Jacqueline rummaged around the broken machines, looking for any useful spare parts, abandoned tools, or possibly even something still functional... Or, failing those, anything that looked interesting. And there was an abundance of most of that here! Her pack was very quickly growing full of various scrap in cool shapes, broken dials long since fallen off the machines, bits of outdated wiring, and other such interesting things! Although, she did need to keep in mind to save space for more immediately useful supplies... Something she'd never been great at managing... Even before the apocalypse, she was, to put it nicely, a bit of a hoarder and a tinkerer. Or as her aunt put it far less nicely, a "rotten kleptomaniac digging through trash like a damn raccoon". But she couldn't help it! Whenever she saw something interesting thrown away, she just needed to do something with it! One man's trash and all that, and she was great at making her own treasure out of scrap metal, rags, and broken parts! Sure, it was... Not consistently useful, but every failure was something to learn from! Not that many people had shared that patience and desire for discovery like her... But in the post-apocalypse, she was in her element! When finding basic supplies was so difficult, her experience with improvising and jury-rigging was invaluable. And with all the weird, inhuman Cursed around breaking the laws of nature just by existing, her access to interesting parts only expanded! Sure, she still made plenty of duds... Duds that were far more volatile than previously... But she'd still contributed so much to the group! ...Mostly thanks to Sasha sticking up for her whenever she got on Candace's nerves. Candace was understandably a bit high-strung, as their leader, but Sasha was always able to cool things down. It was nice having someone like that around to make up for her.

As Jacqueline carefully put a mostly unbroken dial into her pack, she suddenly saw movement above. Quickly drawing her makeshift weapon, she glanced up rapidly. She held her breath in case it was something dangerous, because as bad as an ambush was, it'd only be even worse if it was from high ground. Luckily, no infected jumped out to attack her, at least not immediately. Nothing seemed to be moving at all, in fact. Maybe she'd just dislodged something without noticing it... But no, there it was again! A slight movement of some sort, a minor change in light. Looking closer, it looked to be mechanical in nature. And indeed, above one of the various conveyor belts, there was a panel with a dimly flashing light. She grinned. Finally, some working parts! 

Jacqueline carefully climbed on top of the machine, hoping it was still sturdy enough to hold her for long enough to investigate the panel. Her shoes almost got caught in the belt, but as long as it didn't start moving that wouldn't be much of a problem anyway. She began to inspect the panel. She wasn't quite sure what it was for at first glance... Or second, either. It was covered in buttons, dials, switches, and the like, all completely unlabeled. The light she had seen earlier flashed dimly before her, the bulb inside likely close to dying... Though, now that she thought about it, it was odd that this was still powered when everything else wasn't. Maybe it ran on a battery or something? It certainly didn't seem like it'd take much power with how dim it was. Though the flashing certainly seemed intentional, not like the flickering of low power. It was very consistent, almost rhythmic, always flashing for the exact same length of time, over and over. It was oddly soothing... 

As Jacqueline stared at the light, a thought appeared in her mind. Maybe this light wasn't the only thing that still worked on the panel. She reached out and flipped a switch... And another light flickered on! She grinned. It did work! Well, the lights did at least... Whatever purpose a pair of flashing lights on the panel would serve, they were certainly serving it now. Flashing on and off, one after the other. On, and off. On, off. She absentmindedly pressed a button, and a dial activated. There were no numbers she could use to figure out what it was communicating, but the pointer was moving now. Strangely, it was fluctuating back and forth instead of just increasing. In fact, it almost looked like it was pointing at the lights as they flashed, on and off. Jacqueline's eyes followed the pointer as it rhythmically pointed to the lights, which flashed perfectly in time. It felt good to her brain. So satisfying... Flicking all the right switches in her own brain. She yawned slightly as she watched the panel, reaching out a heavy arm to flip another switch. A new light above the dial began to flash, perfectly in rhythm... And she began to flip the rest...

The panel's various bits and bobs grew into a mesmerizing pattern as Jacqueline activated more and more. Her head felt light and floaty, and she giggled sleepily as she pressed and flicked and switched everything there was. Something within her knew that something was wrong, but she wasn't sure what it was so why did it matter? As the panel slowly came to life, she felt a comforting mechanical hum flow throughout the machine underneath her. It filled her body, more than any other machine she had ever worked on. It felt so relaxing... Her body felt oddly, yet pleasantly, heavy all of a sudden. And the hum pulsed in rhythm with the panel, lulling her deeper into this warm state of satisfaction... So deep, in fact, that she didn't realize the belt beneath her was moving...

The belt slowly yet surely began to move forward, pulling Jacqueline with it. But her body didn't move. Instead, as Jacqueline stared into the rhythm, connecting with this strange machine, she felt her feet being pulled into the belt. An odd feeling spilled up through her body as her feet sank into the belt, meshing perfectly and painlessly with the mechanism. A gentle lethargy settled over her as she sat down on the soft, comfortable belt, and sank down into it. Her legs melted away, dripping down into the wheels, greasing them, becoming them. It felt so wonderful, the gentle rhythmic hum filling her entire body... And her body felt so much larger than it had previously, as well... She reached up and flicked another switch, and she felt part of herself start up, another machine filling her with that soothing hum, a machine that was now her... Her body lay down on her belt and she felt herself pull it away in one warm strip. And just before her body fully melded with her machines, the eyes began to flash... One after the other, on and off...