Something wrong with Angel Seven

You and Angel Five didn't want to admit, but the Exo-Angel design that your new gooey friend Tex created was surprisingly useful.

...Well, Angel Five didn't want to admit it out loud. You talked her ear off whenever there was a spare moment to do so about how intuitive everything felt! You felt like a tiger on the prowl, but with wheels rather than paws, with the rather aggressive riding stance and a strangely comfortable posture when nobody was meant to ride on top. Adjusting your knees or hips meant you could twist the wheels in ways a motorcycle normally couldn't manage. You were something new, and it was pretty exciting!

"...So are you nanites or what, Tex?" Angel Five asked, hoping to distract herself from your gushing over this Exo-Angel design. You took the hint and went quiet.

In the HUD of your helmet, a little orange audio bar bounced whenever Tex spoke, as the only real indication beyond the fact that you were wearing their creation that Tex was along for the ride. "I'm not built like the lithium-based nanites, no. I am definitely a singular entity, where nanites that split and multiply can operate as their own remote colonies of the total unit and can be very destructive when removed from the master control chain. Although I am a synthetic creature like them, I do not have any interest in the nanites outside of the request that I assist in their retrieval. If anything, I have an interest in preserving organic entities, while nanites may be programmed to infect and corrupt biological life to alter or control them, and the nanites will do so without question."

You turned down a road, leaning with your body more like how a rollerblader would lean into a tight turn than how a motorcycle typically would. It felt so smooth! You didn't tell anyone though, you just wriggled your hips happily at the tighter turns you could manage.

"So you're not nanites, but you're a natural Phase Binder instead of needing this huge machine..." Angel Five tried to understand Tex as much as possible, assuming Tex was able to scan and talk simultaneously. "What even is phasing, anyway? That's like moving through the fourth dimension or something?"

"It's different," Tex said, adjusting the map in your HUD with search probabilities to indicate the best areas to check for the missing units. "Moving through extradimensional space is directional, where as phasing is rotational."

"...I don't get it."

"Few do, so do not be concerned. I will construct an analogy: imagine drawing on a paper. Extradimensional travel would be like lifting your pen from the paper, that's moving in a space beyond the paper's domain. Phasing would be like flipping the paper over. A Phase Binder merely strategically decides what to put on either side of the paper, and keeps them linked together, such as with ink that bleeds through to the other side of the paper."

Angel Five blinked. "But you can also just change which side of the paper something is drawn on, too."

"Yes! I suppose that's where the analogy begins to fall apart, I will ponder more about a better explanation." Tex seemed to ponder the analogy for a few moments. "What about--oh, wait. I'm detecting a reading that resembles short-range Yabusa signal spectrums. It matches the Angel 800 emissions. If you wouldn't expect any other units to be in the area of Carmine Park then I would recommend an investigation."

You pulled up to the entrance to the park, and as you tried to stand up, the Exo-Angel cowlings pulled away swiftly from your body. Interestingly, the Angel cowlings tucked in against you tightly, resting snugly against your back and shoulders as your helmet automatically retracted--all enhancements from Tex.

"Wow, that's... pretty useful," Angel Five said.

"Thank you. Proceed North-Northwest for a third of a mile."

You followed Tex's instructions faithfully, jogging into the park through the denser forested path. Turning off the path when Tex indicated, you moved through some thicker bushes and found a small clearing out of the way of the rest of the park, a perfect secluded area. Standing at its center was Angel Seven, you recognized her immediately. Her wavy red hair, tied in a loose and messy ponytail, stood out to you, her back to you. She was wearing some of the Angel armor, but the cowlings sat discarded on the ground to the side, covered in multiple holes, looking like somebody drilled through her machinery dozens of times.

"Seven?" Angel Five called out, to no response. Angel Seven merely stood still, staring off into the forest, disinterested in her surroundings. "Angel Seven, it's Five. What happened?" Still nothing.

