Waking up, 36658 groans as a throb of dull pain spreads through its head. While this experience would worry most drones, 36658 is familiar with it as a side effect of medicine overdose. As it realizes that the familiar warmth of 20100 next to it is missing, the drone does a quick check of the situation.
Whoah, this has been a much longer sleepy time than usual. It’s afternoon already.
The hive mind is strangely quiet, and the normally dynamic mental map with at least vague locations of other changelings is now only a set of lifeless and static floor plans. That’s… surprising, to say the least, although not unique. Unlike most drones, 36658 is used to being away from more mentally skilled high ranks innately serving as hive link communication nodes due to long stretches of time tending to its poppy patch on the edge of the Badlands.
Why would the high ranks be unreachable at this time of day, though?
A quick mental reach towards the nearest link only makes the drone look downwards and see exhausted 387 sleeping on a hammock, properly. His mind is locked up so tight that it’s not helping 36658 link up with other changelings beyond the drone’s reach even unconsciously.
Did I… miss anything?
Reaching out for the most powerful hive node, meaning the Queen herself, a chill runs down 36658’s spine. There’s no Queen. Not that it could sense her but not access her link, no. Her link is just gone. The only thing preventing it from panicking is that it can faintly sense other drones, albeit they’re all too far to contact or locate, and it can’t feel any remnants of anxiety or signs of trouble.
Alright, maybe the Queen just decided she needed a proper rest without anyone bothering her, right?
Finally, it reaches out towards 93.
Ughhh…
Pain, nausea, and whatever the mental equivalent of the stench of vomit is, assault 36658 who closes its link immediately in response. However, the feeling is eerily familiar to the drone used to substance overdose. Overcome with curiosity, the closest thing that drones have to a ‘healer’ leaves the cabin, heads upstairs, and knocks on the door of the changeling delegation’s hoofmaiden suite shortly after.
It waits… and waits.
An occasional thud of someone bumping into furniture follows along with groaning and unsteady hoofsteps until the lock clicks and the door opens, letting out the acrid smell of goop in the middle of forming mixed with alcohol and soap. Through a crack revealing a dark room, 36658 can see 93 shielding her eyes with a foreleg.
“...yes…?” she grunts quietly.
“...hi!” 36658 whispers, aware of how she must be feeling, “Is anything wrong? I can’t sense the Queen and 387 is completely gooped. Can I help you?”
93’s raspy voice begins saying something but she stumbles backwards, sits down, and clutches her head. 36658 walks into the room and closes the door behind itself, burying it in near-pitch blackness lit only by glowing teal eyes again, not that it bothers the drone whatsoever.
“Does your head hurt?” the drone knows that whispering is the only way, “I’d give you some new anguishdecimators from yesterday but they might make things worse. I tried curing my hurties I got from taking too many agonyslayers by more of them and it didn’t go-”
“...please…” croaks 93, presenting a hoof to 36658 who interprets the gesture correctly for once.
Unlike when 36658 can normally nudge its digestion in the right direction to spit out the correct green chip, this time the drone opens a leg hole inside which rests multiple white pills, one of which it offers to 93 who greedily devours it.
“I’ll bring you some water. It helps,” it recalls that the hoofmaiden suite has its own bathroom in which 93 was taking a shower the day they boarded, and returns with a filled glass it grabbed on the way there from a table. When 93 guzzles it down, spilling some on herself, the drone adds, “If you don’t mind, I think I should stay here just in case the anguishdecimators have some side-effects. You’re the first one to try them.”
The infiltrator only nods, pushes herself towards the bed, rests her back against the frame, closes her eyes, and forces herself into slow and deep breaths.
36658 looks around, locating a pile of yellow-ish green sludge next to the bed, with more staining the bed itself. There was more in the bathroom too, in and around some big, white, bowl. It all seemed like some variant of classic goop, but clearly misformed and useless. A mess rather than a useful tool.
Letting 93 rest, it examines the white bowl and experimentally pushes a small lever on its side. In response, a torrent of water coming from tiny slits along the inside edge fills it before draining through a hole in the middle.
