Hideki field trip

You stood outside of Hideki Labs, crossing your arms. "I don't think this is the best idea," you said as you glanced around the massive, cutting-edge facility, not as tall as surrounding buildings but somehow more of an imposing structure than most. "I've always heard creepy stories about the labs. My dad used to say that all the rumors of underground lizard people are because Hideki genetically engineered some and sent the failed experiments down there."

"That's just a dumb urban legend," Angel Seven said, temporarily commandeering the mouth. "It's no better than my grandmother saying she's seen Emilia King flying around on a broomstick. Or how the mayor of Spiral City is a Yabusa drone and they want to replace all the people with robots."

Tex's Exo-Angel armor continued to retract out of phase, as loose jeans and an orange plaid shirt covered her instead. Tex seemed to really lean into the 'casual' aspect of your wardrobe request for her, when really you just didn't want anyone to suspect that either of you were Spiral City PD--at least in body, anyway. "That plan would absurd. Replacing everyone with robots is very expensive and does not sound like a profitable venture."

"...Uhh, right." you wrinkled your nose, wanting to focus on the task at hand again. "So, how are we going to get the attention of this Lucas person?"

"Lucas, or sometimes Lucy, is contained within the body of his friend Ivy. They've combined their lives since the incident two years ago after Lucas had been kidnapped following a Yabusa event showing off phase binding technology. So, on the visitor check-in, I'll ask to see Ivy Grisham, and write down on the sheet that I'm her sister Angel from Orange, Texas. That should be an obvious enough hint."

Despite your concerns that this could be an unwise start to your nanite investigation, you strolled into the Hideki Labs front lobby, following Tex's lead. She wasn't particularly adept at imitating a human unaided by Angel Five's mind, it was mostly her expressionless face that seemed out of place when she wasn't experincing some new sensation like delicious food. She walked fluidly, occasionally glancing over her shoulder to make sure you were still back there--maybe wondering if you were checking out her rear in those jeans? She didn't say. You sort of wished you had convinced her to take the day to just explore being human, you could've cooked her a ton of dishes to distract her. Too late, it seemed...

You waited in the lobby as Tex filled out the forms and talked to the desk clerk, who seemed a little puzzled by Tex's behavior at first but eventually sent a note up to Ivy's desk on floor five. She strolled back, smiling slightly as she sat across from you in a cushy chair. "I would not expect it to take long once the message is delivered."

'Long' must have meant something different to Tex than you, because the slowest half hour passed in the history of the universe. You must have read through every Hideki biomedical pamphlet a dozen times, knowing more about Smart Gel than you'd cared to ever know. Tex was no help, mostly content to look out the window with seemingly infinite patience. Eventually, two women approached, wearing white lab coats and skirts, one with long blonde hair, the other with pink hues instead.

"Tex?" The blonde, whom you deduced to be Ivy/Lucas, looked at your orange-eyed companion, though she didn't seem so excited to be pulled from her work for a sudden visit. "Tex, what's going on? You know I told you to come here in emergencies only, right?"

The pink-haired girl grabbed Ivy's arm, as she looked closely at you before whispering something in Ivy's ear. You shivered slightly, the way the other woman looked at you made it feel like she was somehow seeing inside you, down to your very soul or something. Ivy squinted and looked at you, then back at the pink-haired one to discuss further. Eventually she turned around, putting on a forced polite smile for the moment. "Tex, who might your friend be? And who exactly are you inside?"

"That is Rider Five of the Spiral City Police Department, inside Angel Seven. I myself am inside Angel Five. We collectively have a goal to locate and retrieve Yabusa-designed nanite technology. But recent discoveries concerning Angel Seven's condition gave me the idea to speak with you first. It's convenient that you've brought the one with matching Hideki nanite patterns, which simplifies confirming that connection."

You frowned as you glanced between Ivy and Tex. Ivy didn't seem too thrilled either.

"You need to work on brevity, Tex." Slipping her hands in her pockets, Ivy shrugged a little. "So... coffee? We're using our lunch hour for this, might as well get something at least. There's a nice spot down the road where we could talk."

"I mean, it's all just a big back and forth, right? Like with my Hideki-designed nanoslime, dad goes and makes a 'synthetic entity' that is roughly the same thing, hence Tex. Hideki heard about the Endo tech that Yabusa's been working on with the Angel modules and decided they wanted to try something similar for some super-soldier project or whatever." Ivy sipped her giant mug of coffee before continuing her rant. "And it turns out, King Enterprises already had a phase machine! Kind of. They think it's 'astral plane' stuff but it's just a mystical label for a phase shift."

