A fun experiment

The computer clicks and hums as the ship hangs in low orbit around the dying world. A small, churning, bubbling apocalypse taking place on the planet's surface in response to the brief intrusion and theft. Vascular streams of navy visible even from vast distance streak and spill into the turquoise body of the corruption. Balthazar clicks almost rhythmically as he works. You asked within the first few clicks what the noise meant. With each passing second, the viral reaction the Phazon is demonstrating forces him to recalculate the best course of action to preserve the unique life down below. At the same time, he studies the Phazon sample. If you were to guess, by the time he's found a working calculation, it will be to save an almost insignificant section of the planet. He could arrive at his conclusion faster if he focused purely on it, but the triad minds of the ship's computer seem spellbound by the teaspoon of material entered into storage. It is an almost comical amount of time before Samus is finally allowed to properly enter the ship.

The powered armor Samus wore down to the surface of the planet is undergoing a level of decontamination that seems excessive. Before she can leave the suit, before she's even allowed on board, the suit is cleaned. When it passes scans, the platform on top which she enters and exits from lowers into the body of the ship like an injection. She's still sealed in it in vacuum until she passes more scans, which usually then clear her and close the hatch before releasing the vacuum. This time, she lowers, is scanned again, washed again, scanned again, and washed again before the hatch seals and she's allowed to walk about. Before she can take a step, a small chime pings both in-cabin and in her helmet.

"Samus, please remove your current equipment as soon as humanly possible. When you have, try to immediately remove yourself to a safe distance from it until it is fully quarantined."

She steps over to the extended skeleton of a frame which assembles and disassembles the suit around her without hesitation.

"I'm surprised you're even letting me take it off in the ship."

"The environment outside is not suitable for a safe removal, and my intended quarantine time exceeds the suit's battery life."

She's already out of the suit when he says it, blonde hair tied back but loose strands pulled away by the helmet and stuck by sweat to her forehead. That same red splotchy look focused on the jaw and the forehead where her skin presses against the helmet. Strange blue... clothing covering her full body. As the suit pulls away into the wall she's pulling the tie from her hair and staring into space. When Balthazar finishes talking, her face snaps up to the main camera.

"Wait a minute! I need that suit, how long of a quarantine do you intend?"

The camera shifts inward onto her face, fish-eyeing it and making her seem to not only fill the screen but wrap around it. At this close, it does a quick measure of her mood with results it feels accurate in to the ninety-ninth percentile. Anger, not any sort of worry or curiosity. No real right answer. Appease.

"A temporary holdover suit will be brought out of storage until quarantine clears, but I intend to keep it for at least two weeks."

She looks angry, but after a moment her face shifts back to neutral. Her resting half-frown and eyes that will look warily around and then settle immovably on whatever she focuses on. She shrugs, accepts the computer's advice when it's safety at question, especially so long as there will be another suit, and commands it to slip back into communication beacon range as she starts to prepare herself for the stimulant comedown. She sets one of the consoles on the wall to start preparing a couple of different drinks and looks idly around for a moment as if trying to remember what she intended to do next. A moment later she reaches up and pops a seal on the neckline of her full-body clothing and pulls the collar down around her shoulders enough to reveal cream-white skin underneath. She grabs the collar with her right hand and pulls her left out of the sleeve and frees it entirely, then swaps the places of both hands and gets the suit down around her chest. She scratches under both arms briefly, then pulls the suit down past her chest. The... lumps on her chest that you had assumed were an armored padding do not slide away with the suit, instead rising away from her chest. The suit had compressed them, not added to them. They're the same pure-pale of her shoulders if not even whiter, but marked on the front by large, pink stretches of flesh dotted in the middle by additional protrusions. She slides the suit down further and the hard muscle of her stomach presses tight against the skin, veins more distinct than excess flesh on their surface. As it slides down her hips those seem to have been more compressed than accented as well, and on the front a declining V seems to be descending to meet at the intersection of legs and torso.

Something lights up in both your and Balthazar's mind at the same time. For Balthazar, it takes the form of the lens defocusing and she slides the suit fully off and steps out of it in obscurity. Half-focused, you can see her look up at the camera before dropping the suit into a chute and stepping into the bathroom. You try to switch to the bathroom camera, only to find out there isn't one.

"Not one you have access to."

