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35. Salt Of The Earth

  The slime squirmed with his attempt at communication. Strung between his shoulder and his hand, it was double dipping into the two nutrient sources as it absorbed the powder of the crystal where it could.

  Justin was about to make another mental signal, until he got a response back.

  “Agreement.”

  Justin was surprised. The mental burst from the slime was simplistic in wording, but carried undertones of complexity he hadn’t experienced before with the starfish, or either of the previous slimes.

  “You understood me?”

  “Confirmation.”

  It squirmed atop his body.

  If that was the case, then why had it been so hostile in the beginning? What differentiated it from its gelatin kin that Justin had communicated with before? There were so many questions on Justin’s mind. Where to start…

  “Why were you hostile before?”

  The slime’s body shimmered. It needed a moment of concentration for that one, it seemed. Or perhaps it wasn’t enjoying the line of questioning. Justin hadn’t detected any emotions on that front yet, but it wasn’t because the slime was purposefully hiding them.

  “Confusion. Instinct. Predator.”

  Justin rubbed his neck with his free hand, as he belatedly realized its contact with his body meant he didn’t need to be holding it with both hands.

  “So you attacked me out of instinct then?”

  “Confirmation.”

  “Are there more like you?”

  Justin already knew the answer to that one, but a confirmation either way would tell him several things about the state of these creatures. Briefly, he also wondered if mentioning its companion specimens was a risk he should take, but since it had yet to recover its health completely, it was likely he could still deal with it if the need arose. But he didn’t want to resort to that.

  Though Justin knew well the necessity of sacrifice in the search for power, there was a difference between killing innocents for it, and making the most of slain enemies.

  As of now, the red slime was heading toward the former category.

  Almost immediately it replied back.

  “Denial. Confusion.”

  So it didn’t know then. Justin rubbed his cheek. He had been impressed to learn it was capable of purposeful deception, having hid its lair behind a sheet of crystal rock for the past few days, but he was doubtful it would be capable of the same in mental conversation.

  As it had seemed so far, these organisms, the starfish included, were only capable of communicating fragments from their basal thoughts. In other words concepts and emotions put roughly into words that stemmed from true feelings. The red slime had been proven to be more complex than its forerunners, but even then it still appeared beholden to these rules. If it were lying, Justin would know.

  He then snapped off another crystal chunk from the wall and held it before the slime.

  “This then. What is this to you?”

  Justin wasn’t expecting to receive much information from the slime. Something like ‘food’ or ‘nutrients’ perhaps, but what he got back was surprising.

  “Energy!”

  “Energy?”

  That was a peculiar word to describe the crystal which at a compositional level, was mostly salt. Energy fueled beings, yes, but one typically thought of machines when energy was brought up. Yet the slimes weren’t machines, were they?

  No, there was another connotation that energy had in the galaxy, one that Justin hadn’t been expecting to come up with the life forms on this planet. But after all, it was likely this one wasn't a native in the truest sense.

  “To what species do you belong? Where does your kind hail from?”

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  “Confusion.”

  Expected.

  “What do you mean by energy, then? Are you talking about the kind for growth, or the kind for running machines?”

  “Confusion!”

  “Is it something else?”

  “Confirmation!”

  ‘Aha!’

  There. Justin’s suspicions were confirmed. It was cellular energy, it had to be. But how could such a thing relate to the crystals?

  Justin pondered over the translucent rubble he had crushed in his hand, that was now being absorbed by the slime with vacuum-speeds.

  ‘Cellular energy, and somehow it's not only been solidified tangibly, but it's the powder within all of these crystals…’

  Had he heard of anything like this before? No, but Justin wasn’t haughty enough to think that meant it couldn’t exist.

  Almost everything he had been shocked by on Lemus IV so far seemed to arrive back to this spaceship. Whatever lab it had on board before crashing or undergoing crisis, was now connected in Justin’s head to the mutant beasts, the slimes, the crystals, and possibly the Herald. Though that last one was a reach.

