World Tree MUSH

    Floor 34. That's the only information that is known about BioSys and where they might be working on the oripathy victims. They've been pretty tight-lipped otherwise, since their treatment's success could bring them not just massive goodwill, but considerable profits! Of course, how to GET to Floor 34 is a little more of a question, isn't it? There are options... 'borrowing' a flying car is one, even if they aren't very common. Or trying to bridge the gap from the building nextdoor, which is much more open to the public on that level, but probably recorded. Or some other means!

    Whatever method those in the infiltration group choose, they do have a time limit. Namely, they have a window of opportunity when the other group busts in the front door to make a distraction. That's now happened, with a blaring alarm ongoing and no doubt with backup on the way. The building is fortunately not made of the sturdiest materials... here in the dome, wind shear is not a problem, and the lighter gravity of Mars means the materials themselves don't need to be as strong to support the structure. There's still the matter of getting in and out quickly and, most importantly, with the data of what's going on.

    Recordings in the nearby building are sure going to be strange. Two figures in all black, plus a third, making their way to the higher floors via the stairwell. Once a sufficient height has been reached, and an appropriate window with a view to the BioSys building has been found, they come to a halt.
    "Sooooo what's the plan exactly, 2B?" 9S asks, dressed in his usual YoRHa combat uniform and mask.
    2B seems to be doing a bit more preparation, riveting down the start of a zipline to the window in several key anchor points.
    "You're going to zip-line in." The Battle unit says matter of factly, dressed in the sleek black armored outfit and riot helmet of her YoRHa Heavy Armament combat armor, voice hissing from the helmet's speaker.
    "Annnnd how are you going to get that zip-line over exactly?" 9S asks skeptically.
    "With a little help from POD."
    "OH! That makes sense, have Pod 042 float over and attach the li- 2B? 2B! WHOAH, 2B!!!"
    9S starts shouting as the Battle unit backs up from the window. Takes a running start. And crashes right out the glass. Her forward momentum is fair but not enough to clear the gap between the two buildings. This fall will likely kill her.
    This is when Pod 042 darts forward and down, quickly matching speed with its owner as she reaches up-- snatches the pod and--
    The little drone puts everything it has into lifting and gliding the much heavier android forward.
    With the added thrust from POD's tiny form, 2B clears the gap-- and smashes in through a window. It's not her best landing, as seh tumbles and rolls, but ultimately lands on her feet. ... And starts anchoring down the other end of the zip line.
    "She's nuts...!" 9S blurts disbelieving.

    Shinewander Sky has turned off all of her running lights at the moment. Including those on the sword on her back. "I don't know, that seemed like a reasonable way of getting in," she says. (This was Shard talking). She shrugs, and peers after 2B. "Well, I guess I don't need a zipline either, I guess." (That was Lex; as usual, her voice is electronically distorted so that she and Shard sound the same.)

    She jumps out the window and glides forward, making a sort of three-point landing against the wall directly above the window, then awkwardly slides down, nearly falls off the edge, and scrambles in through the window, just barely managing not to interfere with the zipline as she trips and flops facedown.

    She lays there for a moment, then gets back to her feet. "... Okay, that wasn't as graceful as your maneuver, and stuff," she tells 2B. (Lex again.)

    Athena claps 9S on the shoulder. "She's bold, I'll give her that. Maybe not the wisests approach, but definitely a warrior's one. Ares would approve." She laughs, the goddess feeling a bit giddy about letting loose like this for once. "Come on, it's not going to be that hard. Unless you want me to carry you~"

    Athena waits for a response, but once she's sure 9S is coming, she hooks onto the line and kicks off, sliding right down the line and then leaping off to tumble down and come to a resting position on one knee. Little Owl, her drone, pops off her shoulder and starts sweeping over the floor, hovering ahead as a scout. "Let's see what we've got in here."

    Crashing in through the window does make some noise but... as said before, the alarm is ALREADY going off! Since it's toward the front of the building, this office is unoccupied, as all the office workers are clustered toward the front of the building trying to see what the ruckus is.

