Chapter 43
“Louise says he went all the way with her, but she’s just jealous and bitter cause she’s got a hoarse face.” Mara declared.
I would have spit out my drink if I was in the process of drinking and also had a mouth.
“Markus says it’s a bunch of lies, and he has no reason to lie, right?”
I squirted water.
“What do you know, you’re just a pond!” Mara declared and then winced. “S-sorry, it’s just, Markus was real sweet at the dance. He even went out a picked flowers and left them on my windowsill. I found them when I woke up this morning.”
That’s creepy! That’s stalker behavior!
“I never knew he had this sweet side to him. He said I’m the prettiest girl he’s ever seen, and he says his feelings for me are genuine. I’ve never felt like this before.”
That’s because you’re a dumb teenager. Coming from a former playboy, I can tell you you’re being played. Markus is just looking to get up your skirt. I think you had it right the first time. He was looking to get one more notch on his belt. A fish head popped up from the water.
“What does Daddy think?” Mara blinked.
We had formed some level of basic communication over the years. I couldn’t even say exactly when it occurred. Besides yes or no, a fish poking out of the water was asking about her father, while a wave was asking about her mother. I made bubbles to reinforce that I was asking her about her father’s opinion, and not asking for her to get her father.
“Daddy says that I’m becoming a woman soon, and I need to make my own decisions. He said that I should just be certain and that I shouldn’t feel pressured to give him anything to make him like me.”
I relaxed slightly. Tanner wasn’t a completely incompetent father. However, if his daughter had come across a guy like me, even if he was a father of the year, I likely still would have had his daughter wrapped around my finger. I was usually quite happy being mute with the family. I had never bothered to develop vocal cords. However, when hearing her smitten voice, I almost regretted it.
“You know, I’m almost fourteen now. In a little over two years, I’ll be the same age mom was when she had me.” Mara declared.
Seriously! No… that was right. Carolina was only sixteen. Had it been that many years? Time was passing by quickly. I suppose it was time I started my project. Mara continued to talk for some time. She seemed more interested in convincing herself to date Markus than wanting my input. It was young love. Young girls always make stupid mistakes. I’d leave it to her father and her upbringing so that she didn’t make the wrong one.
Once Mara was called in, I went inward and checked out my colony. I had 2 3rd evolution fish, 10 2nd evolution, and several hundred 1st evolution. It was pretty easy to create an evolved fish, but every evolution made them that much stronger. I had a feeling that if my fish reached 4th evolution, I could no longer constrain them. They’d get up and leave my pond, as well as develop the ability to talk.
My current 3rd evolution fish were imprisoned in the depths of my pond. While I was able to keep the 2nds and the 1sts in line just with my cellular matrix, the 3rd required a prison. That was where most of the calcium and phosphorous went for the bones I had. In short, they were bone cages, although their physical appearance was more like coral.
Should these fish escape, they would attack and slay the other fish, and then try to conquer the pond for themselves. One of them was a long fish that resembled an eel. Its eyes were bright red and it gave off an intimidating aura. It swam back and forth in its small space, always staring out as if it planned to rip out of its confines the first chance it got. The other was large and round, like a puffer fish, and its eyes were closed. It seemed to only eat and sleep, but it was a mistake to consider it weak.
I knew I couldn’t let these guys get any stronger. I might have only been a Protista on my 4th evolution, but these guys were barely even aquatic creatures anymore. I had spent a decade raising this fish. Other than the fatty fish I had developed for trade, these guys were the most important thing to me. Thinking about how much time had passed, I decided it was now time to reap my harvest.
The first up was the eel-like fish. I prepared various weapons of my own. There were toxic weapons, electric weapons, and of course the Water Jet. I didn’t depend on single-cell bodies anymore. The entire pond had become my extracellular matrix which suspended the 34 billion cells that made up my body. These cells were spread to every part of the pond, constantly maintaining the ecosystem. Some cells photosynthesize, bringing in energy and providing nutrients for the fish. Other cells created currents, oxygenated the water, or removed dangerous contaminants.