  If whatever had spilled from the lab when the ship had been ruined had caused these crystals to grow as a byproduct, then it must have been extremely valuable. Even on a galactic scale.

  If Justin would have had access to a solidified storage of cellular energy, he couldn’t even imagine the things he would have been able to do. Even if it were just a minute amount, many things could have been possible.

  ‘Remote activation of skills, enhanced abilities, overcharging. I can’t imagine what I could have done…’

  Justin got lost in thought for a moment, before returning to the present.

  ‘But I can’t forget, that’s all in the past. Right now, I do have access to this source of energy, and I have the independence and environment to make the most of it.’

  Justin looked down at the slime moving from his shoulder to envelope his hand, before he cracked his neck.

  ‘Then let’s make the most of it!’

  The crystals were a critical resource to seize, and he would begin that now. But at the back of his mind laid another matter. The sealed door in the storage room.

  ‘Mutual cooperation, that’s right. The red slime can’t do it now, but perhaps with enough coaching I can get it to melt through metal. Once we’re both strong enough, we’ll be coming back for that door!’

  …

  ‘Alright! With that there, and the bit that goes around fitting over there…it looks good?’

  Back at the encampment, Odette was burning the midnight oil assembling her mechanical creation. Very regretfully, she had only been able to stay at the supply tent for a few minutes before Jason had started to ask questions. With the policy change, she hadn’t technically had a reason to be there, so she could only stall for so long before she had to pack it up. With his eyes on her then, she couldn’t grab anything she needed under the radar anyway, so she was forced to look elsewhere.

  Like the electronics the first battalion had left behind, for instance. Much of it was burnt out mysteriously, or quite literally burned to cinders, and it didn’t appear that the camp was using much of it currently. So Odette had been able to salvage a circuit chassis and some other items from a few observation poles around the camp’s exterior. Grandiose-sounding towers for cameras, essentially.

  The Republic had a habit of painting their activities in a better light.

  ‘I think that’s everything! Do I have enough time to try it out?’

  Odette looked at the clock. 0300. Still time until the sun came up, though there would still be a few awake at this hour due to the military presence in camp, it was three hours until the majority awoke. She had time.

  Odette hefted the contraption off of her desk, an elongated and menacing looking claw instrument that required the use of both hands, before charging out the flap.

  Perhaps it was foolhardy, but she was determined to glean results right that instant. If anyone came across her, she would have to make up something good on the spot.

  With that aside, she rushed to the IDS tent first. Once inside, she panned her surroundings. It was important all of this was done as quickly as possible, before she was discovered. Her testing her own design wasn’t exactly sanctioned, after all.

  The tent was destitute with all of its machines turned off, which made sense given their work had completely migrated over to SCR, but Odette wasn’t here to use the machines. Behind them, going into the cold storages, she rifled through the hanging racks while looking for a particular tube. A core sample, stuffed into a container exactly ten milliliters in volume.

  ‘What the hell? It’s gone!’

  Odette retreated from the cold storages with a betrayed look on her face. There was only one person who could have, no, would have moved it somewhere else. She knew exactly who, but it wasn’t important at the moment. What was important, was her need for a core sample of the beast to calibrate her machine.

  She couldn’t show people its capabilities if it wasn’t calibrated, and she couldn’t calibrate it without the permission of other people, given the critical resource that she needed.

  Odette’s eyes wandered past the tent’s flap to where the specimen laid, then to the spare biohazard suits hanging within the room. The camp workers had all worn them at the beginning due to the possibility of contamination, but that trend had fallen once their understanding of the beast grew, then fallen again after the sealed tarp was placed over the corpse.

  Now they were only used when going in and out of the sealed tarp, and it was one of these suits that Odette grabbed in the next moment.

  ‘I’ve already broken enough rules and blacksite codes to get myself fired, why not one more?’

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