    The word 'office' isn't actually a good one though. This is a floor with exam rooms and some storage, so the offices here are simple affairs, and mostly ringing the outside. This is actually a break room, complete with tables and a snack machine. Outside the door, the actual secure area can be seen behind a cardkey and biosignature lock, which will make getting into the center area - where anything of value is stored - a bit more difficult... especially if it needs done quickly!

    "C-carry me?" 9S blurts jolting as he's shoulder-clapped, but he's a big boy, he can hook his own line and zip down, so he does. Even if his cheeks are a little red. But it's just the height and adrenaline really. Really.
    "Your landing was fine." 2B asides to Shinewander Sky, before clarifying: "You didn't die."
    It's as good a result as anyone could ask for pulling such a stunt as 9S touches down.
    "2B are you crazy? I know you're a cutting edge and top of the line unit but that could have killed you." He huffs. "You could have just sent POD over to set the line.
    "I could have." 2B says plainly as though this was a thought that did occur to her. She says absolutely nothing else on the matter, making the Scanner unit heave a sigh adn approaches the cardkey lock.
    "This shouldn't take more than a minute." He mutters, linking up with Pod 153 and having his pod connect to the door.
    To begin the hacking minigame of course.

    Sky nods sagely to 2B. "Couldn't've put it better myself," she says dryly. (That was Shard.)

    She stands back to give 9S room to work, and starts seeking out with tactical data, checking to make sure nobody's heading in their direction, and relays tactical data to Little Owl and the pods. "Almost wish I could hack," she says. "As it stands, my hacking is a bit more ... slashing."

    "At least you can glide," Athena points out to Shinewander Sky. She unholsters her pistol, deciding that the rifle is probably a bad idea here... then changes her mind, tucking the pistol away to exchange it for the extending rod that snaps into a sharp point, her lance in this outfit. "Better to keep it as nonlethal as possible. Employee health insurance can probably resleeve them, but it's pretty uncomfortable."

    Athena takes position next to the door, closing her eyes to let her tactical sense take care of telling her where any incoming threats may be coming from. "I know the feeling," she agrees with Sky. "I mean, I could maybe figure out how the lock works after a little tinkering but that wouldn't help me open it. We'd need Hermes or someone. I hope this has what we need though... that distraction won't last long."

    As 9S turns and rearranges the oddly-shaped pieces falling from the digital sky to complete a virtual circuit or something, the noise from the rest of the floor definitely sounds like there's a commotion. The only event of note is when a young man walks in from the door at the far end of the hall... and is of course seen well before he sees everyone else. Not that it matters, because his immediate response upon seeing the armed team here is to slowly raise his hands and back away. Looks like he knows not to make any trouble!

    Then the door pops open to reveal the lab. Well, one of the labs, anyway. Definitely an oripathy lab though! The 'walls' are glass and make up a simple series of corridors and labs, most of which just have empty examp tables or scanning equipment and consoles in them. Two in particular are different though. One is a large room with various tubes, human-sized, some of which are occupied. At least one of those is occupied by the squirrel-girl in many of the ads, but they're all floating silently in the fluid, probably unconsious? And another room with a large device(which Athena will recognize as a biological printer) and a bed, with a wolf-eared man laying asleep or inert atop it.

    "That's a biological 3d printer. Very expensive..." Athena notes, running fingers over the transparent wall. "I mean, my guess is that they're not actually curing the oripathy, they're just growing new bodies and sticking the victims in the 'clean' bodies. But that isn't really a cure nor sustainable... and it might be causing the Soul Rot?" She doesn't sound too certain there.

    Athena gestures for the man that surrendered to follow, to keep an eye on him, then steps in to look at the printer and body, see what she can determine about that. Check his vitals and that sort of thing.

    "They should see insurance premiums where you can't resleeve," Shinewander Sky remarks. She pauses. "I have a friend named Brando, who was hurt by my creators," she adds. "She has no end of complaints on the subject."

    <<Oops,>> Lex says telepathically to Shard. <<Uhhh. Nice save.>>

    'Careful there, partner,' says Shard's voice in her ear, inaudible to all.

    Sky waves semi-sarcastically to the employee, then steps in after Athena. She looks around for a moment. "I kind of wish Miss Jessica had decided to join us," she says. "I have so many questions ... Why wouldn't 'creating a new body' solve the problem? Why would it cause Soul Rot? What isn't sustainable, setting aside the expenses?"

