A very sensual shower was enjoyed by the two of us.  Eventually we both got ready to head out.  Badger was always ready for a walk so we made our way there.  It was still before noon and a nice sunny fall day.  The leaves on the trees had only just started to shift from green to red.  The town had never really turned into much of a tourist destination, but there would be some who ventured into town in the coming weeks to see this grove.  It was one of the few that turned red in the area as opposed to the normal yellows or oranges and it made for an amazing visual.

    We made it to Sylph’s cave and ventured inside.  Sylph had me sit next to the small water basin in the center of the room, her seated across from me.  Badger flopped down next to me and placed their head in my lap for me to scratch.  “So first, you’ll have to bring the fruiting body of the colony back out of dormancy so you can generate spores.”

    “You mean the brain mushrooms in my sinuses?”  I stuck out my tongue.

    The glare she aimed at me was entirely worth whatever she’d do to me later.  “Yes Marin… The Brain Mushrooms…”  Sylph exhaled an exasperated sigh at my repressed giggling before she continued.  “You will probably want to create a storage location for prepared spores though, unless you’d like to blow your nose at things to release them.  I understand that to be a stereotype of the cowpokes of the west.”  She returned the extended tongue.

    My giggling had only mildly subsided.  “Touché.”  

 

---

    I closed my eyes and turned within myself to the colony.  Good morning lovely brain fungus!  I inquired of our shared instincts the best way to activate spore production and store them somewhere for release and was presented with options.  I elected for what I’d already seen and chose something similar to Sylph, the hands.  A problem arose as the thought of ejecting spores from pores on my palms felt like it would be a very bad sensory experience so instead I elected to buddy up next to hair follicles on the backs of my hands and fingers.  

    As an afterthought I also remembered to have these spores be very limited in sensory information they would be sending to me, save that for later.  I bundled these changes and updated the instincts of the colony.  I watched the shifts within my body through my internal awareness.  Pores, similar to empty hair follicles, were created with a modified sebaceous gland and another gland for storage and release of spores.  Production of flagellated spores began in my sinuses and spores were carried through my blood to my fingers to be stored.  

---

 

    I opened my eyes to see Sylph’s beautiful smile which immediately caused me to blush.  “Gosh you’re pretty, but also I have spore launchers ready.”

    Her smile and face got brighter as she giggled.  She then shared with me the concept of what she would like me to try next.  

 

---

    The soil of the aspen grove contained a whole ecology of living things.  In particular, the alien fungal colony had woven itself in with the mycelia of many other species of fungus that had long inhabited the grove as well.  It had a sprawling web that extended for kilometers in every direction, and within that web were nodes containing bundles of a specific type of cell.  These cells contained interesting storage organelles that were specifically designed to hold and maintain the specialized proteins responsible for isolation of the entangled particles Sylph’s people used for communication.  I could direct my colony to generate a special type of spore that would have it’s own additional storage of these proteins complete with their own entangled twin residing in my brain.  I could then alter surface markers on these organelles to ‘address’ them to be delivered across the nodes of the grove.  One such node resided at the bottom of Sylph’s water basin.

    I looked to my colony’s instincts out of curiosity.  The protein reminded me of what I remember hemoglobin looking like so I also pulled that up in our instincts.  Human hemoglobin has four lobes each surrounding a single heme molecule. Each heme supports a single iron ion in a molecular frame of nitrogen and carbon.  

    This alien structure served a similar purpose, but massively more complicated.  There were two ring structures, similar to, but larger than heme, that were held parallel to each other.  Looking closer, I could see electrons racing around the two ring frames counter to each other, generating opposed magnetic fields that met between the rings.  Held at this meeting point was a single subatomic particle I didn’t recognize.  The aliens had created an organic superconductive magnetic containment field that functioned at body temperature.  Oh dang that’s a lot!  

    The protein surrounded and held the ring frame, and somehow isolated the generated field from everything external other than the quantum interactions with the particle’s twin.  This was amazing, but the aliens were very annoying with their lack of naming things.  I dub thee, quantaglobin!  

