Scene #5937: Blah Blah Do Not Touch

Owner	Pose
Zwei	Since scoring a Corpus cargo ship from a suspiciously derelict space port, interrupting an obviously shady mob deal in progress, deleting a security force, and escaping off into the night (of space), Zwei in full presence has been camping out aboard the ship for a while, aiding the effort to scan through its multiple, gratuitously enormous cargo holds, dragging anything particularly useful into just one, and then ejecting the thousands of tons of gallium and polymer bundles into space, because who needs those. Part of this effort has also been to track down the pods of apparently either extremely valuable, extremely illegal, or extremely both material, addressed as 'the technocyte', which Zwei has been primarily interested in, in addition to Asche drinking the primary reactor through a straw like Zek had promised as a payback for his newfound freedom. There was also some stuff about child trafficking, but it looks like they were already unloaded, so no need to space any kids. This culminates in piles of crap in sci-fi looking containers all dragged into one cathedral-esque add-on hold, stuck to the ship's central spine in ostensible isolation like all the rest, way too huge inside to look remotely practical as ships go, and doubly so for the panoramic window views to one side and many catwalks and elevators to get around it instead of showing someone a shitty ladder and telling them to deal with it. Most notably, some of of the jumble doesn't look remotely like any of the other stuff, bearing manufacturing styles and markings on its containers that place it worlds away. There isn't a whole lot of science or ceremony to the arrangement, because the fact is that the entire ship block can be shot out into space and then from there probably into the sun, and it's probably best to just have the space to stand back on the off chance something goes terribly wrong, instead of all being crouched behind a blast shield or something. Plus, both Zwei units can teleport. Neither of them voice that thought aloud though.
Staren	'Something about child trafficking', indeed. That part's certainly got Staren concerned, and he thinks heroic elites everywhere should be as well -- to that end, he's rounded up whoever could make it, with an eye towards using supernatural powers to track the people responsible in a way they couldn't possibly have prepared for (at least, so Staren thinks.) Staren picks up his guests wherever, beaming them up to his ship. The bottom deck has the strange aesthetic of 'part medieval castle, part high-tech lab', and the rest looks like the inside of a house, with things like a modern kitchen and a rec room with couches and spare beds and flat screen TVs. While they travel through space (even with FTL, it takes a few minutes) he explains about how, after 'acquiring' Zek a spaceship from the Corpus, greedy merchants who actually worship profit, they discovered a cargo container that had /clearly/ been a bedroom and living area for a few children recently (he shows them photos including little beds, crayon drawings, and a stuffed animal). Staren also hands out air tanks that clip to a torc or belt and are paired with orange-sized lumps of soft plastic that will, if needed, suddenly reshape into a spacesuit, because of course he does. Once the ship arrives, Staren docks it or beams people over or helps them with a short spacewalk over, as needed -- if there's a big enough hangar maybe he can even land his ship inside! (It's the size of a large house.) Staren makes his way to the cargo container that was used to transport the kids, leading the others (or at least, Flamel). He briefly greets Zek and Zwei in passing, but his first interest and priority is clearly this particular mystery. "Well, here it is. So... are you able to tell what happened here?"
Zek	There was a lot of really basic materials. Zek tagged some stuff for keeping around in the interests of patching holes that the Corpus may shoot in his newly-acquired vessel, but is more interested in reducing the overall mass they have to propel through the blackness of space, so doesn't object to ditching quite a lot of it. The ship has been drifting through a dark sector in the vicinity of Neptune since it got taken. Zek has spent the intervening time scouring the vessel for hidden caches, compartments, security measures and other such things. He's gone through every room on the vessel, pilfered anything that looks like it might be useful or just eye-catching, and put it in that cathedral-sized primary hold. He's also begun rewriting the main computer to work with... something else, and torn open more than a few of the maintenance and ventilation ducts for some reason. Zek still hasn't named the ship, though. He's had a lot of other things on his mind. Gnawing hunger he can't do anything about, for one... The faceless Warframe that is Zek is seated up on one of the catwalks overlooking the massive collection of Things and Stuff they've got all around. Nearby, he has square planters filled with what looks like mud and ground beef. Whatever he's growing does not appear to have shown clear results. It's entirely possible he's come down with a case of the space madness. The 'quarters' for the smuggled children is in a cargo pod that he hasn't touched for fear of contaminating some kind of evidence. It's setup with large cargo containers stacked inside to build what looks like a tall, deep brick of them, but which is actually a wall concealing a cubby with small bunks and the sorts of childlike amusements you'd expect near a place children sleep. It's quiet in there, save for the dull sound of power and engines from the connected spine of the ship.
