Your conspiracy theory was right!

"I knew it!" You exclaimed loudly, throwing the slimegirl hidden inside a blonde woman in front of you off-guard. Clearly, Chloe thought she was the one with the only surprise to share...

Chloe took a step back, staring at you with a confused look on her face. "You, uh... what?"

You frantically dug into your bag, pulling out your notebook, flipping through the pages. It all made sense now... all your work over the past month, you'd theorized that there was something far more incredible than just a basic bio-polymer behind the scenes. This new project focused on an 'immune boost' slime, which could dynamically identify dangerous viruses, bacteria, or genetic conditions such as cancers and correct the issue. That meant that slime had to know how to identify new threats, which meant slimes had considerable intelligence... which probably meant there was some 'prototype slime' from which these other little immune boosters were coming from!

You were only partially right, but it didn't matter--you pointed to your notes on the page, showing Dr. Walker all your scribbled notes and a couple doodles that were unrelated, there was at least one afternoon where you drew characters from one of your favorite games, Fury Fighters, in the margins. "Uhh, ignore those. Look, though! Everything I'd studied in the microscopes with all these BioPolymer 533-R strains show an intelligence that is likely imprinted rather than learned--it almost requires a larger, maybe even sentient, slime! So, you know, you can come out now!"

Your excitement at cracking this case seemed to override the fear or uncertainty you normally would have felt about meeting a slime girl. Especially as you were meeting her again while she crawled out of a blonde woman's mouth, pooling herself into a humanoid form in front of you. "I... guess you caught me!"

To you, it was like catching a leprechaun or something. You didn't really know what to do with this supposed power, but Chloe, despite being confused at how you could incorrectly guess the origin of the immune-boost slime and still somehow be vindicated by her slimegirl presence, seemed totally fine with this outcome. She wouldn't have to explain much at all.

"So, now that that's out of the way... Amanda, I think I need to talk with Emily here in private, I think you can go for the day."

You clapped your hands together, as you flipped to some other pages. Clearly you'd put a lot of thought into this supposed slimegirl, including what she might be capable of. You went down the list as you pointed at your notebook. "High intelligence?"

"I've got my Ph. D in organic chemistry, so..." Chloe crossed her arms, not expecting the interrogation. This had all gone upside-down from what she'd planned!

"Stable complex shape generation?"

"Nothing's harder than looking like a human, I promise you that..."

"Transformative capabilities?"

"Yep."

"Solid body influence and control?"

"I think Amanda was a good demo for that, wasn't she?" Chloe waved to Amanda as she was on her way out of the lab. "What else you've got?"

"Can you do all that stuff at once? Like... control a body, and transform it too?"

Chloe nodded, smiling a little at how well your predictions all held up. You smiled in return, as you shut your book and tapped your fingers together. "Well, Chloe, Dr. Walker... I'm sure you don't want me telling your secret in public, huh? That's all the news channels would be able to talk about! How there's this secret new intelligence that could body snatch? That changes everything!"

Rather than remind you that you signed an NDA when you joined Hideki, Chloe saw an advantage. Your excitement, and likely willingness to try out her abilities, was the perfect in for her... "Guess you got me, Emily. What exactly are you getting at?"

Possibilities flooded into your head now, full of this power of leverage that really worked out to precisely what Chloe wanted anyway. "Well, I think you should do something for me so I'll keep your secret!"

Chloe faked a concerned expression, but actually she was excited to know just what you might have in mind for her. "Name your terms, then."