[Cyberia] Cyberia: Spirits in the Material World

[Cyberia GM]

Dot plunged her finger against the nodule, a sickening sensation
accompanying the action.
      
Pretty convulsed, jerking once as they buzzing stopped, and the panels
popped free.
      
Suhuy pouted almost audibly from his station near them.
      
+++++

Kayle sighed in relief.  Emboldened, she scooted closer to the animal,
attempting to assess the damage that the makeshift cybernetic surgery had
caused.  It was difficult enough working on cybernetic animals, which was
the reason that she usually stayed away from such work.  But complicating
matters was the fact that it was almost impossible to determine what each
part of the patchwork beastie did.  But her empathy for the suffering of the
animal drove her onward.

As she probed the animal, there was little movement, making her more
adventurous in her diagnosis.  Her hands expertly examined her subject,
flitting over the area around the implants with care.  "I don't *think*
there's any permanent damage," she began, looking at Asha, but stopped when
she saw the expression on her leader's face.  

Kayle had been with Asha through a lot of situations that seemed, to her, to
be worse than hell.  Through wars with Ephemerides and corporate soldiers to
desperate defenses against Skavvies and other dangers, Kayle had seen all
that she thought that there was of Asha- even to the depths of what she
could do in an urgent situation.  But, through it all, there was one thing
she had never seen before on those familiar features.

Fear.

But there it was, unadulterated.  Tentatively, she looked around at the
clockwork beast, and saw what appeared to be a black cloud of smoke rising
above it's supine form.  The more she looked, the more detail she could
see... It wasn't exactly smoke.  For one, it was too black.  Too awfully
black.  But she also saw that it was not just one form.  She could make out
particles in the amorphous mass.  As she continued to stare, she began to
imagine that she saw- something- in the mass.  She could make out the
outline, but nothing else.  It was maddening.  She stared all the harder,
her mind attempting to synthesize what she saw.

+++++

A raw, throat-ripping scream tore from Kayle, resonating through the room,
punctuated by Pretty's scrabbling on the floor.  A cloud of inky black smoke
caressed the woman's exposed skin, as pulses of electrical energy flared
within it's darkness.  Pretty looked even more hideous now, as whatever was
inside of it ate at the little flesh that remained on it's monstrous form.
Rising from the floor, it looked around with a disturbing new intelligence
at the inhabitants of the room, before it's gaze finally settled on Dot.

The muzzle opened raggedly, one disturbing electrosynthetic sound emanating
from the black maw.

"you."