Bess woke up floating.
She was surrounded by a forest of rich emerald wires, supporting her, growing through her body, though she felt no pain.
Nearby, she saw other members of the 'communications' also in a similar situation to her own. All of them were slowly waking up, displaying artificially green eyes.
A voice flowed- for lack of a better word- through them all.
    " Welcome to The Data Tree. You just got fitted with your new cybernetics, so you might feel uncomfortable, but you are all safe here. You'll stay here for a couple hours as you adjust to it. Don't worry, nothing is wrong."
Bess sighed happily and extended herself along her branch of the tree. She was shocked when she 'felt' Amen reaching out for her at the same time. Amen felt confused, yet happy, and Bess couldn't disagree with the emotion.
Being in The Data Tree was like being within a mother's womb. The skin was merely fruit on the tree, and the mind was free to wander throughout the many branches, provided that everyone was open to the intrusion. The only sense available was sight, and Bess looked out at the enclosing yet endless walls with wonder. There was a slight tug on her mind as another crossed paths with her, and Bess retracted into her shell quickly to allow room. She felt Amen's mind stretch towards hers, curious and concerned. Bess shrunk back into her body and nearly screamed as the branches started to hurt her.
The voice spoke again, low and soothing.
" Stay in the Tree. if you go into your body now, then you'll feel the improvement surgery going on."
Bess let her mind wander around the branches, and ran smack dab into Amen. Amen's mind wrapped around Bess, holding her in place, then shoving her back into the Tree.
A series of neon screens lit up the branches, each screen showing what could only be camera feeds. Many were darkened, but there was movement on one of the monitors.
Bess stared in horrified fascination as a red-haired man went to work with a knife and crowbar.

Outside the Data Tree, Yosef Blackwinter stared into the surgery room. Tall, slim, and soft-built, Yosef had a distinctly northern nose, framed by a square-boned face. His hands clutched at his baggy trousers, kneading the fabric like dough.
He cleared his throat before activating the recorder hung around his neck, and speaking softly.
" Yosef Blackwinter speaking, again. Currently it is 10:26 Pm, and I'm outside surgery room 8. The new implanting machines seem unwieldy, but there's definitely a better survival rate this year. So far we've got a 98 percent survival rate, out of 50 recruits. The recruit that got culled was a victim of the optic implanters... The anesthesia didn't work, and the needle went through the socket into the brain when there was a struggle." Yosef took a deep breath before continuing.
" So, anyways... there are a few recruits in particular that might have the potential to be good soldiers, but the rest are not promising. I'm gonna let the computers weed the bad brats out, and hope that the good ones get left behind."
Inside surgery room 4, the machines whirred to life yet again, fueled by a command code that hadn't been used in years.
Yosef continued to speak into his recorder.
" the most worrying of the machines is the new spinal grafter."
The skin of a recruit's back was carved open and a long, thick needle plunged into the C1 vertebrae.
    " It still needs programming.. And we got it from one of our more unsavory informants, so if it gets used right now, then there is a high chance of viral infection."
Thick, black, cybernetic cable wrapped around the spine, moving with all the  cruel precision of a sewing machine.
    " If a recruit gets a viral infection then we might have more than a serial killer on our hands to worry about. The viruses these days get modified so much that not even a trained soldier could fight it off. I don't want to know what would happen if a kid got one."
Done with the gruesome chore of grafting the recruit, the spinal machine slid back into place easily, letting the suturer take over. Yosef glanced back through the window at the sleeping recruits, then allowed a rare smile to ghost over his face.
    " I think that these kids are gonna do great."

