Pseudo Life 5 by Schitz Wolfie

 

Looking back over the random notes typed up here and there over the course of her existence, Replikatie sat at her desk idly scrolling through the flood of incomplete memories and off-tangent musings. While each little snippet made perfect sense to her, anyone else trying to wade through the backwash of thoughts would probably be gasping for air.

 

A soft knock on her office door stirred her focus as she folded the laptop closed and stood up. As usual, her legs tapered down into the small puddle that burbled softly near where her ankles ought to be; slithering with the slight shifting of leg shapes beneath her semi-solid floor-length skirt, she made her way to the door to greet whatever happened to be on the other side.

 

There was always a chance it would be one of the human workers in the lab, and although they were fully aware of their employer's state of existence... her form still seemed a little unsettling if she wasn't in a mostly humanoid appearance. For now, however...

 

Shimmer smiled up at her mommy as the door slid open, a smaller form of pinkish gel sloshing about inside her midsection. Looking a little tired, she giggled and jumped forward, hugging Katie around her skirt-stalk.

 

Unlike Katie, Shimmer liked looking as solid as she could, fully comfortable with her partially transparent gray/sapphire hue. Beneath the edge of her small half shirt, dark blue stripes smeared out around her sides and across the strands of rubbery fur on her chubby arms and legs; smaller stripes curling up beneath her facial cheeks. Her face was an odd combination of human, fox, and feline features, but somehow it looked quite pleasing on her four-year-old frame. Seven short tails wriggled beyond her light pink panties; each tail tip looking as if it had been dunked in a can of dark blue paint.

 

Katie purred as she leaned down, rippling her fingertips just barely inside her daughter's sides as she lifted the small girl up into her arms. "Morning sweetheart!"

 

"Mornin, Mommakatie!" Grinning, Shimmer licked a kiss across Replikatie's cheek as she nestled into her mother's arms.

 

"Awwww! Did you and Ami sleep good, honey?" Katie rippled along her skirt as her gel began to part slowly, pulling apart with thin strands of dangling bits of ooze stretching and falling back into the respective legs that were solidifying as Katie walked back to her desk and sat down. Complete with feet that pushed lightly on the floor giving her a slow rocking in her chair; Katie smiled and stroked her fingers against Shimmer's belly.

 

Shimmer nodded as the pink mass inside her torso gurgled slowly, swimming closer to Katie's touches. "Uh huh... but Ami was arsking me querstions."

 

"She was? Mmmm, what kind of questions?" With a grin on her face, Katie's fingers shifted slightly as strands oozed out from her fingertips, curling around the lava-lamp appearing gel within Shimmer.

 

"Ami was arsking why Pigment doersn't hafta eat... an' why shi sleeps in tha' cambers... an"

 

"Chambers, honey... use your 'h's"

 

"... in thEEE cHHHambers... an' why shi doersn't try to look humany... an'..."

 

Katie smiled. "Sounds like Ami has a lot on her mind. Why didn't you explain any of it?"

 

Shimmer looked up at Replikatie with a slight tilt of her head. "But... Mommakatie, I warsn't bornded yet..." Twisting a little in Katie's arms, Shimmer reached her hands down, plunging them into her own sides with only the slightest ripple of her surface. The pink gel twisted out from Katie's touches as it swam over Shimmer's fingertips and lapped up like gloves over her wrists.

 

"No, you weren't... your old self was there, but I keep forgetting how much of your memories are overlapped. Well..."

 

Katie stood up, turning to place Shimmer back down in the chair as her fingers slithered back into form. "Why don't you bring Ami out, and I'll tell you both the story... come to think of it, that might help me get a few of my own thoughts in order."

 

Smiling widely... since she had been wanting story time all along, Shimmer giggled as her fingers squeezed into the pink ooze... pulling the mass out from her torso... a noticeable strand of pink melting into the gray coloring of her own form.

 

"Out please, Ami..."

 

Twisting in her grasp, the puddle of pink gel knotted up in response, tendrils of ooze spreading out and coiling into thicker stalks. As the mass seemed to expand and take on a form of its own, Shimmer leaned forward and tilted her hands, spilling the emerging form down onto the floor. Within minutes...

 

Sitting on her knees, Ami sat on the floor against Shimmer's chair. The girl looked quite human with the exception of feline ears parting through her long, pony tailed hair and an inch thick tail flitting back and forth behind her. A tight web work of bands spooled around what appeared to be a sixteen-year-old's body, leaving the girl clothed in a form-fitted harness of straps. Gloves and boots clung skin tight over her limbs, completing the neko appearance... complete to the oversized eyes on her unmarked face.

 

The fact that her entire body was bright pink with a glossy shine was the detail that stood out the most... well... that and the leash of pink melting into the grey of Shimmer's hand, bound to the collar around Ami's neck that bore a silver blue medallion with "Shimmer's" etched into the front.

 

Smiling down at the girl, Replikatie sat up on the desk. "So, you want to know all about Pigment, sweetie?"

 

"Yes please... Mistress Shimmer can only explain so much..." Ami smiled, rubbing her forehead up beneath Shimmer's scritching fingertips.