Flamel Parsons	The good news is that Flamel's constant passive optimism and friendliness has recovered over time. The bad news is that his happiness hasn't. He looks like he hasn't slept even a little. His sunglasses cover up bloodshot eyes badly. But he's as friendly as ever. "Haven't touched the place, right? I heard Tenno have a lot of psychic potential, who knows what might wipe out psychic residue. But I think I'll be able to get you some kind of lead no matter what!" He says, in that upbeat way. The cheerful wave to the warframe doesn't seem unnerved by its facelessness. As for the investigation Staren wants him to look into, Parsons has a unique method. He approaches the cargo containers, kneeling down in front of their opening, and pressed two fingers to the containers, while pressing another two to his temples. He breathes deeply, and emits a pulse of shining white light that surges through the structure and its furnishings -- and especially its toys -- seeking out and latching on to psionic residue, before amplifying it visually, aurally, or even in visions. If a child spent miserable weeks here, there ought to be some residue to amplify, and data to glean from the resulting mental echoes, be they memories, echoes, or other such hints; he has no hesitation about sharing the effects with the others, either.
Zwei	<<"Hey Staren!">> \|\|"Hello, friend of Staren."\|\| Weiss waves from a central platform where two sets of raised bridges cross over, hauling a container full of dubious contents from one path, and one he really should recognize as a container of those nanomachines from the Mars venture along the other. Asche is stood off the bridges entirely, though still taller than Weiss standing on them. He's set up a quartet of some kind of small emitter device on the floor -one on each path- and then a matching one on the ceiling, around the junction. This seems pretty entirely wholesome. <<"If you're looking for the kids, we didn't see any, so that guy was probably right about them being traded off. Or they died somewhere. Who knows! I'm kidding though.">> \|\|"I would have detected necrosis."\|\| <<"Space necrosis!">> Weiss turns back to the pods, and attaches what looks like a teeny weeny brick of plastique to each, smoothing it out down the cracks of each release, before taking a good few steps back beyond the emitters. <<"Alright, let's crack these bad boys open!">> \|\|"Detonating charges. Raising holographic field."\|\| Predictably, the material pops off with a brief burst of highly contained fire, busting open the doors from a safe distance. At the same time, the emitters come online, and by projecting at 90 degree angled, form an unbroken cube of microwave radiation. By looking at the tiny 'droplets' of gold light pulsing through subsurface 'veins' on the devices however, it's apparent that it probably isn't a field that zaps you for sticking your hands in, but the low-wavelength radiation has gone through the whole inverse rydberg process to make it into a solid pane of 'force'. It is a deceptive amount of foresight, despite being incredibly simple and not happening on some remote asteroid through five layers of paranoia safety. If anything here could infect /light/ everyone would already be screwed. Also the emitters are on the outside because this isn't a B movie
Zek	The faceless Warframe waves back. He looks over at the unfamiliar, vaguely cheerful figure and watches him leave, then goes back to whatever it is he's doing. <"Hello,"> he transmits. <"Tell me if you need anything. I'll be over here."> The blank faceplate turns back to watch Zwei's experiment du jour. The hold -- seperate from the main bay they're gathering all the other stuff in, at the stern of the ship's long, narrow cargo spine -- lights up. Impressions are surprisingly clean; the level of automation on the vessel was high enough that there wasn't a lot of traffic to and from the attached pod from anything that could leave a psychic imprint, and the childrens' thoughts and feelings are loud and clear. Fear. Sorrow. Despair. They permeate the hold, and are focused around the bunks. There's pockets of calm and safety -- the underside of one of the bunks, where a stuffed animal of a sort not found on Earth is lain, for instance -- but it's difficult to pick