Deep in thought, Chrysalis returns to the hive and walks past 99 sitting by the stove and watching the snow packed into a kettle melt without acknowledging her at all.
“156, where are you?” Chrysalis connects to her second in command.
“Assessing the state of the drone cavern,” replies 156 immediately, “Do you need anything?”
“Do you know where 387 is?”
“No idea. I can’t track him if he doesn’t want to be found.”
Chrysalis just sighs internally as she sits down by the stove, stretching all her hooves towards the heat, and changes the subject. 99 can sense the Queen communicating, but can’t tell what’s going on or even who she’s talking to, so she doesn’t say a word.
“The state of the cavern then, how is it?”
“I can’t speak to structural damage, drones will have to check that. The quicktrotters brought six more slimes on 99’s orders and they’re all cleaning up the soot. They’re extremely slow, and based on their progress they’ll be done in two days if we keep the drones upstairs. If they don’t make it, the drones will just walk around and spread the soot from the uncleaned patches everywhere again.”
“That’s fine, at least the slimes will remain busy. Any other findings? Did they eat any of the trash the drones keep for themselves or anything useful?”
“Actually, yes,” a hint of interest creeps into 156’s matter-of-fact tone, “I tested feeding various items the drones left here to the slime –it would be easy to say those got lost in the fire– and it seems that in addition to coal dust they also eat… remains in general - I found a charred, dry wooden stick that somehow survived and the slime slowly dissolved it. Same went for some of 99200’s webbing it left here as well as my own dead chitin - I drained love out of a small part of my carapace and fed it to one. I did some testing with live tissue, even going so far as to remove a small part of my carapace and put the slime on my flesh, and nothing happened. No acidic feeling, nothing. As for resin, the chip of my own they wobbled over was left untouched, so maybe there’s some kind of drone resin they might eat but that’s beyond my ability to test. In short, I don’t think these slimes can cause any damage as long as the coal storage and the back workshops are closed.”
“Well done, 156. Leave it be and go check up on 10k’s surgery. I need you to take up 99380’s place as a hive mind node and send it here immediately. Refill everyone involved once it’s finished and assist 65536 with anything it needs regarding 10k’s recovery.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” 156 doesn’t ask why. She doesn’t think 99380 is in any danger from Chrysalis and if it was something she needed to know, she trusts the Queen to have told her.
Chrysalis cuts the link and looks at 99 who is staring into the flames through the feeding hole of the stove.
“Something is troubling you,” the Queen states without any semblance of a question in her tone.
“Yes, it is, Your Majesty,” admits 99, knowing that whether her current problem remains her own is entirely up to the Queen, “However, it’s something I would like to get to the bottom of without help.”
“Your call,” Chrysalis stands up, walks over to the wall, and drains love from a spot that reveals a hole hiding their meagre storage of metal cups. She levitates up two and brings them over to 99, “One thing - I need you to clear out once 99380 gets here.”
“Whoa, what did it do?” 99 looks at Chrysalis.
“Nothing. You’re acting as if a drone couldn’t be useful to me in a way other than mining something,” Chrysalis rolls her eyes, “I’ll return the drone in one piece,” the corner of her mouth twitches, “Two at most, but no more. Eeeh, maybe three if it’s not cooperative.”
Chrysalis’ attempt at lightening the mood fails as 99 just sighs. On one hole, it’s good that 99 took her joke for what it was, on the other… whatever is bothering 99 seems to be serious.
Still, if she wants to deal with it on her own, my job is just to be here when- IF it all crumbles.
***
It would be difficult for Chrysalis to explain the sudden incoming feeling of intent to a lesser changeling. On top of that, only a master infiltrator of Chrysalis’ or –she loathes to admit she knows someone like that– greater skill could understand what happens next as 99380 appears out of nowhere in a burst of green fire.
99 twitches as the drone’s hive link simply appears. Thankfully, by now there’s not enough tea inside her mug to spill over herself.
Chrysalis, though, notices a sudden drop in her love level. Not a major one by any measure, but noticeable. Roughly the amount she would gain if she, let’s say, devoured a healthy drone. A drop in the sea of her love capacity.
Could it be?
Chrysalis doesn’t have the time to expand on her theory of this particular skill of 99380.
“Hello, Your Majesty!” 99380 doesn’t approach, just smiles and waves at the duo, “156 said to come as quickly as possible, so… I’m here,” it pauses and scratches its head, “I don’t think I ran here.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Chrysalis smiles back, “99, leave us alone.”
“Sure, Your Majesty. I’ll be at my post outside,” 99 nods, chugs her remaining tea, and walks off.
99380 waits silently. It’s been called by the Queen herself so she will tell it what to do. Once 99 is out of sight, the Queen looks at 99380 and, if the drone had any social observation skill, it would see a brief moment of hesitation on her face.
Chrysalis takes a deep breath.
This can go one of two ways.
“99380, I called you here because you’re a drone with the most detailed access to the drone part of the hive mind and to the links of other drones. I need to use this access in order to isolate and trap that thing you call the Voice.”