My body was capable of readjusting on the fly, moving cells from one part of the pond to another at a moment’s notice. I also had more complex parts that could be called organs. I didn’t usually bring these parts to the surface, since they looked like pulsating mounds of flesh, but they served various purposes such as filtration and scaffolding.
The point was, although I had seemingly only leveled up a bit since my fight with the kingfish, this last decade hadn’t been in vain. I hadn’t just experimented with fish, but my own body as well, slowly learning what it means to be a multicellular organism and how to function as one. Of course, I couldn’t create a body able to leave the pond for a simple reason. I didn’t have enough cells.
My body was suspended within the pond, but if I tried to compress it to the size of a normal multicellular organism, I’d be the size of a newborn baby. Furthermore, I lacked the means of making everything work, so I’d effectively be a newborn baby. Suffice it to say, my only real choice was to continue to level. I was very curious about what level ten would bring me.
With that, I released the enzymes that would dissolve the cage. Creating such things was simple for the current me. As the cage slowly dissolved, I waited for the eel to become aware. He continued to swim back and forth harmlessly, but then he shot out like an arrow, smashing through the weakest point in the decaying cage. No sooner did he escape his prison than I began my attack. He roared out, and part of the water suddenly froze.
He seemed to be off the ice element. I hadn’t known this. The ice floated up, taking the underwater darts I had sent up with it. I didn’t hesitate though, sending out a paralyzing electric pulse. The evolved fish let out a shriek, kicking its tail and trying to free itself from the matrix I was coagulating around it to lock its movements.
It shot off more icy breath, freezing the matrix and causing it to break apart. It jolted forward, freezing as it headed straight toward where I had locked up the 2nd-level evolved fish. It seemed to know that its only chance of escaping was to kill all of them and then evolve into a 4th level. I couldn’t allow such a thing to happen. A 4th level tribulation would be large and severe enough that the Tanner farm might be implicated. That was one of the other reasons I didn’t dare allow these fish to grow any larger.
I launched a wave of toxins, intending to smoke it out. The evolved fish swam right through the toxins, freezing for a moment, before shaking it and then continuing. It was ignoring both the electric shock and the toxins. This fish was far more adaptable than I gave it credit. However, I wasn’t out of options. The fish hit a massive up current. Using waterjets, I created an underwater cyclone directly in front of the evolved fish, and it became trapped in it. It let out a cry as it was spun around, causing it to lose its orientation.
“Now!”
I sent out more spikes. They were made out of the same coral-like substance as the dissolved prison. This time, the fish was too confused to block them. A dozen spikes struck the fish. Many of them bounced off, but one managed to hit its gill, and another went in the mouth. I relaxed a bit, as these spikes didn’t cause physical damage, but they were full of poison. On top of that, they also contained something better than poison. They had my cell bodies.
As soon as I was inside the fish, I began to replicate aggressively. As the poison continued to slow him down, my cells began to spread across his insides, interfering with his homeostasis. The fish jerked a few times, but most of his energy had been zapped out of him. It took about an hour, but he died, floating back to the bottom of the pond.
Congratulations! You have reached level 9.
You have unlocked the skill, Mimicry.
I leveled again. That was perfect. After killing the other level 3 evolved, perhaps I could finally reach my ninth evolution. That was when I felt a foreboding feeling. There was a pressure building above me. I looked at the cage of the other level 3. It was empty! I looked toward my level twos and gasped. They were all gone. Level 3 used my fight with his companion to escape his cage while I was distracted. It had somehow drawn the enzyme away from the other cage and used it to create a hole in its prison. It then snuck over to the evolved fish and ate them all before I could notice. It was enough for it to reach level four. Based on its level three tribulation, this one would be enough to destroy the entire farm!
Comment (0)