>>5377268Yeah. I'll try to be more regular with my updates, but having to set up the animations also creates some inconsistency. If you or any other anons have specific suggestions I will try my best to accommodate!
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The medical bay occupies the majority of the facility's highest sublevel. You walk past the main intake area, the examination rooms, and the surgical units, making your way into the laboratory partition. Here, the air is cold. Hallways branch into brightly-lit rooms packed with specialized assay machinery. Scrubbed-up researchers hurry from bench to bench, carting samples packed in styrofoam and dry ice.
Deeper in, the chill intensifies. Condensation drips from vault-like doors. After finding the correct isolation unit, you are stopped by a pair of watchful guards who double-scan your badge and identification before pinging the people inside.
A few minutes later, the door to Marie's isolation unit swings open with the muffled hiss of hydraulic actuators. But instead of the aging head pathologist you were expecting to meet, you see a young woman standing in front you. She takes off one of her gloves and reaches for a handshake. Even through her face-shield, you can see the dark circles under her eyes.
"Pleasure to meet you! I'm Dr. Leng - but just Leng is fine. I heard that you're my new...manager?"
"That sounds right. I believe I recruited you as a toxicology specialist" you reply.
She nods vigorously. "Ah yes - I certainly do know about those, hehe. But first, I want to show you something."
You put on protective garments and a heavy respirator before following her into a chamber filled with dense, acrid mist. Leng giggles. "Looks like they switched to peroxides for decontamination."
"Harmful?"
"Not acutely."
"What about long-term..."
Your question dies in your throat once you enter the next room. You see the Marie lying on a extended hospital bed fixed to the room's center. The change is worse now. Most of her upper body has been subsumed into a fused, mantle-like mass of fronds and bifurcating tendrils. Her limbs have lengthened, tapering down to whip-like projections that weave back and forth, as if sampling the ambient air. A trickle of reddish vapour streams from her mouth into a waiting evacuation funnel.
