have made discoveries that would endanger what you were, so it was of vital importance to you that you undermine them and ensure they did not.

There was Hideki itself, of course. Thanks to Zoe and Chloe's, and then your own, access, you knew much of what they were doing, although you hadn't yet had time really to go through their files. Nonetheless, you had caught wind of headsets that allowed temporary control over one person's body by another person's mind, still in development, and that certainly wasn't something you wanted getting out into the world at large. Who knew what sort of wild shenanigans some inventive users might manage?

Then there was Yabusa Robotics, Hideki's long-time rival that largely focused on attempting to make products that were straightforward and reliable, not like Hideki's consumer goods, which were geared toward being flashy and fitted out with every bell and whistle their developers could fit. Still, from Emily's internship interview at Yabusa, you knew that they had had at least some inkling of the more top-secret stuff being worked on at Hideki, and desperately wanted to develop something comparable.

Shaw Biosciences, meanwhile, presented a public image as a reputable medical technologies firm, regularly producing new advancements, largely incremental, geared toward enhancing the quality of life for people suffering from various ailments. The reality, though, as everyone sufficiently involved in the industry knew, is that they were more accurately described as corporate raiders, absorbing other firms via mergers and hostile takeovers, often when those would-be competitors were on the brink of their own breakthroughs, allowing Shaw to take the credit. There were whispers that they'd made plays for both Hideki and Yabusa on a few occasions, though unsuccessfully.

The last company you saw as a potential rival was King Enterprises, which operated largely by funding archaeological expeditions to find ancient relics. What Emilia King then did with those relics was little-known, but it did occur to you that there was no reason to think that only now were humans figuring out how to violate what had seemed to be established scientific precepts.

There were also, of course, the world's many militaries, though there were only a few of any real significance. You weren't especially concerned with what their own research and development teams might have come up with, being largely focused either on creating more efficient weaponry, or in reaching new places to put said weaponry, but there were always rumours of extraterrestrial technology being studied in top-secret labs. You were definitely interested in knowing what might be stored there.

Of course, before you could do any of that, you intended to take advantage of your current situation to enhance your current capabilities.

One major advantage of your new form was that you could use any form of energy as a power source, not being limited just to food and drink as Emily had been, or to symbiosis with a human as Zoe and Chloe had been. The downside, however, was that, to the extent you could be said to have a metabolism, it was far higher than it had been for any of your individual parts.

Further, you were constantly tempted to expend that energy, converting it into new mass for your slime and nanites. But you quirked a smile as you reflected on how you hadn't yet figured out how to violate at least one natural law, that of relativistic matter-energy equivalence, though at least you knew that you could perform such a conversion at perfect efficiency.

Thankfully, however, now that you were out in space, there was a very convenient fusion reactor only a few light-minutes distant.

Your first priority was, of course, ensuring that Kelly Lancer was safe. Strapping her into her chair, you put her helmet back on and checked her oxygen tank--not being designed for extravehicular activity, it only had around five hours' worth. Still, with a comfortable safety margin of an hour, that still left you four hours in which to absorb as much solar energy as possible.

You had no need to breathe and, bringing your exosuit to the fore, covering your entire body--you imagined you'd look like a science-fiction robot if you could see yourself in a mirror--you focused both on making your "skin" into high-efficiency solar panels that nonetheless would make you invisible. The easiest way to do that, however, was to bend visible light around yourself, which reduced the amount of energy you'd be able to absorb.

Double-checking the Captain's suit, you attached a thin tether of exosuit-plated nanite-slime to a handrail by the hatch, and opened it.

The temperature change was not especially drastic, but the pressure drop would have instantly killed anyone else. Your exosuit, however, kept you completely protected, and you floated out into space, already feeling the effects of the solar radiation on your "skin".

None of your parts had ever been entirely certain how Zoe worked. Your best hypothesis was that her interior had been a series of layered dimensions, each one slightly smaller than the last, proceeding harmonically to infinity. What you did know is that so long as you kept your nanite-slime wholly within the first dimension of your interior, then as you converted solar energy into matter for storage, you could grow effectively without limit.

Relatively small amounts of energy went to expanding your exosuit and bodysuit's physical forms, of course, but the bulk was used to create more nanite-slime, pressing outward, causing you to grow larger. The growth was not especially rapid, at least at first, but it was exponential, and by the end of the thrilling experience you'd grown to around a hundred times your original size. Rapidly compacting your Chloe and Lina parts into your higher inner dimensions, you reduced yourself back to your normal size, re-entered the craft, closed the hatch, repressurized the interior, restored your normal appearance, and checked to make sure that Kelly Lancer had survived.