out amidst the jumble of all the rest. Children are not restrained in their emotions, and leave quite the haze. Reconstructing scenes from when emotions ran hottest is altogether easier. They're ghostly, silhouettes of children just out of focus with one standing straight and tall in the middle. A young girl in a close-fitting space suit minus a helmet faces down a tall figure in a bulky Corpus jumpsuit. The figure wears a strange helmet and mask: what looks like some kind of metallic tricorne, with bundles of wire hanging down along the sides of the flat, visored faceplate along the chin like hair... or, fitting with the somewhat nautical look to him, the tentacles of some sort of sea creature. "Where are you taking us?" The girl manages to keep the fear out of her voice when she voices her demand. "Wherever Nef Anyo wants you," the Corpus man says, voice gritty and metallic. "You're going to fetch a pretty penny, you know that? Void only knows what he's going to /do/ with you." The girl spreads her arms, shaking her head. "You attacked our home and took us and you don't even know why? Do you know what you've /done/? They're defenseless!" The man inspects a datapad. "Defenseless? I should care about -- let's see... Mycona Colony," he says, as if reading from an encyclopedia entry, "Phobos. Primary export: technocyte materiel; population..." He pauses, then passes it behind him to another crewman just out of 'frame.' "...not enough for me to care." "Bring us back. Please... You don't know what you're --" "Stow it." The man gestures sharply towards the rest of the room. "A contract is a contract. All I have for you is food and safety until you are wherever he wants you. Tell the guard if you need something. Try to leave and you'll find that privilege revoked, too." The Corpus man steps out of the scene. The girl's legs shake, but she doesn't fall. The memory fades shortly after.
Flamel Parsons	"I SEE CHILDREN STOLEN." Flamel mutters in a voice of many speakers, his eyes gleaming white. "HOMES RAVAGED, IN PAST AND IN FUTURE. MYCONA FALLS IN THEIR ABSENCE. THE HARVEST GOES FALLOW. DEATH AND LOSS. KNOWLEDGE AND LIFE, POWER AND PROFIT, LOST TO GREED." Then he lets the memory fade out as he loses coherence. "Huh. I dunno what this technocyte stuff is about, or this child smuggling business, but it looks like the best place to start is Mycona. That's where they came from, and it's got something to do with technocyte material. Sorry if I wasn't more help, that's about the best I can get. Do any of you know anything about Mycona?" Well, anyway, he pulls back from this for now. Maybe there's more to find later, after this experimentation. "Hey! You were trying to track down some kind of technocyte thing, right? I found out where it's getting exported from! --Oh, hey!" He pushes forward, interested, but in a fading way. He used to feel such intense, profound curiosity, and now it's sort of... Less. It almost hurts to experience that. "...Huh. Is this the material you were after? Something to experiment with?" He peers, adjusting his sunglasses to check it out. "I can check out any of the psionic reactions if you need them, but it looks like you have a lot of this under control."
Staren	Staren looks on nervously. He's sure Flamel can handle this, but the man is clearly not entirely back to his old self and that's worrying. And then Flamel shares a vision. Initially, it's about what Staren expected. And there's a name to track down: Nef Anyo. The surprise is when the child mentions that she's a protector. That her colony is in danger. That in itself is believable -- Staren can immediately think of two, no, three ways that could be possible and yet she was still captured by the Corpus. The worrying part is that it means the children aren't the only ones in danger -- there's a colony of people somewhere who've been left to the technocyte. This has to be tracked down! Maybe they can still be saved! If only he'd gotten Flamel here sooner... Flamel. Staren turns to look at him, concerned... but he's already talking chipperly. That's a relief. Staren shakes his head at the question about Mycona, and takes it to the radio. He trails Flamel back to the others, when, uh, what? He pulls something like a pen out of his bag and prods the forcefield with it, curious.
