Prologue: The Amorphous Thing
Prologue:
The Amorphous Thing
The thing was in trouble.
The thing made its constituent parts writhe, which made a gurgling sound. This was perplexing, and the sense of perplexity was the first feeling the thing had ever experienced.
The thing had nothing.
No name… Only the title given to it by the higher existence it knew as “the master.”
No purpose… Directives from the master had long since ceased.
No consciousness… While the thing did possess thoughts, knowledge, and the ability to learn, its voluntary will was extremely sparse.
The time was midnight.
The thing began moving, and no one was there to stop it.
Gurgle, gurgle.
The thing began thinking.
The thing began shaking its muddy components.
At that moment, the thing needed to take in the nutrients required to move—it needed an external source. Once, the thing had been in a very comfortable place. There was no need to fear the depletion of active energy. But now, things were different. The thing had to move to find a new nutrient source.
Gurgle, gurgle…
The thing shook its body.
The thing divided in two from its core, in time with the subtle tremors. Without stopping, the two things split into four, then eight, then sixteen. No matter how many times it divided, the individual pieces were all the same size as the first—or so it seemed.
But the thing could feel itself growing weaker with each division. Each individual piece was probably less intelligent than when they were all collected together. But that didn’t matter. If the thing didn’t do something to break away, it would die. If everything went well, perhaps the thing would be able to return to a single form.
The thing multiplied to attain a stable life.
Each and every one of the infinite number of thing divisions crawled away, disappearing into the darkness of the town.
Some went to the main road.
Some went into the sewers.
Some went into the town.
As they moved, they changed. They took on forms that would allow them to go unnoticed while observing and collecting information.
The thing had not been given orders by anyone—it was being driven by life. How could it live most efficiently in this environment? What was the optimal method for establishing active life, rather than the parasitic one it had before?
As part of its survival strategy, the thing scattered into 40,000 parts, then 80,000. Each individual piece began thinking and behaving on its own.
All of this happened in the dead of the night, witnessed by no one.