Fortunately, she had, and you withdrew the small amount of nanite-slime in her before waking her up.

"What happened, doc?" she asked as she came to.

"I think your nervous system was overwhelmed when I tried to take further control of you," you lied smoothly. "Seems like it's probably too dangerous for me to attempt to use my nanite-slime for that purpose to any extensive degree."

"I did have a briefing on some parts of Project Inside Out," the Captain said. "Chloe was able to control people for extended periods of time without them passing out."

"It's not just Chloe any more, though," you reminded her. "It's a fusion of Chloe and Lina, and Lina especially was still in the experimental stages. I could attempt to separate the two, but it would be difficult." In truth, you could already see how you could probably do it, not that it would actually be necessary.

"Everything all right up there?" Ground Control asked over the radio. "We detected a drop in the Captain's vitals, like she was asleep, and then a pressure drop, but nothing changed with you the entire time, doc."

"I went EVA for a few hours," you replied.

"EVA? Without a spacesuit?" the incredulous reply came.

"My exosuit more than replicates the functions of an ordinary spacesuit," you reminded them. "Anyway," you went on, looking to make sure Kelly was mostly back to normal, "I think we're ready to land." In truth, you could've incapacitated the Captain again, hooked her oxygen tank up to the craft's supply, and go EVA again for hours more, but with how much nanite-slime you had kicking around inside you, you would much rather go back down to Earth and get to infiltrating computer networks.

"All right, doc. Captain," the voice on the other end went on, "are you ready to initiate landing procedures?"

"Aye," Lancer replied, back in her element and taking charge again. "Strap in, doc; this'll get a little rough."

Landing, however, went smoothly, and soon enough you were back on the base and in Colonel McCabe's office.

"So would you say that the first test was a success?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," the Captain replied. "There was a small issue with one of Dr. Ternion's experiments, but that may have had more to do with interactions with human physiology than with the effects of a zero-gravity environment."

"And you, Doctor?" the Colonel asked. "I understand you went EVA."

"I did," you affirmed. "It was a risk, to be sure, but I was confident that my exosuit would more than serve to protect me against the harsh environment of open space."

"And what do you think went wrong with your experiment? I assume it involved the Captain somehow."

"I believe the addition of nanites to Chloe Walker's slime mass has resulted in the effect being too overwhelming for ordinary humans to handle. Captain Lancer was only able to remain conscious for a brief time after she ingested a small sample."

"To what purpose?" the Colonel continued.

"Chloe Walker was able to possess others and control their bodies while she did so; in fact, such possession was necessary as a form of sustenance for her. Captain Lancer proved amenable to an attempt to determine what would happen with the alterations that have since been made."

That wasn't entirely true, of course, but you were confident that Kelly Lancer wasn't about to admit to her superior that having her body controlled against her will had aroused her.

"Very well," Colonel McCabe said. "Given the results, I think I can safely say that future test flights are in the cards, Doctor. Captain." Lancer saluted her superior before you and she left the office.

"So, think they'll let me go up with you again?" you asked.

"Maybe," Kelly replied. "But I'm hardly the only pilot assigned to this project. They might want to rotate us, find out if there's someone who can better withstand the effects of Project Inside Out."

"I could just refuse to cooperate unless it's you," you pointed out.

"You could. They could also decide it's not worth the trouble and make your life--and Hideki's ability to operate here--very difficult unless full details on Project Inside Out are handed over so that they can just develop it themselves."

"I guess my job's a pretty good reason to let them rotate pilots." You shook hands and parted ways as the Captain went back to her barracks and you walked toward where Lieutenant Collins was standing next to the Humvee that had brought you in.

"Ready to go back to Hideki, Doctor?" he asked.

"Just glad to be back in my own office soon enough, Lieutenant," you replied with a chuckle. You were eager to be back in your own office, but mostly because you needed time, and peace and quiet, to process the data already flowing into your mind from the little transparent nanite-slime capsules you'd left behind to work their way into the base's computer systems. With root-level access you'd coded a nasty little worm that was already percolating through the military intranet, extending the scope of your information-gathering activities, and from the bits and pieces you'd randomly picked out you already knew that you'd hit a technological gold mine.

"I look forward to seeing you again soon, Doctor," Lieutenant Collins said as you got out of the Humvee in a private parking lot on Hideki's grounds.

"As I do you, Lieutenant," you replied before entering the building and making your way back to what had once been Zoe and Chloe's lab.