    The door pops open and 9S sets his hands on his hips looking smug.
    "Ladies? After you~?" He says, taking a little bow and pushing the door open.
    It's when the young man walks in on the group that 2B points a finger at him.
    And then holds it up to her helmet where her lips would be.
    "Shh. Or else." She warns, and lets Athena police him before she follows in.
    "... They're in tubes." She mutters before Athena gives her far better assessment.
    9S is... Already searching for a nearby compter to see if there are any documents he can dredge up about the 'cure' results thus far.

    Athena and Shinewander Sky can quickly tell the body is, well, inert. As Athena guessed, it's a clone made to house a consciousness, one that hasn't been transferred. What's more concerning is that the monitor on the bedside seems to imply that while ready for download, the body here is the fifth attempt of this particular specimen. It shouldn't take that many tries to get it right.

    The man nervously fidgets. "I shouldn't be in here, I just bring coffee! Don't these creatures have some kind of disease? What if we get it?"

    9S may have part of the answer. The immediate files he can reach are the ones currently ready to process, as in, 'open' on the 'desktop' of the computer. It's the animation procedure after copying, which calls for a number of mild endorphins to be administered and a chemical pump to steadily feed a cocktail of chemicals intended to keep dopamine levels high. In other words, for some reason they have to induce a mild euphoria in the subject after transferring the consciousness.

    Athena doesn't know all the details yet either, but she can explain some. "Well, if you're just making a new 'clean' body that isn't a cure, that's just discarding the diseased body. Which, yeah, that's a solution in some ways but... growing new bodies takes time unless you use one of these, and this is incredibly expensive. Plus it looks like it isn't even working right if they've made five attempts." She sighs.

    "As for the Soul Rot... that's the issue," she points out. "When you keep the original and make a copy, that's an Alpha Fork. You've made two beings where there used to be one, but without the effort of actually conceiving new life. You can't have life without a soul, so it has to patch one together instead of creating one. That means that every soul around here, especially the ones weakened already, gets drained a little to make the new being. Do that too much and... zombies."

    She glances at the man, "I doubt the researchers here realize the problem they're causing. But I also bet they know this isn't really a cure. Just giving new bodies to everyone is too expensive... it'll never actually stop the disease, just save a few of the very rich or powerful. That's why it isn't a cure, there's no real way to stop it from spreading or stop the disease unless you cure the original body's affliction."

    Shinewander Sky nods along with Athena's explanation. She peers down at the prone figure. "No life," she murmurs. "But no death, either."

    She flips her hair. "Well, we have an explanation which fits," she says. "I suppose that leaves the matter of gathering the evidence. Need me to provide an extra set of ... camera-eyes, as it were? I can transfer images and videos fairly easily. Uh, 9S, have you found anything yet?"

    "Huh." 9S muses. "Looks like once they're put in the new bodies the only way to wake them up is to dope them up." He says, looking up from the screen to listen to Athena.
    "Yeah but zombies are easy to handle. The ancient documentaries make it pretty simple: Don't get bitten, and take out the head."
    "9S..." 2B starts to speak, but then thinks better of it.
    "So that's what causes Soul Rot." She says understandingly now.
    9S though is going to try and dig deeper for anything in that computer.

    Actually the intern can answer some of that. "That's not right, they shouldn't need drugs to wake them up," he points out. "They're clones of the original body, there shouldn't even be any disorientation other than a little vertigo. And this all proves nothing but that the 'cure' doesn't work. Marketing and unethical but not really zombies..." He doesn't sound like he believes the soul hoopla, but he is quick to point out that lying about a cure IS unethical. Probably something corporate decided to do against the wishes of the medical staff.

    Fortunately, digging a little deeper is all that is needed to get something more. The very next layer down is 'projected viability' and signs to look for. Apparently the drug cocktail isn't to wake them up... but it's because previous attempts have lead to rapid mental deterioration including delusions, heavy depression, and rapid-onset mental diseases like Alzheimer's and the like. The mind just seems to break down and the drugs keep that from happening... for a time. It doesn't seem like they know why it's happening though.

