He's clearly not too thrilled by your decision here. He says he's going to start studying the contents of the bag while you're busy doing this sappy nonsense.

The two of you stand there for a while, savoring the hug. You're not sure how long you two stand there but Ashton eventually breaks away from the hug. A faint blush rests on her cheeks. She's grinning from ear to ear, showing off her pearly whites.

You didn't notice it until now but her teeth are a lot sharper than a regular person's teeth. She could've easily done some damage to you with them if she wanted to. But she didn't.

"i know how it is. it's been a long week for both of us." She winks at you. You mutter out something incoherent, not really having the words to explain why you hugged her AGAIN.

"thank you. my mind was...going places, you know?" She cryptically states. She's probably referring to her little episode with the flesh sample. "the hug really did help."

"Oh, yeah." You clear your throat. "No problem. Ready to keep working?"

"mmh hmm."
>You feel a lot better. You add a bonus +5 to the next three d100s you roll.
>You're a lot closer to unlocking one of ASHTON's traits!

You offer an apologetic glance to the Man. He says he'll talk to you about it later.

Time to actually study your samples! The Man already got a head start on analyzing the baggie so you and Ashton focus on the sample of meat.

"So, I wonder what made those guys so tough. You know, those armored men with gas masks?"

"yeahhh, i was wondering the same thing." Ashton prods at the sample with a scalpel. "the texture's off."

"How so?"

"it's spongy and rubbery. human flesh shouldn't be like this." She tries to slice off a chunk of meat with the scalpel. She has to put a LOT of pressure to slice even a small chunk off.

You place the chunk onto a slide so you can check it underneath your microscope. What you see is both illuminating and, frankly, baffling. The microscope reveals that the ROBUST MAN'S flesh is made out of layers of interlocked triangles of flesh.

No matter where you look, the pattern of interlocked triangles stays the same. It resembles the structure of graphene, which you vaguely remember hearing about during high school. The odd thing is that, from what you see, it IS made of human flesh. It's simply that the structure isn't remotely what human flesh should look like.

You slide the microscope over to the Man. He scans the sample before absently stating he has never seen anything like this before. He doesn't really have anything else to say besides that.

Ashton struggles to slice another piece of flesh off the sample. "hm, i got an idea." She places the small piece of flesh directly onto the hot plate. "our guns didn't do much against them but maybe heat could do something?"

You and the Man shrug. It's a better idea than doing nothing. Ashton cranks up the hot plate and almost immediately, the flesh melts.