You stick around

You take a moment to look back at the lab door--and each of the other girls frowned, thinking you were about to leave. You turned back, however, and even though you wriggled a bit nervously in your seat, you willed yourself to engage in the conversation. "So... Ela is a slime-person? Or a living... wearable person? I don't really know what that means, but... what I'm getting at is, if Ela isn't human, what is she?"

Chloe sighed in relief when you decided to stick around, and then motioned to Ela. "All good questions. Ela, would you stand up please?" Ela did so obediently. "Great. Routine four, please."

You watched in awe as Ela stepped a little closer to the center, holding out her hand toward an empty mug on the coffee table at the center of the lounge, and her arm seemed to extend, fingers elongating like tendrils to grab the object before pulling it back to herself. All the while, her shape fluctuated significantly--she became multiple different people in the span of a few seconds, creating both masculine and feminine features, both tall and short, thin and husky. Clothes seemed to 'grow' out of her body, never revealing what was underneath but clearly behaving like she was instantly transforming her outfit. Her body shimmered further, gaining extra arms, extra legs... cat ears, growing fur all over herself, then scales! And then suddenly, she seemed to sink inwards, creating this sort of hollow, skin-colored 'flat' being, before seeming to absorb various objects in the room into her body. Some objects, like the phone she picked up from Zoe's side, seemed to still behave like a phone through the skin, while others, like the mug from earlier, just seemed to vanish into nothing.

"That's enough, Ela, thank you." Zoe was quick to end the demonstration, as Ela obediently stopped and sat down wordlessly. Zoe turned back to you, to try and get a read on your astounded state.

"...h-how..."

Zoe waited to see if you had anything else to add, but when you just fell silent again, she took the initiative. "We call her structure a living elastomer--hence, 'Ela'. While smart gel's biopolymer structures are quite flexible and easy to shape, it's possible to get a far more complex and detailed shape with the novel living elastomer we've made. In essence, we've made a full shapeshifter--a skill only partially possessed by Chloe or myself. She can stretch, squish, fold, become fully new people or even different species, real or imagined. She can even be cut apart and reattached, although that was likely be a bit too much for a demonstration with you, just know that just about anything silly putty can do is also achievable with her... but she can also be worn and integrate technology as a part of her, which are things I can do. She can also store things inside her in these upper-dimensional bubbles, it's another complex thing that we'll have plenty of time to discuss later, of course."

"Unlike us, however, she is not dependent on a host for energy." Chloe sipped on a drink from another mug, since the first one had seemingly disappeared into Ela's form. "That's a whole thing I didn't want to get into with you right now, but trust me when I say that's a big deal. She eats and drinks like a person and can gain energy that way, but sharing energy reserves with another being is optional for her, rather than necessary for survival."

You paused to ponder, looking between the three. Whatever your purpose was here hadn't dawned on you yet, so you tried to shake off some of the wonder that clogged the rest of your brain from coherent thoughts, trying to consider Ela from a scientific perspective, not as simply just this amazing being. You leaned forward in your chair, eyes never leaving Ela's impressive form--you wouldn't even know she wasn't a human after everything she just did. "So... I'm here to run lab tests on her? Or, you need me to check some data, monitor some experiments?"

Zoe sighed. "If only it were so easy... this is going to be strange to hear, Emily, but we need your brain. Sort of literally." Your trademark silent stare had Zoe again looking a little nervous, as you'd clearly reached the point of the conversation where Zoe and Chloe thought you might walk away. "I wish it were easy to explain... Ela is a genius, again quite literally. But her neural structures are a mix between my stable nervous system and Chloe's more unique isolated-redundant clusters. Nearly every movement or shapeshift disrupts her neural structures, and while her low level pathways can compensate so she can function at a basic level... higher cognition, abstraction, other behaviors that indicate high intelligence are constantly interrupted."

"Think of it like a library where all the books are constantly being put out of order," Chloe said, taking over for a clearly distressed Zoe who went to hold Ela's hand. "Everything we've taught her, and we've taught her a ton, is still there. She could start as a head scientist at Hideki today, were this sorted out. But she has to remain perfectly still to sort out all her knowledge, even to recover the ability to speak and the like. What she needs is a librarian, of sorts." Chloe looked you dead in the eye, to emphasize the seriousness of her statements. "Using some nanites we 'obtained' from experiments on floor 7, a human brain could finally allow Ela's mind to maintain coherence at a higher level. All remotely, of course, where Ela's nanites and nanites in a human mind like yours would communicate wirelessly!"

You frowned, listening to the trouble with Ela's nervous system, but you crossed your arms as something still didn't add up. "Okay, a lot of red flags there, but just right off the bat... You could achieve all that with just the nanites, couldn't you? They'd be the markers for individual clusters, they could close the gap wirelessly even if Ela's neural clusters are jumbled up, yeah?"

