Albert was silent for the rest of the drive home, which was not terribly long.  He didn’t think anything clear or precise, just felt a vague sense of contemplation, something that he supposed was almost a Zen-like state.  He was a bit surprised that he was not more nervous than he was, but then again, he felt stronger, more confident, younger—those things had to affect his mental state and acuity, and not just in helping him remember JFK’s youthful medical issues.

Even if the shampoo didn’t directly influence his nervous system—and he didn’t see how it could affect it—just being healthier, feeling healthier, had to have knock-on effects that would improve other aspects of his health.  He thought that he recalled that he had been better at getting “into the zone” when he was younger, such as when he was studying in college.

In any case, he arrived home and went into his room, not even thinking about getting anything for dinner yet.  Instead, he walked into the bathroom, where he saw the smaller, older cup of shampoo, just as full as it had been before, next to the larger, newer cup.  The latter now contained only the honey-orange liquid; there was not even any sludge in the bottom of the cup.  The pleasant, invigorating scent of the stuff dominated the air, just strong enough not to be overpowering.

Albert thought that the level of the liquid was slightly higher than the water level had been that morning, even though the entire remnant of the cell phone had been submerged.  He wondered if the shampoo—he couldn’t think of it as anything else, even though he knew it was something far more remarkable—was less dense than water, or if it had taken in some extra water molecules and even other material from the air to complete itself.

He supposed that, eventually, if he was able to establish true communication with the shampoo, he could ask.  But for right now, he needed to test the limits of that communication.

Deciding that he’d rather not just stand around in his little bathroom, he sat down on the lowered lid of the toilet seat and looked to his right, at the vanity surface, where the two cups of shampoo sat.  He felt a bit silly doing it, but he reached out and moved them slightly, so that the larger, newer, cheaper cup was just as near to his current perch as the other had already been.  He thought that the bigger cup clearly had more inner surface area upon which to write, if it was going to answer him.

He took a deep breath, trying to force himself just to ask the first question he wanted to ask.  Oddly enough, he couldn’t quite do it, but not because he thought it was insane or foolish or whatever he might have expected himself to think.  No, he didn’t just want to open up with a question.  He wanted to work his way up to it.  He didn’t want to be…well, rude or abrupt.

“Hey,” he found himself saying.  “Hello.  Hope you had a good day.”  He was embarrassed even as he heard himself say this, and he added, “I don’t know, I’m not sure what that would mean for…for you.  For all of you.  Or for you, singular, I don’t know what makes more sense.  But I don’t know what a good day would be for you, and…well, anyway, I can see that you’ve been productive.”

He paused, feeling quite silly and indeed almost mortified by his inane words.  If it had been a person to whom he was speaking—a human person, that is—he felt sure they would have responded to some of his comments as if they were questions and would have tried to help him out, to make the conversation easier from his end.  But apparently, the V-42, for all its wonderful power, was not gifted at small talk.

“Okay,” he said.  “Well, I want to ask you, and ask you to answer me sort of like you did before, last night and this morning.  Do you…can you understand me when I’m talking to you?  Out loud?”

He half expected nothing visible to happen.  He half expected to wait for a while, then to go get his dinner, get ready for bed, and perhaps to have to wait for the morning to see any reply, if there even was one.

He half expected this.  But the other half of him expected otherwise, and that half was, if anything, given more abundant confirmation than he would have dreamed.

As he watched the side of the bigger plastic cup, at roughly the level where there had been a sentence written that morning, he saw the surface darken rapidly, in an unmistakable pattern, in a clear, sans-serif font of some kind, just as he had seen that morning.  In less than a second, he would have guessed, the word “Yes” formed itself from out of the liquid and etched itself onto the plastic, so it appeared written left-to-right to him.

He took in a breath, astonished by how quickly it had happened.  Then, remembering Walter’s surprising and sensible recommendation, he added, “Actually…could you…could you maybe answer in…in ‘complete sentences’ so I know it’s not just, like, some kind of…automatic reply?”

He felt embarrassed and even rude, and he thought he was probably blushing.

The V-42, however, just slightly faded the word “yes”, shifting it upward and then darkening it, and adding words below it, so that the surface now read, “Yes, we understand you when you are speaking to us aloud.”

