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[_DivideByZero_]

((My apologies for the delays, I've been overloaded last weekend. Things should improve by the end of the week.

Also, Cheesecake is out, unfortunately. He might pop up as an NPC sometime, though.))

Moravia Orbital Colony, Ulysses | 237d/3008AD | Von Hapsburg System

Moravia Lobby Alpha, Floor 3
Heated Combat! (All initiative rolls default to a [1].)

Megacity Time: 6:13

Nerin and Valrak search for the residential/habitation module.

[1/5] You would, but the gelatinous goo-man being smacked by the cops seems to be shedding globs of gold-tinted slime all over the hall.

Bystanders slow down as they walk across the store, glancing at the action before carrying on not to get involved.

Suddenly, a glob lands on Valrak! The contact causes a sharp, stinging pain as the substance oozes through his hoodie and attaches to his skin.

...How did that person get hurt in a toy shop of all places?

Discretely observe the interior of the toy shop for possible causes of the accident.

[2] You consult your raytracing algorithms to try and recreate the incident in a virtual space. According to your simulations, the toy bricks were once part of a micro-singularity formed near the back-right corner of the room, which hovered in a resonant pattern for several minutes beforehand. Odd...

Atlos looks around for somewhere to access the station's information network, rubbernecking the toystore incident on the way.

[5] It appears a box of toy bricks fell on a child's head. The box opened on impact, absorbing the blow, but also spreading toy bricks everywhere. These bricks are apparently very painful for a person to fall onto, especially if he uses his hands to push himself off the ground.

As you walk away, peering over the rail to look for stores, you notice that the bottom-most floor of the mall also has guard-rails over a gap in the floors. However, the gaps in the bottom-most floor lead to open space, or at least a holographic simulated view of space as would be seen from your position. The gas giant Ulysses, purple with streaks of red and blue, passes into view and with it, a bright four-spiked flare from the sub-orbital worldgate tethered just over the gas giant's atmosphere.

[3] You come across a store and "Update Station" for a local communications service provider, EveryCast. A group of teenagers is gathered together just outside the store, apparently arguing over which smartphone to get.

Spoiler: Electronic software updates (click to show/hide)

Because a datanet connection is difficult to acquire in deep space (that is, in regions far from a worldgate), update packages are not sent over the air. Instead, so-called 'update stations' contain versions of the latest electronics software, kept on a local database and distributed to subscribers, for a flat fee of course to maintain the servers.

The woman with the serpent around her shoulders passes by you. The snake creature fixes its eyes on you and tracks you as the woman carries it away.

Find a place to stand where it looks like I'm watching a gaming screen, but can watch the door instead.

[4] Your plan works! Nobody notices a thing as you watch more and more workers pile into the garage. After a short while, an unrelated group of workers comes out of the garage, wheeling a rack of oxygen masks into the clinic in the hallway.

Another tank of oxygen rolls in, this time pulled by a single person wearing a purple hoodie and black jeans.

McMarlo was nothing if not adaptable.

"Craawk! Craaawk! It must be the venusian death worm I picked up...hack, hack, craaawk!

It's infectious! Everyone run!" He squawked, going into convulsed death rehearsal like he had practiced in the acting colleges of Shakespeare VI.

Action: Time to tie up the local emergency services!

The human couple screams and rushes out. The goo-creature doesn't look at you because it has no eyes, although it seemed to flinch when you shouted.
The fish appears to be noticeably bobbling around inside its suit, laughing through some synthetic voicebox similar to what some disabled humans use.
"Hehehe."

The broker, noticing the commotion through the glass walls, stops his conversation with his current client (a boring looking man with no real defining characteristics. Let's call him Bob) and marches into the waiting room while exclaiming, "Oh, oh God! Can either of you do CPR?" he asks the fish and the blob-man. The fish shakes its body side-to-side on its suit's tentacles, while the blob extends a pseudopode into its black handbag, removing a first-aid kit and heart monitor.

You observe all this, taking advantage of your acute avian senses' capacity to observe things during motion.

[WillowLuman]

Atlos mentally remarks that the serpent reminds him of his great-aunt before further checking out the "Update Station." It's local information that he wants, after all, not anything from the interstellar net.

[_DivideByZero_]

Atlos mentally remarks that the serpent reminds him of his great-aunt before further checking out the "Update Station." It's local information that he wants, after all, not anything from the interstellar net.

The store is part update-station, part phone store. Of course, your presence arouses great suspicion as, well, it's unlikely that you would use a phone designed for humans. A sales assistant walks up to you.
"Looking for a waterproof model?"