 

"Of course, and since that story involves Shimmer as well, I can understand your curiosity."

 

"Oh, it's not that, ma'am..." Ami smiled. She always tried to show Shimmer's family the utmost of respect as they were the only ones that were fully aware of her existence... though, of course, Shimmer got just a bit more attention than the rest of the family. "... I'm still a little confused as to my own state of being..."

 

"Well, you're a little different..." Katie started as she scratched her chin in thought, "but we'll get to you later. Right now... Pigment..."

 

* * *

 

It had been three days since Replikatie and Sheen had experienced their first... complete merging... and roughly about the same amount of time since Patricia had gotten a decent night of sleep.

 

Katie's first orgasm led to a new discovery... Katie was a squealer. Not just one of those long whining moans that roll into a high pitch during climax, no. Katie barked out in fits of shrieks, wailing into an explosive note that rattled the walls as she melted in Sheen's arms... or legs... or chest... however they happened to be together, there was melting involved.

 

Usually, just after Pat nodded off, of course. If not for the fact that their collective feedings made her woozy from orgasm, Pat would probably flush the both of them out of her apartment just to get a decent night's sleep.

 

Tonight, however, was a quieter evening; an attempt at actually being 'normal' by human standards as the three ladies sat around the dinner table.

 

"Pat, do you have any idea how many experiments were being conducted on my body?" Sheen sat near the blind-covered window; toying with the fork in her fingers as her other hand rippled over and slowly absorbed the raw, freshly pulled carrots on her plate. It was hardly what she considered food, but Katie had made it abundantly clear how she felt about eating live meals, so Sheen was reluctantly playing herbivore.

 

"No, the access I had was limited only to my specific lab and projects I was assigned." Patricia munched her sweet and sour veggies... Katie's insistence included her as well, so meat was out... at least within Katie's presence.

 

Of course, the little field trip that Pat had taken to pick up dinner involved a certain slice of char-broiled cow... and a quick squirrel hunt on Sheen's part who just had to tag along for the, um, fresh air... yeah... air...

 

Not that either one of them was going to breathe a word to Katie who sat blissfully ignorant, stuffing her mouth full of raw vegetables.

 

"So you really have no idea how much of me could be back at the lab?" Sheen's silver tails twitched in a slight fidgeting.

 

"No, but don't you know how much of yourself is missing?"

 

"It’s not that simple. My form isn't bound to a specific mass density, and if I consumed enough, I'd naturally increase in mass; so would any portion of me that splintered off..."

 

"You going to eat that, Love?" Replikatie interrupted as she pointed at the remaining food on Sheen's plate.

 

Smiling as she pushed her plate towards her hungry blue partner, Sheen bit her lower lip. "Go right ahead, darling... I guess I'm still a bit full from my last meal."

 

Patricia bit her lower lip shut as well, as she tried to change the subject before her smile would give away her and Sheen’s little secret.

 

"Just how much damage could you...? I mean, your body... your other body... gah!" Patricia closed her eyes for a minute. Even though she was now used to speaking and thinking in a more, shall we say, fluidic manner, sometimes the surrealness of the situation still got to her.

 

"How much damage could my splintered off section cause?" Sheen finished her question as Pat nodded in agreement. "Well, if I was contained in some manner and held in a static field, probably not much. For you to have handled some of me in the first place, I can only assume that I'm being held in something stable."

 

"The samples I got were always delivered in ionically charged silicon, so I think that part was taken care of." Pat pushed her meal to the side, nodding at Katie as small blue tendrils reached up from under the table and snatched the plate.

 

Turning to look at Katie for a moment with a smile across her muzzle, "Well... on the one hand, there could be a veritable army of Katie's amassing in your lab if the conditions of your accident were followed..."

 

"Somehow... that doesn't sound like a good thing, no offense, Katie." Patricia shivered as she watched the last scraps of her dinner dissolving off the plate that Katie held... hovering the dish halfway inside her rippling belly.

 

"Hmm?" Katie looked up, suddenly aware that there was a conversation going on about her, appearing oblivious to the food that was dissolving in her gel.

 

"I swear, do you ever stop eating?" Patricia shook her head.

 

Standing up from her chair, Sheen walked around the table behind Katie and draped her arms down around the blue cutie. "Well, she'd eat a lot less if you had been more mindful of the chemicals you decided to use... but she'd probably be less fun."

 

"Yeah! It’s not my fault that you made me with a permanent case of the munchies!" Sticking her tongue out at Patricia, Katie leaned back and licked softly at Sheen's chin.

 

"Riiiiight... so, for nothing else, we need to get your other self back just to keep the rest of the world from starving to death from a multitude of Replikatie appetites?" Smirking as she stood up, Patricia started clearing off the table.

 

"Actually, that would be a better case scenario. In reality, I doubt any other being like Katie has been made... but I'm certain experiments have been done by now to try and recreate a being like her. You were, after all, trying to make a military weapon in the first place."

 

"Don't remind me... I was never happy about that, so I worked more on a defensive option."

