Outfitting the Task Force

There wasn't much use fighting it at this point. You'd already felt the tug of Mona's words on you as she asked you to follow her back out of the Aiden complex, bringing Safiya and Tracy in tow as well. You and Safiya were compelled to obey--Tracy followed merely because Mona seemed to like her company, enjoying the girl's chatty personality. You and Safiya walked silently beside one another, both feeling suddenly out of your element when dealing with ancient beings and rich geniuses.

Once in the elevator, Mona turned to Tracy. "If you don't mind, dear, I need to have a bit of a briefing with my newest employees. Take this elevator to the top, a drone will guide you to the penthouse from there. Get cozy, take a shower, synthesize a new outfit for yourself, raid the fridge. Once we're done with our job prospects, I'll come up further so we can continue this chat, yeah?"

"Oh, sure thing, Miss Mona," Tracy said with a genuine happiness in her voice. At least somebody was going to enjoy themselves without any repercussions..! "Just think about it though, Alaska is just so far away for that project of yours. If you're really making a robot theme park, Wisconsin would be a better place to bring in visitors, and it would be easy to get all the cheese you'd ever want to serve it in the park!"

Mona giggled and wiggled her fingers as she stepped off the elevator at a new basement level with you two in tow. "I'll think about it. Toodles." The elevator doors closed, leaving you and Safiya alone with Mona once again. "Lovely woman. Entirely clueless as to the purpose of Alteria City, but her capacity for optimism is almost as big as her love for Wisconsin cheese. Anyway, onto business."

Lights flickered on as the two of you walked, leaving much of the basement level in darkness, your footsteps echoing through the emptiness. You didn't know how vast or even how populated this area was, but it seemed like save for a few drone robots milling about, Mona claimed this area all to herself. Tall glass doors hissed open as you entered something resembling the mix between a lab and a manufacturing facility, with various rows of skeletal Endo machines, and fairly lifelike exterior Case machines meant to complement the internal structures, stored in glass containers, like boxes of toys on a shelf. Further along, other projects, like the centaur-like Mustang robot or a Silverback frame or Yabusa drones in various stages of assembly sat cast aside as whatever experimental work had concluded on them.

"Something tells me this isn't the typical Yabusa fabrication plant," you said, looking at the mess of wires along the floor and ceiling, coming to connect to various server racks or terminals throughout the room, each affixed to different machinery. "I've never seen some of this technology, what is all this?"

Mona tapped on a terminal, logging into it. "I call it the Grisham Room. You've met Gordon, right? Since Angel 800s were his brainchild, I would think so. I liked his work, but I wasn't happy that he was keeping his work in his basement, so now it's all slightly secure. He's been designing like crazy, that one. First with the modules to phasebind into people, then with the Endo tech to add so much versatility to a person, which you've already experienced since you've had so much fun climbing inside another person as if you were one! These Case frames, though... truly my favorite how lifelike they can be, or how un-lifelike... truly an incredible variety. This is the future of the world, my friends! I can bind living tissue to modules that can control a Case, or transfer to an Endo, and create a perfect society of cybernetic beings. If you want to look like one person who has a ton of different talents, you'd put your mind in a Case, and buy a bunch of Endo modules. If you wanted a different body every day, we embed you in an Endo, and you own a bunch of different Case modules. Get it?"

Safiya nodded, if only to satisfy the new boss. Mona found it sufficient enough to move along.

"The nanites are critical to that plan. I can embed complex AI in the nanite cluster Yabusa designed, really cutting-edge stuff. These are nothing like the little robots that were in Angel Seven's head, these are some serious machines that can operate with organics or on their own. They're the ones that make it possible to mass-convert people into the modules needed to put them in a Case or an Endo without risk of damage to their biological selves. Aiden could do it, but I'm not going to bring hundreds of thousands of people down to the basement for that procedure. And then the nanites will keep everything connected, updated, functioning flawlessly, repairing the obsolete..." Mona drifted off as her thoughts distracted her.

You stepped over to a Yabusa drone, tapping on it to see if it was even active or not. "We get the message, Mona. These nanites are important, so we'll get them back for you. We just need to... figure out how to deal with our new selves."

Mona blinked herself back to reality. "...Right. Right! That's why we're here, in this room, in this moment. I'm going to give you precisely what you need to get things done. You have Tex, you have 'magic', you've got buns of steel and pretty faces. But I did something else while you were asleep, specifically to Safiya. Something told me this wouldn't work a Geistknight changing shapes all the time, but with Safiya? I'd already added in the internal structure to accept Endos again, with a newer and more intriguing design."

"What? No, that can't be right," Safiya said, looking down at herself, and then reaching back to feel along her back. "No seams, no access ports, I look normal."

"You look like a fertility goddess." Snickering, Mona tapped at Safiya's neck, and the wide-eyed woman knelt down as her back opened up in the familiar Y-shaped position, although you hadn't seen any seams either! Peering inside, the interior casing no longer looked like hard metallic structures, but it appeared... softer. Gel-like, even, like it would flexibly accept more shapes than the typical Endo. "There's no need for access ports with these new Case designs like this hybrid one I gave you, everything can be commanded wirelessly or connected out of phase, using new multi-phase tech. You're not just two sides of the phasing coin now, I've got a full thirty phase angles to store objects so they don't interfere with one another."

Safiya kept looking down, but she could still talk, sounding surprised when she did. "Thirty? But how? That means... way more complex machinery, and I could store more things out of phase..."

"Precisely. At those new phase angles, you could store thirty full-size Tarantula modules, not that you should, that's a waste of space. But let's just say that you could carry enough machinery to supply the needs of an entire construction company, or a massive research team."

