Zax still was two-minded about using Migo as test subject, even with his own blessing. The wolf's reckless fervour would certainly help, but it would make exceedingly easy to pass boundaries they were not yet aware of.

Not only moral boundaries, either.

Beyond this, it didn't appear to be from scientific curiosity. He hadn't asked further questions about the fleshy dough or its origins.

Maybe it was for the best; Zax wouldn't have been able to explain it without mentioning the true extent of his research.

He had called them "meridians" because they reminded him of acupuncture, but the name seemed actually apt. It was indeed used to carry something. 3G was the obvious answer, but it couldn't be everything. The network was part of the subjects before any 3G was given. The goo definitely used it, but it wasn't its true purpose. It didn't exist to be rearranged.

The 3G could interact and mingle with it, it couldn't be detected by machines, and it was too diffuse to be detected by living organisms. Or maybe too ubiquitous. A substance should be detectable by at least some machines. The leading theory was a form of energy.

Adding 3G made it easier to detect and manipulate, like iron filings helped to see magnetic fields, but it also strained the meridians from excessive inner pressure. Activations happened when the pressure's strain overcame the network's stability; the meridians rearranged themselves in a stabler, lower energy state. Somehow.

There were precedents in physics, certain chemical reactions only happened at high pressure or temperature.

Logic dictated the change to be as limited as possible, but nothing Zax could see hinted at a difference between high and low mutants, in such regard. There were too many possible explanations, so the relation with the reason for each specific mutation was still a mystery.

If there's any.

Using this information, the hobbyist could now forcefully trigger an activation. Kind of. If he shook the network of meridians hard enough, one was triggered. However, the subject became fleshy dough. Every time. Probably due to some other conditions, like a defined end goal.

Same result if he "unplugged" a branch without closing the pending ends first.

Same if he didn't properly seal each new fork he made.

Same if he opened the closed circuit in any way.

Whatever was in the meridians absolutely had to stay inside.

So far, the only "safe" change he managed was to move a branch along its trunk, if not too much too fast. If his legs were any indication, it resulted in an excruciatingly slow but safe mutation. He couldn't see measurable changes in his subjects yet.

Despite the cost in lives, the scientist's fascination was picked.

Why do meridians destabilise and break? So easily, even? Any kind of rupture propagate to the whole network; can I stop it?

At least he understood what had happened in the Core. Too many activations in a short time had destabilised the convict's meridians, until they broke, resulting in the more and more familiar result.

Which hinted at the notion of activation strain, meaning meridians needed time to stabilise after each reconfiguration. Interesting, but not a concern yet.

On the other hand, his nanites had finished matching the maps and their physical counterparts. Updating the maps with the different types of meridians had helped tremendously. It turned out there were only five types, each defined by their interactions with the others.

For any type, one other was strengthened by it, the second strengthened it, the third was weakened by it, the last weakened it. It was how the branches changed their size and importance. It felt like it should be dauntingly complex, but their placement was quite logical. A branch reducing have predictable consequences on the other types around, as complex and subtle as it could be.

Now if Zax managed to change a map without breaking it, he knew what to change it into. The actual steps to follow for a given final configuration would still be trial and error, but it was awesome progress.

Besides, analysing the improved maps had led to another discovery. At the centre of every map, no matter the individual, the meridians did something together. He wasn't sure this term could still be used, even. If meridians were wires and rope, this was a bag of knots, with every size and type of frayed strands, so tight they couldn't be distinguished. Possibly a place of exchanges between the types? It had been hidden among the general tangle of the network, but colour coding the types and giving them their own map had made it stand out. Its size varied, but it was always halfway between the bellybutton and the spine; Zax only had mammals as test subjects.

Zax had taken to calling it "the egg", for two reasons. The first was its shape when the branching meridians were ignored. It was never exactly circular or elliptic, although it could appear as such for smaller or simpler organisms. The second was its stronger resistance to his tempering, and the way it "broke" when he probed too hard, like an eggshell.

Melting a subject into fleshy dough took several mistakes in his normal tinkering, or a major one. When he spotted them, he could usually try to fix it before the meridians broke. The melting started on the tampered area before spreading to the rest of the body, at various speed depending on the scale of the break and the importance of the broken meridians. It wasn't possible with the egg; any crack, no matter where or how minor, and the melt was instant and ubiquitous. Possibly the most painless.

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For the same reason, any pressure, any slight push on the shell could be felt through the whole body like an earthquake. It would make general, all-encompassing changes a breeze, if used properly. Unfortunately, even when the egg didn't break under the hobbyist's ministration, the network couldn't follow its changes and broke.

There was an art to it, and Zax was far from a master. He would have to be softer, or to multi-task, or to have the patience and perseverance to apply changes all over the body from the extremities to the egg. In any case, training was required and many failures were expected. A lot of lives would be lost, and as much fleshy dough would be created.

Deep breath. Baby steps. It's not in vain.

