Glandware

Submitted by Matthew Keevil, UK, whitewizard1988@yahoo.co.uk

“Agent Davero, I have a warrant for your arrest” boomed Gamma 5 as he loomed over the tiny form of the E.I. agent who just hours before had stolen a case of experimental drugs from a convoy belonging to a fledgling civilian enterprise looking to make a name for themselves in the field of medical research “You can come quietly, or you can resist and brighten up my day, hell, I might just grease you here and say you resisted, hur, hur” said the malenbrach as the comparatively tiny agent lit up a cigarette, pretending not to notice the towering ogre bent on his demise. Slightly perturbed, Gamma 5 checked his wrist scanner, no cybes, the assholes nonchalance was a bluff. In an out of the way area like this, who would know if he killed an agent without due cause? With a roar that could not have come from a human throat, Gamma 5 swung his Richenbacher longsword at the agent, four and a half feet of acid-sharpened industrial steel connected with…brickwork, the agent had disappeared! Gamma 5 had only a split second of confusion before he felt the booted feet of the man now standing on his hunched shoulders and heard the whine of two plasma emitters preparing to fire right behind his head “Don’t you know not to threaten a Neurapromine glander, Quasimodo?” said Agent Davero as he squeezed the triggers. In an out of the way area like this how would anyone know he killed a malenbrach without due cause?

A product of Gemini and one of the few products liscenced to be taken of Miller-Urey due to being primarily composed of human genetic material, Glandware consists of several stable strains of mutant human adrenal glands capable of producing and releasing chemicals the human body was never meant to have. Glandware has the advantage over IV packs in that they are self-replenishing, release their chemical payload autonomically meaning that they are faster to use than even the second or two required to triger an IV and furthermore, they can only be detected by medical x-ray scans and biosensors. Glandware draws the constituent chemicals it needs from the diet of the implantee and sends requirement data to the brain in the form of cravings for particular substances, Savage implantees quickly become caffine-fiends, guzzling down litres of coffee and chemical energy drinks a day while Haemavine glanders eat more multymeat products a day than should be humanly possible as they satisfy their cravings for ever more protein. Going longer than a week without eating at least twice as much per day than a normal human adult requires causes the gland to become dormant until it can replenish itself again, while dormant it produces no more doses per day but unused doses still remain.

The cost for a single gland is; Price of chemical x 10 x number of uses per day (Max 3, you can only have so big a gland).
The trigger condition must be set when the gland is being formed, generally these are "when entering combat" for combat drugs, "when I feel threatened" for Neurapromine and "When my hp has been lowered by 20 or more" for Haemavine, though others could exist. The glands are entirely autonomically controlled and require no action to use, activating instantly if their trigger condition is met, the downside that if the trigger condition is not met then it cannot be activated at all, though conceivably someone with the "Body Kung" training (see training submissions on the corporation website) could bypass the condition with the standard 10 minutes meditation. Thus a devilfish gland is a big help in close combat but not so much if you want to bend some bars or hammer down a door with your bare fists.

Thusfar gemini has created Glandware for All combat drugs, Haemavine, Neurapromine and Toxin purge though metapsitrophin (which proved difficult to make a gland strange enough for) is right around the corner. Others are likely to be developmental and consequentially more expensive. The corporations eagerly await R-drug and Histonamide glands that could drastically cut their monthly agent maintenance costs in the long term.