Level 1

[Congratulations! You have chosen the path of assisted development. This is a great choice!]

'Why do I get the feeling, all of a sudden, that I did something wrong! Just a little pushy trying to convince me that I did something right...'

[As part of reaching level 1 you have been given the health point system.]

[Calibrating...]

[Calibrating...]

[Congratulations! You now have the health system. From now on you will be able to tract your health through hit points. Please see your status profile for more information.]

'Great, great. I suppose this is also something that I will regret having later?'

But there was no reply from Cassandra.

'I really miss Cassandra? I guess now that I am her slave she doesn't have to pay me any attention.'

Strangely my cell body didn't seem to mind. Instead he felt the overwhelming desire to do well in her absence so that when they did talk she would be super super impressed. Yeah, there is no better way to describe it then to say 'super' twice in a role. Cliché?

'My subconscious really is acting up these days. I really don't know why I have it so bad for Cassandra. I mean I know what it is like to have a crush on a woman, but this is an asexual cell for mother's sake! What is happening?? Why, me??'

There was no answer to Jim's metaphysical ponderings. It was just him whining, again. 

'I have to get my mind off her. Let's see what my profile looks like now!'

[Profile

Name: Jim

Species: Non-determinate

Level: 1

Experience: 1.3009 (1/3)

Health: 1/1

Critical Health: 1/1

Physical: 1

Mental: 1

Spiritual: 1

Talent: Meditation III [0], Concentration II [0], Memory II [0], Self-examination II [0] 

Skills: None

Evolution point(s): 1

Organelle: Poison Sac 

Mutations: Plasma Membrane

Neutral biomass points: 0

Poison biomass points: 0

]

'Figures.'

Only one hit point. Jim had to give it to the system, it made sense. With only one point in each of his three stats, physical, mental, and spiritual there was no way the system could justify more than one hit point. At the same time though, he felt a huge let down. He had worked so tirelessly to create a max level plasma membrane. Why didn't his plasma membrane count for anything?

[Are you upset because you only have one hit point?]

Suddenly he heard Cassandra's voice. Strangely she didn't sound critical. Instead he, strangely, thought she was going out of her way to comfort him.

[Don't worry, the hit point system within the larger matrix is very advanced. Jim, you don't have to worry.]

'Ummmm.'

When she sensed he wasn't able to buy her story quite yet she decided to explain a few things.

[Really, I mean it. For example, the critical health point is a concrete way of dealing with the random nature of death. For example if you were a human still you could die from loosing an arm, if you didn't stop the blood flow for some reason. You would be just as dead as if some one sliced your neck open.]

'Wow, this is pretty graphic.'

[You haven't heard anything yet. Deaths happen in so many different ways. The critical health point system is a way of tracking this. So for example as a cell, if you lost your nucleus you would die. But you would also die if you lost all your digestive enzymes.]

'Uhmmm, yes? Sounds familiar.'

[Either way, you would die. So the critical health bar will flag you. Basically, it is like the velocity of impending death. If the velocity of your critical health bar is high, then you are die very quickly. If it is low then you are dying very slowly. This is very important to understand.]

'Alright, I guess, I understand.'

[No, really Jim. Especially for you with only one hit point. The velocity of death is critical. If it is high then you know at what rate you are going to approach death. This gets away from the classic gaming hit point system where an attack has a certain strength. It is crazy, right. The strongest attack in the world could hit your arm and you would just loose an arm. But if it hit your neck, then you would be dead. So the velocity number is just an easy way to see how critical any given situation is.]

What must have been minutes passed as Jim made an effort to understand.

'Now you are really freaking me out and I don't understand at all. I just said I understood because I didn't …'

Jim found that he couldn't finish that sentence. The conflict of passionately loving Cassandra coming from his cell body and his soul's need to present a capable individual were in stalemate. 

[Didn't what?]

'I didn't … uhmmmm.'

He didn't know how to tell her what he was feeling. He didn't even understand it himself. How do you tell a person that they are basically a god like presence in his life.

[Ahhh, okay...]

She gave him another minute to explain himself and then went on.

[I wouldn't worry about your one hit point, though. If you go into your profile and then into the information about your plasma membrane you will find that it has its own health bar. Each organelle has it's own health point system now, actually. Maxed out like it is now, your plasma membrane can handle a respectable amount of damage.'

'Oh! Yay!! That makes me feel better.'

[Good. Just remember that basically your cell membrane's health is the same as your cell body's health at this point. Mostly because you don't have anything else except for the poison sac and that thing is not a defensive structure at all. If it is attacked it is going to be way worse for you at this point. Keep it safe! So remember, if you loose all the hit points that your membrane has that will be your one hit point of health for you cell body as a whole.]

Cassandra sounded like she was really trying to provide him the information he needed to survive.

'Sure, sure.'

Jim was loving this conversation with Cassandra. He secretly hoped that she would think he was still confused and keep talking. She had to convince him and make sure he understood on top of that too, right?

[Alright, I will assume you understand. You are doing great, by the way!]

Contrary to what he had been thinking she didn't continue the conversation. Instead she just left. And now he was on his own again with hundreds of cells literally suffocating him. Preventing him from releasing any more poison, he had nothing he could do.

Waiting, since he had become so good at waiting these days, he hoped that she would come back and tell him some more things about important aspects of her system. But she didn't and Jim had to accept that fact. He had to figure out how to survive whatever the cells surrounding him. Whatever they were doing, it had to be something more than just chilling. What could they be doing besides glamming on.

'Hello, can you hear me?'

Trying to communicate with them seemed like the wrong idea.

'Hey, you guys better get off me or I am going to get angry?'

Threats didn't seem to work either. What could they be doing?

'Wait! I know, you guys are holding me down, aren't you?'

Jim didn't know if holding him down was the right answer. It seemed weird since he couldn't move anyway, but they didn't know that. Maybe this was just a normal response for them. What they were doing might just be an evolutionary pattern. Find and immobilize rouge cells. But what would be the next step in their pattern? Maybe, right this second, they were doing more than holding him down and glamming on. But with this realization he couldn't mess around any more. He had to get down to business and figure out something to do, and soon. These cells weren't going to wait around for him to spread more poison!