 

"Either way... the failures could be more threatening than any success. You had no clue I was sentient in your samples, and I doubt anyone else will figure that out, so more mistakes are going to be made if I don't get myself back. Your race isn't much for leaving things alone when they don't understand them..." Sheen sat down in Katie's lap.

 

It was normal for Sheen and Patricia to start having these arguments about the nature of human curiosity and mistakes and because they never progressed anywhere Katie just tuned them out. As much as she disliked her two friends bickering back and forth, they never really seemed to be mad at each other, so this was probably one of those solid things that she didn't understand... though Sheen wasn't at all solid...

 

"EITHER way..." Sheen retorted back after some silly point that Patricia made, "I need to go collect the remaining pieces of myself before who-knows-what happens. As much fun as its been staying here, I'm not really the type to stay shut in a small apartment, and I've been looking for the pieces of myself for quite some time... it really is a pressing matter."

 

"I don't argue that at all... there's just not much information I have left." Pat sat back down in her chair, more than a little frustrated at Sheen's perpetual arrogance. Granted, Sheen had lived for several millennia, but that's no reason to act so rudely to 'lower forms of intelligent life'.

 

Still smiling as she sprawled a bit in Katie's lap, Sheen nodded. "Then I think I should be going. Katie... I'd love for you to join me."

 

Looking up with a wide smile on her face, Katie giggled "Absolutely! I'd love to go out with you, Sheen! Pat can drive us to the lab, and then we..."

 

"No, sweetie... I mean just the two of us. It would be dangerous to bring Patricia along." Sheen stopped Katie in mid-babble with a soft shake of her head.

 

"... but... I'd keep her... safe, and... "

 

"Sheen's right, Katie... You two can probably handle anything you could run into, but I'm... well, human. I'd slow you down, and you really don't need to worry... I'll be right here. If I show up, the guards will come running, but I can't imagine you two having problems sneaking in."

 

Katie still looked panicked, her lips trembling as she stared at Pat, "... but..."

 

"We... are coming back afterwards, Katie. You do know that, right?" Sheen looked at Katie with a tilt of her cheeks.

 

Katie blinked in recognition. "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh; okie!!!" Returning to her smiling, giggling self, Katie rippled as her structure shifted... becoming fully liquefied, but maintaining her relative shape as she stood up through Sheen and splished across the floor, running to the door with an excited squeal.

 

Sheen and Patricia shot glances at each other... both shaking their heads and sighing a bit before Sheen stood up and followed. "First thing, cutie... you follow me, and don't go running off on your own, alright? You're just a little too naive to let you go dancing off anywhere you want."

 

"I promise!" Katie nodded as she bounced by the door like a child needing to go to the bathroom... fully solid again, her feet squeaking lightly on the floor boards.

 

Smiling, her fingers curling softly across the nape of Katie's neck, Sheen purred. "And we need to be quiet, lover... no squealing, shrieking, or loud voices. We're trying to not be spotted, so I need you to concentrate, alright sweetie?"

 

Nodding vigorously, Katie agreed. "Yes ma'am! Let’s go; out the door!!!"

 

"Katie... this may be a long night... I need you to calm down and be serious... please." Sheen smiled, but her eyes shifted lightly, a roll of light silver flashing across her dark pupils.

 

Nodding and stopping her dancing in place, Katie slowed down a bit. "I'll... try, but I'm just rather excited. I promise I'll behave."

 

Patricia walked up behind them, smiling as she hugged Katie tightly, her fingers pressing into the blue rubber with a deep touch. "You be careful, honey... and do what Sheen tells you to do. I'm sure she's done this before?" Pat looked at Sheen with a questioning raise of her eyebrow.

 

Sheen smiled as she nodded "More than once, sweetie. Don't worry. I'll bring Katie back in one complete piece."

 

Opening the door with a quiet twist of the latch, Sheen peeked a fingertip out of the frame... looking through the small tip of her gel into the empty hallway. "Ok... follow me, and remember, quietly!"

 

Without another word, the two figures made their way out of the apartment and slithered down the hall, their bodies shrinking into thin sheets of liquid that crawled beneath the crack in the outermost door frame, well out of the range of the security camera in the lobby.

 

Closing the door quietly, Patricia breathed out a slightly nervous shudder. Sheen wasn't her bestest buddy by any means, but Katie... Pat couldn't really help but to worry just a little even though she knew Katie was more than capable of handling almost anything the world could throw at her. "Be safe, you two... I... really don't want to go back to being without you, Katie..."

 

Turning, she trudged into the kitchen, trying to distract her thoughts by cleaning up dinner.

 

* * *

 

"Sir... the plasmids have both left the building."

 

"... Maintain surveillance for fifteen minutes. If they do not return, then proceed as planned..."

 

"Confirmed, sir. *Hsssssshhk!* Unit 3, BearTrap is a go; mark in 15."

 

* * *

 

Living with Katie meant learning a few new things... for one, leftovers were a rarity.

