We Are One
It had been a while she had wondered what other inane project the they had her husband working on. She was used to the late nights, sleepless kids, unanswered questions, NDAs, whatever he would say, she had to accept. These were the terms of engagement when you married someone with beyond top secret clearance, or so he called it. She knew when they were allowed to form a colony. She knew and so did he and he felt the pressure of absenteeism on their little sprawl. It can be quite a hassle to mother millions of children under oath to a government with no lies.
It wasn't often that the politicians allowed such inter development between colonies either since the conflict with the Sporidians. The Bacillus Bacterium had survived the invasive and colossal virus but the living space was becoming limited in their little pool. Lactobacillus was thriving across all zones, however since The Great Mold attempted eradication of all single celled organism and was itself ended, many other bacterial varieties had started spreading throughout the low lands as they were called by the elite, thriving to keep the holy land to themselves. The zone where the last stand stood tall and wide.
Little was known at first of her husbands work, unpublished papers on the study of a new lifeform - yeast - that could be used to produce a miracle chemical that combusted in combination with oxygen. This was a new reaction that no one had ever heard of or could even believe existed prior to today's events. There were no weapons in the Bacterium, the war was won through attrition. This new organic was what would bring the Sporeless to a new frontier, the only question was about how it would harness it.
It isn't like a cellular to think beyond the current. Everything was instinctual for common Lactobacillus, the thoughtful were disregarded but then, they were the ones that formed this government and ruling class.
"We are one, we are thought"
This was the mantra of those who could think, the elite. The Bacillus Bacterium was formed. The world had begun a new understanding, but only for a select few.
It had been thousands, possibly millions of years since then and The Great Mold most definitely forgotten among those who were categorically cast into the Synapseless by the Thoughtful. Enlightened they called themselves, as they were the only ones able to consider designation of any form on this so called rock.
Nevertheless he was a gifted physicist, a pioneer, as she had been led to believe. There wasn't any other reason he would be condensed into that laboratory zone day and night, thinking. Plotting. Believing. What had they gotten into this time? She was made aware of this revolutionary world of "chemistry". It's hard to conceal even the most heavily kept synapses between intertwined colonies. They had discovered that things had properties. Inanimate objects! Of all things that could interact with the Macro, they had to be smaller! She had no idea what to make of this and for some strange reason, when asked about his latest work, his synapses didn't fire.
Extensive study of the Macro had led to the discovery of the physical previously unknown to the Bacterium. The Multicellular. Comprised of the same amino acids and peptides that formed the DNA of all Bacillus, this understanding of Bacterial makeup was beyond even the common Thoughtful. Special conditioning for all enlisted was administered for synapse suppression after their enrollment to the Project and this was no small feat. The project to leave the rock and what the elite have been led to believe might only be the beginning of their new found journey, the Super Macro.
The new unbelievable belief was that life on this rock was once thriving on a multicellular level and that those cellular aggregations could be used to cultivate a new potential. A potential that could send them beyond the Force. The force keeping them on the rock. The bed of civilization as they knew it. Upon their study of the Macro and the discovery of amino acids led to the revelation that these inanimate compounds formed a protein. Not any protein but gluten. It seemed capable of binding together with heat to form a vessel. It was part of something larger.
He instinctively mobilized billions upon billions of Synapses to break down this Multicellular structure into finer particles to then build them back up into a stranger contraption. His understanding of micro elements had allowed him to create structures through heat and pure bacterial prowess that bore sizes unimaginable to the average colony of Lactobacillus and possibly even the extinct Mould. All the while being propelled by this combusted solution cultivated from the yeast.
The belief among the elite was that the largest colony could produce the most synapses and he was allowed the biggest and was the first to intertwine with another in over 200 centuries due to his undivided diligence in all studies related to the physical. She was considered Bacterium royalty of the purest stock, preserved by law and sanction since the abolition of all spores by those who could. The Thoughtful unanimously agreed that the designated physicist should be allowed to blend with royal genetic material and it produced some of the most complex synaptic associations ever observed in bacteriological history. It was well understood that the Thoughtful would not be so without these colonial associations and he was part of the reason such ideals were recently accrued. Synaptically capable individuals were immediately drafted into his colony to provide extended capacities upon request but ultimately at the discretion of the elite.
The first Aggregated Protein Small Propulsion Vessels were fired in parts of the rock that were previously undiscovered. The spread the physicist had been allowed to take accentuated the knowledge of zones that had never been colonized and the discovery of other sub unicellulars that were deemed inutile and synapses were regarded as proper test subjects for any kind of multicellular experiment unilaterally approved by the Thoughtful. The tests ultimately proved to produce invasive yeast colonies in those zones and the results kept a close secret.
She was one day given the briefing. She was royalty afterall, there was nothing the elite could legally keep from her indefinitely. They had found a way to break through the Force that bound them to the rock using another life form and the Macro. The sights were now set on the Beyond. The Super Macro was being ousted as a fantasy was now reality that the elite thrived on understanding.
Before any exploration was permitted, a synaptic network with greater distance capabilities was to be engineered with a tolerance for certain delays like distance and atmospheric distortion. The physicist was allowed to cultivate certain amino acids to create nonpolar and hydrophobic proteins to form a type of lighter than gas film to spread this network of synaptic cellulars throughout the targeted zones of exploration. This would allow members of his colony to float into the Super Macro using Macro world techniques developed recently from black book multicellular research.
More to say on the topic.
As the first APSPVs were launched, the physicist immediately felt the alerts from his extensions that were similar to some of the more ancient synapses that his older cellulars had logged in multiple younger generations. The synapses were immediately relayed to the Thoughtful as red flags to be considered.
She saw the synapses. They could not be hidden despite any training provided by the elite. The spread her husband had taken had touched every synaptic colony in the zone and now every Thoughtful was aware. The Bacillus Bacterium in its entirety was now fully aware that the Super Macro contained remnants of The Great Mold.
A scramble to find all ancient genetic logs of the Time Before was enacted. The edict was a requirement to provide all stored information and was enforced heavily by the elite through the lengthy arm of the physicist. The lower synaptic colonies were forcefully enlisted into the his array of intelligence in an attempt to aggregate all data on the mould found on every APSPV launched. Upon their return, they were to be fully quarantined by wall of synapseless subunicellar and analyzed.
She felt the same synapses as her husband once again, but they were not with the same assuredness as she had been accustomed to in the passed few centuries or so. The sentiment she felt was that the mould needed to be eradicated but the elite remained intact after the edict and demanded its study. Despite every ounce of desperation relayed to the elite regarding the impending disaster, they chose to attempt an immediate isolation on the landing zones and go ahead with their plan to build the walls.
Unknowingly, the remote network of synaptic Lactobacillus using the macro film had multiplied, grown, and discovered an ever increasing amount of regions previously unzoned by the Thoughtful. The physicist and his royal wife understood what needed to be done.
In anticipation of any further negative impact to the current government structure and Thoughtful way of life, the physicist, who had grown to a synaptic colony of unprecedented size, began absorbing any dissident colonies of the "elite" all in the spirit of preserving the Bacterium in its current form and dispelling even the thought of The Great Mold from generations to come. All specimens of mould were immediately destroyed before propagation as per the ancient knowledge.
"We are one, we are thought"
Another amazing writing prompt from your newbie GreatGee. I will not go into explantation or details. The story is clear and enjoyable to read.
Expect More.