Zwei	When the twin pods blow, they reveal radically different contents. One immediately erupts into a silvery cloud of activated nanoswarm, swirling around like metallic sand caught in a breeze until it settles from the small explosive shockwave. It spreads out until it reaches the invisible walls of the cage, whereupon it abruptly stops and gently 'splashes' on thin air, momentarily confused for the lack of actual obstruction, or solid mass to deal with. The other blows to reveal a completely different kind of nano-something. The inside doesn't divulge anything overly technological, but a thicker, heavier miasma of yellowish spores that quickly settle, revealing an interior that looks to be filled with something almost resembling fungus, with its thick, fleshy, frequently luminous fronds, bells, bulbs, and tendrils, but which unfurls itself more like a plant, and wiggles slowly like the lure of an ambush predator. It almost looks like the interior of the container had rotted and filled with up with the stuff, since the way it's stuffed in and the vaguely webbed structure means nobody just put a block of it like that in a box. There even appear to be several different materials of several different textures. <<"Welcome back!">> \|\|"Did you find what you were looking for?"\|\| the two extensions of Zwei say on the others' return, albeit the first appears to have only a polite interest, instead focused on exhaustively analyzing the composition and behaviour of the newly revealed second pod interior. The first is already a known quantity. <<"The nanos are basically 'safe', if I'm allowed to use big air quotes. After some study, it doesn't appear that nanomachines of this level, that is disassociated, free-floating, and 'eusocial' in structure, can really host something as complex as what the Exsurgent Virus is supposed to be. They're physically too small to have the computational capacity, and aren't networked like a discrete colony would be. They seem to just be fire and forget disassembler weaponry. I'm going to reprogram the batches back at base for generalist purposes! Right now though, these guys get to go in the /thunderdome/!">> Weiss explains slash exclaims. That basically seems to be the plan. Stick one nano colony in the field with the other like stuffing a wasp and a spider in a glass jar and shaking it. Pending the results, there are a couple of other items of tech Zwei wants to test. When Staren pokes the field, he finds simple, solid resistance, with a bit of an uncanny feel to it. There's no tactile sensation of texture or yield, so it's a bit hard for the brain to recognize it as an object being in the way. \|\|"It would be appreciated."\|\| Asche rumbles to Flamel in bass, staticky tones. \|\|"I would like to know if there is any merit to claims of the technocyte's intelligence."\|\|
Zek	The technocyte spores don't appear to have anything resembling real intelligence, but they do have something of the makings of it. They're a collective intelligence, spread between the fleshy parts and the other solid bits, giving it a very simple sort of instinct and a primitive mind. It seems like the more complex it is, and perhaps the more of them there are, the smarter it would get. As it is, it just has one directive: growth. <"I actually need some of the samples from the other containers for renovations,"> Zek remarks. He swings himself under the rail on the catwalk and drops easily to the deck below, walking over to one of the other hazard-marked containers and accessing the control panel. <"I think it's probably going to try to eat and convert whatever else you put in there... does the other cluster do anything to organic matter?"> Accessing the ship's computer finds an awful lot of security that does not exist on normal Corpus vessels or systems, and some kind of code lock in the form of a complex mnemonic cypher in a series of shapes that means absolutely nothing to Staren. Zek notices, and makes a little motion with one hand while he's messing with the other container's security, and Staren's Muse is granted access to the archived files. It finds him information on the colony that Flamel saw in the vision, plus notations about its security -- minimal -- and its curious position as a free colony, not affiliated with the Corpus or the Grineer. Another note indicates that an organization called the Perrin Sequence has apparently been backing it and helping keep them free, and that their supplied security forces were no match for 'the Captain and his proxies.'