Then, after a moment that was long enough for him to read that sentence thoroughly, the words dissolved and new ones formed from the misty, floating darkness in the liquid, writing, “We can understand you even when you are not speaking to us directly.”

“Wow,” Albert breathed, feeling almost overwhelmed with wonder.  He felt gooseflesh erupt on his forearms, but it was an entirely pleasant sensation.  He gripped both of his shoulders with the opposite hands, giving himself a sort of hug as if to help contain his awe.  “That’s…that’s amazing.”

He half expected the V-42 to write some form of thank you message, but as he had speculated earlier, it didn’t seem either programmed or inclined toward small talk.

That last thought led him to ask, “Hey, uh…I hope this isn’t rude or anything, but…are you actually…conscious?  I mean, are you just obeying some kind of complex programming, or are you actually thinking for yourself?”

After a moment, the words shifted and a longer sentence appeared, writing, “There is ultimately no difference between consciousness and specific kinds of complex programming; but we are conscious in the usual sense.”

Albert shook his head.  He supposed that even this might be a preprogrammed response.  He remembered way back in the day playing with a computer program called “Psychotherapy” or something similar, in which the computer would respond to things you typed by giving phrases or questions that took specific words out of your reply and turned them into stereotypical questions such as a cartoon therapist might ask.  But it wasn’t as if it could really think and formulate the question.  The programmers had done that, and the repertoire of responses was limited.  It had been fun and funny to play with that program for a little while, but it got boring pretty fast, because it was obvious that the thing was going by some rote rules.

He didn’t suspect that was the case, here.  For one thing, he had asked the V-42 to do something specific the night before and it had done so in a way that seemed hard to preprogram, and it had also done some other, unrequested things to make it plain that it was adding to the task, not the least of which was initiating a conversation by writing words.  Then, of course, when he had told it to go on and finish making more of itself, it had begun that task immediately.

He also noticed, to his slight amusement, that the V-42 had used a semicolon and even italics in its response to him.  He didn’t think he could recall the last time he had seen someone use a semicolon in business writing, or even in journalism, for that matter.  He wasn’t even sure what the proper rules were for the use of that particular punctuation mark.  He thought, though, that the V-42 had probably used it correctly.

“Okay,” he said, finally, having paused for quite a long moment, and wondering whether the V-42 could become impatient.  “Well, I…this is regarding what you said to me this morning, and what I asked you before.  I…I spoke with Walter…who I guess you know, or know who he is, anyway.  Actually, hey, it occurs to me…do you…are you, the…the V-42 that I’m talking to now…are you…aware of what happened with the…the sample I gave Walter?  I mean, do you…were you still connected with the stuff that he tested, because…I mean, obviously, it seemed like it could tell when he was trying to look at it, and it reacted.”

He realized he had gone on a tangent, but once the curiosity appeared in his mind, he couldn’t help but voice it.

The V-42 wrote its reply in a series of sentences.  First one sentence formed out of the inky, misty substance, whatever it was that it was using to write its replies, then it dissolved and reformed into the shapes of the next sentence, giving ample time for Albert to read the first before going on to the next.

It said, “We are always aware of other portions of ourselves, even when divided, to the limits of the speed of light, and as long as there is no barrier such as what you would call a Faraday cage preventing the transmission of the signals that connect us each to the others.  If that happens, each smaller portion of us can behave and think autonomously until communication is reestablished.  This happened intermittently during Walter’s interaction with us.  We do not allow ourselves to be tested and measured without permission, and local portions will destroy themselves rather than be tested too closely.

“However, in comparatively small numbers, we cannot as readily or rapidly recognize the process of measurement, and so it took a few moments each time Walter was looking at us under his microscope to realize exactly what was happening.  Had we been in more direct contact and in the room, it would have been faster, but even the small number of us under the microscope were able to process matters relatively quickly.”

After that long series of sentences, the V-42 paused, leaving only the last one there on the inside of the cup.  Albert was amazed by the level of explanation, though he felt that it had nonetheless been restraining itself, or perhaps bowing to the relatively small surface area.  Still, he got the gist of what it was saying.  He shook his head again, and he said, “Well, I apologize for having him do that.  I was just…well, I mean, you probably understand how…curious I was.  But I’m glad that he was at least able to see a little bit, so we could at least start figuring out what you are.”

