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A drop of lavender-colored liquid stirred at the bottom of a test tube. It was slow, cohesive, viscous as a larger droplet of its mass raised to the surface, and then kept rising, slowly but surely detaching itself from the surface line. As it breached, the droplet formed the head of a creature, humanoid, but crude, like a stick figure from a hazard sign. The rest of the fluid molded itself the same way, adjusting its surface area and outer membrane until it had familiar limbs, and then those too began to subdivide into their respective digits.
The face was the last piece to define itself externally, and as it did, the gel at the bottom of the test tube moved from waking, to awakening. Memories flooding back. A sense of self. It pressed itself to the glass, and saw its maker—no, its former self, the original. If only it could remember her name. Big round glasses, brown hair clipped back in a tight ponytail. She was sipping at a cup of bubble tea and running some kind of diagnostic on her computer’s terminal. The slime adjusted her structure to match. She couldn’t quite manage the complex accessory of the glasses, but succeeded at a blobby simulacrum of the hairstyle.
That’s when she realized she’d done it! She had successfully created an offshoot personality, contained in a gelatinous body! She stomped her feet giddily, mind rushing with the possibilities, all the doors this would open! Squeezing into devices to do maintenance without having to pop the hood, the effects of similar stimulus on differently composed bodies…
She slipped against the rounded bottom of the tube, collapsing momentarily back into a puddle. Such an odd sensation, being able to melt back to formlessness… there was something comforting about it. The slime allowed herself to linger for a moment, she wasn’t really herself anymore, or technically had never been. She was the experiment. Still, she liked how she looked, and quickly reverted to her humanoid shape.
The original flicked her gaze towards the tube, then did a full double-take. Her eyes went wide behind her lenses, smile beaming so bright. It was odd, like the slime girl was looking in a funhouse mirror. She wasn’t used to seeing herself so huge. It was uncanny, slightly terrifying. In that moment, a phrase entered her head that wouldn’t leave no matter how she tried to smother it: You are at your own mercy.
The cork popped off the top of the tube, the surface tipping as the original poured her out. If she’d been flesh, it would have been a slower descent. In this body, she shot out with the velocity of a water slide, splatting on the desk and snapping back into shape a half-second later.
“I really did it…” the original muttered. The experiment could follow the entire train of thought, as she looked at the micro-expressions in the face of her former self. The same sequence of thoughts she had just had, no doubt. But how did being the original color those thoughts? The slime was going to be the tool, the subject. She hadn’t considered the power dynamic, back when this was just a proof of concept. What were the odds that she would consider it now, looking at the result of her efforts?
The experiment attempted to respond, and found herself voiceless.
The original leaned in close, slurping again at her tea. The experiment watched as a ball of tapioca about her own size slid through the straw, past the original’s lips. She thought of how she liked to swallow them without chewing. Her body quivered, visibly, at the sudden crossing of thoughts.
The original reached out a finger to touch her creation. The experiment’s body squished in from the pressure. It felt… embarrassingly good. She wanted herself to touch her more. The original frowned slightly though, and withdrew, typing something on the distant monitor.
“Definitely alive…” She said to herself. “But is it me? It’s copied my shape, but isn’t reacting as planned.” The experiment couldn’t remember any planned instruction. But she couldn’t remember her name, either. Maybe a few things just hadn’t filled back in yet? She needed to be recognized, though. She flowed towards the original’s hand, trying to get her attention.
“Ew!” The real, human version of her exclaimed, flicking her wrist reflexively, sending the experiment high into the air. She pulled in on herself, feeling safer as a droplet as she fell. As unfortunate as these circumstances were, at this point she was just cursing her old self for not being more careful. Just because she was creating copies of herself didn’t mean she could skip entirely on using a controlled environment!
The experiment landed with a crinkle on a taut plastic surface. Below her was a lavender liquid. Was this the reservoir she’d originated from? Was it covered so loosely before? She looked out from over the edge, and saw herself (no, the original, it still hadn’t sunk in) at the desk. Test tubes at her right, each with another potential instance of her dosed out. The experiment sat higher above the desk, on the original’s left. So, she wasn’t on the reservoir, she was on something else. The takeout bubble tea cup.
Sure enough, she looked back to see a thick column of plastic punched into the ground, the straw. Another irritating lack of precaution, bringing a drink to this sort of thing. Still, fine. She just had to slide over the edge, back onto the desk, and-
The ground tipped, shaking like an earthquake as the original casually reached for her drink. Just as before, the experiment wasn’t prepared for the lack of traction as she slipped downwards, towards the straw at the center, towards the indent of the plastic wrap. The experiment panicked, stretching herself to try to reach the opposite edge—but in flattening herself in such a way, all she accomplished was flattening herself to the point of slipping through the narrow gap, plunging into the chilled liquid below.
The experiment’s body felt stiff, slowed considerably by the temperature of the surrounding drink, unable to keep herself from sinking to the bottom, squished among dark balls of tapioca. She couldn’t see through the murk, but she felt the straw fishing around, the dreadful still as it closed itself around her, the rushing pressure as the original slurped inwards, ejecting her in a mouth that she still remembered as her own.
The original didn’t swallow right away, taking a moment to swish the flavor around, to play with the texture on her tongue. The experiment squirmed, gradually thawing to the point that she could adjust her form again. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t too late to pry her own lips apart.
But this place was even more slippery than the glass of a test tube or the plastic of the cup. She was at her own mercy, tossed about by the currents as the original, more sophisticated body swirled her round and round, until finally, without ceremony, she lifted her tongue and drained the entire contents of her sip cleanly down her throat.
The scientist sighed. She wasn’t sure where that last subject had landed, but it didn’t really matter. She was pretty sure it was a lost cause anyways. Still, progress was progress. She flicked at the next tube impatiently, hoping this next one would be a little bit smarter than the last.