To Dr. Hildebrand's Lab

The situation seemed more dire than a human covered in slime might suggest. Your extremely proportioned, almost cartoonish slime-body looked strange at best to the outside observer, but your exaggerated hips and breasts would make it hard to convince anyone that there's a serious problem. Which made you nervous as you'd donned Chloe's original lab coat--buttoning it up just enough to provide some modesty around your slimy form instead of looking like some nude glass sculpture--before knocking at the glass door to Dr. Hildebrand's lab.

Fortunately, you could see Zoe through the glass, staring at something in a microscope and taking notes on her observations. The lovely brunette was absorbed into her task until you knocked on the glass. With Chloe's slime on your hands creating a squishy layer, the thuds were softer than you'd expected, so you had to really put some effort behind the knocking to get Zoe's attention.

Dr. Hildebrand looked up from her work to see you, and she smiled your way, but there was a bit of confusion in her face. You hadn't even thought to find out if Zoe knew about Chloe's slimy existence! Is that why she's confused? At least she's not freaking out or calling security... she stands up, and heads toward you, sliding the glass door open. "Lost your keycard again? And... what exactly is going on here? You look like you'd absorbed a mannequin or something. A test for seeing if you can enhance your stability with rigid internals?"

A mannequin? Hmph. "Dr. Hildebrand, I just--"

"Now Chloe, where's this 'Dr. Hildebrand' nonsense coming from? First name basis, just like--wait." Zoe reached out to your lab coat, tugging it away with a swift motion, causing your large translucent green breasts to jiggle all about momentarily before settling. On one breast was written _Hi _while the other side had Zoe embedded in that color-changed slime.

You reacted quickly to try to cover up, letting out a bit of a gasp, realizing that it didn't really matter at that point... the actual 'nude' you was obscured by the slime, so technically you were covered up. "Dr. Hildebrand... Zoe... ahem. I'm Emily from downstairs. Chloe and I were doing an, um, experiment and... a problem seems to have come up."

Zoe stood back, her eyes analyzing you to understand the problem, but the corner of the brunette scientist's mouth was upturned in a hint of amusement. "One of Chloe's famous experiments running into some unintended side effects, now where have I heard that one before... thank you for stopping by, Emily. Chloe and I do try to look out for each other where we can, but it seems like I help her out of three jams for every one I find myself in... come on in." Zoe stepped back, motioning you forward.

You entered, glancing around. Yet another laboratory that doubled as an apartment. That only really made sense if... "Are you a slime too?" you abruptly asked.

Zoe shook her head. "Not that, but something else. It's complicated and I'll explain after I can confirm that you two are okay. I'd hate for Chloe to suddenly dissolve your solid structure while I was telling you all about me."

You gulped, and Zoe laughed as she headed back toward her microscope. "Oh, don't actually worry about that! She's not capable of anything like that. It wouldn't do her much good, given that she needs to absorb energy from a host to live. Come over here please, let's run a few tests. And tell me about yourself, I really enjoy that sort of echo effect in your voice with her like this!"

You explained the situation to Dr. Hildebrand while Zoe pointed all manner of tools at you, shining light and examining your arm under a microscope. She had something that looked like an ultrasound test that she ran over your body, causing you to giggle a little at the sensation. Strange, though, that there was a sensation... Zoe picked up on that too, and then she grabbed a needle and poked it at the green globes of slime on your chest.

You recoiled from Zoe as she did so, feeling momentarily like you'd actually been stuck by a needle! "Hey, careful with--wait, do that again?" Zoe nodded and poked once more with the needle. You hadn't noticed at first with the coat or anything, but you were getting tactile sensory information from the slime, and the needle prick, while it didn't actually hurt, did seem to register something in your brain as being pricked by a sharp object. The slime didn't seem actually damaged, but Chloe seemed to be growing impatient as the word Verdict? Appeared on your chest.

Zoe rubbed her chin, looking at you and Chloe mashed together into one space, a worried look on your face copied by Chloe, likely mirroring her feelings without even realizing you were doing that. Zoe stood up, and stepped to a nearby whiteboard. "It looks like Chloe's slime has somehow been 'reprogrammed' to recognize you as its core."

You blinked a few times, tilting your head. A few question mark shapes covered your breasts, as Chloe also seemed confused. Zoe cleared her throat, and then began to doodle crude shapes of slimes and people. She was a scientist and not an artist, after all. "Slime-people were, for a time, merely a mythological or theoretical creature, at least like what you now know Chloe to be, Emily. Chloe's design is a highly engineered variant of primitive slimes, which truly are just biological blobs. Hideki took the theories and began to create all sorts of variations of the biopolymers that make up Chloe. There were was a wide range of success in how the slimes were made, with some only able to exist in the blob-form while some could partly mimic a sort of dripping-human or partial-human appearance, all the way up to Chloe's molecular structure which is able to create a nice complete form of a sort of glassy Jell-o appearance."

You nodded, but shrugged your slimy body at Zoe, now as confused as you were concerned. "What does this have to do with the situation at hand?"

"I'm getting there..! All good scientific theories need a bit of preamble. Now, consistency wasn't just one of the areas that Hideki worked on, but also intelligence and mobility. A slime that could take complex shapes like the exterior of a person boded well for being able to connect in complex ways inside a body for medical purposes, that's a whole other can of worms... but slime intelligence was severely lacking at first. They were more mimics than anything, able to re-create a shape but not able to to think on their own. At some point, Hideki scientists engineered slimes with a solid core that could house an intelligence, something that would direct the slime with cognitive functions so now a slime could think and speak and the like. Core-slimes were called Variant B, you'd be able to see anywhere from one to ten of them floating in a body, but they weren't suitable for slimes meant to enter another body so Chloe's Variant C slime of distributed redundant networks came along. Her classification is actually 4.39-C, which tells us the major biopolymer variant, the revision of supplementary organic structures to give her all her tricks and techniques, and her neural design."

You crossed her arms under the massive translucent breasts, looking at Zoe's doodles and noting that the slime didn't just all merge together when you rested your arms under the breasts. "Distributed network, right? So, she had no core, but also didn't need one."

Zoe nodded, stepping closer to you to keep examining you and Chloe stuck together, though now she was doing more rudimentary tests like grabbing and tugging at the slime. "Variant C was made to evolve from Variant B, so even without a core, there must have been some part of the slime's genetic code that still could respond to an organic core, and you fit the bill given that you have a neural structure. In other words..."

For dramatic effect, Zoe stood back to draw something new on the whiteboard--a crude human enveloped in slime where the cores had been. "...it means Chloe is a part of you, an extension of you. Even though she's got her own mind, her body is under your control, in a sense, since it recognizes you as the core, the primary thought driver and motivator of the slime. You could, in theory, make Chloe's slime do anything you wish so long as you're connected to it."

You stood there, wide-eyed and staring at the whiteboard. Your green breasts were covered in exclamation marks.