Augs

Since the introduction of IRIS so many years ago, many enhancements have been made to it, though the most potent of all these was actually unintended. As an intuitive system, IRIS gained an ever increasing ability to assess its host's strengths, weaknesses and requirements, eventually making the system able to adapt itself autonomously over time. Users of the time began to report that their “standard issue” format seemed to be developing increased capabilities entirely on its own. Pleased with the progress, the development project did all they could to enhance this ability even further. At one point, however, the results returned far in excess of anything anticipated. After a long tour of combat, one of the more receptive test personnel came back with a story of how he had been caught with nothing but a knife while isolated from his squad during a covert infiltration. He reported often using close combat where circumstances allowed, since this minimised risk of detection, but in this case after lodging his weapon in one enemy, another immediately appeared behind the first. Disarmed and in a confined space he leapt on the second target only to be blinded by a massive electrical discharge which instantly killed his opponent, but left him entirely unharmed. Further study revealed a dense formation of IRIS nanites clustered in his hands and arms. This formation was structured for electrical capacitance and had also laced his surrounding skin with metallic filaments almost too small to see. His IRIS had literally “evolved” a lightning touch. Since then, IRIS-based augmentations, or, “Augs”, have become a highly regulated and sought after addition to life, ranging from lethality, to utility, there is little legend left to tales of “super humans”: they have become a modern reality.