 

Mostly through all the experiments Patricia had tried to accomplish with the two creatures, she had pieced together a bit of their physiology. Sheen fed off various energies, the most potent seemed to be the chemical reactions of sugar production in plants, or cellular reactions found in living creatures. While she could exist on plant life alone, the chemical reaction in more animated cellular structures, in comparison, seemed to be a more concentrated source of food.

 

Sheen's appetite, though, was relatively small for survival. When she consumed food, her body was able to store the energy itself for extended periods of time.

 

Katie, on the other hand, was essentially a half breed. Half of her body fed as Sheens, but the chemical structure Patricia had created to control the Moontear sample had turned parasitic. It's possible that the accidental awakening triggered an unexpected reaction in the chemicals... but either way, Katie's constant feeding was a direct result.

 

If she didn't feed on a regular basis, and give her parasitic side something to continually consume... it would start to consume her Moontear half. A few times, Sheen had intentionally prevented Katie from getting to food... provoking a highly aggressive self-preservation instinct. Sheen was certainly surprised when Katie attacked her as a meal...

 

Katie was given as much food as possible on a pretty regular basis after that.

 

Sitting at the kitchen table, looking over her notes of research on the two creatures... Patricia sighed... still worried at what could be happening.

 

She scarcely had time to scream out from the breaking in of her door before a flash of light bit into her side like the kick of a horse, dropping her in an unconscious slump onto the floor.

 

Around the apartment, six darkly armored humanoids rustled through paperwork, collecting a few samples of half-dissolved garbage from the trash bin... before placing restraining shackles on Dr. Casseo's wrists, arms, ankles... fully binding her to a near mummified state, and exiting the broken apartment with as much haste as possible.

 

* * *

 

Aside from the rather intimate desire to be touching Sheen, Katie clung onto her lover's shoulders learning the details of the muscle structure as Sheen padded through the brush line along the roadside. Lacking Sheen's sense of creation, Katie was still hindered by her ability to only mimic forms that her body examined, and the beastial large cat that Sheen's body was shaped as seemed to her a good form to learn.

 

"I don't remember it being too much farther... we turned two roads up on the left." Remembering her observations from when Patricia made their initial exiting from the lab, Katie was happily being the navigator of their little excursion.

 

Nodding her head, Sheen continued on, sprinting to the next thick covering of brush when headlights loomed along the incoming road. Her form wasn't an earthen feline, but it would pass for a large cougar or wildcat if she was spotted... though her silver coloring would attract more attention... not to mention the blue coating along her back that appeared more like a pet-sweater.

 

"Sheen... did you ever not have all these forms? I know you're a lot older than me..."

 

Smiling slightly, a shiver of her back melted and licked along Katie's warm presence. "Just a bit older; only a few millennia or so. There was a point, eons back, when I only had a few states that I liked being, but the more I came into contact with other species, the more it was in my best interests to learn how to blend in."

 

"Easier to talk to people that way?"

 

"Something like that... it was fun for a while being this giant amorphous devourer of life forms... "

 

"… WHAT?!?!?!"

 

Sheen stopped for a moment, lying prone behind the draping of three trees. "Katie, even without your parasitic side... you're a predator. You feed off of life as do I. The only difference is that you have a rather human conscience about it because your entire consciousness has been around humans. I've only been in contact with humans for three earthen months, and a lot of human ideologies don't blend too well with the rest of the universe."

 

"But... to take lives... like..."

 

"Think about it for a minute, Katie... all life lives off of other life. For a human to remain living, they have to eat the offspring of plant or animal life. Animals live by eating other animals or plant life. Plants live by feeding from the remains of animal life. The difference in human thinking is that a human associates a value to life above and beyond food."

 

"Well, DUH! Life is more important than food!"

 

Rippling out from beneath Replikatie, Sheen slithered out into her familiar appearing kitsune appearance and sat against the trunk of one of the trees. "It’s not a matter of importance; that's the point. To live, someone or something must die. That's the governing rule of the universe.

 

Katie, having puddled into her common appearance, shivered as she scooted a little away from Sheen and listened. "But... I... I don't want to kill..."

 

"But you do, Katie... you just don't look at it in those terms. Look at me... do you think of me as a monster?"

 

"No, but..."

 

"There are species in this world that would... and that would label you as one too. There are species I've all but eaten to extinction in the path of my travels... I'm sure they saw me as a monster, and perhaps I was a bit of one at one point."

 

"But... I don't need to kill! I feed from Pat, and..."

 

"And, what do you feast on? Her body's regenerative material... potential life. No, you aren't killing anything, but it's still the same rule... something loses life energy so that you gain it."

 

Katie started looking a little nauseated as she listened and tried to understand everything Sheen was saying.

 

"Katie... it’s not a bad thing. There is no good or bad, it’s just the truth. All forms of life are predators to something, and are in turn prey to something else. I'm not going to tell you that you have to start devouring humans... by all means, if you have a desire to associate with them, do so! I've lived hundreds of lifetimes with various individuals and races."

 

Katie turned her head as she looked confused. "I... thought you said you devoured...?"

