The Night Brings Successes and Failures

This host is unstable. There are several ways in which this is immediately true.

On the most basic level, every host is unstable. Even the single-celled organisms you inhabit at the bottom of the food chain have a series of biological safeguards in place. You can enter a cell and devour the nucleus easily enough, replicating and diffusing to new hosts. A step above that and you may encounter phagocytes and autonomous opposition, but the weak mind is uniquely twisted to serve your cause. To step up to a human host is to add the hurdles of antisociality, arbitrariness, the ignorance of the animal survival instinct. It is uniquely hard to survive and propagate within something which itself does not seek those motivators. The new host mind becomes too dumb to willingly aid the microorganisms inside of it but too smart to surrender to them. Long divorced from nature due to their flagrant success, humans became uniquely bad at listening to survival instincts.

As a host, Samus simply doesn't recognize the desire for sunlight, the desire for food, the desire for water. At most, she might be able to recognize the need for something and strive to meet a biological quota but would be at a complete loss as to how to acquire it were it not for her shelter's life support. If she were reduced to the living conditions of a hornoad, with no predation and merely the impulse to eat, sleep, and breed she would still be uniquely poorly suited for you to host within. The reality, however, is that she does not lead the life of an animal in terms of her environment. She occupies her time in a vacuum-sealed vessel which never hangs more than a crack in the hull from depressurization. Her only social contact that you've seen wasn't just full of conflict, it was her creating conflict.

A host as ill-suited for your needs as she is inescapable.

So, once again, the issue of the three riddles. How to squeeze as much energy as possible out of a device as inflexible as stone but as fragile as fetal tissue. How to defeat the self-defeating aspects of the biological machine. How to make the host more stable.

The first time you came up with them, it seemed that there was an easy linear order to these problems. Now, you realize you may have failed to properly view them. The leaves of the branch are too intermingled, the branches too entwined into the trunk. Attempt to pull a single leaf and one shakes the entire tree, shake the tree and you might wake the animal. Try to pull a whole branch and the tree comes down on top of you.

So the only way to mutually benefit the animal is to kill it.

Perhaps that's a bad way of viewing the problem. Find a way to bait the animal or untangle the branches and you can achieve your goals at no cost. There was a similar situation with the hornoad. In members born with biological errors, where no escape was otherwise possible, it had always been possible to perform certain "overrides" to the benefit of both parties. Mutualism and parasitism were less of a binary and more of a spectrum. After all, the more energy produced for the X, the more energy produced for the host.

So then, once again, how to produce more energy?

There isn't an immediate biological failure in the host. She's far from a physical runt, in fact, she remembers standing tall over almost every other human she has met. At the same time, she isn't large enough to become inefficient by the principle of square-cube law. She occupies a perfectly harmonious space in evolutionary sizing. She's conditionally fit, with no immediate deformities or physical disabilities. By base biological functions, she's the model of health. Once again you imagine a situation where she was put out to some sort of animal pasture. Reduced to those living conditions, she would be the healthiest and longest-lived. Her sexual characteristics are adequately developed, though her drive to reproduce is the lowest you've seen. You would expect human estrus to be lower than that of a shorter-lived and higher-turnover species but she's outside of even a low hypothetical range. While hers may be lower than the standard deviation, the important thing is that it still works. The problem isn't physical, it's psychological. A far harder wire to cross, especially considering her level of intelligence.

These are learned behaviors, they can be understood if the source is traced. Unfortunately, you can't exactly push yourself into her memories. This is a two-way street, you need to steer her there.

She isn't dreaming, the sleep after the day's strain is that of the dead. The aftereffects of her nutrient-paste preparatory fluid leave her body still in a state of heightened anxiety. You do what you can to slow her pulse, to release the tension held in the jaw and shoulders. You push the endorphins that she released as painkillers. You try to make her relax into the bed, to uncoil before she snaps.

Her immune system responds, clearly seeing you as some sort of foreign agent. The endorphins don't respond the same way in a neutral state. They soothe, but they make the brain processes slow. The effect is a lazy, drooling kind of happiness. They treat the stress, but not the adrenaline. The adrenaline causes the nervous system to flood with aggressive cells. Cells designed to absorb infections. This isn't new to you, every host's body goes through this process. You take the opportunity to absorb a few, both for their energy and out of some cosmic sense of irony. You methodically inject your own code into her body, making it a delicate process so as not to make her system think she's suddenly made of cells that need destroying. You destroy the threat, but the alert status doesn't subside. A different key is needed for a different lock.

There are several keys to try, all of which should only be applied in small amounts at first. Even with her body on high alert, she's fast enough asleep that some experimentation is safe.

You decide to start with the developmental hormones. Fortunately, it seems like they follow the same principle in humans as they do in most animals. Both males and females have the hormones of both and need the hormones of both. Samus has a decent amount of both, though it seems that her diet may be intentionally keeping both suppressed. Good for a level head, if you had one to begin with.

A quick surge of testosterone to start, always the more interesting hormone.

Her heart starts to speed up again as a wave of roiling energy pushes through her veins. She stirs in her sleep, her muscles relishing in a surge of artificial strength. The reaction is... underwhelming. Aside from some minor swelling, increased muscle tension, and a bit of a surge to athleticism which she is in no state to use, it has very little effect.

Estrogen then, female hormones for a female.

A flash of heat sparks from deep inside of her core. It shoots out through her veins and by the time it reaches her head it makes her break out in a cold sweat. Other than that and a slight increase in skin sensitivity, the effects are additionally underwhelming.

Endocrinology seems to be slightly more complex than plug-and-play. Your experimenting does, however, provide some unforeseen results.

