Massive Disaster 3: Interlude 2

The jingle hit hard, loud and obnoxiously confident, like it didn’t care if you hated it—it knew you’d still hum it later. Synth horns, snare drop, and then a warp-boosted drone shot crash-zoomed through exploding graphics of celebrity arrests, sex scandals, and at least one volus falling down a flight of stairs. The GXR logo spun into frame like it had been flung at the screen: a floating camera eye squeezed through a gold-rimmed keyhole, backlit by sparkles and bad decisions.

The feed cut hard to the studio—pure chaos by design. Holoscreens flickered with half-legible headlines, everything contradicting everything else. Someone shouted in the background about a quarian rapper being detained on Noveria. Someone else threw popcorn. It was all fake but polished just enough to pass as accidental. Center stage stood Rick Channing, still tanned, still teeth, wearing the kind of black-on-black suit that screamed I do not pay taxes.

“Welcome back to GXR,” he said, grinning like he had dirt on everyone watching. “The only show where celebrities beg us to stop—and we just zoom in closer.”

Laughter broke out among the crew and cast, hard laughter that only the type that actors could manage to fake, all of them cackling like their jobs dependded on it.

Which it did.

Even one of the volus clerks made sure to wheeze a little extra hard. Channing made eye contact with the main cam and grinned just that much wider.

“So,” he drawled, leaning into the desk, “who’s got the good stuff today? And I mean actual scandal, not another asari holonovelist caught on a date with her cousin.”

One asari draped over a desk near the left edge of the set jumped to her feet, something else bouncing with her, the perfectly-sized-for-display growths that most mammalians would consider breaths on display like most asari her age. Her markings were violet, her skirt just short enough that it would only offend most humans, and she waved her pad like it held the cure for boredom. “Rick, you’re gonna love this. I got something hot from the Terminus.”

Channing raised a brow, already halfway into the bit. “From the sticks? A bunch of scavvers, no offense. Telia, tell me this isn’t another krogan divorce brawl. I can’t legally show that footage again.”

“None of that, Cahan,” she said, skipping over, all that bounce and giggly breathiness only a little rehearsed. For a maiden, all that just came as naturally as violence. “This one’s human. Zedd Victors. You remember him, right?”

Channing turned slightly, screen behind him flipping to Zedd’s corporate headshot. Cool lighting, layered black coat, the usual Victory Innovations dramatics.

“Oh yeah. Non-eezo messiah, industrial playboy, probable replicant. What’s he done now, ended another Batarian killsquad?”

A tech in the back deadpanned, “Third times the charm, right?”

“Dating drama, Chan,” Telia whispered, eyes wide and gleaming with the kind of natural eagerness and joy that most species wished they could maintain over the course of twenty years, let alone two hundred. “And the juicy break-up kind, you know.”

Channing clutched his chest like someone had stabbed him with a stylus and an award was on the line for his performance. “Not our terminally unavailable for interview tech prodigy.” He gasped out loud. “Say it isn’t so.”

A giggle burst out of Telia’s lips, as she covered her mouth with one hand. “He was dating Nina Herra, his assistant. Well—former assistant. She left a few months ago to study at the colony’s primary university.”

“And what, is boy wonder straying while his missus is out of the house?”

“That’s the question,” she said, already pulling up footage. “Got this sent to us from campus yesterday.”

The studio holoscreen shifted, showing the sort of grainy blue-tinted video that could only come from a low-rent omnitool, which made sense from some kid from the boonies. A long haired human woman with caramel skin was mid-argument, pacing tight circles in a courtyard. Her jacket was cropped, her jeans were dark and her hair was tied up like she hadn’t meant to but needed it out of her way. The feed caught her voice even through the distortion.

“—I don’t care how important it is, Zedd. You said you’d stop. You said you’d talk to me-Of course I’ll always say no! Do you hear yourself? You sound fucking insane and you can keep the fucking car if you’re not gonna-” She groaned, the anger in her voice turning it to more of a growl, “the first time in three damn months I want to see you and you try to wipe it over with a gift like I’m so—”

A loud reaction spilled from the crew, gasps, whistles, some exaggerated “uh-ohs.” Channing tilted his head, mock-somber.

“Someone’s not charging his VEST at home anymore.”

Another asari leaned into frame. This one older, markings teal, vibe less cheerleader and more ‘HR rep who used to shoot people.’

“Lyria,” Channing said, beckoning her in, “tell us the part we’re not supposed to know.”

She pulled up a second display. “Sources inside Victory Innovations say Victor’s been going unseen more and more often, barely even spotting him around the HQ. Hasn’t been around his friends for weeks at a time.”

“Yikes,” Telia muttered, eyes wide.

“Barely sleeps,” Lyria added. “Rarely leaves his lab. Classic workaholic boyfriend material.”