Chloe grinned a little. "Ela did a good job in picking you for this one, Em." Wait, Ela herself picked you? You didn't have time to ask about that further, though, Chloe wasn't going to let her momentum go. "You're right in that it would allow all her connections to come together. But there's other complexities to her unique biological composition that has created a sort of incomplete brain, even when she's able to fully bring her mind together. Namely... she has no motivation outside of survival, no willpower, no drive. She does things as a reaction to stimulus, or they're trained behaviors and routines. She has incredible abilities and knowledge, she can do complex tasks like cook a meal or play the violin, but it's only when she's told to do these things that you'll see glimpses of those behaviors before her mind breaks down again after a few minutes. But if we just leave a violin in a room with her, she won't even acknowledge its presence."

Zoe turned back to you, leaving Ela to sit patiently in her own chair. "It... might be a bit of an illusion, but we'd like your mind, your drive, your preferences and opinions, to essentially be the anchor for Ela to be able to stabilize and build from. We asked her to analyze everyone at Hideki for who she thought would be most compatible with her, and Ela picked you, with a much stronger response than the next person she'd have chosen. That's why we're really hopeful you'd agree, as it is meaningful for us. And, depending on how much you wish to participate in the process, would grant you some unique abilities as well."

You turned your head, curious. "Abilities? I mean, it already sounds like if using my brain as sort of an anchor, as you put it Dr. Hildebrand, she's still not exactly her own self, she's... me, I guess? Especially if we're talking about willpower, wouldn't she essentially be acting upon my thoughts?"

"That's what we mean," Chloe said. "Ela will take what your brain broadcasts, and put her own spin on things of course. Depending on the amount of nanites that you are willing to be injected with, that level of broadcast, and hence the level of control that you can directly impart into Ela, we're leaving that up to you. In a sense, we're asking you to become an active part of our daughter's life... sort of like a girlfriend? A married couple even? Or with an even stronger bond..."

Chloe fished into one of the boxes she had beside her, pulling out a clear case full of what looked like a gallon of silvery goo, which you would've mistaken for mercury filled with glitter had you not known better that these were likely the nanites. "All this will go into Ela, to create that robust network, but at the same time, some amount will go into you so your mind and hers can bond to some degree. And you get to pick, like I said. If you agree to this at all of course... taking a small dose lets the nanites use your mental framework to help create a personality not unlike yours, since it uses your brain to form and maintain it. You and her would still be rather independent, the only trick here is that you and her have to be within a mile of a signal, either person-to-person or cell towers--I think that wouldn't be a problem, you'll find that like this you'd probably be like fast friends, sharing similar interests and such."

Zoe picked up a few syringes, extracting different amounts of nanites into them, pointing to the first syringe with a small amount of silver. "That level of connection is about... this much. At the next level is a medium injection, where you have some remote influence over Ela's behavior and movement. Strange as it sounds, I prefer this option more than the smaller dose because your direct influence with your lived experience can help Ela behave more naturally in the world. Higher doses of nanites in your mind enhance that effect, including the ability for you to not just control her shape and abilities to some degree, you can also utilize her senses--see through her eyes from afar, and the like, if you focus. At even higher doses, your brain functions more and more like the central command center for Ela and she becomes more an extension of you, which again, Chloe and I are both fine with, though you'll likely think of yourself more like our daughter in that instance anyway..!"

You pause for a moment, looking at all the syringes Zoe put out with different levels of control you'd gain in this explanation. They're essentially giving you some degree of access to their daughter's autonomy and agency, but if they were fine with it and Ela herself seemed fine with it... "And, just purely hypothetically, is there an upper limit to the amount of nanites I could intake?"

Chloe taps her chin. "In theory, we could use all of Lina... that's what they call the nanite cluster upstairs when it's connected to its electronic memory. They're having a lot of trouble with that project, but we could see if we could redirect their efforts..." Chloe looks upward for a bit, then back to you. "That many nanites in you and Ela would make you essentially indistinguishable from one another mentally. You'd be a single being, operating out of two distinct bodies, but Lina could stabilize you at that level. But that's an **** that we don't have to pursue now."

"And we can scale up over time," Zoe said, pointing to the syringes. "We just need to start with at least some nanites in you. We can add more later, as you grow comfortable, if that is what you prefer, though it'll be harder to establish links right away with higher concentrations."

This was all too much... you still weren't sure you understood what you might be getting into, or what effect this might have on you. Being used a remote brain template, becoming a multi-bodied singular being, and everything in between was on the table... so many choices gripped at you, and it was hard to choose. But even with all those syringes on the table, the door out of the lab was still an option. And yet... could you forgive yourself if you let an opportunity like this slip away, even if just to see what might happen?