    Turning back to my fungal instincts, I requested a supply of quantaglobin laden comms spores, complete with grove node mailing addresses, to be stocked in my new finger glands.  Wow, my life is getting weird!  I saw it done with my awareness and then looked at Sylph

---

 

    I shared with her my name for the protein and reflection on my life.  Sylph rolled her eyes and laughed at me.  “Ok, here it goes.”  I smiled nervously.  I placed my hands over the basin and released my spores.  Badger grumbled confusedly at the glowing motes so I was forced to return to scratching them between the ears as I closed my eyes.

 

---

    I turned to the communication network within me.  To that one single link.  To Sylph.  And then I waited.  I could see with my external awareness the life energy of the spores as they left my fingers.  I watched as they entered the water and swam their way to the node of fungal cells within the basin.  I could sense them being taken up within the node and then a new link in the communication network opened to me, my link to the grove.  

    It started very faint, not enough entangled connections to send more than a ping, but as my spores unloaded their payload it brightened.  An extensive new web of other links blossomed from it.  New branches springing into being as my particles were connected to those within the node.  With external awareness I could watch a part of me, slowly being carried between fungal cells, along the hyphae filaments that formed the grove's intricate mycelial weave, leading away from the basin to the grove proper.  They had only made it about half a meter which actually felt very fast for molecular transport.  I would be feeling my awareness still spreading across the grove for months, my connections to the Consensus and others of Sylph’s people brightening all the while.

---

 

    I shared an update with Sylph and felt the warmth of her being proud of me over our link.  “So how would I go about adding a filtering network for the Consensus?”

     "It’s actually somewhat simple given the level of intelligence the grove and your colony possess.  They don’t really ‘think’ in any way as we’d understand it, but as you’ve likely noticed, they are very good at parsing requests.  You are effectively going to design an algorithm in your colony, and then you can request that it be implemented within the grove.”

    "That doesn't sound bad…"  And here comes some insecurities.  "How bad could I mess things up if I accidentally did something weird?"

    Sylph giggled.  "Don't worry, there will be warnings to indicate you've accidentally created an acidic flesh eating blob allowing you to confirm if that was intended."

    This earned a nervous chuckle.

    She placed her hand on my arm.  "Marin, making mistakes through experimentation is part of learning and so is the act of adapting those missteps into new forms.  Even taking accountability for any harm that was caused is important and valuable for growth."  Sylph paused for a moment.  "I've noticed how much undue negativity humans place in failure, mistakes, or being wrong.  It feels like this is a result of how unnecessarily punitive people view accountability."

    "Yeah, that's very true.  Like, movements for prison abolition and transformative justice have been gaining lots of traction, but still by no means mainstream enough to really shift how I feel internally about failure even though I know the feelings are just bull shit."  I took a long deep breath and gave Badger a little hug.  "Here I go again"

 

---

    Turning again to my fungal friend in my noggin, I requested it to help me create a filter.  Together we pulled upon its saved memories of the Consensus, a single snapshot as it had existed last night.  At first glance it was loosely organized chaos, thankfully exceedingly less chaotic now in its unchanging static state.  Slowly some aspect of shared perception between the colony and I began to make sense of things.  Just like within my void, I began to be able to comprehend space of more than three dimensions, the Consensus being far far more than three.  

    Each conversation within the Consensus was a fractally faceted gem in an n-dimensional space.  Each facet of a gem was a categorization of it's content, and also a connection to other discussions sharing the same facet.  I was sure some aspect of my dream and my understanding of library systems was influencing my perception, but I was thankful for it.

    I chose a gem at random and did my best to translate it's categorization into language.  [Core functions, material processing; waste material: recycling. Biosphere].  So, waste processing as part of the core functions of the biosphere, that was pretty simple.  I examined the facets more closely, the next seemed to represent an engineered ecology of organisms that performed this role, specifically an issue with their communal instincts not resulting in homeostasis.  I moved to another set of facets [humanity; food products; packaging: increased processing load].  The aliens were discussing an increase in human packaged food waste on the ship?  I peeked inside.  

    It was obvious from all the ongoing thoughts that a stable consensus had not been reached.  There was a contingent of aliens who'd found they had a sweet tooth, specifically for Pocky of all things, and had used a series of very remote PO boxes on Earth to retrieve several shipments and bring them back to the biosphere.  There was another contingent that was confused as to why they didn't just synthesize it after sampling one.  The bulk of the work was actually just about what to do with the increased mass of elements that weren't needed to maintain homeostasis within the biosphere.  Finally, many individuals participated merely because they found it humorous.  Hah, found the trolls!