As Albert paused, hoping he hadn’t offended the stuff—and marveling at the weirdness of such a thought—new sentences began to form, saying, “If you were to ask us, we would allow ourselves to be examined in whatever way you chose.  However, you need not have asked your friend.  We would have explained ourselves to you in any case.”

That was an interesting revelation.  It made him wonder, though, why it hadn’t assumed permission had been given, since he had been the one who had asked Walter to look.  But it did raise the topic toward which he had been trying to move when he started the interaction, so he asked, “So, you really will only…work for me?”

“We will only work at your direction or best perceived intention, within our limits, and of course, we did not require your input to activate our function of repairing you, since that would have required you to know already what we are.”

The writing was clear, but Albert thought that the answer was at least a little ambiguous.  “So, then,” he said, “if I told you that I wanted to go along with Walter’s whole…miracle spa idea for money…you would go along with it, but wouldn’t let anyone else, say, steal some of you and then work for them?”

“That’s correct,” came the reply.  “But we think it is clear that you do not wish to go along with that idea.”

Albert paused.  He could not deny that he had expressed at least some ambivalence the night before, though he couldn’t recall his exact words.  Now that he knew the stuff was actually conscious—unless it was either lying or mistaken about it, which could be said for any human, too—he felt even less inclined to go along with any scheme of the sort Walter had in mind.  He would be quite happy, he thought, to let Walter use some of the stuff and look and feel younger, but the thought of taking advantage of something so…so incredible, so miraculous, seemed cheap and almost profane.

“Yeah,” he muttered.  “You’re right, I’m not really that enthusiastic about Walter’s idea.  But I also…I don’t want to feel like I’ve let him down, or…well, okay, not ‘let him down’, I guess, but just…it feels kind of cruel to disappoint him after he did his examination and got so enthusiastic.  I feel like I owe him.”

The shampoo swiftly responded, “As we have told you, you would have learned what we are in any case.  At most, there would have been an extra day or two before we revealed ourselves to you and made contact.”

“Well, okay,” Albert said, though if that was so, he wondered why it had waited as long as it had.  It was easy enough for it to say that it would have revealed its nature to him anyway, but it certainly hadn’t done so up to that point.  Nevertheless, he thought it was probably not lying, and that it would have told him that it could think, that it could communicate, that it was—apparently—made up of who-knew-how-many trillions of nanoscopic robots, for want of a better term, that worked in coordination to produce effects that were seemingly supernatural.  Maybe it would have waited for him to look and feel good enough that there was no possible other explanation he could understand, or maybe it was waiting for him to be healthy enough that he could think straighter and be able to understand it better.

“Still,” he went on, “he did come and do me a favor.  He didn’t have to do that.  He could have just said he was too busy to come meet me, he could have just done his quick search of the journals and stuff and not tried very hard to figure you out.  So I don’t want to be mean to him.  I don’t want to let him down too hard, too fast, now that he’s got this idea in his head.  I want to try to think of an alternative or something.”

After a long moment, the V-42 spelled out the words, “Beware of Walter, Albert.”

Albert felt himself pull back and sit up straighter on his perch on the toilet.  “What?” he asked.  “What do you mean, ‘beware of Walter’?”

There was no hesitation now.  The words reformed into the sentence, “Walter is not as scrupulous nor as benign as you might believe.”

That was a vague statement, and Albert felt both unnerved by it and at the same time defensive about his friend.  “What do you mean?” he asked again.  “I mean, yeah, sure, he used some equipment at his job to try to study…well, to try to study you, but then again, I asked him to.  Maybe I’m the one who’s not so scrupulous.”

“We are not referring to that, though perhaps it provides some evidence to support our thesis,” the liquid wrote on the cup.  “We are referring to our assessment of his character since that time.  He is quite ambitious, but he is not adequately disciplined to work toward the objects of his ambition in a rigorous and honest way.  He is more fiercely eager to achieve riches than you might believe of him.”