 

"Oh, I did for a time... "Sheen smiled as she leaned forward,” but that got very boring after a bit, so I tried living with some of the forms I came across. I watched them, learned to look and speak as they did, and found ways to melt into their societies. I've never fully gotten the knack of changing my coloration, but there are always ways around that..."

 

Katie was still a bit unsure how to take all of this... "But... would you still eat them?"

 

"Sometimes. Certain life forms are cancerous to their cultures; others willingly sacrificed themselves out of some sense of idolatry to me. Sometimes it was a more merciful choice on my part, lives that didn't want to live anymore..."

 

"Didn't... you ever care... about any of them?"

 

"Of course I did!" Sheen looked a little shocked, but she still remained smiling at her young student. "Do you know how many times I've taken a mate? Or how many have called me, albeit purely a title, mother or father? Sister or brother? Pet or friend? I've cared for many individuals over the centuries and millennia."

 

"But... then how... could you..."

 

Leaning closer, Sheen kissed Katie upon her cheek softly. "Because, Katie... up until you, those have all been titles. I've never deluded myself into believing that there was a genetic bonding between me and anyone else I've ever met. As far as I've known, I've been the only one of my kind... until now. I loved my mates and surrogate families... but I've always known that they were a different species than I am."

 

Sheen stroked her fingers along Katie's cheek as she continued. "I've always been a predator, and I always will be... but I am not the mindless destroyer that I was in the earlier days of my life... I choose who and what I feed from. When you were first 'born'... you were also a mindless destroyer... you've just evolved faster than I did."

 

Katie turned and looked down at the ground. Remembering her first sentient thoughts was not something she ever liked doing, as they were the last dying screams of pain from her first victim. Perhaps Sheen was right about the universe laws... a death so another can live...

 

"Katie? Don't keep your thoughts to yourself, sweetie... talk to me... please?"

 

"I... don't want to be a monster..."

 

"You couldn't ever be, Katie... I'm not ever going to force you to do anything you don't want to do, and if you never want to take a life from something, then by all means, don't. All I want you to know is the truth because life has a way of placing the choices of life and death into your hands. You're partially my offspring, Katie... and I'd be making a terrible judgment if I didn't teach you the ways of the universe as I know them."

 

Katie looked up at Sheen... finding some comfort in her smile, even if her thoughts were a bit unsettled from the deep discussion.

 

"I think we should get going, sweetie... we've got a lot of ground to cover tonight."

 

"Right..." Slowly, Katie leaned forward, and rippled as she wrapped her arms around Sheen... melting quietly into a thin sheet of blue gel as the silver kitsune stretched, taking once more the feline form before turning and stalking forward out from the trees.

 

So far... this trip wasn't as fun as Katie had expected it to be...

 

* * *

 

"We're losing her again... increase oxygen flow by 1.7..."

 

"... Her left hemisphere is starting to seizure..."

 

"LESS voltage, dammit, do I have to do everything myself?!?"

 

Lost in her faintly waking consciousness, Patricia could barely hear the words of people all around her, but the dark black curtain of her eyelids was all she could see. An ache throbbed in her head as if she was trapped beneath the weight of a car, unable to move and gasping for every breath. Weakly, she tried opening her eyes, but the pain was so intense... she couldn't even turn her neck to collapse further into the stiff mattress beneath her back.

 

"She's waking... her lucidity should be near optimal levels, sir."

 

"Good... leave now."

 

There was a stinging silence in the room for a hushed moment.

 

"... Sir?"

 

"You've done an excellent job, Doctor Ikomu; your staff will be well compensated. Don't spoil your efforts now by questioning my wishes."

 

"... Of... course not, sir."

 

Stirring slightly, Patricia moaned as the sounds of shuffling footsteps echoed and reverberated in her ears. Having blinding dreams wasn't a common theme in her sleep patterns... but her thoughts were quite jumbled into a twisted knot of reality.

 

Still... something felt as if she ought to be putting up resistance.

 

As the room grew silent again, a presence seemed to loom closer in the blackness of her vision... a darkened mass that hung before her face draped with a warm, acidic smell that made her want to gag at the inhaled taste.

 

"You've... given me quite a bit to consider, Doctor Casseo"

 

There was a familiar twinge in the voice, but Patricia was having a hellacious time trying to just string a coherent line of successive thoughts to command her body to breathe on its own. Aside from the voice being masculine, she couldn't place the tone. Deep in her nerves, though... the urge to put up a blockade of resistance intensified again.

 

"... I knew you'd solve some of the problems with the moontear, but to actually create and command an automaton with such precision is beyond anything I thought even you were capable of."

 

Pat's brain twitched... or at least it seemed to as she tried to comprehend the words spoken to her... little bits and pieces of imagery flashed like lightning against the black shades of her eyelids... but their luminescence faded back into nothingness after a momentary lingering.

 

"What bothers me is your lack of loyalty... surely you can't think that you possess any rights to stolen materials. You are well aware of the contracts that bear your signature..."

 

The voice... kept sounding more and more familiar. She knew it from somewhere, but her head ached so badly... as if nerves were directly exposed to the air. Vainly, she tried to open her eyes again... but her muscles simply were not under her control.

