xp_logs | Tayammum 2: First Contact

Their plan to reach Sooraya is put into motion.

The door opened up immediately after his first knock, the sound of it not even having fully died down.

Doug took in the tableau in front of him, perhaps taking a brief pause to look at Laurie to see if anything dramatic was in the offing. But she was all business, thankfully. "All right, walk me through this, Sue," he asked the young lady as he looked at the carefully contained sand.

The young woman perched herself on the edge of her stool, one foot curled back to rest against the back of the pole as she glanced down at the table in front of her, the shiny metallic surface obscured by the sea of grains that seemed to shift back and forth as she pursed her lips carefully, taking her time to arrange her thoughts. "So, we were trying to figure out what happened to Sooraya, if she's even alive at the moment and Laurie had the idea to check for an electric current, and we found one." The statuesque blonde leaned forward, passing a tablet over to Doug, showing their results, "but it's faint, really really faint and we're not sure how to get in touch with here. The electric current is too weak to try manipulating it directly, not if we don't want to cause more damage so...we figured it was time to ask the master of technology for some help."

“And since we have yet to meet Forge in this reality, that left us with you, of course.”

Laurie moved as she spoke, heading over to the table that currently held what remained of Sooraya’s body.

“Given your abilities, and that you currently house sentient nanobots, you may be able to speak to her where we cannot.”

"You think that-" Doug raised his right arm out in front of him. He'd been reluctant to let people see it, keeping it under wraps longer than he likely needed to, and wearing long baggy sleeves even after. "You think these can somehow find whatever is left of Sooraya?" It wasn't that he doubted the brainpower in the room, but he was still curious how they had reached that conclusion. "I mean, Laurie and I already talked about-" He cut himself off abruptly, not knowing if Laurie would want her secrets aired like that. "-the fact that they're integrated into my system."

“Yes, Douglas, we think they can be used to find what is left of Sooraya and bring her back. You merely have to convince them to try.”

Laurie, if she felt anything about the conversation they’d previously had did not show it. Instead, she handed him the files and the results they’d already gathered from their test.

“We would not have asked you here had we felt the effort was useless.”

Doug skimmed the file, trusting that the methodology was sound - he knew these three well, they would have been rigorous. Mostly he wanted to better understand the conclusion. "A sympathetic connection due to both her form and the nanites being silicon-based..." He made a thoughtful noise. "That does make sense. Let me..." His eyes got unfocused for a few moments as he considered that, and consulted with the collective sentience in his body. "They're willing to at least give it a shot," he answered once his reverie faded. "I am guessing it will likely require something a bit more than just sticking my hand inside her discorporate form?" he asked.

Molly was still peering curiously at Laurie's pod personness before she glanced back at Doug. "Yeah, most likely. Otherwise, it'd be like...just sticking a plug next to the plugin, y'know?" she said. She folded her arms.

"We were thinking maybe you could uh...." she trailed off, biting her lip and curling her nose. "Let them meet her directly."

"We don't know how concentrated the nanites are in your system but...maybe a drop of blood or two might do it? Some medium by which they can interact with the sand, if we had time and a better understanding of the nanites I'd prefer to titrate them into a pure form and hold them in an oil-based suspension for maximum efficiency but, well Sooraya's signature is weak and getting weaker. My dad would kill me for saying this but sometimes we have to make do."

"No offense, Sue, but sometimes your dad sounds like a real pompous ass." Sue, on the other hand, was a delight. Doug grimaced. He had suspected this would involve some bleeding, even though he had hoped he was wrong. "Someone get me a sterilized scalpel, then?" he asked the room at large.

“While I'm sure that's all very dramatic,” Laurie said softly, picking up a needle and tourniquet from a tray nearby. “Perhaps a slightly less violent option would do?”

Doug pushed up the sleeve of the henley he was wearing, exposing the line where his flesh met the nanite-created prosthetic. He bunched his muscles twice to hopefully help highlight a vein, then presented his inner elbow to Laurie. Despite all that had passed between them, he still trusted her.

Laurie smiled slightly, attempting to show no hard feelings as she carefully inserted the needle and drew out just enough blood for their purposes. She then pulled it out while holding a small cotton bud against the wound.

“There, nothing to it.”

She handed over the vial with the blood to Doug and gestured for him to get on with the rest.

"Well, here goes nothing." Carefully, Doug let a few drops drip from the vial down onto Sooraya and then waited to see if anything happened.

Pink... sea green... soft purple... colored clouds floated by in the blackness. Sometimes there were sounds in the background like people were talking, but she could never make out what they were saying. At other times there was a flare of a bright white room with lots of metal with vague shapes moving around... she should know them, but often she didn't even quite know who she was. But something was changing at the edge of that void, something nudging at her consciousness and some part of her reacted, becoming more alert.

"I think...something's happening?" Doug said, cocking his head at the container. "I can't tell if it's actually having an effect, though."

"What do your nanites say, Douglas?" Laurie asked with contained patience. This might take some time, after all. "Are you able to speak to the ones inside?"

Doug -mostly- managed to avoid a twitch at being called 'Douglas'. "Not as such," he replied. "Just...echoes of vague impressions. I'm positive she's still in there, but it's not quite...bridging whatever gap is there."

"What kind of impressions are you getting?" Sue leaned forward to catch Doug's attention, her blue eyes resting on the sand scattered across the desk. It was a common nightmare to be trapped within your own body, it was a terror that so many people had, that haunted everyone's dreams. But, imagine taking it a step further. Imagine existing without your body. The blonde suffered from claustrophobia, tons of dirt collapsing down on your head would do that to you but her fears weren't anything compared to this. She wasn't even sure if Sooraya could hear them, although the sand particles would react to shifts cause by speech. "Don't worry, we'll get you out."

"It's really hard to say..." Doug's face was screwed up in concentration. Trying to filter information this many times - from Sooraya to the nanites in with her, resonant to the nanites in his arm, across the interface between the nanites and his own nervous system... "Something about feeling lost, adrift...I dunno, shapelessness?" He waved at the container. "I mean, obviously, but maybe she's got some kind of comprehension of it? That's the best I can make out."

"What if she doesn't know how to put herself back together?" Molly said with a frown. "I mean biology's already hard, y'know? Even more so if you don't know what's supposed to go where."

“There is a neurological map the brain keeps, each section controls a different part of the body and mind. Perhaps Sooraya is having difficulty remembering what that is meant to look like.”

Laurie watched for a moment, trying to think of the best way forward before she turned to Doug with a slightly ‘eureka’ glint in her eyes.

“Emma. She has dealt with broken minds before and brought them back. We need Emma.”