On first glance these fist-sized devices, cabled, complex, and crafted from a blue-black nitinol-titanium alloy, resemble something out of a Gigeresque gallery. These squat, sinister units, each strangely reminiscent of a human heart, are docked in eight-foot columns of translucent plasteel filled with a weak saline solution similar to those found in sensory deprivation tanks, furthering the freakish B-movie parallels.
An accidental offshoot of research involving self-sustaining cybersystems, the Animus adapter was originally designed as a cardiovascular backup - a piece of drop-in metabolic machinery serving as a go-between bridging biological and mechanical energy sources, setting up a mutual recharge cycle in much the same way as an automotive alternator.
As is too frequently the case, however, initial conceptions gave way to unforeseen incidental applications, and the theory of the thing was quickly surpassed by its practice. Hundreds of these grotesqueries are said to line the innermost chambers of Pentex and Developmental Neogenetics Amalgated laboratories.
Systems: When installed alongside a cardiovascular bionic conversion, the Animus adapter functions as expected - the system both regulates (as would a pacemaker) and revitalises. Treat Stamina as the user's +2 for purposes of soaking damage or resisting uncosciousness, and as effectively unlimited for prolonged or steady exertion (loud-bearing or running). The adapter uses only the wearer's digestive and respiratory systems for fuel (which it in turn replenishes).
An unaided human adrenal system may be coupled with an adapter, but is quickly outpaced (and fatally over-stressed) by it's energy consumption. This has led to the comission of heinous deeds in the name of science; rumors abound regarding comatose human batteries wasting away in Animus cylinders, slow-acting systems introduced into hospital and life-support equipment, and even more unspeakable atrocities.
(Book of the Weaver, pg 42, 43)