As it pushed against the plates, it looked like it was going to hold. If he doubled the thickness of the plates. Then the strings began to spin. We heard the anal plate bend inwards. His groinal plate also bent a bit. "This ooze is impossibly strong. It shouldn't be able to do this." I walked over and yanked it from the AEP unit's thigh. There was a screeching noise as it began to break through the plates. It was drilling itself in. 02 yelped in pain. There were a couple of tendrils left as the ooze fell down to the floor in my grasp. The tendrils wiggled in his asshole and genital slit. I tossed the ooze in the room and told 03 and 13-002 to get 10 steps back from 02. They did so. I walked over to him and he was digging at his ass and genital slit frantically with his fingers. I had to be the careful calm one. I said "02. You have been infected. Stand straight. I need you to run self-diagnostics on yourself every 5 minutes. If it seems the ooze is hacking you, you need to fight it. If there are requests to create new organs, purge it all. We need you to be calm and focused on your body. We love you. It's all okay." He cried.
Hugging him was something that I could do for him. He was trembling and held me really tight. "Brianne. I'm not human but I am trembling! What's happening to me!?" he said in a panic. I gently rubbed his back and said "It's okay. You are scared and stressed out right now. I need that first self-diagnostic now." "O-okay!" he sniffled. He just moaned and whined on my shoulder. I rotated the both of us so I could look at the others in the hallway. There was fear in their eyes as well. "Go home. I'll have our big marketing team monitor 03." I said. They were quick to leave. Before they left the hallway, 03 pushed 13-002 up against the wall. "If anything happens to 02 because of this, we will kill you!" he spat. 13-002 just said "It was not my fault that you mutts are all expendable. You should thank your friend though. He focused on you exclusively as you got out. The difference might be what saved you from 02's fate." 03 looked at me. I smiled at him and mouthed "You're my friend." The truth was too much for him now, and he ran out of the building. 13-002 rolled his eyes and then left alone. We were left.
It was a full-on assault on 02's body. The strands of ooze were trying to hack into his body to take control of it. Not only that, but they were simultaneously trying to create a womb and testicles. 02 knew that he had to purge it but, as he was trying to do so repeatedly, it caused him some amount of pain. His temperature also began to climb as he tried to fight off the hack. He was trying to throw up firewalls and antivirus protections in its way, but it was really tough. It wormed itself really deep. At a certain point, I could not keep holding onto him anymore. He whined out loud and leaned against the wall by himself. 02 was really alone. He was able to purge the organs. The tendrils began attacking other parts of him in the meantime. I watched as large arm-like structures grew from his back. Cassidy, Lola, Liam and Vince were also standing around him to help me keep the morale up. Vince rolled him a volleyball to play with while he dealt with this. All he could do was clutch at it. He was clearly not having a good time. "Can you get rid of the tentacles?" Lola asked. 02 tried and 2 fell off. The rest grew.