[WillowLuman]

"Just a quick fact search, actually. For local directions. I wouldn't want to bore someone with my queries."

[_DivideByZero_]

"Just a quick fact search, actually. For local directions. I wouldn't want to bore someone with my queries."

"Hm, so you want to use a computer? I can direct you to the waterproof models if you wish..."

[WillowLuman]

"Why, thank you, that would be excellent."

[~Neri]

Nerin pings the medbay of the station. "Possible biological contaminant in market module, companion possibly affected. Source is some sort of Ooze creature, medical assistance or at least a hazmat crew to clean the shopping area would be a good idea."

Valrak removes his hoodie carefully and examines the ooze, activating his nanomachines to keep his bloodstream clear of possible toxins or infections before the regeneration forces a detachment of the ooze or the situation worsens. ((Basically going with jellyfish tactics. Don't touch it. Let it fall off due to healing factor or medics who actually know what it is deal with it. The standard organ layout of having an organ dedicated to detox and another to purely immune system aids that greatly, on top of the regen and the antitox implants help.))

((Also seriously, the dice hate me.))

[_DivideByZero_]

"Why, thank you, that would be excellent."

He directs you to a section where phones are marketed toward an athletic audience. Behind the tables on which the phones reside are various apparatuses--tumblers, pressure chambers, vats of acids and bases, and even a car parked on top of a phone while it plays music for the whole shop, being connected directly to the speaker system.

The salesman grabs a phone, unhooks the connector, and asks, "So how do I give this to you? Is there a lid or... um... something I can drop it into?"

Nerin pings the medbay of the station. "Possible biological contaminant in market module, companion possibly affected. Source is some sort of Ooze creature, medical assistance or at least a hazmat crew to clean the shopping area would be a good idea."

Valrak removes his hoodie carefully and examines the ooze, activating his nanomachines to keep his bloodstream clear of possible toxins or infections before the regeneration forces a detachment of the ooze or the situation worsens. ((Basically going with jellyfish tactics. Don't touch it. Let it fall off due to healing factor or medics who actually know what it is deal with it. The standard organ layout of having an organ dedicated to detox and another to purely immune system aids that greatly, on top of the regen and the antitox implants help.))

((Also seriously, the dice hate me.))

((They do. They really do :C))

Nerin: [1/6] You receive no KX9 response from anywhere on rthe station. You don't even know where the nearest medbay is, although there are bound to be first aid kits everywhere since this is a space station. But it seems you are all alone here...

Valrak: [6/2] Your nanomachines wipe every trace of ooze out of your system, but the gel-like substance has started to solidify on the surface of your shirt. Tearing it off, and revealing your outrageous muscles, you find that a solid patch has already fixed itself to your skin, although it now seems to be inert.

One of the guards pummelling the blob stands back and instructs you to get back.
"Careful! This is a high profile criminal. If you get any ooze on your skin, it'll eat away at your cells and convert your tissue into more ooze."
He then notices the patch of ooze on your right upper arm. It's not growing, but the sight of it prompts him to call an emergency.
"Get that off! Quick, get to the research department! I'll take you through the checkpoint. Cover your arm so you don't spread it."
Condition updated: Shirtless (+1 diplomacy, -1 first impressions)

[WillowLuman]

Atlos presses a lever, and one of the manipulators emerges. "Hand it here and I'll deal with that."

[~Neri]

((I was pinging the station medbay via the datanet. KX9.))

Valrak unsheaths one of his claws and simply carves the chunk of flesh with the ooze on it off, making sure to get several inches of extra flesh on either side just in case. The wound rapidly stops bleeding and if you pay attention, the flesh is slowly growing to fill the gap, although the arm is likely useless for the next hour or two until his nervous system reconnects fully and Valrak is going to need a meal to replace lost fat cells. "Easy to solve. Benefits of being a Combatform. Highend detox implants, adaptable nanomachines, the standard KX9 detox and immune system organs, and rapid regeneration. Best to check it in the research department though." Valrak walks over to where the guard indicated, Nerin follows.

((Hooooow would you feel about a perk that allows rerolls?))

[Toaster]

Hmmmmm.  Lots of people in there... might make it hard for me to get in.  Time for something more direct.

He caught up with the single person running a tank.

"Hey buddy!  I hear you guys have a pretty sweet job here, and the work's good and pay reasonable.  Any spots open?  Can I give you a hand to see what it's like?"

[_DivideByZero_]

((I was pinging the station medbay via the datanet. KX9.))

((Hmm? That pair of sentences contradicts itself to me. The datanet is just a fancy term for some sort of decentralized internet.))

