The Core: The Dark Enemy

4. The one-way deal

I woke up and blinked.

From the corner of my vision, I could see the cleaning lady, Paulina, just leaving my room with her cleaning cart. She was humming a soft tune and seemed to be in a good mood. If she had finished cleaning my room, it meant that I had been away longer than I had initially planned. I had missed Tutor and my father visiting as it was midafternoon already.

"You are back." I heard Nurse say inside my head as I sat up and began pulling the wires and tape off of my head and arms. After a second I leaned over and turned off the fake and constantly beeping machines by my bed as well.

"Something is still wrong though; I still can't reach your host body through whatever is encasing you." Nurse said as I opened up my memories to her, streaming them with the intent of letting my AI review them as well when they arrived. Nurse read my mind and was sure to pass on the knowledge dump. I let her see everything, even the questions that I had posed to the seven before I left. It was a good thing that I had spent the extra time picking their brains, it would save me lots of trouble and heartache later.

"Oh, that is why you didn't immediately transfer your mind back into your Personal Live Matrix," she said as she quickly got up to speed.

"Yeah, you kind of failed to mention that, by entering a drone, it would create a new copy of my mind, another me. Now that I am stuck like a bug encased in amber, I would simply be creating a clone of myself by sending my mind back into my Personal Live Matrix. I wouldn't be free at all, I would still be stuck inside this body." I said as I took out the little drone body that I was inhabiting. Thankfully, no one walked past my room when I did this, or they might have gotten a fright of their life as my face and skull opened wide to let me grasp the little object between my fingers. The whole invisible shell was about the size of a golf ball encasing my small ant-like body. If I compared its size to anything Earthside, I would say that the little drone body had managed to grow to be just a little bit larger than an Asian Giant Hornet, just without the wings.

I was impressed, seeing that I started out as a barely visible speck.

Looking at it, or rather at it through the invisible shell of the Void seedling, made my vision ripple around the edges like I was looking down a mirrored tube in a swimming pool. It was, worrisome, reminding me of what the seven had said, that their offered connection to distract my Void seedling wasn't perfect. There were, and would be, gaps in their ability to keep it distracted. I quickly put it back inside my cr body and listened to Nurse's reply as my skull and face reformed.

"Yes, there is a big difference in what you did and how the Hive Mother controls her swarm. I wasn't able to predict how the Tela's technology would interfere with what the Hive Mother and Queens do naturally. Instead of flooding your will and mind into your swarm, you vacated your body, your Tela Personal Live Matrix, and your swarm to push it into what was left of the Queen's swarm that tried to kill you."

"Yeah," I said with a slight grimace and a chuckle, "I know, I had a chat with the Hive Mother, and she let me know just how stupid she thought I was. Stupid and lucky."

"Your swarm senses that as well as other things. You have gone beyond what any swarm would ever consider possible."

"What do you mean?"

"Queens are never given knowledge about the Creators or the beings that they spread to keep the Void at bay. You have communed straight with the mind and soul of the Hive Mother, feasting on her power and making it your own. To your swarm, any swarm even, you are a Hive Mother now, or in your case, an even more illegal entity, a Hive King. This would be troublesome if not for the other beings that you managed to feast on while you were away. If it were just the Hive Mother's scent on your mind, I believe that you would eventually have to face her in a battle to prove who was the rightful ruler of her swarms."