How does it even work?

Posted on Wednesday June 5th, 2019 @ 6:21pm by Civilian . & Lieutenant Mavet

Mission: Welcome to Union Mining Station Number 42
Location: Mavet's Office
Timeline: evening after meeting at the bar

Namira walked up to Mavet's office. At first she had considered calling and telling him she didn't have time to come, but then she was curious and wanted some answers, so her breathing mask would have to do. Thankfully, that dreaded walkway had held up. She still thought it was a bad idea. There was a reason the shuttle bays all had doors in addition to the force fields, too. But now that she was where she meant to be, all that was left was to knock, which she often preferred over using the doorbell and did out of habit.

With the door locked, Mavet was happily enjoying himself with an industrial-sized commercial blender and a tube of Bengay. The chime to his office door sounded, signaling a visitor. Mavet was half tempted to ignore it so he could finish his me-time, but he knew duty waited for no one, whether man or Gelatin.

"Yeah, yeah, just a minute," he groused in frustration.

He sighed reluctantly as he shot a membranous arm out of the swirling blender and pressed the off button. The whirring motor came to a silent end, allowing him to slither out all the way and to the door. When it opened, he was delighted to see none other than the comely archaeologist.

"Oh, hey there," he said, his frustration evaporating. "So nice to see you again, Lieutenant. Please, come in." He oozed to one side to allow her free entry without risk of being stepped on. Though if he had to be stepped on... His gelatinous mass quivered in ecstasy at the thought of prolonged physical contact.

"Are you sure it's not a bad time?" Namira asked as she walked in anyway. "I was hoping we could continue where we left off in the lounge, if you're not too busy?" She hadn't interacted with Gelatins before, and thus she didn't know how exactly to read his reactions.

Mavet perked up from flaccid to semi-rigid. "Oh, I'm always open to a lovely thing like yourself. Make yourself at home. Would you like something to drink? There's water in the synthesizer. Hot covfefe if you're inclined."

"Nothing nasty, please", Namira said. She retrieved a mug of hot cocoa from the replicator and then sat down on the floor, cross-legged, using his desk as a backrest. She figured it would be better to be closer to eye-level. "I wanted to thank you for taking the time out of your day to explain this to me. I'm a very curious person, you see, and I've heard that your kind procreates by cell division, and that you're a single-celled organism, is that right?"

"More or less," Mavet shrugged. "It's surprising to me how so few people understand the nature of a cell, as if it's a cinderblock or single component. Humans from the 21st century failed to understand the complexity of the cell even as they unlocked your own genome. They assumed they understood simply because they knew how to shuffle the deck through gene editing. Little did they know that humanoids, indeed all vertebrates, are gestalt beings comprised of trillions and quintillions of individual organisms linked together in a whole."

In a rare moment of vulnerability, Mavet's tone softly lowered. "First contact with humans was as startling for us as it was for you. Imagine a superorganism, like an ant colony, suddenly speaking and interacting toward you with one voice. To realize there's a singular intelligence uniting a multitude of organisms is surreal." He chuckled nervously. "We... have an insatiable desire to touch your kind, yet also an apprehension, if that makes any sense."

"It does. You're as curious about what makes us different from you, as the other way around", Namira agreed. "You see, the way we understand consciousness, it is an emergent property that needs lots of different cells of a specific type to work together. The rest of our bodies are really just there to keep those cells alive, and can be replaced by inorganic compounds without impacting on what makes us, well, us." She pointed at her ears. "I have implants that allow me to hear because my biological parts didn't work. Doesn't make me any less of a person. You're one cell, and when you divide, you have two make two smaller versions of yourself, yes? What happens to your consciousness? Is one a blank slate, and you remain you? Or are there two you, with the exact same memories and personality? And do some of your people have memories that go back thousands of years, or more?" Probably too many questions all at once, but Namira's curiosity was getting the better of her.

Mavet shamefully turned his facade away from Namira. "I'm sure many of these questions are in a textbook somewhere," he said. "The truth is, though, I don't know. It's been debated for eons. Some Gellies claim to have memories of before their divisions, others argue it's fanciful nonsense. As a result, Life After Division is not often discussed in polite society. I..."

The shame became too great. Mavet choked up. "I am not the best one to ask."

"I see", Namira said. So their way to procreate meant that the original entity would no longer exist as a person, thus he was talking about it like death? "Your people must have a very powerful drive to procreate, if it means that much of a sacrifice?"