Zwei	\|\|"As far as I have ascertained, the swarm is indiscriminate in its targeting of biomass. The nanomachines are individually of limited intelligence, and no specific part of Earth's biosphere was intentionally spared during the war this technology emerged from."\|\| Asche responds to Zek. Indeed, pretty much the first thing the nanoswarm does, albeit while part of it surges at Staren and gets caught on the big flat invisible wall, is go after the pod full of fungal grossness, crawling all over it and trying to gobble it up with nano-scale cutters and molecular lasers. \|\|"It is also designed to self-replicate, though I suspect this 'technocyte' has limited quantities of the required materials at best. It is a weapon of area denial, and a fire-and-forget roving killer. I do not anticipate complex strategy from it."\|\| Weiss very quickly rifles through her hammerspace and a high-tech SMG pops into her hand with an aura of blueshifted distortion, from the same trip. <<"I'm planning on seeing what it does with macro scale tech next, and after that, something you could vaguely call intelligent!">>
Flamel Parsons	"This sort of of superscience is more than anything where I come from, at least." Parsons remarks, "So I wouldn't really expect my scientific understanding to work for it. If you'd like, though, I can double-check the mental properties. If there's anything conscious in there, I can't really stomach killing it, but I'll be happy to make sure everything's safe there." That's his cue. He offers a sort of telepathic linkup that's quite compatible with radio to work as a sort of readout, a live feed of all relevant data. "MYSTIC-56 projecting contact. Stand by for readings." His tone even sounds more artificial now; Zek could probably recognize it as the sort of tones more fit for a cephalon. And his phantasmal shape projects clean out of his body, pressing towards the substance. He's trying to see if it can properly host a mind -- and, in fact, the contours and details of how it might do so -- by attempting to directly load onto it in a way. As he does, he runs a constant feed of data back. If nothing else, this should give some rather extensive metrics for things like memristic properties, processing power, and what, if anything, the natural intelligence of the technocyte may be. If it thinks, however it may think, Parsons will soon know much of it. "I'm only seeing some limited 'thought' in here. Just 'growth' right now, though more complex shapes and more volume would allow more cognitive complexity. You're going to want not just more matter, but more, uh... Organs? I suppose organs is the right word, something to give it more coherence. As far as I can tell, it's sort of an issue of the difference between cancer and a body. I can't help you with programming anything here, but I might be able to work out some kind of interface for you to load data through me. Assuming you two are sapient and not robotic p-zombies, I mean." Parsons mutters, telepathically and in reality at the same time.
Staren	Staren pokes at the wall curiously, taking in the strange sensation of a perfectly flat surface, then recoils away reflexively when the nanoswarm goes for him. "...Interesting. We can see the field, but it can't make sense of it? I guess its programming is pretty simple." Staren sets out some small quadrotors to watch the fight from various angles, then tries to figure out how to upload his Muse into the computer. Zek handles it, and Staren glances at the information. He makes a slight frustrated noise -- now he needs /current/ data on the Perrin Sequence and the colony; maybe Kushiko will know how to get it? In the meantime, Staren also grabs everything the nav computer has to add to S.A.I.L.'s systems, so that it can navigate this iteration of the solar system without issue. If it comes to it, he may have to take a team of elites to Phobos and see what's there. Staren's expression saddens slightly and his ears splay when Flamel refers to himself as MYSTIC-56. He still records all the data Flamel has to offer, of course.
