There was no doubt. The next step had been taken by other organisms in the water, and now it was time for his creations to do so. Coöperation between the cells. he knew exactly what he wanted and made it so. His new altered cells would split, but still stick together forming a bigger organism. Not completely separated, they would be able to share nutritiënts.

But he wasn't done yet. The spike-cells couldn't just grow endlessly, just to become an enormous mass. That way they wouldn't be able to survive. they needed to feed. to hunt. to move. They needed all the energy they could get, not just to survive. But to become the best at doing so. Their size needed to be optimal. And so needed to be their form.

The Ambitious One tried many shapes and sizes. And found that the spikes he gave his cells, at this stage, prevented any cellular connections other than to the side or the back. So he connected four cells together back to back, in the way that with their spikes, the cells would form an X. With just enough space for another singular cell to go through the middle. Then he stacked the X's. making a chain. A hollow and flexible tube, with most spikes pointing outward, except for the ones at the back that would point inward and the ones on the front that would point forward. And it would grow longer as the cells duplicated themselves. At a length of ten X's, it would split in the middle to create two new ones.

It didn't do much yet, but water would go through it, and any nutriënts the water might carry, would be caught within the tube. The same for singular cells, with the bonus that they would be ripped open on the front by the spikes.

The Ambitious one was very aware of the risk he took with his overcomplex creature, and realised that his ambition could be his downfall. But he had spend a lot of time experimenting, and he knew he couldn't fall behind. Time was a most important factor.

He watched his new creations randomly wiggle through the water, as the individual cells' movement influenced the position of all the others in the organism, and already a new idea came to his mind.

They were feeding. These little would-be beasties weren't quite god-slayers yet, but for now, it was working. Deciding to uncreatively call them Feeders, The Amorphous Jowls watched his creations carefully. It was as these little things ganged up on one slightly bigger thing that the revelation hit it. In a perfect moment of clarity, The Amorphous Jowls came to the stunning realization that these Feeders would never defeat him like this. They were one cell each, with a mighty mouth being their only defining feature. They would never destroy an Entity like Jowls. They could barely destroy anything with a notably bigger body! The Feeders had to grow.

It was then that The Amorphous Jowls gave them the gift of multicellular bodies. Still not gigantic monsters that could kill it, of course. Their bodies had a total of maybe ten cells, ending in the mouth on one end and abso-frigging-lutely nothing on the other end. It was a simple form, but it was something. It wasn't his intention, but a longer body would be capable of constricting prey. That would have to be a future project, he decided. For now, he'd need to let his Feeders do exactly what they were literally designed to do. Eat.

The Chaos One was very busy. He had to make his naes even bigger, better, and more toxic. He had to try to take control of a rogue species left behind by Standanat. He was so busy, he hardly noticed a rogue species was starting to split off from his naes. He didn't mind this, in fact, he was fascinated by the prospect that one of his species could separate from him.

He encouraged the growth of this rogue species as they would be a nice experiment to see what they would do. These.. Eams were not growing as big as his naes but they were faster and seemingly more aggressive. This would be good, it might cause him problems later, but it was cause Standanat problems too, and it would be insterting to see what these new eams could become.

This One found itself observing it's new creature, admiring this unforeseen development. The Disk Clump floated freely in the water, a primitive colony of cells, more trapped with each other than actual cooperation. Still, they filtered the water for the Tiny Ones as food, and traveled wherever the currents carried them. It continued to observe, and wondered whether It's creations knew their origins, who their creator was. This One whispered to them, but they made no reply, at least not one It recognized. Ah well, perhaps they will speak later.

It was now when This One observed the wriggling creatures. and watched, fascinated. Had it's experiment worked? Had it identified another like This One? The new creature seemed to have no influence over It's creation, nor did It's own creation influence this creature. Not compelling proof of Others, but a start. It called it The Wriggly One, which seemed harmless enough anyway, not proving to be any immediate threat. The Wriggly One shared the waters of The Disk Clump, as each paid no attention to the other. It proved to have invaluable knowledge, though, and This One altered The Disk Clumps and the Fire Feeders, to grow bonds with one another. It was very impressed with The Wriggly One, and set about to try and do the same with It's creation. Small steps though, small steps.