"Or a sizable militia," you said with a bit of a frown at Mona. She glanced your way but didn't acknowledge your comment.

Instead, Mona walked to one of the Endos behind glass in the far wall, opening up a panel and pulling out what looked like a beefy computer with arms and legs. "The other upgrade is the soft interior means even an unarmored person can exist within the casing, without need of a full Rider frame to slot in properly and be able to breathe and stuff. That's more phase trickery, but what's important is that anyone can slide inside a Case, even my own. It's a 'try before you buy' thing, since I need to sell potential customers on having an android form before they'll accept the procedure. And it means I can insert odd shapes, like the specially designed TexOS Endo." Right as Mona spoke those words, she stuck the Endo into Safiya's back and closed up the port.

Safiya blinked as she stood up. "Wait... TexOS. You mean the machine you used to calibrate me?"

"Ohhhh, it does way more than that, honey!" Mona pat Safiya on the rear as she turned to you. Safiya merely stood still, unmoving at the behest of the Endo within her, precisely as Mona planned. "Artemis, I'll be real with you for a moment. Safiya might be the most powerful person I could think of in one body right now, with Yabusa tech and natural phasebinding capabilities with Tex fused ot her. If she figures out how to use the powers the original Safiya had, that'll only solidify that fact that I'm employing a Techno-Witch or something. But at the same time, her mind is extremely obedient, she'll submit to all sorts of commands from authority. That's by design I guess, Angels were hand-picked to follow instructions without question from Riders and Tex is designed to respond to programming and instructions from users favorably. That's where you are critical here, your mind is only half-Angel, so you've got a leadership side. So you'll be in charge of the TexOS Endo and can control every little thing about Safiya as you want or need to complete these missions."

Mona tapped on a nearby console, and Safiya turned to face you in response, her movements slightly robotic but at least they kept her upright. When you looked at the screen, you could see Mona had logged into this TexOS interface remotely, and she typed in a couple commands. Safiya's clothes changed dramatically and quickly, into a copy of Mona's biker jacket and jeans! Another typed command from Mona as well as touching a trackpad, and Safiya's hips moved left and right to match Mona's input, until she was made to shake her hips back and forth rapidly! Mona typed in a phrase into the command prompt...

"I can even make her say whatever I want," Safiya's voice spoke, though her words felt somewhat dry, a little robotic. You glanced at the screen again, noticing Mona had typed those exact words on the screen! Safiya's eyes continued to look forward, apparently not even given the ability to look at you in this state, possibly by Mona's design--or desire to be in complete control.

You nodded a little, mind racing at the possibilities of having that sort of control over your lovely partner, but you tried to poke holes in the idea to downplay your interest. "That's not very useful if I have to bring my laptop everywhere to type into her."

"Oh ye of little imagination," Mona snorted as she typed something into the console again, and Safiya's attire returned to her very revealing underwear! "First off, she can just keep a laptop out of phase. Hell, you could have her embed a screen and keyboard in her back or replace her head with it! But this isn't the end of it. Hey Tex, touchscreen mode, please."

Safiya's skin shimmered a glowing orange, with all sorts of unique sigils and illustrations of flowers appeared from head to toe on her skin, before everything swirled on Safiya's body. Orange icons ran along her arms, neck, sides of her face, down her legs. Mona reached over and tapped on one, and the glow along her body swirled and changed again, showing you a touch waiting for input on Safiya's bare stomach. "Stomach, back, it doesn't matter. She has to respond to her authorized users. Yet another level that makes sure you two do what I need, as you and I are the only ones with this access."

Mona tapped Safiya's stomach, and started to scroll through a list called 'head options'. You didn't quite understand the purpose of the list until Mona started tapping. Safiya's head changed shape entirely in an instant with each tap! The first few were humanoid, though you didn't recognize most except when Mona made Safiya's head into exact duplicates of her own, and then Emilia's. And then as she scrolled further down, things became more and more bizarre... Safiya's head was replaced by a Yabusa drone's, then a fancy toaster, then a computer screen! Safiya's shapely body didn't move a muscle the whole time, waiting patiently for the input to complete. You wondered what was running through Safiya's mind in that moment, if this was some sort of nightmare or if the Tex side of her, maybe even the Angel side, enjoyed this level of usefulness she had?

Mona returned her head to normal and stood back again. "She's configurable and controllable in infinite ways, all contained within a single human form. This was just scratching the surface. I'm not issuing you a phone or computer or armor or really anything at all unless Safiya stores it out of phase and can integrate its functionality into the TexOS Endo. Hell, she could phasebind to a house and you could practically live inside her! Not to mention, when you still want some of that first-person experience you had apparently experienced with Angel Five earlier, she'll always be available for you to do that, too... What more do you need?"

"I, uh..." You stood there, shocked at what Mona had managed to do in the short time you were asleep. Were these her only secrets she'd kept from you in fulfilling her side of the devil's bargain?

"Yeah, I thought so. Shall we go upstairs to get better acquainted on a personal level? I encourage a strong work-life balance among my employees. Tracy's waiting, by the way, I think she might be fun to toss into this little mix for some casual acclimation to this new working relationship. Hey Tex, relax."

Safiya blinked, glancing at you and Mona as she took a deep breath, feeling herself with her hands. "That felt so weird, but so incredible somehow! We've got to try more with this thing. I'll store whatever you want, and we'll test this Endo in every way imaginable!"

Mona smirked as she led you two back toward the elevator, pushing the button for the Penthouse level. "We'll see how long that Endo stays in you today. It might be fun to yank it and see if someone would be interested in climbing inside you once more to make sure that functionality is solid as well."