 

Slowly the voice droned on... legal terms that probably would have meant something to a conscious person... questions back and forth against her burning ears of betrayal, uprising, agendas...

 

"... in short, it is with no lack of disappointment on my part that you will no longer be given your operating status with us."

 

Her brain must have been starting to unravel... because her thoughts were beginning to grasp the meaning of words now... she... was dreaming... of being fired? With more effort, she tried to pry open her eyes with her straining muscles... as the voice... of her... her employer kept speaking...

 

"However... you present us with a dilemma. There is still the matter of the stolen experiments, and from our surveillance, it’s obvious that you've continued your own agenda, creating a second automaton..."

 

Automa... Pat's mind spiraled in search of definition... something to focus on... a creation... machine... self moving... Katie? They thought Katie was some kind of... puppet creation? Then the second one... must mean Sheen...

 

"... and as your research leaves no indication on your personal endeavors in this manner, we can only assume the secrets of your experiments are locked in your mind. The tests run on your home files and materials are inconclusive and obscure... more psychological and theoretical than documentation."

 

Home files? Her thoughts suddenly jumped back... remembering a flashing scene of sudden noise and flashing lights as her door was broken open, and a dark figure thundered at her... she had been abducted from her own home!

 

Every pulse... she could feel her heart rate increasing as the pain grew in her mind from the pressure, but she didn't care... something was stopping her from moving. Something was keeping her muscles numb... she tried desperately to crack open her eyes as her consciousness grew more and more focused.

 

"... which leaves me with little choice but to reassign you. You're far too valuable as a research asset to simply let go... but I'll leave you to become accustomed to your surroundings. I'm sure in time... you'll feel more willing to share your findings with us, Doct... Miss Casseo..."

 

The light... blinded her sedated irises as her eyelids cracked... the pain was more intense than the dull pounding of her brain, but she had to see... slowly, she struggled just to bring her sight into focus...

 

"I do hope that time is soon... for my own agendas have deadlines as well... and my own experiments with the moontear have met with... some... measure of success..."

 

A faint scream hissed like a gas leak from her lips... as her vision cleared enough to look across the room. In a large, upright glass cylinder... hovered a figure... completely silver... but having a humanoid form...

 

... a small form... a child's form... a little girl, human... perhaps 6 years of age from the appearance.

 

Though... to be honest... that sight wasn't what caused the scream.

 

"I'll return to begin our discussions once you fully awaken, Miss Casseo... please... make yourself at home."

 

Her employer, Mr. Alexi Kevlinton turned and walked out the door... leaving Patricia alone with the other... beings in the room... left to view her own reflection starting back at her in the glass...

 

... bound, fully shackled and secured to the back of her chamber... trapped inside an upright cylinder of clear glass... her skin pulled back from her skull... tubing and wiring attached in probes directly inside her exposed temporal lobe... probably deeper as well... a thin mist of fog appearing upon the glass as her breath hissed out through rubber tubing that ran inside her throat. Her exposed skin was sliced, tugged beck with surgical clamps as wiring wove through her body... keeping her muscles in a near-comatose state... though her mind was wide awake now.

 

Her scream was quiet... mostly a vibrating neon line on machines hooked up to her chamber that measured and monitored her brain activity.

 

Her new... rather permanent assignment at NeuroTech Labs... etched backwards on the glass of her tube.

 

Experimental specimen #22984-Cas.

 

* * *

 

"Something's not right. Katie, didn't you say that there was only one security guard?"

 

"Well... there was when Pat and I left... maybe it depends on the day of the week?"

 

Sheen pulled Katie back down by her tail into the safety of their hiding spot in the brush of the outlying tree line. "Somehow, I don't think so. Even if there were specific days of more and less security..."

 

Two of Sheen's kitsune tails curved upwards over the brush, the tips just peeking out to get another look at the entrance gate.

 

"... I highly doubt those differences would be metered out in groupings of twenty armed guards."

 

Katie reached up... following Sheen's method of observance, her fingertips stretching and curving stealthily over the brush to view the guard situation. Six were in the actual booth; while all around the fencing, teams of three guards apiece marched by looking a mix of jitters and alertness.

 

"They... must really like coffee..."

 

"Katie... ", Sheen groaned, "this is not the time for jokes. I think they're expecting us."

 

"We were invited?"

 

Sheen shot her a sour glance before realizing that Katie wasn't being cute... just oblivious. "Umm... no, sweetie. I mean I think they know we are coming, and that's why the guards are on alert."

 

"Oh." Replikatie slunk down on the ground next to Sheen... looking just a little dejected. She still hadn’t fully recovered her usual perkiness due to their previous deep discussion.

 

"Katie... we don't want them to know we're coming, remember? This is a bad thing."

 

"Why? All you'll probably do is just go all monstery on them, right?"

 

Sheen looked a little pained as she slipped down next to Katie; not really for herself, but for the fact that her partner didn’t fully trust her anymore. "This is really bothering you, isn't it?"

 

Katie looked down at the ground. "I'm... just not sure what to think of it."