    "Well," Athena points out. "The question is, do we rescue them or are they still willing to go through with the attempts?" She seems to relax a LITTLE when the man doesn't seem to be defending the lie, especially when he's low-ranking member of the company. She sweeps her eyes over the tanks. "Of course even if we wake them up, we have no way of getting them out except through the front door... and if we bail they might move them to a more secure facility..."

    She snaps her head toward 9S. "See if you can't make it look like we were just after the data. Maybe they won't secure them if they think it was just industrial espionage. We might have to come back for these."

    In the meantime, she whistles for Little Owl and flips the drone over, prying open the drone's undercarriage. She whispers to Shinewander Sky, "Distract him..."

    When she thinks the intern isn't looking, she'll try to hook the GPS module onto one of the tanks for an impromptu tracking device.

    "Ah, here we go." 9S says, fingers flying over the keyboard. "The drugs and endorphins are to prevent rapid cerebral deterioration in the clones." The Scanner says. "Whole lot of nasty things happening to their brains from what I'm reading, and it's not even a viable long term solution for it!" He huffs. "Should I keep going or are we--" Ah it's time to go then.
    "Give me a second, I can do better." He says. "Okay..." 
    "I'm in."
    9S is going to wipe all traces of his entry and snooping and make it look like someone just left their computer unlocked. ... Which is precisely how he found the thing anyway.
    "Smooth. Did you want your sunglasses and black trenchcoat now, or?"
    "Don't make me LaughingSkull.GIF you, 2B."
    "Okay, okay."

    It's hard to see with her mask, but it seems that Sky is raising her eyebrows at the employee. "Now that is good to know," she says. "... 9S, could you please send me copies of all the files you're finding? We might need multiple attack vectors, if you take my meaning." She glances around. "Also, it might be a good idea if we ... picked up the pace a little bit," she murmurs.

    At Athena's prompting, she turns to the intern. <<That's your cue, Shard,>> says Lex.

    'Righto', Shard replies. "Considering the number of zombies we had to hack through just to get close to this building," Sky says archly, getting all up in his face, "I'm pretty sure the existence thereof is undeniable. Turned my holographic stomach." She shakes her head. "And even in the limited amount of time since I was first activated, I've seen too much to believe that some things are 'simply impossible.'"

    The intern lifts his hands, "H-hey I've seen a lot of weird stuff too, but convincing people it's the fault of what we're doing HERE is going to be harder! I'm not even sure I believe that myself. We're just trying to help people, okay? I think they are trying to find a real cure, but it isn't going well at all..."

    As Athena uses the distraction to pop the tracker into one of the tubes, the lights shift red and begin to flash. "Oh uh... you'd better move, even with whatever's going on down there, security will be here soon." He holds his hands up again. "Look, we're just trying to help, okay? But I'd appreciate it if you tied me up or something. I don't want to lose my job and I'm not stupid enough to try to stop three heavily-armed specialists."

    Shinewander Sky considers the intern's request, then grabs some zip ties and moves behind the man. "Give me your hands," she says, gently and considerately tying his hands together, followed by guiding him to a seat so that she can tie his legs. "Also, uh, hm, I can't see anything it would be safe to gag you with that would actually muffle your voice. It's is entirely in-character for me to not worry about that kind of thing."

    She pauses. "Or ... you know what I mean."

    "Excuse me, there's four of us." 9S points out.
    2B just lightly pats him on the head like a POD.
    It's cute that he thinks he's heavily armed.

    "We wouldn't want to gag him anyway," Athena calls out as she puts Owl back together and seats the drone on her shoulder. Out of commission for now. "We'd have asked him for information. I mean we could just kill his sleeve but I doubt he'd appreciate that."

    The goddess looks at 9S and 2B. "Let's move, those elevators are fast. I think we have enough to go on for now, but we might need to talk to that catgirl to figure out why the treatment isn't working." She gestures to 9S, "Get moving, we need to get down fast. I can rappel down, I think that just leaves you and 2B. We'll rescue these people later!"

    "Yeah uh, that's fine," says the intern as he flops down, wiggling a little. "Yeah you'd better hurry. Uh... you are the friendliest 'terrorists' I've ever seen." Yes, the air quotes are audible.