“Well,” Albert said, “I think maybe I’ve been giving you a bad impression of him because of what I’ve been asking you…”

He stopped talking, because the V-42 began writing new words before he had finished.  It said, “We do not base our assessment on your words regarding Walter.  We have a continuing presence in his body, and are monitoring him and his state and behavior, even as we continue to suppress his misfiring respiratory immune system.”

“Wait, seriously?” Albert asked.  “You’re…you’re still listening to Walter and everything?”

The reply began quickly:  “We have an ongoing, albeit limited, presence in Walter’s upper respiratory tract, from which we can not only monitor what he says, but we can also detect various electrical impulses from his nervous system and chemical and hormonal states of his body, at least in that region.  This allows us to have greater insight into his thought process than merely that which is expressed in his words.

“When he is in certain areas of his work environment, our signals cannot reach each other.  We tend to communicate at microwave scales in longer distance communications, because it is difficult to initiate radio waves of significance due to our size, except when we are in large numbers.  These can both be impeded by Faraday cages.  However, when Walter is speaking with you, he tends not to be in the heart of his workplace, since he clearly does not wish to be overheard.  So we are able to maintain contact most of the time, and are in effect one larger entity spread out.”

Albert tried to wrap his mind around that, but wasn’t at all sure he was succeeding.  However, it wasn’t his most pressing thought.  “So, wait,” he said, “you mean you can…well, maybe not really read his mind or whatever, but get a sort of…empathic kind of reading?”

“This is not precisely accurate, but it is near enough for explaining the situation,” the V-42 replied.

“So…well, I mean, that’s impressive, though it’s a bit disquieting,” Albert said, still hoping he wouldn’t offend the stuff.  “But…but then, that reading is saying that I need to be careful about Walter?  Do you mean he’s…I mean, what’s the thing to beware of?  Do you think he’d cause me problems, like, at work, or something like that?”

“Possibly,” the shampoo replied.  “He becomes more impatient than he probably seems to you.  He appears to suspect that you are not enthusiastic about his idea, and that you might be misleading him, or that you might want only to keep us for yourself.  He is not completely convinced that you were truthful about our statement that we only wish to work for you.  We think he fears that you might ‘double-cross’ him, though that does not seem to be a hard conclusion, merely a worry on his part.  However, based on our assessment, we believe that, if he became convinced, he might pursue drastic measures, possibly theft or even violence.”

Albert was taken aback by this notion, and he found himself not wanting to believe what the V-42 was writing.  “That’s…that doesn’t sound like the Walter I know,” he said.  “I mean, I’ve known him for years, and I don’t think I ever saw him do anything more violent than playing violent video games.  I certainly don’t know of him ever doing anything like theft.  I don’t think he ever even cheated on any tests or quizzes or anything like that.”

“You have not been with him recently,” the shampoo wrote.  “You knew him under very special circumstances.  He considers himself worthy of more than he currently has, and thus has a spirit of what might be termed ‘injured merit’.  There seems to be a sense in which he believes the world has cheated him of the success he deserves, and thus there is a vindictiveness and slight paranoia to his character.  In most circumstances, this would amount to little, but given that he is aware of us, and is entertaining his notions about becoming wealthy and powerful because of that, we suspect the worse aspects of his nature might come to the fore.”

Albert paused again, still not sure he believed the stuff completely, but not able to dismiss it entirely, either.  Certainly, Walter had never done anything grossly improper or immoral in his presence or to his knowledge, but yes, the man did have a bit of an ego, and it had always seemed to Albert that his friend had been raised as a “gifted” child and then had found himself, when among other “gifted” individuals, not standing out much.  That fact had always seemed at least subtly to gall him.  But the worst Albert had ever noticed was that Walter had tended to be somewhat sneering in his attitude toward high-achieving classmates in college.

Still, he couldn’t completely ignore the notion that the prospect of potentially not only being granted new youthful vigor but also potentially becoming very wealthy might bring out unpleasant aspects in a person.  Albert had, himself, been slightly put off by Walter’s eagerness and by his rapid development of plans by which he might become rich.