Zek	The technocyte infestation does exactly what it says on the tin the moment the nanoswarm attacks it and attempts to eat it right back. The amber motes puff up and out from it, spread like pollen disgorged by the pustules. It reacts to the swarm by turning its overriding desire to spread and grow to the defense. It seems to only know defense in depth, though; it wants to make more of itself more than anything else. Zek has stopped examining the panel and is staring a hole in the back of Flamel's head. The fingers on his right hand twitch slightly, lingering near the conventional-looking sidearm affixed to his Warframe. <"You didn't tell me your friend was synthetic,"> he notes to Staren. Though he's always tired, he seems a tiny bit tense now, too. <"Is it a Cephalon?"> Nonetheless, he allows the connection, his augmented reality display showing the transmitted data. <"It's a weapon, too. Out of control, mostly. I can use it to refit the ship. I'll need it for maintenance in case my Warframe gets incapacitated. I... think."> He lifts his right hand and touches the side of his head in a puzzled sort of way, and then turns back to the sealed container he was messing with in the first place. The archives in the computer include, surprise surprise, a corporate memo about the Perrin Sequence: A collective of intelligent and powerful merchants, splintered from the Corpus. Stated goal is to restore order by bringing prosperity and direction to the violent world they study. The Perrin Sequence follows their own doctrine to achieve Profit and have turned away from the Corpus ideology that conflict must be capitalized upon. Instead, their merchants search for ways to exercise their trade without instigating violence. Current head: Ergo Glast, President. Former Corpus financier and scientist. Threat level: Medium. Recommend aggressive negotiations and economic warfare through proxies. It's unsigned. Zek's archive notes it was originally in the system recycling folder when he found it.
Staren	When Zek comments about Flamel, Staren sighs. "It's... complicated. We don't think of him as synthetic..." He lowers his voice and whispers, 'If you really want to know the details, I can explain in private later, but for now, could you not call attention to it? He's going through some stuff, and I think he's sensitive about it." Ooh, info on the Perrin Sequence. So they're Good Corpus? It sounds promising; he'll have to figure out how to get in touch with them.
Flamel Parsons	"Huh? Oh! Sorry about that." Parsons says, wincing and looking conspicuously more miserable in his posture when Zek uses the term "synthetic". "I actually only found out about not being human recently! I'm still not sure if I have some kind of turn-off-skin thing, or maybe some kind of LED somewhere I can switch on to help stop the confusion, so I can't be very clear about this right now. Hi! I'm Flamel Parsons, artificial human-brain echo conglomeration repository." His sheepishness is mixing well with the sort of weirdly chipper misery. He refocuses on the swarms. "Well, if this has any responsiveness to psionics, I can do whatever I can to help. I'm not going to be much good for an organic mind platform without a mind already there to work with, but I can probably help load things onto it if you use my psychic projection as an interface. I can't do much to help with the ship, though, sorry! Engineering of anything that's not psychic is a little beyond me." Less familiar with Zwei though he may be, he makes a plaintive shrugging motion. "Think this is about all the help I can give. Anything else you think you might need me for? I doubt I'll get anything good off of if with Clairvoyance, sadly. It's more of a munition than anything else, from what I can tell, so I wouldn't be able to get much unless these specific masses caused something really major at some point in the past. You seem really qualified though, I'm sure you can handle this stuff! If not, apparently there's more of all this over near the colony we were finding out about."
