Chapter 17

So i'm a bit of a coward. I didn’t contact a tree. I contacted just a plant that was still in its infancy.

it wasn’t a sprout or seedling, I think based on its roots it was barely budding its flowers?

Anyways basically what I’m trying to say is that even if the plant was sentient like me it wasn’t exactly all there yet. It was basically a baby.

I got cozy and starting attaching more of my mycelium to its roots. Hell I wanted a pet and if this sucker actually grows fruit some might even fall and be more nutrients I can consume. i could even direct more nutrients to it from the hub. It would be a bitch and half to direct all the nutrients here but hey who said owning a pet was easy?

I’d get around to talking to a tree once I established myself a bit more. Maybe once phase one was semi complete? I don’t know.

I guess I was afraid it wouldn't be sentient?

Like if I made contact and all I get was a base intelligence i'd have to face the fact that i'm really all alone. No one to talk to for years and years to come. Yeah I was loner back home but I still talked to the clerk while getting my groceries. I still talked to people online in comment sections or in forums. But if I was truly alone …

A person with that much time alone could go crazy.

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Sure I have my projects and my little ongoing “feud” with the assholes who eat me. But that doesn’t replace communication with sentient people. They’re just a distraction from the inevitable fact that I’m all alone. Who in their right mind even wanted that?

So yeah I’m afraid of making contact. God I hate psychoanalyzing myself and now that I’m smarter it looks like I can narrow down the specifics of how I’m such a complete wuss.

Man intelligence can really be a curse sometimes ya know?

Lets just check up on my other projects huh? Fuck all this whining.

Looks like the hub pathway is really pumping all those nutrients towards my bde pathways. I really do hope the plants are okay with me taking those carbons. Well I guess I should really be hoping the mycorrhizal fungus is okay with me taking their nutrients, after all those nutrients should really be going towards it. But I don’t see how they could. Like all fungi, except me I guess they aren’t ones who can really be aggravated. Or have any emotions at all.

My pathway to the river looks fine too nothing to really report back on that one. Its just chugging some water and taking it to the hub.

The expansion of the sensory mycelium was going pretty okay too. Now instead of a kiddie pool size they were about the size of a small one room building. Of course they were bypassing obstacles like rocks, trees and roots. Geez I know I said growing through the grass here was difficult but its really starting to get on my nerves.

Fuck you grass.

I had the two sites already testing my different chem mushrooms and I was working on that third site, when I finally felt that fateful sensation. Some dumbass predator was finally in the vicinity of that second location. Come on you fucker eat me! Weird thought. heh.

just when I though it was just gunna leave it stopped and I think it was looking towards my chem mushroom cuz its feet were pointed vaguely towards it. I wonder if its actually gunna go for it.

In what I felt was an eternity but was probably only like a couple seconds it started walking in the right direction.

Hehehe eat it you asshole!

It nabbed it. Based on the imprint of its feet I think It was from that same species who ate that first mushroom. I should really start naming these assholes. How about species a? Yeah lets go with that.

Anyways it ate it and now for the wait.