You drew a weapon out of caution, but Tex didn't seem to support the need for it. "Those are definitely boreholes from the nanites in question, there may be residual nanomachines. I'm sealing you up again until I can neutralize any dangers to you." Your helmet and armor locked up around you, sealing you in with a slight hiss.

Stepping around to Angel Seven's front, you looked right at her face, but she didn't even turn to acknowledge you. Her eyes seemed... empty. She was breathing, she looked actually perfectly healthy, but she was standing still like she was waiting for a bus that would never come. "Seven? Seven! Tex, what's wrong, is this a feature of the nanites?"

"Get closer to the eyes, please. I need a better look, although I do not expect the nanites to cause this behavior, the nanites should only disable an Endo or other machinery from the build I'm aware of." You complied, getting close enough before a small optical visor dropped in front of you, zooming in on her eyes. This technology from Tex was really outstanding, if only you were testing it without being in such a distressing situation... "I see markers of nanites in her iris, but this is a different variant from what is affecting the machinery, I believe. I've seen this in one other person, a Hideki employee at a biotech conference talking about bio-elastomer materials for medical applications. Can you remove the other armored components and set them by the cowlings? It's safe to do so as long as I have you sealed. You'll also need to remove her Endo. It will make another scan easier."

Pulling off pieces of armor from Angel Seven while the redhead didn't even bother to acknowledge you had hands on her seemed slightly unnerving. The pieces popped off easily, some with the same sort of boreholes in them. "Why is this even happening?" Angel Five asked. "What do these nanites want with the Angels?"

"The nanites don't want anything, they merely execute code," Tex explained as you continued to remove the armor. "The boreholes are nanites undergoing replication. They need lithium, found in the batteries, but also trace elements found throughout many Yabusa creations, but particularly the composition of Angel armor seems to match nanite materials in addition to the lithium. They bore until they have enough nanites to meet the requirements of their programming, and then execute their code. Disabling the Angel units might just be a secondary feature of the nanites, although any residual nanites here would only be focused on further replication, any master chains would have likely moved on."

Very little of that made sense right off the bat, you'd need a translation later about nanite motivations. Hearing that Hideki had involvement with nanites made you quite suspicious though, and you decided to put a pin in that for later.

All armor removed, Angel Seven still stood there in her sports bra and leggings, with only the various circular ports on her arms, legs, and back present to indicate she was an Angel 800--that, and the Y-shaped seam on her back. Tex formed a gauntlet computer on your arm--convenient--so you could connect to Angel Seven and open up that back port. Grabbing her Endo, you pulled hard, extracting the battery and internal frame, which looked like a third of which had been entirely chewed through! "The other boreholes must have been just a way to get a path to the Endo," you suggested, setting the Endo aside.

Other than more pronounced slump, Angel Seven didn't even respond at all to you removing her core structure. Both you and Angel Five feared the worst with Angel Seven, though you didn't really know what to make of it. A snakelike arm with a camera appeared off your wrist, another of Tex's creations, before the camera entered the Angel's back, quickly scanning and observing Angel Seven's internal structure. You heard some sort of spraying sounds, before Tex pulled out of Angel Seven's back.

"There is some structure damage, but nothing electrical has been destroyed, she would be operational with a clean Endo. But there are many problems here, I cannot remove biological nanites if they are buried deep into her so she will be in this catatonic state without our intervention. If they are the nanites I think they are, we could possibly connect to them and restore Angel Seven's behavior--to a degree. I can explain further if you wish to try this. Otherwise, a direct neural link to move her out of here might be best, though that won't restore her autonomy. I could also create an Endo for her as well as enter her form and help you get her to safety myself, but I would understand if you consider this option undesirable."

You tapped your chin, looking at Angel Seven carefully. "We should also contact HQ and get someone here to help take a look. Some of those options might reveal Tex's existence to HQ and then that's more things to explain to Sarge. But... if any of those things ensure Angel Seven's safety and survival, that takes precedence, right? Even if Sarge doesn't like it."