This won't work, evaluate another option

What started as a hopeful process became far less certain as the night wore on. You and Amanda worked tirelessly on the gene sequencer, while the two scientists tried to isolate particular proteins and delivery methods to stabilize the structure of bodysuit Revision Y. But every step forward was accompanied by two steps back--each simulated gene edit created a protein that was then in conflict with some other part of Revision Y's biological makeup. You could guarantee that she wouldn't tear herself apart, for example, but her ability to collapse her outer self would come into question when these new changes to the body were incompatible.

Late night became early morning, and the team was worse off than they were before. Eventually, Chloe called a quick meeting, and wheeled over a whiteboard while you, Amanda, and Kazumi drank copious amounts of coffee and soda to try to stay awake enough to understand the science behind everything Chloe and Zoe wanted to talk about. Bleary-eyed, you slumped back in your seat.

"I'll keep this short," Chloe began, scribbling on the whiteboard. "Revision Y has three major protein differences compared to Zoe, whole different structures designed to do similar work. In theory, it's just this one protein, SDC-4b, which needs alteration, which would indeed cause short term stability to allow Revision Y to heal itself. When Rev Y was created, it looks like back in the notes the scientists realized that, which is why they engineered Zoe here instead with a new protein structure that could self-stabilize. However..."

Zoe frowned, stepping forward in front of the whiteboard to create a diagram of proteins, linked in a graph. Clearly the findings of the night were weighing heavily on her, but she didn't stop her professional nature just because the results were not as she hoped. "SDC-4b being replaced with my own protein, SDCX-11, would disrupt two other proteins, Ganzine-4 and Telfalzaride, from their own functions. A short term fix then just buys a little time before worse problems set in..."

"We could replace all three, but then we have a new problem." Chloe steals the pen from Zoe, and starts to scribble on the board, all around the diagram. Changing all three of those then require minor edits in forty-seven other proteins that have some degree of interaction, and now we're talking about proteins that go beyond just the bodysuit's adaptive bandage features and more core life-sustaining processes. Each one of those changes could require new edits as well."

"Essentially, we can't just alter Rev Y's code," Zoe said. "That's a full genetic replacement with my DNA structures instead, plus a full wipe and replacement of all the incompatible protein. That's going to require some new innovations to be able to do anything like that. Which, Chloe and I will start that discussion later with some other Hideki scientists, but for now it means recovering anything after revision M in the cryo-chambers is probably impossible."

You stood up, hugging Zoe on your approach. "I'm sorry Zoe, I know you probably wanted to see this happen tonight, but we'll make it work."

Zoe smiled, a little sadly, but she seemed to take comfort in your arms. "Thanks. ...Um, do you mind if I...?"

You shook your head, knowing Zoe was probably looking to retreat a little bit into her thoughts, and what better way for her to do it than if you were wearing her? She smiled wider, and wrapped around your body instantly, leaving you standing next to the whiteboard with Zoe's shapely form, though with your slightly sleepy expression. You scurried back to the couch to sip more coffee, as a slightly jealous Kazumi peered over your body. Kazumi raised her hand, like she was in a classroom. "So, I don't want to sound heartless or anything, but you said this won't work for anything after revision M. There's a revision A through K in cryo-stasis that this could work on though?

Chloe nodded, she was far more into the science than the idea of meeting an 'ancestor' like Zoe was. Perhaps that would be different if everyone was researching the slimes to unfreeze... but that wasn't the focus for now. Chloe turned to the whiteboard, and drew up a couple doodles. "I think there's two viable candidates," Chloe said as she revealed her rather crude art of what looked like a catsuit and some sort of... monster? "Revision E and J, respectively."

You all stared at the whiteboard for a moment, trying to understand what exactly the drawings were actually meant to represent. Kazumi raised her hand again.

"This isn't a classroom, Kazumi, just say whatever it you want." Chloe mimicked rolling her eyes with her slime.

Kazumi nodded. "Uh, right. Okay, so, neither of those things look like... a person. These are proto-bodysuits or something?"

"That's... correct, wow." Chloe paused a moment, wondering how Kazumi might have pulled such terminology out of thin air, but she returned to the whiteboard. "Let's work backwards, here. Revision J was probably the first attempt at a fully-encompassing bodysuit that would eventually become the blueprint for the remaining living suits, such as Zoe. Revision J began with squid and cuttlefish DNA as its base, and you'll find that its body is definitely rather squid-like, down to having a rubbery skin with cromatophores for active camoflauge. The squishy body has eight or so long limbs that extend out of the head and an elongated torso that internally have hundreds of smaller 'chambers' which can be filled with air, liquids with medicinal properties, or most importantly, solid objects such as a person. Each major limb also breaks off into six minor limbs, creating essentially forty-eight 'digits', and each limb could manipulate its size dramatically by inflating or deflating individual chambers. Revision J could even invert these limbs, pulling a limb essentially inside itself to create a cavity instead of an external appendage, which was intended so Revision J could actually treat a patient, even perform surgery, on a host contained internal to its body."

Everyone blinked, trying to picture this bizarre being. More limbs than a human, able to wrap around a person but still do things to their wearer... One could make some very bizarre shapes with a suit like that, it seemed! Kazumi was about to raise her hand again, before Chloe shot her a look and she quickly lowered it.