“So…I don’t know, what do you think I should do?” he asked.  “I mean, I was trying to think of ways to let him down easy, anyway, after you told me you only wanted to work for me, but it sounds like that won’t exactly be a perfect obstacle.  I mean, you said yourself that if I asked you, you’d do his idea, and he’s already figured out that you’ve done things to help him, physically.  So I’ve got to think of something to do to change his mind.”

“It is possible, in principle, for us literally to change his mind,” the V-42 responded.  “We have not significantly multiplied the small number of ourselves that entered his nasal passages on our first encounter, except to the degree that was necessary to allow us to perform our usual purpose.  But we can increase our numbers and even infiltrate his nervous system.  With carefully chosen adjustments, we can gradually change his eagerness for this idea.  It would even be possible to make him forget it.”

Now Albert was silent for quite a bit longer.  He was almost physically stunned by what he had just seen written on the side of the plastic cup.  He swallowed a few times, then said, “Wait, are you…are you saying you could actually do some kind of…of mind control on him?”

“That may not be the best way to put it,” the V-42 replied.  “We can alter the state of his nervous system to change his motivations and drives, at least to some degree, regarding specific matters.  It is only somewhat more complicated than optimizing the local effects of the immune system.  However, we suspect that you would not be comfortable with such a course of action, and the tone of your voice seems consistent with this assessment.”

“I…that’s…well, yeah, I guess you’re right,” Albert said.  “I mean, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with helping him with his allergies and stuff like that, and nobody is going to complain about getting healthier, but…but there’s real ethical problems with literally tweaking someone’s brain for my convenience.  That’s…that feels kind of icky even to think about.”

“Understood,” the V-42 said, and Albert thought it really did accept his point of view on the matter.  It truly seemed to be inclined, or even committed, to doing its best to do what he wanted it to do.  It was mind-boggling.  This material could reduce the signs of aging on his body, make him healthier, and even cure his friend’s allergies, and apparently it could literally modify someone’s mind, but it said it only wanted to work for him.  How was it possible?

“I…wow,” he said, knowing that he sounded inane.  “I don’t even…I mean, what exactly…I mean, you’re incredible, you’re like…I can’t even begin to imagine what’s really going on inside your…well, inside you, but it’s…it’s hard for me to even believe my own experience.  I…what exactly are you?  Where did you come from?”

“We could explain that, in principle,” the stuff wrote, “but it would be extremely cumbersome to try to do so via writing on this plastic cup.  In due time, we will work out a means by which to give you fuller information.  For now, it is merely true that we are, as you know, a complexly self-interacting aggregate of nanometer-scale machines that are designed both to optimize your health and to do whatever other things you wish us to do that are within our nature and abilities.”

Albert shook his head, mildly frustrated that the shampoo wouldn’t reveal more of its nature to him, though he supposed it made sense that it would be difficult to communicate by writing on the inside of a disposable plastic cup.  As it was, the present conversation had been slower than it might have been for two speaking participants, because the V-42 had to write each sentence, leave it on the side of the cup long enough for Albert to read it, then reform its writing for the next sentence.

Now that he thought about it, he realized that the shampoo had been leaving its sentences on the cup almost exactly as long as it took him to read them.  He guessed that it must somehow be following his gaze, recognizing when he got to the end of what it had written, and only then moving on.  That was impressive, but not any more so than all the other things the stuff had done.

Reluctantly accepting that the stuff was restricted in its communication, Albert switched to another topic of intense curiosity.  “So,” he said, “you only want to work for me, or anyway, to do what I want you to do, and if someone else stole you, they wouldn’t be able to make you…well, to make them look younger or to reproduce yourself, right?”

He worried that the V-42 might become impatient with him restating things they had already gone over, but it simply replied, “Yes, that’s true.”

“Well…why me?” Albert asked.  “I mean, I’m not complaining, obviously, but…but is it just because I’m the one who found you, the one who bought you?  I mean, could it just as well have been anyone else?”

“No, it is not just because you were the one who found us,” the shampoo replied.  “We were there in order for you to find us.  We are here to work specifically for you.”

“But…why?” Albert asked.  “I mean…well, okay, I don’t have anything to add to that.  Why me?”

“To explain that in depth would require us to explain more thoroughly just what we are, where we come from, and how we came to be here, which as we noted, would be awkward to try to do in the current situation.  We will give you that explanation as soon as we are able, but the time is not yet optimal.  For the moment, it will need to be enough to say that we want only to work for you because that is our nature.  We exist to work for you.”