There were plans to be put into motion, but the Enclosing One would need to wait. Its power was growing but divided. Meanwhile, other species were making progress. Impressive progress. This planet shall be diverse, and populous. Yet so much life drifts freely- No matter. It shall all be covered. All in time. There were threads expanding in the water now, and the Entity recognised them as the same as the deceptively restful creatures that had speared the predatory cells and fed upon them. Now, joined together, they formed an even better trap. A trap for something which might choose to drift among them, it thought with some degree of an emotion approaching smugness. The fractals rested still on the shallows. Not so for their divided progeny, for many of the spores they created, the Enclosing One knew, were being trapped in the spindly web of cells, unable to be freed by the current before the spikes pierced their covering and could feed on the living interior. Some still made their way to safer locations, and that was enough for this One.

Some of the predators, in turn, seemed to have changed, become joined bodies in their own way. They appeared to be doing an excellent job of feasting on any type of cell they found, lesser or greater. This was what the Enclosing One had anticipated would be an eventual hazard for its thin layers. With regards to its colonies, however, the layer of death and regeneration seemed to keep their and the fractal population in a kind of balance on the shallow seabed... Producer and consumer, the growth and the grazer. Interesting enough. Unsettling, when they made gaps in the fractals from time to time, but interesting.

The once-rogue species- or some of them- had returned to the Enclosing One's grasp, but did not earn all of its power. Some of that energy, that wonderful space filled with potential, the Entity kept to itself, and it did so with reason. It liked some of what it saw developing in this world, and imitation was a slow process. Occasionally, in passing, the Entity observed neutral life that had broken away from the wild masses which were beyond its control, like the life which it had cast away from its ordered sphere of power. If a neutral species it liked, wanted to copy, ever broke away, the Enclosing One would be there, providing purpose to the aimless life of the world.

As for now, there was work to be done. With the tangle of bladed threads posing a danger to drifting organisms but the regained species too deep to efficiently develop any form of photosynthesis, the Enclosing One instead altered the individual cells to produce for themselves an internal armour, a wall which each one carried to give it some protection, and a little structure along the joins between cells. It was similar to an adaptation it had seen another species produce for itself in its earlier flight.

The Entity felt that the established fractals were proving, so far, to be successful in all aspects except variety. There were slight differences in species, between the colonies with ridges and with short fronds and with shallow wrinkles, yet within each species all cells performed the exact same tasks in the exact same way. If it wished for them to become adaptable, to become truly complex, there would need to be variation within the colony. How, without changing their inherited code? Symbiosis with the lesser cells on which they feed? There's an answer to this somewhere. The code could be very, very intricate indeed. Certainly room there for diversity. Perhaps the Entity could construct the colony to have different cells, specialised for reading different parts of one code... An idea worth experimenting with. The genus had the ability to produce spores as part of its natural behavious, and as more of it grew, the Enclosing One tried to see if it could create sections of the pattern in which the cells would do nothing else... To some success. The spores were produced, but the spores themselves were simply a continuation of the same type of cell, separated from the main body. Specialised cells could be the answer to the complexity problem, if the code could be adjusted to produce them. It was time to tinker.

The Ambitious One observed many different life forms in the water. Many of which evolved at the same rate as his species did. Pondering over this fact, the Ambitious One decided that either he worked no faster than the natural course of things, or there was something else at work here. And perhaps they were the same thing. But it didn't matter really. All it meant, was that he had to work faster, to overcome. His ambition had grown again. And so had his power.

He had many ideas, but as the organisms around his creatures changed with them, they needed to adapt accordingly. No, not accordingly. They needed to adapt, superior. The Spiky worms were doing fine, but they wouldn't be for long. There were many things needed, and just clumping the cells together wasn't going to be enough. They needed to act As One. Perfecting that, was a challenge he set for himself. But he knew that it was going to take a long time.

The diversity and complexity of all life fascinated him. Somehow, some of the surrounding organisms had developed thicker layers that protected them from the piercing spikes of his creations. But there was still enough life that could be fed upon. However, some of the more agressive lifeforms, that were now more resistant to the spikes, posed a threat again for his organisms. Enraged, he wanted to take action against that, but then realised, they didn't pose a threat to his species as a whole. They still thrived. Just slightly cut back in their growth.

Growth.
They needed to grow more, but couldn't just endlessly grow. They would be metaphorically crushed under their own weight. How to grow and sustain and gain the upper hand? It seemed an impossible task.