Zek	Zek nods slightly at Staren, and then inclines his head more deeply in Flamel's direction after the explanation and the greeting. <"I'm Zek. I'm Tenno. I'm sorry for calling you an 'it.' ...bad memories about that sort of thing, I think, so it's sort of a..."> He trails off abruptly, and bows a little more. His Warframe straightens. <"Anyway, thank you for the assistance. You didn't have to. If there's something I can help you with in return, please just ask."> He turns back to the container. One section of it lights up, an indicator flashing and then a seal hissing open. Zek slides it open, revealing a number of tumor-like growths suspended in needle-like wires that they've begun to grow up. He starts pulling them out, popping them free of the container and carrying an armload like they were a bunch of apples. Gross, cancerous apples. The container segment closes back up as he steps away, and then jumps straight upwards back onto the catwalk. Zek starts shoving the objects into the planters he'd set out earlier. <"You said you could load things into it? Could you form a link with these specifically?"> He gestures at the potted... meat-growths. <"That might save me a lot of time.">
Zwei	Zwei listens to 'Mystic-56', and Weiss immediately interjects <<"That name is dumb. Just stick to Flamel. Or Parsons. Either one. Mystic is lame.">> in an entirely name-sense oriented manner. She doesn't interrupt the rest though; the readings are what Zwei had asked for. If it were at all necessary, Weiss would be scribbling away on a clipboard here, though she somehow manages to project the impression of it even while just standing around and nodding anyways. <<"Geometric intelligence. I'm guessing a set percentage of its biomass is defined as neural matter, probably based on how much can be made available with all other biomass purposed into survival and tool-oriented states. Not unexpected.">> She then pauses for a beat, before taking an ever so slightly different tone of voice. <<"I mean, theoretically, Weiss and Asche are both potentially p-zombies? But I'm certainly not. I'm actually not one hundred percent sure what it'd be like if they theoretically disconnected, but they're not designed to have souls. I know the designers checked.">> \|\|"Their sensors are reading microwave radiation. They do not possess the abstract reasoning necessary to understand that it is an impassable barrier, because period laws of physics indicate that it should not be."\|\| Asche says to Staren. <<"Nah, I think he's actually a cat or something.">> Weiss blithely says to Zek. The disassembler swarm is pretty simple, all things considered, and don't do much more than try to eat things. They do some damage to the infestation growth, but aren't difficult to subvert and devour, and ultimately annihilate themselves on the grotesque biomass without the intelligence to back away from the overt danger. With that experiment out of the way, Weiss tosses in the SMG, straight into the hollowed space of the technocyte holding pod, powered on and with all its smart targeting software running, plus its uplink open for a helmet computer to connect to it. <<"So you're going after this Anyo guy?">> Weiss asks conversationally. <<"For what? Tracking down the kids? I guess that sounds like your modus operandi.">> She affects a cordially disinterested tone. <<"Or are you looking to get in good with these Perrin Sequence guys? They might be worth checking in with I guess, but if they won't capitalize on everything they can like their main sect, I doubt they have as much clout. It's probably a sub-optimal choice to cozy up to them, unless whatever you're planning for Anyo would leave them your only potential Corpus allies.">> Asche holds a hand up to Parsons in a staying motion. \|\|"Your information is appreciated. Wait a moment longer, however. I wish to see how much the technocyte develops in response to additional mass. If there is no measurable improvement, I may request your services again when I discover the breakpoint at which intelligence can be observed."\|\|
Flamel Parsons	"Sorry, I didn't pick that one!" Parsons says, wincing a little again at Weiss. "Feedback's good though." Then he's looking a bit wide-eyed at the odd masses Zek brings out, tilting his head and letting eyebrows climb up his face in a vaguely concerned way. "Well, if it's the sort of platform that can host thoughts or minds, probably. If it isn't, I probably can't. I'm a psychic, see! This is all telepathy. I think the others could help a lot more with any link-establishment for anything that's not heavily memristic. Actually, if you want, I'm great at dealing with bad memories. Any cognitive dysfunctions in general, I can help you out with whenever you might be needing them. Let me know if you're feeling undue misery, disorientation, or stress." Parsons explains. He gives a quick nod to Zwei's request that he hold off, and goes wandering over to sort of squat near the planters. "If you have something to load, you can try shifting the program or even just memories directly onto my telepathy and then I can see if they respond. I mean, no guarantees, but I'm always happy to try. The worst that'll happen is it not working!" Optimism! Still optimistic, no matter the tension or stress. "If these things are a simple 'mind' then I don't think they can load any psychohazards at this scale, at least."