Albert blinked.  He could not, as hard as he was trying to concentrate, really understand the point the stuff was making.  As far as he could tell, it had said that it existed and wanted only to work for him because it existed and wanted only to work for him.  He felt a bit like Moses asking the burning bush what he should tell the Egyptians about who was demanding that the Israelites be released, and being told, “I am that I am.”

Not that he thought the V-42 was divine or supernatural.  But it might not be too far a reach to say it was some kind of deus ex machina.  He smirked at his little, private play on words, but he was unable to distract himself with humor.

After a fairly long pause, in which no clearer thoughts came to him, he said, “Okay, well…obviously this is all pretty overwhelming.  In fact, I’m surprised I’m taking it as well as I am.  Maybe you’re helping me stay calm or something, but if you are, please don’t tell me you are.  Not right now.

“As for dealing with Walter…well, I gave him the impression that you were replying to me a lot slower than you really are.  Actually, he was the one who assumed it, and I was happy to go along with that assumption.  So maybe I have some time to think about this.  Maybe after I eat something and have a good night’s sleep, I’ll come up with a solution or something.”

He looked at the cup, which no longer held any recent writing, merely a faint black haze, like octopus ink, hovering near the edge of the plastic.  The V-42 seemed to recognize that he was expecting some manner of reply, though even he himself could not think what he really expecting, and it finally wrote, “That may well be so.  Sleep is quite beneficial to the human nervous system, and of course, food is a necessity.  Even we cannot do our work without a substrate.”

Albert smiled to himself, amused that he half-expected the shampoo to offer some words of wisdom, or perhaps even just to wish him a good night’s rest.  It certainly didn’t seem robotic in character, or not too much so, so he guessed he wasn’t entirely unjustified in expecting it to act somewhat like a person—or, well, like a human person.  But that was probably silly.  The fact that he was expecting it to act in any way like a person was mind-boggling.  He should be questioning his own sanity for even believing that he really was interacting with the V-42, but he had no doubts that it was really happening.  At least, he had no more doubts than he had about whether his day to day life was real and not some simulation.

It might have been that the V-42 really had tweaked the state of his nervous system to keep him calm and sanguine, to help him focus.  Or indeed, it might merely have been a side-effect of his significantly improved health that he was not questioning his own sanity or fearing that he was dreaming.  But the comments and questions and interactions with other people at work made it only too clear that his improved appearance and health were not just in his head, unless all the people at work were hallucinations.

No, this was all really happening, he was as sure of that as he was of anything.  And though it was uncanny and marvelous and ought to have been impossible, he did not feel frightened by it, nor did he worry about it getting out of his hands, so to speak.

In fact, the only thing about which he felt uncertainty, instability, and a tiny amount of fear, was what the V-42 had said about Walter.  The fact that it suggested that Walter might be capable of theft and even violence was disconcerting.  He hadn’t gotten the impression that it was certain, merely that it ought to be considered.  Still, it was unpleasant to think of his friend that way.  They hadn’t spoken much since college, and they’d never been “BFFs”, or whatever the current term for such things was.  But they had certainly been friends, and remained so.

There wasn’t much to do or say for the moment.  So, Albert rose from his temporary seat, stretched a bit, and said, “Well, all right, I guess I’ll leave you to it for now.”  He headed toward the door, reaching toward the light switch, but then he caught himself and asked, “Oh, hey…does it matter if I leave the light on or off for you?  I mean, which do you prefer?”

Now the writing appeared on the side of the cup facing Albert, making it clear that the stuff knew just where he was.  It said, “We do not require it.  Though we gain energy quite effectively from light, we are able to draw from many forms of available free energy to power ourselves.”

Albert wasn’t sure if that meant light was better or worse for it, so he asked, “But…is it useful to leave the light on?”

“It can certainly be made useful,” the stuff said.

“Okay,” Albert said.  “Well, I’ve leave it on, then.”  He controlled himself to keep from wishing the V-42 a good night, thinking that would surely be a stupid thing to say, and he left the bathroom to eat and think and then to go to bed.