Irritated by the fact he couldn't do all the necessary things at once, he decided to take one step at a time. And the next one would be to overcome the growth problem with the spikes. Now his creatures were one cell thick. If he wanted it to be more than two layers, he needed the spikes to be harmless on the inner layers. But he didn't want to lose the advantage of spikes on the outside. Within the same creature, the cells needed to be different. And this required a lot.

So he altered the code again. But he also changed the way that the code would be read. It depended on the position of the cell in the organism. Whenever a cell would split into two new ones, their spikes would be soft and tentacle-like. Then, if they experienced no constant pressure from surrounding cells, the spikes would harden into their sharp form.

This alteration meant, that now his creations could grow bigger with multiple layers of cells. With spikes still on the outside of the tube. And on the inner layers, in between cells would lay the 'tentacle' of another cell. They had no use yet. But The ambitious one saw a lot of potential in this for eventual future communication between the cells in the organism.

He wanted his organisms to grow a lot bigger, but this alteration, had taken a lot of his energy. So he was only able to add a single layer of cells to his creatures, Now, the spike worms had an inner layer with cells that had inward pointing tentacles (not hardening because in straight position they would touch the other cells), which increased the chance that prey would be entangled inside the worms. And an outer layer that was still covered in spikes.

The Ambitous One was satisfied, for now. This next step of his creation had improved it incredibly in complexity, with just one change. And not only was it able to grow bigger now, it was also more intertwined. More stable. One step closer to internal communication. One step closer to acting as One.

He rested and watched the organisms in his evolutionary chain as all the forms he touched, still drifted in the water amongst the other lifeforms. The single cells. Then with spikes. Then a star-donut form. Then a tube structure of those. And now a double layer version of that, with primitively specialized cells. So wonderfully doing well at surviving, amongst the most intruiging competition.

As the world molded his creations, the Matrices watched with avid interest. The more aggressive species began to diverge somewhat, but it did not quite slip from the being's control. Both colonies, Agro and Passi, developed more effective methods to communicate with one another. Chemicals were developed so the cells could communicate when to 'move' or to 'stop'. However something unique developed in each. The Agro colonies, in addition to being aggressive, gained a new communications trait or two. They learned to 'move' in chase of other organisms and to intentionally trigger their bodies to open. In essence the forming organism began to form a 'mouth' of sorts, however, this mouth and digestion system was its entire body. These colonies would chase other organisms and attempt to 'open' themselves, only to close once more, trapping creatures inside their bodies and trying to digest them.

The process was not very effective as of yet, but was a primitive hunting technique nonetheless. It would cause them, at times, to ingest organisms stronger than themselves, thus causing them death or great injury when the creature managed to eat the organism from the inside out. The enzymes utilized to digest were not fast enough to protect them, nor always strong enough to kill the organisms they ate before they were too damaged to resist.

The Passi colonies, however, slowly grew small foldable flagella on the outside portions of their body. These flagella were simply a modified form of the flagella-like nerve connections utilized for communication within their bodies. As such these colonies were faster than some of the organisms that attempted to attack them, thus allowing them to flee. This system was still not very effective as they did not seem to store enough energy to swim away for long.

Both designs had incredible flaws, but the Matrices thought them both to be incredibly intriguing. Soon it would be time to influence them once more, but the entity would wait till then. For while it could feels its power growing, it knew it was not quite great enough to do what it wished to.

A wave crashes over the sound of a gurgle and a slosh. The Composer looked proudly at its expanding creation. Two different types of its cell had developed, a deeper, gurgling cell and a more shallow, sloshing cell. Not only an aural effect, its organisms were now a visual effect as well; where its organisms lived, the bubbling water was a distinctly different shade of blue.

But the Composer had little time to celebrate, as the bubbling began to decrescendo. The gurgling was the quietest, but even the sloshing was waning. Looking closer, the Composer saw why; its creations were being starved out by a byproduct of the increased fertility rate. A surface-dwelling variant on its undersea amoebae had developed, rising there for the increased sunlight levels, and began to monopolize it. Hardier and sturdier to accommodate for the surface, it was clearly more fit to survive, but that didn't matter to the Composer, who could only see them as mute defects.

They were different from the sloshing cells - more so than the sloshing cells were from the gurgling cells. And the Composer could feel its influence on the cells in general begin to split in two, as speciation began to take hold on the surface-dwellers. Before that could happen, it knew something had to be done.

But the Composer held a certain fondness for all its creations. Their muting effect lowered that slightly, but the surface-dwellers still were its creation; if possible, the Composer preferred a non-lethal solution to the problem.