Her brain is hit with a flooding release of chemicals, even though the actual release is only a trickle of what the brain is capable of, the result is absolutely shattering. You surge with enough energy to make it hard to maintain your form. You shudder as your form splits, duplicating within your new host for the first time. It's only a shallow duplication, without a new host to split into you can only make non-autonomous copies of yourself. However, even a drop in the bucket does slightly shift the balance of how much of her DNA is hers versus how much is you.

Samus relaxes into her bed, her tension releasing significantly. The wave of chemicals you managed to trigger melts away the tension she was carrying.

You search every shred of knowledge you have, trying to match what just happened to anything you have a reference for. You manage to arrive at a mixture of dopamine and oxytocin. Both are chemicals that were there in far lower amounts in your previous hosts. Low enough amounts for you to have not considered them as serious options. Despite the hormonal surge side-effects, the resulting release seems to have negated everything negative she was feeling. The only problem is the minute amount it released in. Your first instinct is to flood her with every molecule her brain is carrying.

Dopamine is easy, much like endorphins you can drop as much as you want and turn her into a drooling happy mess. As you flood her body with dopamine she groans and squirms lazily in place. But it doesn't produce the same surge of energy. It's missing the other ingredient. The one harder to manufacture, the one that it seems like her brain doesn't know what to do with.

You can twist and strain and nudge against her brain for hours and you won't get a drop of oxytocin. Additionally, you can blast her body full of dopamine and not get a drop of energy.

She simply isn't used to or equipped for mass production of the chemical you need to increase energy. It's a part biological malfunction and a part learned behavior. You do your best to open the biological pathways for production, but that only promises so much.

Fortunately, you seem to have relaxed her enough to make her start dreaming. It starts shapelessly at first, sort of a barrage of color and sound. It might be a good time to try suggestions and try to piece together where some of these impulses come from.

"Love"

Nothing. The shapes and colors warble and shift slightly but nothing seriously changes. Maybe it's her drink from before, maybe it's the flood of dopamine. Maybe it's both. One thing is developing, it's churning earth-rocking vertigo. It feels like you're a leaf getting thrown around in a windstorm. She clearly feels it too, the dream is getting shakier, harder to maintain.

She blinks awake groggily before you have time for another suggestion. The spinning isn't stopping. She's still agonizingly tired, but likely won't be able to fall back asleep.

"Lights?" She manages to slur.

As soon as they're on she manages to stumble out of her bed into the bathroom. The whipping and whirling unease has started to form into a pounding headache. She hunches over the toilet for some time, waiting for her stomach to purge. In time, when it doesn't come, she slides to the ground with her head in the bowl.

"Are you alright, Samus?" The computer finally asks, it seems to have decreased the volume of its voice. It is still far too loud.

"Fine." She groans. "Went too heavy on the stimulants."

"Would you like me to start a bath?"

"Please do."

The bathtub shifts gratingly and noisily out of the wall. Samus drags herself up to her feet to undress. When her bodysuit slides off of her breasts, she inhales sharply and quickly. The even momentary brush of fabric against her skin produces a sharp and unusual sensation. When she twists her legs to slide it past her hips, she produces a similar sensation between them. She brushes a finger against one of her nipples cautiously and winces when she gets the same sensation.

"Adam?"

"Yes, Samus?"

"Is increased sensitivity a side-effect of the stimulants?"

"It has not been recorded, Samus. Where is the sensitivity occurring?"

She looks down at the floor, embarrassed. "Private... areas."

"Increased sensitivity of the female genitalia is not a recorded side-effect of the stimulant mixture, Samus. It is a recorded side effect for several different conditions. Conditions such as Eczema, Pregnancy, High Levels of Estrogen, and-"

"Stop! I was just curious."

"Understood, Samus. Would you like me to add a soothing agent to your bath anyway?"

"If you think you should."

The computer quietly beeped in response. Samus settled into the tub quietly, inhaling sharply through her teeth when the hot water touched the sensitive spots on her body.

"They've never felt like this before, why now?"

She wonders about what she might have done for a moment as she settles back into the tub. She brushes a finger almost clinically against her swollen clitoris. She'd never seen it swollen like that, though she didn't pay much attention to it usually. Come to think of it, she doesn't really think about that sort of stuff... at all. The sensitivity in response prompts the familiar dull ache that she's felt a few times. For a moment she experiences what you could call sexual arousal, but the feeling is fleeting. She immediately denies herself any sort of further contact, leaning back and closing her eyes.

This is something fairly new to you. Even the most sex-adverse of beings you've previously inhabited wasn't like this.

"It felt kinda good to touch it." You whisper to her.

She feels a pang of guilt and slowly lowers her hand back into the water. She brushes her clit again, feeling another little surge of hypersensitive excitement. She lets out a soft whimper as she brushes it back and forth.

She remembers the pain.

Her hand snaps away from her body, back up out of the water. Her mind is filled with the searing image of birdlike beings standing over her. She had been young, just beginning to mature and experience feelings previously foreign to her. They had affected her abilities, making her slower and less responsive. The Chozo didn't understand what was happening to her. They had no concept of human behavior. To them, it was another human inefficiency. They had changed her training, any time she tried to touch herself she'd be run through the course again. No matter when, no matter how many times it took. It was something like torture. Eventually, they found some sort of way to build the treatment into her. They weaved some manner of biological technology into her, it makes her remember the pain.

She takes a deep breath, trying to push down the memories. She isn't there anymore. There doesn't exist anymore. She had watched Zebes turn to ash behind her. It had made her feel things that somebody who knew how to properly handle what a human was supposed to feel would have had trouble with. She didn't stand a chance. Like the other things, she didn't think about it.

The soothing agent was easing the sensitivity and the hot water was easing her back to sleep.