Staren	Staren nods to Flamel, "Yes, thanks for coming! I'm not sure how we'd have found out what was going on otherwise! You're welcome to come on any follow-up missions to save the children or the colony too, of course!" Staren is reasonably sure P-Zombies can't exist, not in the 'because of physical laws' sense but the 'it's a self-contradictory concept' sense, but he's not going to have that debate here and now. As Weiss chimes in, Staren's ears rotate towards her, followed by his head. "You have it right enough on tracking down the kids -- the Perrin Sequence are a potential source of information on Mycona colony; They may also be useful allies in aiding that colony if there are people in danger there now, and in rescuing the children, if they are indeed altruistic allies with Mycona." he shrugs. "I'm not particularly looking for a 'faction' in this world to 'cozy up with' more generally. Although it would be good to find an information broker to help with future missions. Perhaps the Perrin Sequence can reccomend someone, but that's incidental." Staren looks thoughtful as he takes a breath. "Well. The Perrin Sequence and those Grineer rebels," he makes a snapping motion with his fingers a couple of times, "...I forget their name, might be good factions to support if I take a long-term interest in this world, but..." Staren glances back at Zek and Flamel. "...I can't save everywhere at once. I don't know much about this place. The Corpus may be jerks, but it seems to be their choice and they're happy that way. For now, my altruistic interests in this world extend to that colony and those kids." He shrugs again. "Like you said, my M.O."
Zek	The technocyte consumes the material tossed into it with a sort of slow, oozing motion. If it was mobile, it's likely these tumorous growths wouldn't be too much of a problem. It forms scabrous material over the weapon, black and brown and almost chitinous, gaining an oily sheen all around it as the pustules seem to gather up around the point of contact with the weapon. The material is gradually being subsumed, broken down and repurposed by the Infestation. <"I... disorientation? I think I've been disoriented for weeks,"> he admits, <"and my memory is full of holes. Maybe..."> He trails off again, and then shakes his head sharply. <"Right. I'll try to load something simple. It's a pretty basic pattern. I just don't have the right tools to properly interface with it, so I have to cultivate it by hand if I want to use it at all right now. If you can impress this on these..."> He tries shifting the program over. It really is simple: it looks like the stem or stalk of some kind of plant, an elegantly straightforward vertical growth pattern built for easy repetition. <"Tenno are supposed to do something to help the helpless,"> Zek says to Staren. <"Recovering children and saving a colony... that sounds about right. I wouldn't want to go alone, so if you want to help at all --"> He doesn't trust himself to go it alone right now. He's still a patchwork mess under the repaired armor, to say nothing of his mind and all the weird malfunctions... The gun is, by this point, pretty much gone. Any connections with the software go away. The technocyte infestation's intelligence grows, and something pulls itself free: a four-legged, spider-like mass covered in a bio-metallic shell, made up of the weapon's parts taken apart, reshaped and repurposed. It has a 'mouth' that looks like the barrel of the gun, but it flexes and breathes like something alive. A half-dozen little yellowish eyes dot the surface in a wide arc. It slowly picks its way over the biomass, exhibiting an intelligence more along the lines of a simple animal, now, investigating its surroundings. The directive to grow remains.
Zwei	<<"Nnnneat.">> Weiss says, looking at the transformative process the SMG undergoes, most definitely revolting by any normal standard. \|\|Noted that the organism's first choice of structure was a combat-optimized biomorph.\|\| <<Yeah, 'munition' is probably right.>> \|\|The question is, then, what these Myconids do with it.\|\| <<I mean, I guess at some point it had to be designed to be cultivated and used in a general direction, right?>> \|\|In sterile conditions, yes. This has acquired, from the ability to multiply, the desire to do so. The desire to reproduce is what immediately applies the terms of survival fitness to an organism. A weapon in laboratory specification would not be programmed to spread itself in the wild.\|\| <<These Orokin guys were really irresponsible with their toys, huh?>> <<"Well, I'll tell you what I find!">> Weiss then says out loud. \|\|"It only makes sense, that if you intend to deal with a people and culture that revolve around this technocyte, that you be forewarned and forearmed as to its behaviour and capabilities."\|\| Asche says. <<"I'm gonna try chucking that headhunter drone to it and monitoring the intelligence feed, so I can do that without psychic powers. After that, I'll have this batch sterilized and start compiling findings. Maybe I'll see you there!">>