Mavet shrugged with spontaneously generated shoulders. "All of life is an unknown." Should he tell her? Could he tell her? It was probably in his file if she dug deep enough. "I was the result of a premature mitosis. Back when I was female, I split into two daughters who were unable to maintain structural integrity for very long. They rejoined and became me. I don't remember anything from before the rejoining--not the two daughter Gels nor my life before that. Was it me? Was it an ancestor?" He gave a wry chuckle. "You'd better believe I had a million and one opinions on the matter, and few of them kind. I just don't have any answers... Which is probably why I will never reproduce."

Namira smiled at him and sipped her cocoa. "I understand. I've been bred in the lab, to fight in a war that ended over 150 years ago. I have not had a classical childhood either, instead training and conditioning as I grew rapidly. It's not the same, but we're two odd-balls, and I know what it's like to be different."

Bred in a lab? "You were genetically engineered..." Mavet was surprised. "Is that... I don't know... legal? Do you function differently?" He wondered if her edited genome would make her alleles feel differently than the average human. New sensations were heaven to him.

"In many ways, I do", Namira said. "But not so much where it counts." She pointed to her skull. "Except for a tendency to be a bit CDO, which is like OCD only with the letters in alphabetical order as they're damn well supposed to be, authorities on the subject matter have assured me I was 'normal', which I'm certain they did not mean as an insult, even though it sounds like one."

Mavet laughed. "Oh, good. You're crazy. I was worried for a second that you were perfect."

"I'm here voluntarily, doesn't that already prove I'm not completely sane?" Namira joked. She remembered him saying that he was fascinated by touching multi-cellular organisms, so she held out her hand to him. "I do wonder if I feel different to you?"

The question made Mavet's mass quiver with anticipation. "I've been wondering the same thing. But..." His globular protrusion enveloped first her fingertips before going upward to her knuckles. Each cell from her skin down to her ligaments and bones resonated in a harmonic resonance, as if her genome were a xylophone and all her molecular parts were separate keys with unique notes. His single-cell mass called to each one in a chemical exchange. "Prolonged contact is a sensual act. I... feel you should know that."

"Yes, I can feel it", Namira said. She pulled out her scanner with her free hand and started taking readings. "Though my nerves aren't equipped to understand what's happening. Curious, I dare say fascinating." She smiled at him. "What do you feel when you do this?"

Before he could answer, Mavet's entire mass jiggled like the bowl of jelly he was before a small clump of himself erupted onto Namira's shirt. "Sorry," he said sheepishly and a little out of breath. "It's been awhile. And I was kinda' doing something before you arrived..." He generated a hand-like protuberance to reabsorb his wayward clump. "I'll just take that back..."

Namira laughed. "Oh, *that* kind of sensual?" But her initial reaction of laughter was quickly replaced by a puzzled expression. "But.. why?" They were so different, it couldn't possibly be the biological drive, could it? "What gets you excited about touching my hand?"

"I... don't know," Mavet said pensively. "Never much thought about it. Maybe it's the scandalous way that your body is constantly dividing itself. Maybe it's the chemical exchange of all the tiny microorganisms that come together into you. I could definitely tell you're different, though. Like... a guitar with an extra string."

"I think those are my regenerative abilities", Namira said. She put her scanner down next to the half-emptied mug of hot... now luke-warm chocolate. "Observe." She made a fist with her left hand, presenting to him the taut skin of the back of her hand. With the nail of her right index finger, she pressed down and produced a small cut, with a drop of blood appearing.

"Most humans, they take a minute or two to stop the bleeding, but it'll take a few days to heal", she explained. The drop of blood receded immediately as her blood vessels closed off, as an alternative to blood clotting. "You can watch as the wound is repaired, and the skin is closed." With such a small injury, it took about a minute and there wasn't a trace to be found.

Mavet grunted. "You just intentionally killed a myriad of cells so they could be replaced by new ones..." It felt akin to animal slaughter.

"They're not like you", Namira said. "They don't have consciousness, or feelings. I rely on my regenerative abilities all the time because I get hurt when I bump into things, or something collapses onto me, or someone decides to shove something sharp in me. I can't just ooze all around it like you do."

"Still," Mavet insisted, "it seems biologically wasteful."

"It is", Namira agreed. "Which is why I have to eat more than the average human, it expends a lot of energy. That said, at least I don't get fat." She grinned and emptied her cocoa. "There are a few things about me that do not work the way my designers wanted them to. A lot of it is biologically wasteful, but some of it is an advantage, too. I've learnt to live with my abilities and limitations."

Mavet made a thoughtful clicking sound with his mouth. "You know, this is probably the longest conversation I've had with a human woman that wasn't work-related."

"And I'm not even the standard model", Namira grinned. "So I'm not sure how much of this you'll be able to apply to anyone else. Of course, biologically speaking. There's no such thing as a standard mind." She held out a hand. "Would you give me a piece of you, for a minute? Don't worry, I'm not going to eat it or anything outlandish."