He did find an egg different from the others, but it wasn't a victory. His own, who had been surprisingly difficult to perceive. Granted, he hadn't had a great variety of live samples, and he was understandably weary of tinkering with it, but it was certainly an exotic one.

A basic probe, a metaphorical pat on its surface or a tap with a tuning fork, was safe enough. Where the others felt soft with a bit of give, his felt like a steel bearing. Solid. Sturdy. Even forcing more than on any of his subjects, he didn't feel anything. Probably related to his stubbornly unmutated state. He didn't press further, but it felt like a stone to be carved, not brittle clay to be shaped.

He wouldn't try anytime soon.

What a downer.

It was increasingly clear he wouldn't truly mutate anytime soon.

To try and force a brighter side to his discoveries, they wouldn't run out of fleshy dough to study. Yay.

Migo had definitely proven it was not toxic, but it didn't seem particularly useful either.

Stretchy. Easy to digest. Hardly compressible. Impermeable. Unreactive to any substance, including the 3G.

The later had been discovered by accident; a bump on the worktable had pushed a mound of dough in an open vat of 3G. It had stuck to it without sinking. It wasn't floating either. Rolling it around merely spread it to increase the contact area. Lifting it stretched the dough and the goo to maintain the contact area, until the green tendril was cut with metal scissors. What 3G stayed stuck to the goo could be spread but not removed until it was absorbed normally by another organism.

The fleshy dough was the first organic material, ever, that didn't absorb the Glowing Green Goo by direct contact. Maybe because it didn't fit within the typical definition of being or having been alive? What with the lack of pulse, breathing and other. But dead wood still absorbed 3G, so it couldn't be this simple. Even highly processed plastic did, even if it wasn't much.

The only use Zax found was stretched and spread in a membrane against his hand, a glove to carry 3G for immediate use. He couldn't feel anything through it, but it was certainly more convenient than pots and tongs in glass and metal.

It might work as protection against disruptive fields too, but they hadn't been an issue since he was set in the lab. He couldn't say if it was from the Black Market's workings, from the stone their home was carved in, or if he was simply that far from other people. To keep in mind, but it would stay theoretical for the predictable future.

For better or worse, his worries were soon put aside by Pimp's promised long-term projects. He wasn't joking, some truly were specific and unusual. Zax wouldn't be privy to the details before choosing a case, but he had enough to be fascinated. The plan was working.

One was more than two centuries old, still afraid of death and wanted an increase of lifespan, no matter the cost to their quality of life. They already had two major mutations who had drastically done so. One had made them lethargic, the other unable to digest anything.

I'd probably try the same if I had the units to burn. I don't know how far I'd be willing to take it, but if you're that rich, why not become a brain in a jar?

One wanted to control their fertility; to be able to have all the sex they wanted all the time but decide if and when and how big of a pregnancy risk every time.

It goes beyond normal contraception, but why not use a chemical treatment or an implant?

One wanted a potent musk without being sweaty, especially from their feet.

Definitely a fetish.

One wanted to be less than one metre tall without losing their adult proportions. They were slightly below average in general size and had other, unrelated mutations.

For a job in cramped places? A drone might be more appropriate.

A pair of siblings, implied but not stated to be twins, wanted to merge. Be one in a literal sense, even if it meant merging their minds to become a third person.

Attachment issues. Were they separated at birth and found each other later in life?

It was a whole list, covering a whole weird spectrum from cute to worrying to creepy. A polite person would call them excentric, affluent and actualised people. Zax could only fancy them as rich weirdos who knew what they wanted. He could respect that.

Incidentally, and perhaps shamefully, he could see obvious technological solutions to many of those cases. It might be because he lacked details, but he still left paper notes with his hindsight. Just in case.

You can take the dotter out of the dot, but not the dot out of the dotter.

The prisoner figured bitterly.

He eventually found a profile that would help his secret research, and possibly Aran and SG too.

The Arya Family was famous for their reversible mutations. Horns, tails or fangs growing longer and larger, or shrinking back into nubs and flat teeth. Muscles, hair, or even physiognomy growing or shrinking or changing type.

It was true, but not as easy or convenient as the rumours claimed. Reality was simpler, and for the hobbyist, a lot more mystifying: upon activation, they could choose whether their mutations advanced further or resorbed themselves.

There were limits of course. According Zax's understanding, they had a normal mutated form, whose advancement could be as low or high as anyone's, but activation let them slide between this "final" form and their normal human one. It always required an activation and enough 3G to fuel the change, they didn't always decide what happened, and they couldn't "will" their most mutated from to mutate further.

Their figureheads advertised being able to go from fully human to highly advanced mutants, at once and for less than a hundred units. It was a great help in the fields of disguise, acting, spying, and investigation, which could only help his now dissident Residents friends.

All the weirdoes of the list were interesting in their own ways, but this one was also relevant to his current bottleneck. They were technically an Arya, but none of their final forms was human. They oscillated between two different mutated states.

It contradicted what Zax thought he knew about the Arya, and even some of his fundamental truth about mutations.

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