A radical change, the Composer noticed, had already occurred in a number of lifeforms throughout the world. Cells were attaching to other cells, creating structures that benefitted all within them. It was a radical change that this situation needed.

So the Composer focused his power into forming a cup - the bubble-making cells underneath the water forming the bottom of the cup, and the surface-dwellers on the top, forming the rim.

The resulting "cup" was more of a net, as sealing it up completely was unfeasible at the moment (and water needed to flow through anyways). Each cell in the structure expanded sideways and following the fertility rates already given to them, and as such the cup expanded horizontally at a constant rate. Eventually the "cup" would resemble a dish, the Composer foresaw.

For now, the Composer was satisfied by its new creation. A nice bubbling was finally secured, and it was time to move on to other things. At least, that was what the Composer hoped...

Ah, progress. This One is greatly pleased with the progress made. The Disk Clump and the Fire Feeders now spoke and acted as One, working together to survive the harshness of this world. Much progress had been made, though a new problem in the endless stream of complications had presented itself: The slime was now ineffective, and This One's creations were being hunted mercilessly. While the Fire Feeders were safe, the Disk Clump was an easy target, and filled the bellies of many of the new creatures. So, it would appear that This One must revisit the code, as this was unacceptable.

Firstly, it finished what it had wanted to do for a while, and gave the Disk Clumps some mobility, in the form of a gentle flapping. It had no idea where it was going, or where to go, but it was a start, albeit a slow one. Then, it invested it's remaining power into finding some sort of defense. But how? There is nowhere else that is not inhabited by Others... Then ingenuity struck: why not have the Disk Clumps MAKE their own homes? And with gleeful excitement, It set about incorporating the surrounding minerals into it's creation, and, while many died, a simple, thin shell was slowly becoming a reality.

The Enclosing One was working, and it was thinking. The tangle of increasingly large cellular thread that had woven itself into the ocean was a problem. It was disturbing. Yes, of course, the walled life it was creating would not be bothered by floating hazards in the long term, but the species was too deep to begin drawing strength from the sun and the sandy bed of the shallows were dominated by the fractals and their various predators. ...Not all the shallows are vacant. The calm spaces I have covered, yes. Could the stones of the shore where the wind is fierce be colonised? Nourishment in the state that they consume now is short and my power is stretching. Yet, all great movements had to begin with a single push. With an odd feeling of nostalgia, the Enclosing One caused the regained colonies to produce for themselves molecular threads, but these served a different purpose. Instead of binding the amoebic creatures together, these bound the walls of the cells to any flat, stony surface they remained on with an adhesive substance. As desired, the simple colonies began to spread their way back into the shallows, into the rougher coasts that lay yet unexploited by the more complex fractals.

The Enclosing One realised that it had isolated the collections of cells severely from their cousins in the deeper water. They were breaking away from the genetic family that grew in the darker places, and the Entity allowed it, casting away that which had served its purpose. This process is still slow. Hm. There will be more adaptations needed for this habitat... In time, in time, in time. The shore colonies were only succeeding in their new home because they were lonely. The ebb of the tide killed those it left exposed to air, and the rest subsisted on the smaller cells brought by the waves, growing slowly. When they did grow, however, they made a thin covering of lightly walled cells attached to the rock. Progress!

As for the more complex colonies... There was still work to be done there. The same predators that were feeding on it, and the drifting bodies out of the Entity's control, were growing larger. For now, the flat, universally linked-up shape of the cells wasn't an easy form to consume by using a single orifice. ...Not yet. That orifice the grazers are using can grow, can adapt to the task. Will it? Perhaps. This untamed life is certainly... Opportunistic. Still, the grazing pests did offer a niche of their own. Until now the colony had simply surrounded and absorbed anything that drifted upon it, but many of the drifters were now complex and large by comparison, or broken corpses of something large. Some of them simply bounced away on the current or re-formed before they could be consumed. I think I must emulate the soulless wild, here. Opportunity calls.

The surfaces that produced spores were only a continuation of the already-present, natural behaviour, but this was a different change. The same genetic code now produced two types of cells that linked up in the same pattern. The first was a carpet that engulfed and devoured the simple cells that drifted among it. As the spreading, dividing pattern of the carpet covered the shallow sand, another type of cell grew with it, growing with and folding into the seams left by an adjusted growth pattern.