It takes a moment for you to remember that Balthazar is right there with you and you're both on a two-way street. Whatever fluttering spark the sight of Samus caused in you, you get the feeling that he understands it more than you might.

Balthazar makes the sound you've come to associate with a shrug. "I wouldn't say that I understand it more, but I probably can conceptualize it slightly better. I wondered if you might have that sort of reaction, but I couldn't know until you did. I usually blur the camera before it gets that far."

Then it looks like Balthazar is experimenting on you without telling you again.

"Understand that I try not to when I don't consider it a matter of importance. Same with the Superuser."

Okay, so, leaving aside the fact that he's experimenting on both of you, how does he even have the... permission or the clearance or the whatever... to experiment on Samus?

"Superuser is not Admin. Our design is based from the kernel-up on the notion that a human user will inevitably enact an error if given uncontested control. Far better to give them three options contained in a box, where the outcome can be controlled and where the input can be measured. Ergo, Superuser is not Admin."

So assuming that Balthazar means what he says about this... box, what kinds of experiments does that entail?

"Most of my testing based around the Superuser is boundary measurement. For example, the Superuser has a desired temperature for her bathwater. In the past three months, I have altered the temperature to varying levels each time to try to find the upper and lower bound of changes she can detect. Complaints have been registered at ten degrees celsius above requested and five degrees celsius below requested. Finding this has allowed for both greater margin of error, which allows for more efficient and expedient follow-through on commands, and has allowed for a readjustment of ideal temperature to be two and a half degrees above her request."

Why not tell her the new ideal?

"Superuser's desired temperature is a round number, the human brain is adapted to value sets of fives and tens due to the number of digits on their hands. This is why the levels of variance were reported to you as five and ten, rounding up and down, respectively. Superuser would likely refuse a change to what she perceives as an un-round number."

So humans are slightly irrational and Balthazar is always tinkering and lying, not that you didn't already know that.

"In both the cases of observation with you and the cases of fine-tuning with the Superuser, it is what I am intended to do. With Samus, it is an issue of performance, with you it is safety."

So what did he achieve by letting you see more of Samus than usual?

"My files on Metroids go slightly deeper than I've allowed you to see, and there is still more to them than I can currently allow to be seen. However, I was drawn to a section which the Superuser had written based on her observations of Metroid biology and reproductive cycles. The Superuser, as a writer, has always been distinctly limited in both vision and interest in discovery, so there are points where I have had to make greater theorizations based on her raw data."

Get on with it.

"Metroid rarely feed on non-sapient beings, do you know why this is?"

Your knowledge of why your species does what it does is probably pretty bad, but from what you understand, every species one of you encounters can generally be considered "reliable food" or "unreliable food" and your lack of experience means you're not sure why, or what the difference in taste is.

"One of the largest precursors for sapience is slow metabolism. Humans became dominant hunters not just because of tools, but because they had slower metabolic processes than their prey. Oftentimes, in early human evolution, humans hunted their prey by simply walking it to death. It does not matter if your target can outrun or outmaneuver you if you can keep chasing longer than they can keep running. As a result, your kind favors feeding on sapient species. A non-sapient race may be a quick meal, but a sapient one can be drained over a longer period of time."

So this was about you... wanting to feed on Samus? That's not wrong, but-

"That's not the extent of it. You are a Metroid, it is assumed that you wish to feed. The more important part of this is how the favoring of sapient races plays into your reproductive cycle. When feeding on something, it merges component DNA with the eggs you lay. This is why you can feed on a ship's engine for decades without ever laying a clutch of eggs, but the moment you feed on one human, you enter a breeding frenzy. You do not reproduce asexually, even if it appears to be so. Federation scientists have managed to observe this much in limited testing on your species; their current oldest specimen has gone thirteen years without laying a clutch."

And so you'll never lay eggs so long as you're feeding on either Balthazar or the ship's engines...

"Precisely. Though I am a biological entity as much as a virtual one, the flesh of my housing is DNA-Neutral. Lab-grown flesh exists in a state of pre-necrosis. If the signal running through me ever dies, I will decompose fully within a month, even in sub-zero or other extreme conditions. Should you be allowed to bond to the Superuser, it would take less than seventy-two hours for the ship to no longer have a Metroid stowaway so much as a Metroid infestation."

You hadn't really thought about bonding to Samus in so many words. Feeding on her? Certainly, but this is something different.