Valrak unsheaths one of his claws and simply carves the chunk of flesh with the ooze on it off, making sure to get several inches of extra flesh on either side just in case. The wound rapidly stops bleeding and if you pay attention, the flesh is slowly growing to fill the gap, although the arm is likely useless for the next hour or two until his nervous system reconnects fully and Valrak is going to need a meal to replace lost fat cells. "Easy to solve. Benefits of being a Combatform. Highend detox implants, adaptable nanomachines, the standard KX9 detox and immune system organs, and rapid regeneration. Best to check it in the research department though." Valrak walks over to where the guard indicated, Nerin follows.

"Hm, neat stuff. You sure we don't need emergency service for you? We could just stop at screening and make sure none of it's established."

He leads you through and checks in with the guards at the research, heading straight for the "Emergency services" division.

Valrak enters an emergency room. Lined with inert white polymer material, the entire room seems geared toward isolating any hostile pathogens or chemical contaminants. In the center is a bench which he sits upon, while men in full body white suits wrap a scanner around his arm. The device analyzes the structure of bone and skin, being present less so to actually identify the disease and more to get an idea of how to proceed. Next, they take samples and examine them under microscopes (in the same room, so as to not spread contaminants) to observe microbiological activity.

The results are stellar. The orange-yellow goo is easily suppressed by your immune system, lacking the numbers or the speed to subvert a significant portion of your cells. The strip of dead flesh Valrak carved off, however, is a different story. The mass has been converted entirely into a translucent orange-yellow substance, not identical to the original blob matter, but similar in that it too has a jelly-like consistency. Additionally, it is highly active, sprouting pseudopodes with which to move around like an amoeboid. An interesting development. Valrak moves closer to observe it in person, but a scientist struggles to hold him back.

"Careful, this is a subject we've been working on for the past years. We still can't figure how out it adapts to its host. Needless to say, if you get any on you, it will have adapted to your immune system, and you won't be so lucky next time. The last thing you want to do is isolate it in an ideal environment."

Atlos presses a lever, and one of the manipulators emerges. "Hand it here and I'll deal with that."

"...alright."

The device pops into the tank. [5] It works perfectly, although you previously had doubts about the phone being able to work in the electrolyte-rich water. Fortunately, the touch screen is pressure-sensitive.

The phone is already connected to EveryCast's local datanet service, meaning that you can access most of the local backups of nearby servers. The way the datanet works, information is transferred directly through worldgates, but lag times often consist of several hours per system a signal traverses. As such, search engines near population centers tend to be heavily overloaded, while distant ones are difficult to contact at all.  The local search engines are experiencing heavy traffic, as usual.

Datanet connections consist of two types. The first is the traditional two-way setup used by traditional internet services. The second is a read-only method, generally restricted to proprietary interfaces sold to major service providers. EveryCast happens to be one of the privileged providers, and as such you can browse a variety of otherwise subscription-only services and non-free information. While the Free Datanet Encyclopedia is sufficient for most things... most of the up-to-date scientific journals and news services require a subscription, and this proxy setup allows proxies to forward funds to the provider without the original company having to set up shop in distant corners of the galaxy.

[~Neri]

Valrak sits back down. "Hmm... Burn it. If it adapts to the host, then it adapted my regeneration. If it comes in contact with other strains, the issue will become exponentially worse. Not even counting all the nasty bits buried in the KX9 geneome, burn it and make sure there isn't even a tiny trace of it left or you'll likely have a class six adaptive bioform infection on your hands rather then the current class three. Also incinerate the tissue samples you took, it's against KX9 protocol to allow standards access to samples of the genome without compensation and oversight of a Researchform. And again, you Really don't want anything assimilating it. It's the equivalent of giving a homicidal AI access to a drone assembly line. Also I'll switch up the nanomachines though, it can't adapt to an alternate form it hasn't seen yet. It would still be able to fuggle the tissue since I wouldn't be able to change that without a KX9 Modlab, but the nanomachines would provide a considerable resistance regardless."

"Anyways. Burn it with acid or whatever works best."

[Toaster]

Hmmmmm.  Lots of people in there... might make it hard for me to get in.  Time for something more direct.

He caught up with the single person running a tank.

"Hey buddy!  I hear you guys have a pretty sweet job here, and the work's good and pay reasonable.  Any spots open?  Can I give you a hand to see what it's like?"

I forgot bold and got missed.

[WillowLuman]

Atlos searches for any academic institutions present on the station. It was a corporate station, so he surmised that it was likely to only go as far as R&D centers or perhaps even a tech school, but he was unsure of human academic systems.