The clip didn’t stop right away. The camera kept recording as Nina kept pacing—tight, annoyed spirals on the cement courtyard—like every step was another word she couldn’t say without combusting. Her mouth opened, started to say something again, but her eyes flicked left instead.

She locked onto the camera instantly.

“¿Qué carajo estás mirando?” The Spanish hit like a whipcrack as she paced forward. “¡Vete a la mierda! ¡Deja de grabar, pendejo!”

The video jolted, hard, image dragging as the filmer tried to move backward while still recording—classic amateur. You could see her coming closer, shoulders tense, one hand going up like she was about to swipe the whole screen out of existence, and then—

A hard cut back to studio, where Rick Channing was already smirking like a kid who just watched someone else drop their tray in the cafeteria. The frame paused mid-rage, Nina’s face scrunched and halfway through the middle of an f-bomb.

“Translation for our viewers who don’t speak furious ex-girlfriend,” Channing said, grin loaded with zero remorse, “she’s politely requesting our brave camera drone operator go perform some light acrobatics on their own lower anatomy.”

Laughter pinged around the studio like it had been pre-loaded. Probably was.

Jackson didn’t even look up from his desk, but his voice cut through anyway. “So she’s still talking to him at all. Huh.”

Channing raised a brow. “Wait, I thought she’d cut ties. Didn’t someone say she quit Victory and dipped from the relationship?”

“Both,” Jackson said, finally swiveling around. “Officially. Unofficially? Not so much. Still pinging Providence regularly, still showing up in their telecom logs.”

“So either she’s still working for him,” Lyria added, stepping into frame like a substitute teacher who didn’t like the assignment, “or she’s just down to working under him.”

Telia popped back into view with another camera-focused bounce of her chest. “I’ve got something else,” she said, excitement bouncing in her tone, “one of Nina’s professors—who didn’t wanna be named, but I bet he’d fold under a drink and a half—said she’s been missing lectures. Still on campus, but dipping out early for ‘calls from home.’”

“Academia’s so underrated,” Channing said, deadpan. “You never know when your poli sci major is building tech that might disrupt galactic trade.”

Jackson snorted. “Or get somebody killed.”

Lyria crossed her arms, gaze sharp. “If she’s looped into whatever Zedd’s cooking up, and she’s that pissed about not being looped in more directly? That’s not just drama. That’s instability.”

“Oh,” Channing said, eyes flicking to camera two, tone dropping just a notch like he was letting the audience in on something whispered. “We love instability.”

He adjusted his collar again, one hand smoothing the lapel unnecessarily. “We’ll keep tabs on the Victors-Herra entanglement, but you know how these things go. Where there’s smoke—”

“There’s a fire suppressor activated by preemptive NDA,” Jackson muttered.

“Exactly.” Channing grinned again, that too-white perfect smile still sharp around the edges. “Coming up next: Asari holofilm star Neela T’Varis caught with not one but two elcor dancers—one of whom is married, the other of whom might be pregnant.”

Groans and laughter rippled through the set.

“Stay tuned,” Channing said, finger pointing directly into the lens. “We’ve got the footage, the denials, and the lawsuit threats. All right here. Don’t touch that omni.”

The logo came flying back into place, shimmering gold and crystal over the pulsing GXR theme.

In the bottom corner, three notifications popped up one after another:

Victory CEO Seen Whispering with Alliance Rep

Terminus Tech Exec Found Dead Next to the corpse of Hired Hitman

The Truth Behind the Guardian: Victory’s Newest Asset

And then it cut to commercial.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

INTERNAL DOCUMENTATION ONLY 

TREATMENT REPORT: MELD RE-GENESIS PROTOCOL

PATIENT: GREY, MADELYN R. 

AGE: 19 STANDARD HUMAN YEARS 

CLASSIFICATION: PHASE-4 COMPLICATED BURN TRAUMA, MILITARY ORIGIN 

DATE OF TRANSFER: 11 FEBRUARY 2181 

TRANSFERRED FROM: ALLIANCE MEDICAL, NOVA KASEIOPIA

SUPERVISING PHYSICIAN: DR. ADELE MARTINEU 

TECHNICAL LEAD: ZEDD VICTORS 

OVERSIGHT: ADAM VICTORS

CASE ORIGIN: Patient sustained catastrophic injuries from structural detonation event, resulting in fourth-degree burn trauma over 73.4% of total dermal surface. Injuries compounded by blunt trauma fractures and secondary internal damage. Maintained on conventional Alliance stabilization protocols for 13.2 months. Progressive treatments included layered synthgraft protocols, multistage reconstruction through 17 surgeries, respiratory augmentation, full-coverage immunosuppression, and partial sensory mapping. Patient remained unresponsive under induced coma throughout.

