The largest single syringe

You looked at Ela--this sweet-looking girl, staring blankly forward, and realizing that she was truly a clean slate in terms of personality and behavior. While she could develop on her own, if she was going to be connected to you, you felt like you needed to guarantee that you and Ela were going to be compatible with each other. And that meant, to your dismay... more nanites. You leaned forward, tapping the largest dose in a single syringe. It represented about 80% of the available nanites on the table--injecting you with everything seemed wholly possible, but that seemed like overkill from everything Zoe and Chloe had described to you. You wanted a little wiggle room in case you needed some more nanites before you start disrupting an entire Hideki research project to get more.

"I guess, let's go big for the biggest chance of success here." You looked up, a slight frown on your face. "I'm really worried that these nanites are going to chew through my neurons though, are you sure this is safe? This is a lot of nanomachines..."

"We're confident that we can fix anything that starts to go wrong," Chloe declared. You weren't exactly inspired with confidence, given the setup, but you were the one who picked the syringe, so you only really did yourself in, if anything.

Zoe and Chloe immediately went to work, powering up the nanites and prepping Ela and yourself for their entry. Ela absorbed a sizable amount of nanites, allowing them to mix evenly with her taffy-like structure once she left her human shape behind. There was a time component to the connections, however, and Zoe and Chloe couldn't spend too long with Ela's elastomer-nanite mixture because you needed a lot more time to assimilate these nanites into your brain than the other small doses. Both Zoe and Chloe were at your side, Chloe using her slime to provide an anesthetic so you didn't even feel the needle.

The needle didn't matter in the least, however, as you had billions of nanites rushing at high speed into your mind, and it was like you overdosed on a bad ****. This wasn't just random synapses firing--this was more like every synapse firing simultaneously, multiple times. Reality lost all meaning, and to preserve your sanity, you mind just... shut down. Nothing in, nothing out.

When you finally came to, you were tucked into a hospital bed. Everything was fuzzy, and you had such a difficult time staying fully conscious. You fluttered in and out multiple times, though the last time you truly awoke, you really awoke, with a gasp of air. Something really seemed to sink in right then and there, and you bolted upright in bed, became immediately light-headed, and tumbled back down. "Aurgh... what happened?"

Chloe hurried by your side, checking your pulse and a few other machines. You finally got your bearings, realizing you were still in Hideki, but this looked more like the third floor, where various medical trials took place, typically human trials where patients needed to be carefully monitored. Fortunately, no such trials were being conducted at the moment, so beds were free.

When you finally came to, you were tucked into a hospital bed. Everything was fuzzy, and you had such a difficult time... wait. This felt familiar. Didn't you just experience this?

Zoe hurried by your side, checking your pulse and a few other machines. You shook your head. "Wait, where did Chloe go?"

Zoe frowned, checking your head. "Chloe's in the other observation room. She's monitoring Ela at the moment... are you saying you experienced consciousness through Ela? It's important to know if you are sure, or if it might have been imagined."

You glanced over. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I saw--"

"--Chloe in the other room." That was really odd. Those words didn't come out of the same mouth. And all they did was confuse Chloe, the doctor standing at your side.

The doctor shook her head. "No, I'm in this room, Ela. Are you having trouble remembering who I am? You're speaking, that's a good sign, but I need to know whether you are having any new trouble with cognition."

"I'm not Ela though, I'm--"

"--Emily!" You felt the shift happen again, and you grasped at your head, trying to shake your head out. You turned toward Zoe, gripping at her arm. "I'm going back and forth, it's really weird. I don't know what to do, doc!"

"Okay, deep breaths," Zoe said, squeezing your hand. "Maybe if you try to--"

"--Ela, can you hear me?" Chloe said, worried as she grasped at your shoulders. You blinked and looked toward Chloe, who seemed relieved. "You're spacing out all of a sudden, you had me worried."

"Chloe, I'm Emily! And my mind is hopping back and forth! Please, get it to stop! I can't--"

"--stand it! Augh!" You flopped back into the bed, your eyes shut tight. You'd never been so frustrated by anything, and the body-hopping was making you feel ill. Zoe paused for a moment to think, and then hurried out of the room. You vocalized your frustration with a loud, rumbling sigh, trying to hold yourself in place. The moment you thought it worked... you were again in the other room, but this time both Zoe and Chloe were there, conversing.

"But maybe if they're in the same room, they could synchronize. This oscillation might cause the connection to permanently break down. We should--"

Silence. The worst part was that you had no warning or control of when your consciousness hopped, but you didn't even understand how that was possible at all. Your brain wasn't moving back and forth... were these nanites so strong that they could tug your whole consciousness into another body without trying? And if so, what was happening to Ela herself?

You bounced one more time, but this time your bed was rolling, both Zoe and Chloe pushing your bed into the other observation room. They brought the beds as close as possible, and you turned to see your old body, looking puzzled all the while. You recalled Zoe and Chloe saying that Ela was going to become more an extension of you than anything--were you really overpowering her whole self with your consciousness? Or was this just that you were experiencing Ela's consciousness as your own? You shook your head at so many possibilities with so few clues.

"We have to do something more than just wait," Zoe said. "Can we check on the nanites? Maybe we can **** something? Are there other settings we missed?"

"Maybe they're operating in half-duplex mode or something--only able to transmit or receive at a time, not both at once. I might be able to work with that."

You feared the worst--something was wrong with the nanite setup. In the worst case, you might hop back and forth like this eternally, at least if you stayed as two separate bodies. There was the possibility that Chloe could maybe fix something, but was it possible to somehow make it worse? You didn't know what that might entail, but you could get scrambled up worse, or one of your bodies goes into a coma... you hoped it was none of those, that if Chloe didn't fix something that it just fixed itself naturally. As far as you knew, this was uncharted territory in the medical space with nanites--the best you could hope for was your synchronization to settle and calm down. You didn't want to regret your choice...