"Uh, right. So... what about the head?" Kazumi asked.

Chloe scribbled on the whiteboard again. "The anatomy of Revision J means most of the organs are contained in the head, it's a very small chamber at the back. The head itself has this sort of outer mouth, I guess you could call it, which is meant to fully encapsulate a head of a wearer, down to the neck. The skin is intended to be transparent enough that the wearer could see out, though details would be somewhat obscured, so the head often would hang down like a hood on clothes when worn; either way looks a bit bizarre by human standards I guess. When the head is wrapped around a wearer, Rev J has eyes and nostrils that sit roughly on a person's jawline, which leaves this sort of blank canvas where a person's face would be which could be used for complex chromatophore designs. Unlike Zoe, however, Rev J doesn't feed off of energy from the host, it has other inner mouths that need food and water. That was probably one of the big contributing factors to why Rev J wasn't the final candidate for Project Inside Out."

"And not all the other stuff like the extra limbs or just generally looking like a squid person?" you asked.

"I mean, there's probably a few other factors like that, yes..."

The idea of essentially looking like some alien being had a certain appeal, but you felt a lot more comfortable wearing Zoe. You couldn't tell what Kazumi was thinking though, she seemed intrigued by the possibility if her intense expression was any indication.

Chloe decided to continue. "How about we talk about Revision E? This one was nicknamed the 'super suit' by scientists working on her. In fact, she's the inspiration for some of my own slime techniques, such as morphing into fabric-like materials! Rev E was also the first bodysuit candidate to experiment with upper-dimensional design, specifically to store medical devices too large to carry into the shape of a person, just like how Zoe could alter her shape without changing the contents within her. The first device installed inside revision E, in fact, was a Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine, hooked up to her arms so a wearer could essentially conduct an MRI test in the field with only their hands."

You crossed your arms as you thought about the sheer size of an MRI machine, which might as well have been a equivalent to having a whole car sitting next to you inside Zoe, and yet outwardly looking no different than before. "I know Zoe can fit a lot of objects inside her upper-dimensional space, but what good is an MRI machine without power?"

Chloe grinned at you, she seemed way more responsive to your questions when you looked exactly like her colleague on the outside. "Right, so! They, uh, installed a nuclear reactor."

"...what?"

"Yeah, a whole nuclear reactor." Chloe drew up what she thought a nuclear reactor would look like, although certainly not to scale. "This super-suit, it didn't have to try and mimic living skin in the designs, they were okay with it just looking like a normal outfit. So even though there are living biological components, they were essentially able to create a nuclear-powered cyborg that could fit, I dunno, probably this entire laboratory in its upper-dimensional structure. And once they realized what they were on to, the scientists kept going, hooking up more objects into the power grid... real high-tech, classified stuff. In fact, Rev E is kind of a vault of unused secret tech that Hideki wanted to keep hush-hush about, all disguised as just what looked like some sort of comic-book costume. I'm talking things like... quantum teleportation, energy levitation, hydraulic musculoskeletal assist systems, I think there's like these palm emitters for energy beams even? The suit could even alter itself on the outside, turning from that comic-inspired shape into regular clothes to 'hide', all the way to creating some whole suit of armor from head to toe on the other end of things. Wearers really did have all the advantages a superhuman might have in a comic book."

Kazumi stared wide-eyed at the drawings Chloe kept adding to. "That all sounds... incredible, like it could change the world! Why stick Revision E into cryo-stasis?"

Chloe tapped her chin, and then picked up one of the journals she had brought over for the presentation. "...ah. Well, each scientist on the project came up with one good reason why to put Revision E into stasis. But namely, they were uncomfortable with giving the military, which was the only entity that could or would spend billions of dollars to develop each one of these super-powered suits, all this military might. Rev E has a whole lot of technology that can be used for medical, healing purposes, and yet be subverted into purely destructive weaponry--and that's not counting the actual weaponry they installed in her! So they made sure Revision E could override their wearer's movements, which was pretty easy given that the suit essentially had super-strong hydraulics installed for every limb. However, Revision E also had a bit of a 'playful' personality, from the notes here... and she enjoyed showing off her wearers in outfit shapes she designed, treating them like her own personal runway models. That actually does sound really fun, I'd love to see that in action. But... the military apparently wasn't thrilled with their soldiers behaving like sexy strippers and such when Rev E felt like playing around, so the project was retooled to the next bodysuit revision. They put Revision E inside the cryo-stasis chamber before she could find out what happened, they feared she might go berserk and retaliate. Fortunately, most of the 'super powers', I suppose you could call them, aren't able to activate without Rev E being worn. She can walk around on her own and change into different outfits, but without a wearer, that's all."

Kazumi seemed excited by both prospects, both Revisions J and E had some really unique--even though both sounded like they could have their own bizarre, even disastrous, consequences if they are revived and the group can't get a handle on things quickly. Kazumi turned to you with a grin, holding her arms up excitedly as she tried to process her thoughts. "So, which one do you think we wake up? Or, maybe even just which one do we wake up first? We have got to see these things in action?"