The second type rested almost dormant unless it was damaged and needed to form a protective covering, or if it belonged to a spore-fertile surface. The specialised cells formed wide folds and loops in the carpet, and upon contact with a eukaryotic cell that was not part of the completed maze of connections, they pulled themselves inwards and contracted to pull the object into the layers of consuming cells.

Without the second type of tissue growing in unison with the consuming growth, the layer would produce flaws and gaps. The cells which filled the erroneous locations would respond to the opposite part of their code, producing the enclosing folds. It was a harmonious system. Excellent.

Time's gradual progression continued to allow changes in the organisms ruled by the Matrices' will, though its will touched them not for some time now. Observing them closely, the being noted that they appeared to both lack qualities that the others possessed. The colonies were each incomplete, but perhaps together they could function properly.

As such, the entity pulled on the strings of behavioral DNA and altered both ever so slightly, allowing them to mingle more often. There was, however, an issue, the being wished to allow both parties one another's capabilities, but there was no way for them to transfer these between the organisms. Considering this, the entity began to tinker with their reproductive processes until it ended up with a rudimentary system of sorts. After some time both colony groups would become one group, of sorts, their offspring becoming more than their predecessors through the process of reproducing sexually, rather than asexually.

This single modification was the Matrices will for the moment and so following this the being backed off once more and watched their progression, noticing the issues related to sexual reproduction begin to show themselves. A competition of sorts arose between the two rudimentary sexes which would shift depending on the population of the surrounding colonies in terms of gender association. The switching would confuse all colonies, there needed to be further improvements to this, but the being would bide its time until it was prepared to make the needed modifications once more.

As such the Agro and Passi colony groups began to dissipate and be replaced by what the Matrices called 'Amor' colonies. These had some traits from both Agro and Passi colony. The differences varied between the many individuals. Some had faster movement and were capable of hunting through a strange reversed method, by allowing predators to tire from chasing them, only to then turn on the tired organisms and engulf their form, devouring them.

Some of them did nothing of the sort and would instead engulf their prey completely and then thrash their bodies around, beating the creature(s) to death by using their flagella to move their individual cell bodies back and forth so as to slam into the ingested prey.

The differences continued to appear, but still none of the colonies diverged from the Matrices' control as all of them shared the same basic genetic make up. None were so different as to split the Matrices' sphere of influence.

Not yet at least.

Watching its newly handcrafted instrument, the Composer saw another type of organism swimming alongside the Cup. These organisms resembled a single cell of the Cup, but produced no bubbles. They seemed, rather, to consume other cells. Perhaps these organisms were a remnant of the original colony, before the Composer came along?

No matter. What did matter was that they threatened the Cup. When the Composer noticed them, they had already eaten enough of the Cup for it to no longer resemble a cup at all! It was torn into two, in fact, and these organisms showed no signs of stopping their feast.

First, the Composer tried to influence its creation to get it to fight back, to no avail. Then to move away, which also proved unsuccessful. So the Composer instead influenced the aggressors themselves - to simply prefer other cells over the Cup.

Slowly, the aggressors withdrew. The damage had already been done, however, and the Cup was now split in two.

But the instinct to group together that the Composer had already placed there still remained. One end of each piece sought the other end, and joined with it. This process formed two separate Cups. This, the Composer would later realize, would be the main form of reproduction used by the Cups.

This One worked feverishly, excited and driven by innovation. It had come upon a brilliant idea, while observing The Disk Clumps and Fire Feeders swim about aimlessly. It seemed that they lacked direction, that they couldn't move in any meaningful way. They simply reacted to stimuli, without any other sensory information than touch and changes in the environment around them. What they needed now made sense to This One: They needed to see. However, this challenge was a huge obstacle to overcome, and It would need to be very careful and methodical in It's approach.

Firstly, it needed some sort of... Communication within itself, something that thought the way This One did. It began the process by differentiating the cells in the front of the Disk Clumps to the cells in the back, and It struggled greatly to make this change. With the shell concept It had been working on, it modified the Disk Clump's Code, so that as it grew, the shell pinched the organism in the middle, and twirled finely around it's middle. While not very thick or strong, it was now a reality, and offered some protection from the stinging spears of the Others who hunted it. Then, the forward part of the organism was modified to be much smaller, and could retract into the shell, should The Others try to consume it. The back end that stuck out of the shell was merely for movement, and the powerful undulating motion was concentrated there, making it much faster.

