Seeing Vera's confusion, Shintaro Takayama said, "They are all veterans who once followed and protected Lord Saburo at his side, retainers of the Arasaka Family. They are simply old now. Lord Saburo cherishes old ties and hopes they can still remain by his side."
Oh, Saburo's former bodyguards.
That old bastard had lived far too long. The retainers and generations of guards around him were either dead or so old they could barely walk. They did not have Saburo's or Shintaro's status and resources, nor such high-quality cyberware.
When asked their ages, some were younger than Wako, yet they looked even older than Saburo...
"The R-618 Rejuvenation Agent is merely a shallow portion of the Solaris Staircase Project's research results. Lord Saburo and Director Shintaro should know that the Progenitor Virus is capable of far more than this. The Tyrant Unit 0 test subject was a failed product. Due to the virus's toxicity and instability, I had to reduce the enhancement effects as much as possible to maintain stability."
"Every medicine carries some toxicity. Through repeated adjustments and calculations, I found the stable threshold for maintaining its efficacy."
As the head of the Solaris Staircase Project, Vera explained while taking a briefcase from the Arasaka Agent behind her and beginning the preparation. These two old men had clearly been briefed in advance. Every one of them was ready.
She quickly calculated the various parameters of the R-618 Rejuvenation Agent and matched it to the subjects' genes. These old men were each three or four times her age, and because of frailty, most of their Combat Cybernetics had been removed. The dosage had to be used carefully, lest they drop dead on the spot.
That would not look good.
One old man's injection of the R-618 Rejuvenation Agent was very successful.