 

Sheen smiled as a thought struck her. "Would it help if you talked to someone from my past?"

 

Blinking, Katie turned slowly and sat up... staring wide-eyed at Sheen. "Huh?"

 

"Well, it's something I need to teach you anyway... and right now, we may need the help to deal with the guards. Let's get a bit farther away, first, though."

 

Hugging Katie softly, Sheen crawled forward, rippling her foxish-humanoid form into a more feral version... and trotted off deeper into the brush. Confused... and curious, Katie crawled after her, shifting with a slow ripple into a mimicked version of Sheen's previous feline form.

 

Finding Sheen sitting in her kitsune appearance, Katie sat down on the grass, her feline features melting away as her common jackal snout protruded out beneath her eyes, the rest of her body following suit. Sheen smiled as she crossed her legs, her tails drifting lazily behind her.

 

"You haven't had reason to do so, or even to think of it... but there is more to our bodies than just devouring life. When I touch you... what happens?"

 

Katie sat, her legs crossed and her knees held up to her chest as she thought about Sheen's question. "I... feel you reaching into me, and something in me feels drawn to you. My surface... weakens, and I start to melt against you."

 

"Mm hmm... at first... and when we touch deeper and begin to merge with each other?"

 

A warm shudder rolled across Katie's shoulders at the thought; her body started to drip, losing some of her cohesion from merely thinking about the incredible sensation.

 

Sheen smiled "I know, sweetie... I feel the same way. Now, remember why I told you we can't remain merged for too long?"

 

"Yes... because half of me came directly from you, if we stayed merged too long, you'd absorb me entirely."

 

"Only in your case... Katie... that's the specific thing I want you to understand."

 

Katie looked confused again. "Just... me? Why???"

 

"When I merge with anything, there's a simple struggle for dominance, and my structure is rather potent when matched against a solid's structure. When I consume food, it’s a version of merging. Because your physical body is partly a direct link to mine, your structure would simply seep back into mine after too lengthy of our merging. It would be as if you were never alive in the first place, and I don't ever want that to happen."

 

Katie nodded slowly... understanding to a point... "But... with a solid?"

 

Sheen smiled. "With a solid creature, there are several ways to merge. We can touch them without consuming them... or mingle with their cells... you've barely begun to learn how all you can touch solid creatures... but of course, that will come in time.

 

A solid creature can't alter their shape... but their minds are different entities. Not their physical brain... but the essence that makes up their thoughts. Like you, for instance: your thoughts have no focal point in your body, as there are no organs... you simply think, and don't even wonder how that's possible."

 

Katie started to open her mouth to ask a question, but Sheen continued.

 

"With a solid... it’s possible to find that essence... and leave that piece while consuming the physical husk that holds it. I told you that I have taken many mates in my lifespan..."

 

Sheen purred softly as her fingers stroked across her belly, a ripple of current rolled behind her outstretched fingers as her form seemed to strain and swell, an outcropping of silver material gurgling forward from her torso that bloated out and spilled into a ball of quivering gel in her hands.

 

"Some of them... are still with me."

 

Katie stared at the jiggling mass in Sheen's hands as the blob of gel began twisting with a life of it's own... stretching upward in knots of coiling ropes that twisted in helixes... thickening as they groaned and stretched outward. Out of Sheen's paws... a figure slowly started to emerge... its limbs long and segmented... almost stalk-like with glistening rigid angles at the joints. There... was a face... sort of... emerging from the new, growing entity, but it wasn't like anything Katie had ever seen.

 

The eyes that blinked as they tasted the air for the first time had the lids attached vertically... four of them, to be precise, with a long sloped plating along the... face? Its mouth was more recognizable, large taloned fangs curved outward at jutting angles... as for the gender of the creature... Katie didn't have the faintest idea... but judging by the three segmented tails that whipped back and forth behind the 10 jointed stalk legs... it seemed a rude question to ask at the moment.

 

"Katie... this is P'thaluk... one of my earliest mates. Actually, this is a recreation of his body made out of my being. It’s his essence that's inside, so in truth, this is P'tha."

 

Katie smiled... not really fearing the creature, but not fully understanding it either. She began to stick out her hand, but Sheen shook her head abruptly. "No!... err... no, Katie... not your arms. To P'tha, the approaching of a creature’s upper-most limb would be a sign of aggression... use your tail instead."

 

Katie turned slightly, her tail waving as she approached the multi-limbed creature... who skittered on its... his legs and stroked two of his spiny tail tips along Replikatie's furred tail.

 

"P'tha thinks and speaks exactly as his essence remembers... he knows that he is a part of me now, but he is still his own sentience, so he'll still act exactly as he would have back when he was a separate being."

 

"But... how did?"

 

Sheen smiled. "He asked to come with me. I lived from time to time on various planets with creatures like P'tha... some accepted me, some didn't. When I wore out my welcomes, I moved on... but sometimes either I didn't want to part with mates or companions that I had built... or they couldn't bear to have me leave them."

