ts.o2_07 
The third drone fled. His body slammed into the metal wall that had once been a door, seeking escape. His fist connected once, twice, thrice. His voice raised, crying, "We need help in here! We need a doctor!"
The second drone froze. The ends of his hair stuck up, his pupils turned to black plates beneath the plastic visor of his mask. He watched his warden writhe on the floor like some spasming piece of near-carrion on the roadside.
The first drone acted. In an instant she was on the mass of black armor seizing; in an instant she had screamed for the second drone to, "Help me, help me, damn you!"
Which freed him from the shackles of terror, and plunged him into action. The second drone dropped onto both knees and mimicked the first drone's motion to push— half cursing, half praying beneath his breath. The body turned onto its side. Dice clinking in a gambler's palm, rolling across a lacquered table. The seizing continued.
"The helmet— the helmet," the second heaved. "Torres, he can't breathe!"
The first drone swore. Her hands fumbled with the shaking body; she pushed aside the fragile tubes of the helmet and slotted her fingers beneath the ridge connecting jaw and skull. She squeezed until her knuckles went white. The helmet was a deathtrap of restrictions and nerve connections, perfectly designed to ensnare what would eventually bloom within it. Removal required high-security authorization and expertise in the equivalent of brain surgery.
Against better judgement, the first drone pulled.
The first drone's raw strength and fury was enough. The prison of the mind slowly gave way. Like skin peeled from hot leather. Like a scab ripped from the body. The helmet pulled free, and so too did the the body's face follow. The merge had taken place weeks ago, unbeknownst to all parties except he beneath the mask. Approved stimulants dulled the growing pains. Rigorous conditioning dulled the weight. The implant in the base of his skull forced compliance, even if he never quite realized what was being said.
The curve of his cheeks. The plump of his lips. The cartilage on his nose, the excess around the ridge of his forehead, the fat beneath his neck. Whole once, now liquified from the bone and threading strands within the empty space. It divided from its progenitor in clumps and bloody strings. It left behind a mockery of a human face; a mass of exposed and twitching muscle writhing like worms in the wake of its separation. It ate away everything that was once a man and filled the gaps with itself.
The third drone stared the remains, knuckles bloody from how hard he had beaten on the bulkhead. He spoke first. "Shit. Fuck, he's gone. He's gone. Why would you— fuck!"
"The door," the second said, weak. His head shook with enough force to make his neck ache. His eyes were squeezed shut, unwilling (unable?) to stomach the sight of the body.
His sentences escaped in short bursts, stabs of coherency between heaving. "Open the door. The emergency hatch. Cut the wires if you have to. Get us out of here. Leave the body before it..." Ninty-nine out of one hundred bodies will decompose like a rotten log in the woods. The hundreth lingers.
"There's no wires to cut, Johan," the third hissed. I tried that, you fucking moron, he wanted to say. He bit back the bile and venom. ""We're stuck in here. We're stuck in here, and that thing is out because Torres tried to—"
"He was dying!" The first, nearly wailing. The second half, the, I was trying to save him, was left implied.
"He's late stage, you fucking idiot, he's supposed to! He's a time bomb. He's—"
"It's over," the second drone said. "It's done. Stop yelling. Please. We need to get out of here.
911141523251521311425118208919