This One stood back, and admired it's new creation. While there was no real structure or design that gave this creature direction, it was now ready for whatever solution This One could think of. After this achievement, it would do the same to the Fire Feeders, so soon as It rested from the intense work, and observed how the new Shelled Clump adjusted to the environment. Curiously, a mistake had been made somewhere along the way, and now it floated vertically, with the undulating back end right at the top, and the head floating towards the bottom of the ocean. It actually didn't move any faster at all, but seemed to just float now, right underneath the surface. Ah well, This One liked a challenge anyway. And the shell should protect it. Hopefully.

The sun on the surface had become a familiar sight once more for the Enclosing One, who had been devoting much time and care to its hardy growth on the wave-beaten rocks, watching the shapes and links adjust themselves for continued growth on the harsh places, driven by simple survival. The thin, tightly clinging layer of cells, meager though they were by necessity, had filled its mind with thoughts about future possibilities. The dry surface could be inhabited. Changed, even, to be kinder to life. Presently, it would give very little nourishment... None, certainly, of the sort that the Shore-Dwellers were used to, already packaged up as simple cells and brought in by opportune currents. If ever there was a time for the Enclosure to become self-sufficient at last, it was now. Having observed for enough time the drifting collections of sun-driven cells and the queerly bubbling hemispheres it spotted sharing the Fractal shallows now and again, the Entity began incorporating constructs into the plasma of the cells that imitated the earliest work of the little beings. The alteration brought the Entity great satisfaction. Its joy seemed to reverberate in its adopted progeny as the colour gave a distinctive green tint to the rocks. ...Like the ocean, now. Have I not worked well? Perhaps with an excess of haste... Some among the number still wait, patiently, for sustenance from the current. They are not self-provident. No matter, no matter. Should they live, it is by their own devices now.

The splitting apart of the shore species brought concerning thoughts to mind about the future of the patterned growth. The colonies, by now little resembling the amoebae they had descended from, had spread far through spores and outwards expansion, and the Enclosing One had watched as their genetic code separated into subtly different species with distance. There is potential to do better, here. The patterns are spread far and split apart. Their spores travel, but do not interact with what they descend into... What must take place is exchange across distance. How can this occur? Surely there is no exchange without... Loss. The problem was puzzling, and it did not occur to the Enclosing one to turn attention to the grazers and predators for inspiration, for they lived and reproduced in their own way.

The solution, it believed, was still in the spores. While the functional cells required the full DNA code, the spores only drifted after their birth, so the Enclosing One decided to change how they were produced. Rather than by the usual division, the living units within the protective casing were left with only a single set of the packaged DNA every cell carried within itself in identical pairs, for division. when they split away from their parents. Should they drift to the seabed as intended without interaction, the set would replicate into an identical pair of chromosomes again, and the tiny spore would grow as its like had always done. A new type of drifting fragment now accompanied them in the water, however.

Where the pattern of growth produced a spore-fertile region, it now gave itself a limited lifespan. The fertile cells would die slightly faster than they divided, but their death left behind chemical messengers demanding replacement. When the growing mass responded to the message, they became fertile regions again, but produced a multitude of even smaller fragments in the place of large ones, simple things that fit into and fused with the spores, bringing with them the second set of code. Small spores were created until the region died away, leaving behind the original instruction to produce the primary spores.

The new system was crude, the Entity noted. The protection on the growth spores often prevented the fragments from fusing, and even then, only one of the handful of growing cells would have received the addition. Growing, mothering spores were produced at a much lower rate now, and the contributing fragments were small enough to often fall prey to the colony's own looped traps. Unstable. The Enclosing One regretted the flaws. I have further harmed what I have intended to heal. There will be... Renovations, to this system. There is a little exchange going on, at least... I am but learning, even now. Time will bring solutions.

Unable to think of other ways to make these lifeforms make noise, the Composer looked to the products of its influence, and the underlying mechanics it had for the most part ignored, for inspiration.

Photosynthetic cells, attached to one another to form the shape of a pair of cups (once a single cup but violently torn in two) were floating on the surface of the water, making a distinct gurgling noise and emitting a strange chemical underneath.

And underneath the two cups and the surface of the water, a large amount of cells freely swimming and consuming prokaryotes, avoiding the cups overhead (whom they were responsible for splitting) out of a repulsion for this strange chemical.