 

Smiling, her tails already curled around the large insect looking monstrosity, Sheen chittered out a series of clicks and groans... which P'tha seemed to respond back to... crawling over Sheen's body with what seemed to be a display of... intimate affection.

 

"You... have them with you?" Katie asked, smiling and watching with amazement.

 

"Some of them. For short amounts of time, I can force their essence into a temporary shell, and it's as if they've never left my side. I hear them in my thoughts; feel their presences swimming inside me all the time... why do you think I'm usually smiling?" Sheen moaned softly as she... reunited with her former mate.

 

Katie smiled wider... she didn't fully understand the physical spectacle of what was happening with P'tha... but she knew the look on Sheen's face more than enough to know she was enjoying it... P'tha probably was too.

 

... and if his long strokes along Katie's tail meant what she thought it meant...

 

Sheen nodded; her eyes half closed as her voice trilled out in a series of higher pitched clicks. Katie crawled in closer, letting P'tha's hind most legs wrap around her backside and bring her close against his underbelly. Awkward at first... but the slow penetration of a spiny mass found a rather pleasant nesting place within Katie's spread legs.

 

"Ooooooooh... I... don't want to... offend him... Hyaaaaahhhh..."

 

Sheen purred in soft clicks, smiling at Katie. "You won't... I told him you are my mate now... so to P'tha, you are now his as well. P'tha's species was widely polygamous."

 

Groaning out in approval as her gel melted a bit around P'tha's tails... Katie fell into the full spirit of the moment.

 

* * *

 

Groaning on the ground... quite amused with tickling P'tha along his connecting joints that bridged from his body section to his legs, Katie purred out a badly pronounced series of clicks to the beast... who, she guessed, laughed at her attempt. The meal had been more than welcomed... and the cuddling seemed to have lasted for hours. Sheen seemed quite content lying with her former mate, as well.

 

"So... still think I'm a monster?"

 

Katie thought for a minute... looking, and feeling the obvious affection Sheen had for this being from her past. A being that she easily could have simply devoured all the life from, but chose to instead keep him as close to his unique and original self as she could.

 

"Well... a little... but maybe I'm just looking at this from a very limited point of view?" Katie grinned sheepishly.

 

Sheen smiled deeply. "I'll accept that as an apology, and a good start. Now... I think we should get back to more pressing..."

 

"Sheen?"

 

Sheen stopped short, looking at Katie. "Yes?"

 

"Am... I able... to do this? To... keep people with me?"

 

"I... I really don't know, sweetie. I'd like to say yes, but with the parasitic side of you... I don't know if you could for long periods of time."

 

Katie looked a bit saddened, but she nodded.

 

"Mind you, sweetie, I don't know that for sure. I take it you already have someone in mind?"

 

Katie nodded again... a small smile on her face. "I'd... like to merge with Pat... if she'd let me."

 

Sheen nodded. "If she lets you. That's a condition I'd advise you keep... the last thing you want is to have someone existing within you that resents it, it leaves a rather unsettling feeling where ever they happen to gurgle through your body. Me, normally I'd simply devour them if they started causing problems like that..."

 

Katie started to glare at Sheen...

 

"Kidding!!! Just kidding!" Sheen grinned jokingly...

 

"What do we do about getting into the lab, now?" Katie asked, looking relieved.

 

"Well... P'tha and I can easily take care of the guards... no killing, I promise! Half of them will probably run when they see P'tha anyway. You should try to find a vehicle entrance... there ought to be some kind of loading area somewhere."

 

"But... how will you know where to look?"

 

"I won’t... but I should be able to sense myself once I get close enough to it. While you're in there, I want you to go back into Pat's old lab, and destroy everything you can find. Every note; every tiny shred of evidence that you ever existed there in any form; the computers, the equipment... everything. Don't worry about being seen. If they know we're coming already, then there's little point to being quiet about it."

 

"And you?" Katie asked with a smile on her face...

 

"I'll just look for the blue twister in the middle of the chaos after I find myself... I'd imagine that ought to be you." Sheen grinned with a wink.

 

Nodding, Katie kissed Sheen warmly... stroking P'tha along the under ridges of his tails with her bushy tail...  "Okie! I'll see you inside, Sheen!"

 

Without another word, Katie trotted toward the lab, blissfully happy in the hastily laid out plan.

 

Sheen smiled... lying with P'tha for another moment. A long deep series of clackings rose out from P'tha's mandibles.

 

"A little? She's VERY naive... but I love her, anyway, and she'll learn that life is not as simple as she thinks in due time."

 

P'tha righted himself, crawling around Sheen who began to ripple and spread out along the ground... her form stretching outward in a similar figure to P'tha... but only having two tails. Her size rose above P'tha's by a foot as she grinned through her exposing mandibles.

 

"Chrrr thkkkthkkkss sssscrkk?"

 

"No, love... I promised. We won't kill the guards..."Crawling toward the front gate, Sheen let out a long guttural laugh of deep clicks...

 

"We'll just make them wish we had."

 

(As P'tha would put it... Chttthtttk ssssthkkk kkkkkkchtchhhk!

*loose translation - To be continued!*)