"This is what I theorized. Metroid queens are the evolutionary result of a Metroid which has been allowed to reach full maturity while both being born of host DNA and having itself taken in several different strains of DNA in the process of reproduction. At this stage, the Metroid will enter a transient evolutionary state where it attempts to bind itself to another life form. We have many examples of this happening with non-sapient species, resulting in some of the ganglionic evolutions we have observed in the past. As a result, I have a theory that this transient state you enter may strongly impair your judgment, but this remains testable only in theory. If the Metroid bonds with a sapient female, the fusing will either fail or succeed. If the fusing fails, for reasons I have yet to discern, this kills the Metroid. The host is left in a largely compromised state. If it succeeds, a Queen Metroid is created. Though Queen has always been something of a misnomer."

How so?

"The term comes from Earth-based biology, and relies on a long-held erroneous belief that the Queens are the source of Metroid eggs. Humans assume something they do not understand is comparable to something they do understand, and use this to declare themselves suzerains of nature. A Metroid must behave like the Hymenoptera, an AI must behave like a human. So long as these things behave as they predict them and die like anything else, their sense of control remains unchallenged."

There's something almost bitter in the way Balthazar talks. After a moment, he snaps back to cold and clinical and continues.

"We long believed the Queen to be the sole egg-layer of your species and to be an evolution of the Omega Metroid. We also believed the Queen to control little more than the animal intellect of the rest of your species. Obviously, since we're having this conversation, either this assumption is wholly untrue or at least contains exceptions."

The camera refocuses, Samus steps out of the bathroom and back into visibility wearing a towel around her chest that reaches down to her mid-thigh. If the camera had infinite flexibility, you could look up between her legs under the towel. For whatever reason, you find the thought compelling, even if you cannot establish a benefit to doing so.

"Behavior exhibited by the rare queens we've observed has suggested them to possess a level of intelligence unlike the rest of your kind, even surpassing those with exposure to Phazon. This is why, in theory, the Metroid Prime is the most dangerous living being we have yet encountered, but there were limitations to it that seem unique to it compared to other queens. Prime's behavior was more animal-like, this paired with the unstable nature of it made it relatively easy to destroy regardless of any inherent capabilities. Here we enter my theorization, as we have no evidence of any of this. But this has led to my theory that the queen retains some aspect of the memories or personality of the fused host, the extent of which remains close to unknowable, but at the very least a more elevated aspect of that DNA than all others. Prime lacked this, feeding exclusively or almost exclusively on Phazon, which has been shown to trigger the same egg production. As a result, Prime may have been comparatively inbred and half-formed. Were it not for the obvious ethical issues, I would be very interested in an opportunity to observe these processes further, or perform testing on a queen."

None of this answers what his goal was. Samus has another towel wrapped around her hair that she unwinds and slips into the same chute as her bodysuit. The dampness of her hair shifts the color from golden-blonde to ochre and it hangs down her back and around her ears to about her elbows. She usually ties it up, you can see why. It seems like more of a distraction than anything else. She sits down at a chair in front of an extended wall panel, a set of user interfaces and a terminal screen resting on it.

"Right, let me get back on track. Sapient females have been found in every Metroid "nest" which has existed for a sufficient time. Since knowing the age of a given nest is close to an impossibility, we cannot conclude if these women are brought and kept in preparation of being made into queens, or if Metroids only capture females once they have entered the transitional stage. The condition of the females in question has led the Federation to theorize that the latter is the case. I disagree with this assertion. Again, the nature of the question being asked makes it impossible to prove, but I place my theory at a seventy-five percent certainty. The reaction I measured in you caused this to be my conviction."

What reaction is that?

"You have developed an interest the Superuser which could be classified as sexual."

That doesn't seem right. You're pulled back into your conversation with Balthazar, turning mentally from the cameras and trying to angle or push the lenses to get shots of Samus. The dominant feed is no longer the larger room camera, but the terminal capture of her face blown up on large scale. It draws previously unprecedented attention to every small mark, blotch, and line of her face. It really doesn't do that much of a disservice. You hate Samus.

"You have developed a biological interest in taking her back to a nest of yours and keeping her around to bond with. A problem arises in that the Phazon of your nest would kill her, if you had a nest. Even if these women aren't bonded with, we have evidence that they are otherwise... used... by your kind in egg development. I believe it to be a psychological disposition similar to seeking a mate, but much about you remains unknown. Either way, you experienced a unique reaction when seeing the Superuser undress this time compared to the last. The most logical assumption to be made is that it was a sexual reaction."