> Toilet.
A tooltip for the white water bowl is the best the hive mind can do at the moment, but 36658 just shrugs. It makes liquid things go away, and that’s enough. The drone grows a big spoon out of its foreleg and begins shoveling scoops of 93’s failed goop into the toilet, flushing it down often just in case too much of the mess could make something stick somewhere inside the contraption.
The real challenge starts with the stained bedsheets which, no matter how tightly 36658 rolls them up, just don’t get flushed and the water in the bowl keeps getting higher, so it doesn’t even try with the carpet and leaves the now water-soaked sheet shoved halfway into the toilet hole.
As it enters the main room, it finds itself under the scrutinizing stare of 93. A drone of its age and experience has to fight off the instinct to immediately hide which evaporates the moment 93 says:
“Thank you.”
“I, uhh, cleaned up a bit, but there’s still stuff I don’t know how to-”
“Thank you,” repeats 93.
“Uhh, and the toilet thing is kinda stuck-”
“That’s okay,” she says, patting the carpet between her legs, “Come here.”
Unsure what’s about to happen, 36658 shuffles over and sits down.
“Eep?!” it squeaks when 93 pulls it against its barrel.
“You drones are weird, you know that?” she muses.
“Are we? How?”
“You completely turn being a changeling on its head, if you think about it,” she absent-mindedly scratches 36658’s head, “An infiltrator, or a warrior… they adapt to every circumstance, and yet you drones… don’t. Not in the same way.”
“Huh? We can transform too.”
“And how many drones can do what you do with the drugs?”
“As far as we know, just me and my buddy 57999.”
“Could another drone transform internally to do what you can do on instinct?”
“I dunno. Maybe? It’s hard to describe how I do what I do. Heheh, most of the time I don’t even know what I’m doing.”
“That’s exactly what I’m getting at. If we need painkillers - we have you or 57999. Flame dousing - 10013. Standard goop but in multiplicative amounts - 99526. An infiltrator, or maybe a really good warrior could transform to do anything you can do, but why would they waste so much love when all one needs to do is… find the right drone? You’re the exact opposite of the idea of a changeling - we’re generalists, the masters of adaptability. You’re specialists… swarms of specialists so granular that most of your skills are near-useless to the point where from the outside the only things you can do are the simplest things ever - carrying stuff and digging,” 93 keeps talking, almost as if only to herself, “After all, who would need something as specific as goop that’s easy to spread into a membrane and waterproof? Or a hive mind so specialized that it can broadcast with near zero love drain but no ability to use it for anything else?”
“Uhhh, 93, we just do what the hive needs.”
That quiet sentence full of uncertainty said in a puzzled tone of someone who completely lost the thread stops 93’s mind in its tracks.
“387 has been right all along…” she breathes out, voice filled with amazement, “No… he almost got it. He was so close. The complete entity isn’t a changeling, it’s the hive.”
“93?” peeps 36658, “Do you need another another anguishdecimator?”
She bonks the drone on the head.
“Here’s a point, dummy.”
10013: 0
20100: 4
36658: 3
99111: 2
99380: 3
99526: 0
Smiley: :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
“Yesss! Fanatics are firmly in the lead!” 36658 beams and exclaims, “For High Score!”
“Ow!” 93 winces from the loud yell, but the new drug is working absolute wonders, “Shush before I take it back.”
“Sorry!” whispers 36658 enthusiastically, “Besides the points, though, what was all that about? I had no idea it was possible to string so many words that I know together and say something that I have no clue what it means.”
93 chuckles.
“It means that the Queen is much smarter than everyone thinks.”
“Even more? Woooow,” 36658’s jaw drops.
“...and not a single drop of irony…” 93 shakes her head in disbelief, “I guess everyone would be happy to have you and we’re the lucky ones who do.”
“Really? Am I making High Score proud?” asks 36658, at this point needing some reassurance that what it’s doing is the right thing or at least going in the right direction.
Yay for fanat-!
“I’m sure all of you do,” replies 93.
Goop! So close!