PROGNOSIS (PRE-MELD): Status: Stabilized with permanent functional compromise. Projected outcome under continued Alliance care: 60% recovery threshold, significant disfigurement, mobility limitations, indefinite support care.

REVISED PROTOCOL INITIATED: MELD RECONSTRUCTIVE ITERATION V.3

PHASE ONE / ADMISSION TO SYSTEMS TRANSITION (00-12 HRS) – Discontinuation of synthetic graft interface, phased ventilation transfer – Baseline scan and annotation of all residual augmentations – Genome-verified structural mapping, coded to internal MELD symbiosis engine – Reduced sedation for threshold-pain recalibration protocol

PHASE TWO / STAGE RESET (12-36 HRS) – Graft pullback initiated, non-viables indexed and excised – Preserved surgical integration where structural harmony confirmed – Scaffold establishment using smart-collagen polymer mesh – Nerve sheath prep sequenced for regenerative pathway stimulation – Temporary vascular net deployed for nutrient bridge overlay

PHASE THREE / REBUILD STRUCTURE (36-72 HRS) – MELD-embedded osteogenesis initiated; fracture memory wiped – Soft tissue grown via stimulated mitotic proliferation –  Joint articulation buffers synchronized with MELD – Pulmonary and hepatic function restored, kidney pass-through cleared – Cranial-spinal signal realignment queued and validated

PHASE FOUR / TISSUE RESTORATION (72-120 HRS) – Subdermal infusion sequenced to biological shade fidelity – Skin layer cast using full-body genetic alignment shell – Neural endpoint targeting engaged for tactile bandwidth integrity – Sebaceous/sweat system flush initialized post layer sync

PHASE FIVE / COMPLETION STAGE (120-156 HRS) – Epidermis finalized to match pre-trauma hue density – Follicle zone templates introduced at cellular anchor points – Scar memory flushed, replaced with native collagen threading – Microcapillary integration achieved, immune clock reset

PHASE SIX / REAWAKENING + REBOOT (156-168 HRS) – Gradual consciousness reintroduction under iso-neural mesh – Gross motor calibration triggered through minor electro-thresholding – Reflex loop retesting conducted, alignment positive – Hair propagation accelerated to 2.1 cm visible growth – Physical therapy forecast queued for onboard recovery suite

Compared to the Alliance’s conventional recovery model—projecting three to five additional years of treatment, permanent scarring, and lifelong medical dependence with only 60% functionality at best—MELD therapy offers near-total restoration within seven days, followed by one month of guided rehab. Functional output is expected to reach 95 to 99% percent, with full mobility, no visible scarring, and complete elimination of long-term pain management. Where Alliance methods reinforce psychological trauma through chronic pain and disfigurement, MELD stabilizes post-trauma adjustment through accelerated normalization and neural continuity.

ENABLED TECHNOLOGIES:

• MELD Tissue Synchronizer (v3.9)
• Cascade Nerve Uplink (CNUL)
• Organoform Scaffold Interface
• Thermal Scar Conversion Layer
• Adjustable Pain Damping Overlay (APDO)

ADAPTIVE NOTES: Subject previously exhibited long-term immune conditioning. MELD adjusted for: – Phased withdrawal from dependency meds – Aggressive phantom-limb bypass system – Muscle-response re-scripting for learned kinetic behaviors – Structured reintroduction to upright function, walking cycle relearned in sim

AI MONITORING SYSTEM: ADAM to maintain sub-second vitals tracking. Response variation within 0.4% tolerance will trigger auto-corrective adjustments. All MELD matrices calibrated for interstitial drift and long-term integrity. No manual input required unless overridden by primary supervisor.

FAILURE / RISK REPORT:

• Integration rejection (low): 0.5%
• Cross-contamination of immune pathways: 0.8%
• Neurological failure cascade: 0.4%
• Consciousness re-acclimation regression: 2.1%

CONCLUSION: The MELD Genesis protocol enabled full-tissue, multi-system regeneration of patient Madelyn Grey within a 168-hour window, with expected total recovery by the end of the associated rehabilitation cycle. Physical and aesthetic restoration complete. Permanent support no longer required.

This file is classified under restricted visibility protocols.

ISSUED BY: ADAM, VICTORY INNOVATIONS AI 

SYSTEMS CLEARANCE: TIER 5 / INTERNAL ONLY 

DISTRIBUTION: Z. VICTORS, A. MARTINEU ONLY

Notes (from ZEDD): Almost 22 fucking liters of meld. Damn near 6 gallons. I could create a whole new species of animal with two-fucking thirds of that. Literally, I’ve done the math. 14 liters is all I need to make anything pig-size or smaller into a whole new viable breeding species of animal. Jesus Christ. Her parents better name their next kid after me, for fucks sake.