"As long as I get it back..." Mavet twitched a little, then held out a false limb that dangled a single protoplasmic glob. "Separation anxiety can be fatal."

"Even from something this small?" Namira wondered. "I could lose a limb and still be fine, it would eventually grow back." She took the small glob into her palm and moved it to her eye-level, taking a good look. Her warm breath washed over it, which was a side-effect of having the glob so close to her face rather than a deliberate experiment.

"We don't 'grow back,' Namira," Mavet said. "That would possibly create a whole new 'me'." He shuddered in ecstasy at the sensation of her warm, moist breath passing over his small segment in her hand. "No one's... done that... before..."

"Oh, this?" Namira asked. This time, she blew on his piece intentionally. "You feel that, despite the separation?"

"Y-yes..." Mavet said between moans. "Wouldn't you?"

"No", Namira said. "Once the cells that allow for the connection between body parts are separated, that part is dead to us." It was a bit of an oversimplification, since parts could be re-attached these days, and fairly easily in her case, provided it was a clean cut, but it was essentially true at least. Namira stuck a finger in the glob and, having it sit there like a lolly, handed it back to Mavet. "Thank you for letting me poke around."

The little bit of him that she had fondled felt incredible. Her extra chromosomes or whatever she'd called them were like fudge on a sundae to his tactile sense. "Aren't you curious what the full monty feels like?" He twisted himself into a cylinder that coiled around her leg like a snake or aggressively friendly collie. "I can be gentle or I can exfoliate."

"You know, I'm not so sure that's entirely appropriate, Mavet", Namira said. Of course she was curious, Namira was the very embodiment of curiosity, but she'd have to work with him afterwards. "We humanoids are fairly particular about who we touch, and especially where."

"Oh."

Mavet recoiled away from her limb and congealed back into his standard amoebic configuration. "I thought... Okay." He thought they were actually getting somewhere, but it seemed he was mistaken. Old prejudices died hard, and some gulfs were just too big to cross.

"What is it you thought?" Namira asked. "I'm just saying, there are rituals we humanoids have, and if you look at them from an outside point of view they are mostly pointless and arbitrary, I admit, but they're deeply ingrained in our species because they have a lot of reproductive significance."

"Look, sister, I get it," Mavet said as he slithered back to his table with the industrial sized commercial blender. "No means no. Most of your kind finds my kind abhorrent. I get it. No need to add insult to injury with bullshit about reproductive rituals."

"Hey, I didn't say that", Namira said. "Why would I find you abhorrent? But what you're proposing sounds a lot like a sexual offer."

Mavet shrugged, facade still turned away. "Maybe it was. Or maybe it wasn't. Gelatins are literally gender fluid and asexual lifeforms, after all. We just shoot our protoplasm around and let you so-called higher lifeforms sort out the rest."

Namira stood and returned the mug to the synthesiser. "I'm not sure what to make of it, especially since I seem to have insulted you without meaning to."

"I misunderstood," Mavet said, clearly upset. "That's fine. It's-it's fine. You can't do your rituals with me. I hope you found whatever you came looking for."

"Hm, not all of them, anyway, for anatomical reasons", Namira said. She turned to leave but stopped. "Forgive my curiosity, Mavet, but what exactly are you proposing to do?"

Mavet turned coy in his embarrassment. "Oh, nothing really... Just... I wanted to be in you."

"You want to have a look at my insides?" Namira wondered. "I don't think that can be done without killing a lot of my cells, and causing me some significant discomfort."

"On!" Mavet corrected. The corners of his mouth shone with highlights as if he were blushing. "I meant I wanted to be on you." Because that clearly sounded better.

It did. "I see. Let me think about it. I'd like to read up on a few things first, all right?" Namira proposed.

"Huh?" Mavet turned confused. "Is that normal human foreplay? I've never seen that in any of the vids..."

"Ah, so you are propositioning me", Namira said. "That's the part I wanted to check. I wasn't sure whether I was missing something, lost in cultural translation."

"You mean you weren't?" Mavet balked. "What a fucking tease. No pun intended."

Namira laughed. "I didn't think that's what this was, no. I became suspicious when you threw yourself at me." She pointed at her chest. "What do you even see in a humanoid? I mean, to you, nothing of what we've got should even be interesting, right?"

"When I look at you, I see an ocean." Mavet turned pensive. "Beneath the waves is an ecosystem of diverse life all held together in a miracle of nature. The very sight makes me want to dive in and explore its depths." He scoffed at his own words. "Or... something like that. Forget I said anything."

"I'll think about it", Namira said. "Thank you for sharing what you've told me, though."

"Whatev's." Mavet moved back to the countertop. "If that will be all, I have some more blending to do. Door's where you left it."