There's just no fight left.
Yes, her fragile body has its own fail-safes, echoes of some single-celled ancestor capable of no motivation above ensuring its own survival. That, on top of Yung’s honed reflexes, is the only reason why she's still conscious right now. But the will to fight back, to spit in the face of the Saito regime, or really do more than just keep breathing, may as well have been left behind in that fragmented host.
That is, after all, the reason she went back into the elevator in the first place. She was as much of a coward as that researcher, more willing to face a hail of bullets than to find out what lurks in this basement.
And her team followed after her, didn't they? After she all but called the elevator out as a death trap. She said to push the fucking button, and lo, they did. What does that make them? Poor judges of character?
Or was it because she begged them not to leave her alone?
Reiya’s voice cuts through Mouse’s angst-drenched ruminations, the healer’s voice rendered tinny from the local feeds, but no less gentle and concerned.
“I’VE FELT WORSE.” Lacking control over the normal social mechanics she’d rely on to reassure (and as some might argue- mislead) others about her current condition, she has to fall back on the limitations of her software-produced speech.
“SAVE YOUR POWERS FOR A REAL EMERGENCY.” This is probably less than convincing, given the state of her limp form, breath ragged, face covered in tears and snot, but in truth, it’s sincere. What she’s feeling now is just… pain. A weakness of her meat-shell- a distraction.
In a fleeting moment of recognized absurdity, a small breath of laughter manages to escape her still lips, as she adds:
“IT'S LIKE PAIN GATING- THE BURN’S NOT REALLY SO BAD.”
In the virtual space in which she’s parked herself, her form cranes its head to the drone feeds, squinting at the view around the crowded elevator, particularly those occasional glimpses up.
“JUST… PLEASE TELL ME WE’RE ALMOST THERE?”
Her matrix form flickers, the stealthed form increasingly difficult to maintain while her body is physically wracked. Almost absentmindedly, she flicks a hand, opening her wrapper program for its familiar disguise as an Erica Elite, if only so she can focus the remainder of her attention on her search. If there’s
anything broadcasting up top,
anything she can twist to her team’s advantage, she
will find it. But if not, then she’s as good as dead weight in this state.
(( How close to the top are they? Essentially, once they’re reasonably high up, she’s going to attempt one last roll to find icons/hidden icons. Mostly, she’s just trying to determine whether there’s anything running online to find. If it doesn’t seem like there’s anything online she can work with, she’ll pop back into AR so as not to be a potato-sack when shit hits the fan.
Also, if anything triggers a defense roll before she gets an answer, interrupt for an ‘I Am The Firewall’ to get that bonus in, just because I don't want to TPK today. ))