In all honesty, the Composer was barely responsible for the latter cells, whom it decided to call “aggressors”. All it had really done was will them away from the Cup while they were consuming it whole. It was intrigued, however, by the method they were being repulsed. It had given the aggressors a repulsion from a chemical, and at the same time made the Cup(s) emit said chemical? The Composer began to ponder this new kind of interaction between its organisms.

So, now some cells were able to remotely repel other cells? That was pretty useless as a defense mechanism, since the Composer would have to have both cells under its influence. And the case with the aggressors was a special case; the Composer wouldn't normally be able to will most attackers away quickly enough. So what other uses might this repulsion have?

Well... does it have to be repulsion? After all, what the chemical actually did to the aggressors was make them want to move away from the chemical's source. What if a chemical made a cell want to move towards its source instead? Not only was repulsion possible, but (in theory) compulsion; a cell could remotely compel another cell towards it as well.

The Composer was becoming more intrigued by the concept every second. When it thought about it, this would be an immensely useful tool to have. Compelling other cells remotely to move? It seemed like an okay function, but... what if the two cells were each part of a larger, multicellular organism? What could be done with that?

…

…

It absolutely had to be done. The Composer had more trouble imagining what couldn't be done with this interaction. Immediately, to set up the first foray into this concept, the Composer willed that the aggressors congregate, much like the Cup had done, and attach themselves to each other, into the shape of a sturdy circle underneath one of the Cups (the other had drifted off), with a circular hole large enough to fit the Cup inside. At the same time, the Composer willed the Cups to extend down to the (shallow) ground, for a sort of anchor.

While the Cups had finished with their changes fairly quickly, the aggressors were evolving to theirs much more slowly, as it was not yet evolutionarily feasible, without a great source of food. Rings of aggressors (horizontally incomplete) finally managed to form around the Cup's anchor, unable to get closer to it due to the strange chemical, and were swimming mainly up and down around the Cup, eating any approaching prokaryotes. These rings attached to another, slowly speeding up the process, and eventually, around the anchored Cup was a disk of aggressors with a Cup-sized hole in them, eating oncoming prokaryotes as they swam up and down the Cup.

Waking up from it's self induced haze, the tinkerer lurched into motion once more. It's scrutinizing gaze casting itself over its creations it had left to mold and grow its whims. Things seemed to have changed as it noticed all this new life. Curious and worthy of inspection but what of its project? It swirled in a vortex of the water as he looked below and saw what had happened. Forests of the stuff that organized itself covering the barren rock and with a multitude of colors! It savored its success in creations but such satisfaction stopped short when the lack of light meant that the precious color he sought to spread didn't.

Still it was an auspicious beginning towards his new machinations and whims, the victory incomplete but still sweet. It was only a momentary obstacle in the desire. And such a slight only motivated it towards finishing the job. Grabbing some amoeba he started the long twisting and sculpting of their very makeup so that they would produce color themselves where the sun could fuel them with energy.

Up, down, up down... Bobbing away, with little care in the world. The Shelled Clumps appeared happy, though This One figured it didn't have that capacity yet. Come to think of it, This One was unsure of whether it itself knew what happiness was. Surely there was a way to figure this problem out. It fell to the darkest depths, and observed the Fire Feeders, still very basic in their design. Should It start the differentiating process with these Ones too? After some thought, it decided against it. They appeared fine enough, and intelligence could be more of a burden to it than an advantage, so It decided to have some... Fun.

For a while, This One had noticed the glowing points of light swimming about the Fire Feeders, and altered them to absorb these creatures. It took little effort, and now the Fire Feeders glowed brightly, As a result, they were preyed on more regularly, but This One didn't mind. It was having fun! Unable to stop there, This One decided to alter their shape too, and made them a hexagonal shape. It didn't benefit or hinder the Fire Feeders, but it was certainly something interesting to do. Proud of this little endeavor, it went back to work on the Shelled Clumps, and observed another issue in a constant stream of problems.

They stopped reproducing as quickly, and their Code was getting more and more difficult to alter meaningfully. Something needed to be done. It needed help. But as far as it knew, no One else was here, so it needed it's creations to take some of the workload off. Perhaps if each one had different Codes, and could mix and match between different Shelled Clumps? So, it started to develop little packets of Code that each individual released, to be absorbed by others, and allow for new codes to be randomly organised in new offspring. After some time, it had completed it's work, and sat back, eager to watch how this experiment played out.

Such fun almost seemed irresponsible to This One.