Inside the Data Tree, Amen glided along the outermost branches, content with how things were going so far. Soon, however, she found herself flushed back into her body, though not of her own will. Her eyes snapped open.
Her limbs felt heavy, loaded down by an unnatural heat, and her brain pounded against the back of her eyes. Blue spots danced in the corners of her sight, and color seemed heightened, especially the greens and yellows.
Amen tried to cry out for help, but all that came out was a mechanical gurgle. She focused on the long mirror on the opposite wall, not wanting to believe what she saw.
Her hair had been shorn down to her scalp, though Amen didn't realize why until she saw the reflection within the reflection, displaying what had happened while she was unconscious.
A neat line of boxy, lime green implants protruded from Amen's spine, rising from her tailbone to fork out once the line hit her skull. All the boxes glowed, illuminating the puffy, inflamed skin that had been sewn in place around them.
Amen glowered at her reflection, then focused until she became aware of another recruit- one who appeared still intact. Amen scowled as she took in smooth, unmarred skin and a slim build, crowned by long golden-red locks.
    " How dare you stay beautiful." Amen croaked. The other girl shifted in her sleep, almost smiling as her mind traversed the Data Tree.
Amen wrapped her hands around the girl's throat and squeezed. Tears stung her eyes, but she did not stop.
The minute that the Girl died, Amen felt everything that had been hers.
She saw a father turn from loving to violent in a heartbeat or less. She felt the cold hands of a betrothed turn her over to the military at the first opportunity. More than anything else however, she felt fear, and hunger.
Amen gasped as the new emotions bottled inside her.
    " That felt good.." she whispered, eyeing the newly-made corpse.
    " Why did that feel good? I'm not a monster! Am I?" Amen slouched forward onto the girl's cot, curling almost double when a wave of hunger cramps shot her through.
Inside Amen, the virus was working overtime to complete the command issued to them. The tiny nanites obeyed a strict set of instructions that had seen them through decades of evolution in the cutthroat micro-world of computer-carried diseases.

An alarm blared through the Data tree, and surgery room 8 at the same time, catching everyone's attention.
Yosef dashed to the monitors, stopping just before he crashed into the  wall. The screen flashed violently, switching between the security cameras labeled HELL5 and SURG4, to the melody of a nauseatingly loud alarm. A separate monitor showing vital signs for the recruits showed that another recruit had been lost, and the heart rate of another was hovering steady at 200 beats per minute. Yosef felt his fist slam down on the emergency lockdown command button- effectively quarantining the entire base. Outside the base, heavy concrete barriers rose like tidal waves, cutting off the rest of the world. Thick sheets of steel mesh shot across the top of the barrier like a net, preventing anything escaping at all.
" The security feeds are going nuts." Yosef rubbed his recorder nervously between his forefinger and thumb.
" Monitors SURG4 and HELL5 are going nuts. One of them is telling me that there's been an outbreak of Col-Akins disease inside, and the other is telling me that there's an intruder inside the room. The worst part is that both cams are frizzing, so I don't know which room has which problem." Yosef paused for a moment to catch his breath.
" I'm guessing that whoever hears this recording won't know what Col-Akins disease is, so I'll give a quick summary. Also known as all I can remember off the top of my head. Col-Akins disease is a computer engineered virus, commonly found in second-hand spinal grafters. Symptoms include fever, high heart beat, extreme chills, and eventually seizures and death. It spreads like wildfire among those who have cybernetic implants, so approximately sixty five percent of the base will be at risk of infection. I can only hope that the infected rookie didn't escape before lockdown. If they did, then the only way to prevent the spread of the disease would be with a sniper's bullet."

Inside the Data Tree, Bess huddled inside her body, small bursts of pain bloomed behind her eyes and in her ears, but it was a mere pinprick compared to the guilt inside her that had blossomed when she witnessed a man being dumped into a pen of giant monsters, then left for dead. Slowly, Bess became aware that she was back in the 'real' world- one where her limbs were decidedly branchless- and even more aware of the giant, corpselike machines that sulked in the corners of the room. Three other cots lay side by side, each concealing a girl about Bess's height.
Bess sat up, though she was shot down by a roiling wave of strong nausea hitting her.
A screen popped into the corner of her vision of a security feed, labeled CORR6.
In the feed, a dark, shadowy woman moved towards a door, ripped it off the hinges, and stormed inside, slapping the camera with a chilling glare before she vanished.
Breath caught inside of Bess when she recognized who it was
    " Amen..?" she whispered.
    " what are you doing now?"