---

 

    I opened my eyes to give my girlfriend an incredulous look.  "Sylph, did you get your friends hooked on Pocky?"  

    She looked very pleased with herself.  "I might have."  

    I rolled my eyes at her before closing them and diving back in.

 

---

    Focusing again on this gem of Pocky Package Processing, I found that each facet of it's categorization had a unique shape and orientation within the n-dimensional space of the Consensus.  Each was shared by many other discussions, giving each gem a unique shape as well.  If any discussions had considerable overlap of shared facets, they also had considerable spatial overlap within the consensus.  Change of thought in one shaped change within other overlapping gems.  Sylph’s people were so interesting.

    I had also found what I was after.  I could have the grove catalog all of the currently existing unique facets, and then have the grove search and filter out all but those I was interested in.  I would only have to parse a very reduced subset of gems in my poor little human brain.  I could save worries about how to expand my brain capacity as a problem for future Marin to play with.  Have fun future Marin!

    I turned to my lovely brain fungus and shared my discovery.  I was sure the lack of response I felt meant it was proud of me, I was proud of me.  I asked it to create an algorithm to catalog all the currently existing facets, one that would allow me to query this catalog for those that correspond to my interests, filtering out the rest.  It replied with a design of a mycelial network that could do just this.  Now I was proud of my fungus.  Such a fun guy!  I asked my good buddy to test out our new algorithm on the Consensus snapshot and start looking for any facets about us in particular.

---

 

    I opened my eyes and gave Sylph’s leg a squeeze.  “I’m proud of us.  My friendly fungus and I are currently testing out my search against the memory of the Consensus we saved.”  I shared with her an update of my wonderful progress.

    Sylph beamed at me and I basked in her pride as well.  “This is a very lovely side of you that you are showing me right now.  Confident Marin is a sexy Marin.”

    My blush was enormous, but I battled through it to give her a very good smooch.  Badger grumbled about being jostled and rolled over into their back.  My colony nudged me to let me know it had some results.  “Oh, Fungie has some results!”

    “Fungie?”  She looked up from scratching Badger's tummy with a very confused look on her face.

    “What?  I’m trying out some names.  You wanted me to stop calling it a brain fungus.”  I stuck out my tongue and dove back within myself as she rolled her eyes.

 

---

    There it was, the facet that represented all the Consensus’ gems relevant or related to me.  Turns out my facet had a somewhat pleasant shape within the consensus.  Some curves through a few dimensions here, a couple of hard points in other dimensions there, I could work with this.  Maybe get some two dimensional projection of it on a t-shirt.  

    I examined my facet’s categorization, [Contact, Marin: vocalized name; human; Consensus: inducted member of. Earth].  I felt happy to be a part of the Consensus.  I looked closer at the gems of conversation this facet was a part of.  [Xenobiology, engineered fungal colony; humanity: compatibility].  A discussion on how and why I could be compatible with Fungie, I could probably check that out later and see if I had anything to add or help with.  I continued inspecting and found some very interesting discussions.  [Human psychology, sexuality; attraction: affection: methods] and [Human physiology, sexuality; nerve clusters: stimulation].  What!?

---

 

    "There were discussions about us having sex?!"  I was shocked and blushing furiously.

    She only giggled at me.  "Yes, I was still worried about my inexperience.  There was encouragement and many suggestions for things I could try based on human anatomy.  It actually was part of what solidified my intention to start things while I had you in my lap last night.  It seemed many of the suggestions proved useful judging by how you reacted to them."  Sylph shared her remembrance of my moaning and quivering form the night prior.

    I gasped and my core muscles involuntarily twitched in response as she giggled at me more.  “Rude, but also wow... Do I really look that good when I orgasm?”

    She nodded emphatically.  “Yes, that is exactly what you look like and I would very much like to see it again.”

    I winked at her.  “Well it’d be my pleasure to show you.”  I waited smiling with my mouth open for the joke to land.

    Sylph again rolled her eyes as I again closed mine.

 

---

    I turned to my network of steadily growing connections and reached for the grove.  I shared with it Fungie’s design and very kindly asked if it would be possible to implement within its structure.  The grove responded in the affirmative, but it's thoughts were very different from my colony.  If thoughts could be said to have voices, or personalities, my Fungie was peppy, high pitched, and cute.  The grove on the other hand was slow, deep, and thoughtful.  Or maybe I was just thinking of it too much as an ent.  I was reverent and respectful in requesting it implement the change regardless.  In its low slow tone of thought, it let me know it would be ready in an hour.