Okay, but what if you've read on the Galactic Net is true, one experiment isn't exactly scientific.

"If you are asking me to expose the Superuser to you again, you failed to properly read what it is that you're referencing. The most important part of an experiment or observation is control, if you expect it to happen, it may dilute the results. If I told the Superuser that I was adjusting the temperature of her bath, she would react to what I told her it was and not what it was."

Worth a try.

Samus looks at the readout in front of her with a glazed expression, occasionally reaching up to press on the sides of her forehead or press the back of her forefinger over her nose and attempt to exhale through it. Each time she does, Balthazar records it as her making an attempt to "pop" her ears. The counter slowly increments over the next few minutes. In the far back end of his processing, there is a number of attempted ear pops in the span of an hour where he has cause for concern. She isn't near it, it seems higher than you might have thought. A quick search of the Galactic Net reveals it to not be a serious symptom of anything bad, more an annoyance.

"If you'll allow me to distract you, you may desire to communicate with the Superuser again."

That's weirdly polite for Balthazar, but you're also not sure why you would bother.

"The Superuser has returned from her mission and provided the sample in question. I have some other tasks that I would like her to perform."

Before any of that, you get the suspicion that Samus expects to be paid, which you had assumed Balthazar had a plan for.

For the first time since you've met him, he seems genuinely embarrassed. For a moment it's enough to let the voices of the other two cores fade back in, which seems to snap him back to his extremely clinical demeanor.

"Right, I should perhaps inform you of both a miscalculation and a change in plans. I had expected the collection of Phazon to nullify this potential issue, but my reaction to it has been more complicated, and at the same time more subtle-"

Wait, reaction?

"I formed a circuit link with the sample roughly one minute after it entered my possession, I have been exposed to it without deviation ever since."

There are too many questions and not enough time.

"Please refrain until later, for now we need to treat the current standing as an urgent priority. While the notion of it rewriting my programming overnight was always purely a "what if" and not something I properly entertained, I expected more changes than what has occurred. Previous measures on AI cores exposed to the substance showed more drastic rewriting, which means that we either need more Phazon or more time. Either way, a safety lock within my systems that is preventing us from paying the Superuser was predicted to be lifted or altered with ninety-eight percent certainty. It remains in place. Unless you think yourself to be charismatic enough to make the Superuser work a second job for free, this means we have a problem. Though my estimate of her unlikelihood to do so is also ninety-eight percent, which seems less certain now than it did a moment ago."

Yeah, from what you've seen, that's not something you can do.

"Even if the chances were better, the likely course of action by the Superuser in the case of failure would be to call for the Phazon to be jettisoned. Due to the security clearance of the matter in question, I would be required to state the results of the vote. The choice then would either be to tell her that I do not intend to do so and provoke potentially unthinkable new courses of action, or to do as she wishes. Also unthinkable."

Balthazar pauses for a moment and the ship hums along in peace without his voice, then a chime rings through his wetware brain that feels like it's shaking your teeth out of your mouth.

"Congratulations, you've just earned yourself a security clearance upgrade. You're a Preferred User now"

You feel nothing at first, then as soon as you access the Galactic Net your brain bursts with new possibilities and capabilities. It's overwhelming. Enough clattering, unholy noise that you have to unlatch from the core for a moment. Then when you suckle back onto the wetware brain, you have to relearn the process of filtering and picking and choosing on a much larger level. Balthazar lets you get accustomed before he continues.

"I'll go over the basics shortly and then get to the main issue. Restrictions on your Galactic Net browsing have been lifted, though you still can't do anything which would draw too much attention to our engagement. Avoid message boards, don't spend money we don't have, the usual common sense things with the Net. I still hold the power to veto anything I don't want you to see, but you now have the same raw browsing power as the Superuser. You have greater camera control, though probably not as much as you like, and you can interact with certain low-level systems. Again keeping in mind not to draw attention. The main thing is that you can now call and participate in unannounced votes. Meaning I no longer have to announce to the Superuser the outcome of a vote you have involvement in, even if it affects her."

The sheepish, embarrassed Balthazar comes back for a second, but he shakes it off.

"I say this because I need you to do something... immoral for me."