You sat and listened quietly to every twist and turn in Ivy's rambling, which started with detailing the unusual kidnapping of Lucas--Lucy at the time, phasebound to other Yabusa tech--and how Ivy and their other friend Jamie came to the rescue. She claimed this King Enterprises 'ghost machine' resulted in Lucy being possessed to run off with the original phase binder concept, though no proof had ever been uncovered to support this claim. Even so, Ivy came to work at Hideki under Dr. Chloe Walker to work on their own take on phase shifting, as well as being able to bring something back into phase, to nullify this machine at King Enterprises from taking her over again.

"Anyway, all I'm saying is, there's a lot of 'inspiration' that each corp takes from one another, right? So even if Hideki somehow could get a hold of Yabusa nanites, it's possible that the design used by Walker and Hildebrand only loosely resembled the missing Yabusa design after hearing about them at a tech conference or something. Right Ela?"

The pink-haired Ela had been fairly quiet the whole while, often glancing at you but serving mostly as an observer to interactions between Ivy and Tex. "The nanites at least serve a different purpose, from the sound of it. The ones in two of our heads right now are pretty stable and not nearly as aggressive. But, it would not be a big leap for any sort of nanite design to be able to enter, maybe even control, biological life. That's a pretty complex process though, like Tex said, the master chain would need to be present."

"What do you mean by 'master chain'?" You looked between the three, feeling like the odd one out--there was some occasional genius-level talk between the three, between whenever Ivy decided to pick a new topic to monologue at length about.

Ela grabbed a bunch of sugar packets from the dish at the end of the table, scattering them all over, flipped logo-side down except one, which she taps. "If Tex's theory is right, in the Yabusa design, the master chain is kind of like the part of the brain that creates consciousness. This is a special cluster of nanites that can accept complex commands, or possibly it's self-aware even. When these nanites are all together, they can react and augment the master chain into a complex entity." Ela slid sugar packets toward the one with the logo flipped up, and each time one came in contact with it, she turned it logo-up as well, making a longer strand of packets to represent a nanite cluster. "When spread out, though, these particular nanites, these 'apprentice' chains, are simpler. They'll retain maybe just a subset of the original commands or memories of the master chain, or might behave like mindless replicating machines on their own. That's sort of how they sound right now, like that's what has infested your department."

You frowned, crossing your arms. "It sounds like we'll need to get some detail on how much of Yabusa's design was taken. If it's just these secondary nanites, they're a nuisance but ultimately just need to be quarantined once found. If it's this master chain thing, I'm guessing that could be used for some serious stuff by whoever controls it."

"If it exists," Ivy interjected as she swirled in one of the sugar packets into her already extremely sweetened coffee. "Frankly, I don't know that the technology is mature enough for nanites to have complex AI yet. I certainly haven't seen anything about it." Ela glanced away, but kept quiet on the matter.

"This has been very enlightening, thank you for the coffee," Tex said, drinking her fourth cup, trying all of the Specials of the Day with significant enthusiasm. You winced, knowing that Angel Five probably wouldn't be happy with all that caffeine in her system! She was going to end up with such a headache after withdrawals. "I do hope this wasn't a significant burden on you. I just... well, want to be helpful. As well as get exposure to being in public in a human form."

Ivy finally produced a genuine smile as she put a hand on Tex's. "She's a cute one, that's for sure. If you end up staying long-term in her once you back off of the redundant connections you made in her mind, send me a text and we can meet up again. We're going to have to do something about those nanites in Angel Seven here anyway."

You nodded, acknowledging this was a situation that needed a remedy, though you weren't rushing for one while you still got a chance to enjoy borrowing the redhead's body yourself. "Sounds like we're good here. ...Though, one more thing." You turned to Ela in particular, since she seemed to have a better grasp on intimate details of Hideki Labs. "In a hypothetical situation, let's say Hideki did have some elaborate nanite cluster that rivaled what Yabusa may have made. Who in Hideki Labs would know details on that?"

Ela paused, wondering if she should be answering any questions from the police without an attorney present... but she decided the answer might allow her to evade further questioning. "There's about twenty staff members that work on emerging tech projects that are beyond my pay grade, my department is still smart gels and adaptive bandages. Staff rotate in and out of those projects regularly, so I wouldn't know who might be doing what, but Director Brooks would be aware of everything."

As per Tex's instincts, this did indeed feel like a productive meeting. At the very least, more leads to follow up with! You'd have to treat Tex to some ice cream or something as a reward.