---

 

    "The grove says it'll be ready in an hour."  I looked at Badger.  They were on their back receiving belly scritches, and their upside down head was looking at me.  I shared with Sylph the thought of taking the puppy for a walk and the idea of lunch.

    "Yes, that sounds like a wonderful idea."

* * *

    Sylph got changed into something more casual compared to her wonderful dapper look meeting my family.  Back into her yellow off the shoulder crop top with "HUMAN" printed across the chest and blue leggings.  The same thing she was wearing when we met.  She looked amazing, but it actually looked somewhat out of place on her human form even though the label was now at least partially more correct.  We gathered up Badger and put on our coats to head out.

    It was about midday and a nice cool yet sunny day for a walk.  Sylph had the wonderful thoughtful look she gets on her face, but seemed to be tinted with worry.  "Sylph, is everything okay?"

    She sighed.  "Yes… No…. I'm not really sure.  I am having anxiety around my concern for you moving so quickly towards joining the Consensus."  She reached out for my hand and I took hers.  "You are adapting amazingly well to the colony and making vast strides towards being more like me, like us… and I worry because I'm not sure of your motivations for doing so."  She squeezed my hand.  "I trust you, and your ability to tell me if it were something I'm doing.  I just don't know how much unintentional pressure you may be feeling that this is the correct expected step for you to take."

    "You want to know if all of this is something I want for me and why that is?"

    Sylph nodded.  "Yes."

    "As for becoming more like you and your people, I have always been super interested in things like biohacking and gaining more agency over my growth as a person.  I'm starting to take a liking to having Fungie in my head with me too."

    Sylph's face had winked again at my nickname for my brain fungus, so I leaned over and kissed her cheek.  "Having a wealth of knowledge and a lil friend to help me out when I want to learn how to do things.  Very helpful.  But really, I get to be something more than I was yesterday, every day."

    The smile my observation brought out of her drove me on.

    "As for joining the Consensus…  I like the idea of humanity having a voice within it.  That's not to say I feel at all responsible for representing humanity.  Certainly the bulk of humanity probably wouldn't want me to represent them, least of all anyone with any power."  I chuckled at the thought of people in power knowing the aliens would rather talk to me than them.  "But I don't feel like I need to do this because of that."

    We had just come to a nice open vista overlooking the town and I paused at this opportune moment to gather my thoughts.  "Sylph, just about every trans or queer person I know has some level of dream of gathering up everyone they care about and all living together somewhere.  For many that's somewhere away from the rest of society, for others a big house in a big city, but somewhere together.  There's a theme running through these dreams, having loving community and just existing right in the middle of it."

    "There's a whole bunch of barriers that get put up in between us and having community like this and it's very isolating without that access.  What you and your people have offered with the Consensus," I giggled, "with Fungie in my head, has felt like an offering from you, from your people, to be part of your community, one that doesn't have anywhere near the same barriers to access."  

    “Sylph, I love you, and I love community.  How could I not love the idea of joining yours?  Do I feel a pressure to do this as the right thing to do?  Of course I do, but it's a pressure that aligns so perfectly with my values that it's so very much the obvious change in my life I should be in partnership with."  I giggled again.  "What was the word you used when you asked me to kiss you?"

    "Generative?"

    "Yes that!  I feel like everything I'm doing right now, all the opportunities meeting you has opened up to me.  I feel like all of this 'would be very generative and fulfilling' for me to pursue."  I did my best to copy her thoughtful cadence and tone of voice.

    She laughed at me.  "Now I know I do not sound that snooty, and also I did not ask you to kiss me.  I said I'd like to kiss you, and you took that as an invitation."

    "You seemed to enjoy the result."  I smirked at her.

    "Marin dear, if I remember correctly you broke down half giggling half bawling in my lap for the next several minutes after that.  I had a great deal of feelings, but it was obviously far more impactful for you than I."

    "Oh yeah.  That was a real good laugh-cry."

    Sylph kissed me on the cheek as I was lost in my memory.  Eventually we resumed our walk in pursuit of lunch.