[ Yes, supposed to be. No one sounds very convinced on the matter. Not after finding a massacre. And that single-mindedness cuts right through the conversation he'd started, brushing off her return inquiry to hone in on Gabriel, drawing a troubled look from her as she settles into caring for another body. ]

Nothing I hadn't already suspected— a nanite mutation, it seems, though the cause of which is difficult to say. The samples are increasingly difficult to work with the more I have to access them for multiple rounds, and now I'm without the proper facilities to continue. Whatever Jesse had been was not quite the same, however. Though the concept was there. His change had been a temporary one and he had not been directly affected by whatever had happened to Reaper. He had been an artificial recreation of sorts, as far as I can tell, yet that doesn't help me in applying the knowledge to someone else.

I'll need to secure samples directly from Reaper himself. Figure out how bad the corruption is in the nanomachines still swarming, how their maintenance protocols are handling the damage, observe the shifting state of being.

[ She takes a moment to rub her face on her sleeve, then her brow. A testament to exhaustion rather than exertion. ]

It gave me a glimpse and nothing more. I don't imagine Reaper will be very forthcoming with me anymore, either. Before, I had thought I may have held a sort of advantage from his compliance, but...

[ She'd been proven quite wrong, hadn't she? ]