“Whaa-?” 99380 blinks and leans backwards in surprise, “Why? The Voice is a friend. It’s been helping 10k, 99111, anyone who needed it. 36658 made it and 36658 was a good- no, a great drone!”
“99380, I could force you-” Chrysalis leans down so that her mouth almost touches the drone’s nose. As she does so, 99380 lowers its head between its shoulders and its ears droop, “-but I won’t. I won’t even sweet talk you and say you’re a smart drone who should know better. However, I will show you something, a lot of things, and I know you’re smart enough to understand what you’ll be seeing.”
She rises to her full sitting height again, her horn flares with green glow, and both of them get pulled into the hive mind where she melds her link with 99380’s to avoid hurting a drone with an overload of information. Once that’s done, Chrysalis weaves a mental fortress around them as well as she can.
No one else can know.
Through 99380, she hears a voice she’s never heard before.
“You don’t need to do this. I will come willingly.”
She ignores it. Her terms will be the only ones that apply in this situation. The unknown hive mind entity will not be allowed to split and to survive in any form outside of Chrysalis’ prison, and the only one who can help her drag it out of the hive mind, out of the love contained within the cells of every changeling it ever touched, is 99380. Well, do it without harming everyone involved, of course. Chrysalis could do it herself and will do so if 99380, after everything she’s about to show, refuses to help.
“99380. I will show you what uncontrolled hive mind entities did to us in the past,” she says and looks the drone in the eyes.
The time in the hive mind passes. Outside, it almost stands still.
99380’s eyes go wide, water, and tears begin streaming from its eyes. The drone doesn’t wipe them, it just trembles, staring blankly ahead.
“...it just helps… it’s like us… it just wants to help…” it whispers, sniffling.
Chrysalis’s voice turns hard and insistent, but there’s care in it as well.
“He thought he was helping too. SHE thought she was helping. They all thought they were helping. I… thought I was helping us, changelings, as a whole and look where it got us.”
99380 wibbles, but no amount of tears and snot underlining the wibble is enough to break Chrysalis’ resolve under these circumstances. There’s too much at stake.
“But I called for YOU, because unlike all- unlike most of them, do you know who really was helping? Who helped without any thoughts of their own benefit?”
Chrysalis shows 99380 two more images. The first one is painfully familiar and brings back memories of fear and heat so vivid that 99380 whimpers and folds on the floor, hiding its head with its forelegs. The second one gives the drone a pause, however, and it peeks out from under its hooves.
“...w-was that…?”
“A drone by the rank of 9999 lying to a ranked infiltrator in order to save a deaf drone. 36658 lied to 10k in order to trade its life for that of someone it thought more worth it. 10k lied to me and 387 in order to try and save Smiley. I KNOW about all of it, yet I play your games and act accordingly because you know what? Even when you lie, you little derps genuinely try to help. You’re just too trusting, too powerless, and too inexperienced to protect yourselves. Now, I’m asking again, 99380 - after all you just saw, do you trust me enough to protect you drones?”
“...w-was it all… true?” peeps 99380.
“It was.”
“Will you let the Voice stay if it’s really a friend?”
“You saw that even the good entities don’t always remain beneficial forever, but… there is a chance.”
99380 sighs, sits up, finally wipes its face. It’s carapace, so all it does is smear snot and tears around. In the end, however, despite its mournful expression, it nods.
“I’ll help. What do I do?”
Circles burning with emerald flames light up in the darkness around them, replacing the silver ones on the floor of the hive mind room.
“Call the entity here. I’ve already made preparations.”
“Voice?” 99380 calls out. A moment later, ‘undefined drone model version 1’ materializes sitting in the center of the smallest ring on the floor. Green chains appear out of nowhere and wrap around it. The ‘drone’ doesn’t struggle, it just looks first at Chrysalis and then at 99380 who hangs its head and mumbles, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” says the Voice calmly, “A choice had to be made, and you were the one to make it. Frankly, seeing changeling history through your eyes made me understand why the Queen was so insist-” the green chains squeeze hard, seemingly surprising the Voice who groans in pain.
“I’m sorry,” 99380 repeats and lies down, hiding its face again.
Chrysalis walks up to the Voice and one of her foreleg hooves unfurls into long claws. Without warning, she rams it into the fake drone’s forehead. There’s no blood, only a single green pulse that bursts through the hive mind around them, forming countless floating reference marks in the air, so many that they almost form a cocoon around the trio.
“Let’s see what you really are,” growls Chrysalis, ignoring 99380 who is sobbing and whimpering again.
The Voice’s form just twitches uncontrollably before it starts glitching out. Chrysalis peels away layer after layer of information the entity seems to consist of. She knows that a core that will reveal the truth must be somewhere underneath. She remains on edge despite there being only a little resistance. The entity doesn’t seem powerful, its tendrils just reach far and wide and are only bound to a “location” by Chrysalis’ mental pressure.
It knows everything I’ve just shown 99380. It knows everything the drones know. Just from that, it should be using up far more love than it is.
She digs into the revealed knowledge and sees 99’s and 387’s earlier attempt at trapping and examining the Voice. However, the point of view is 99’s, not the Voice’s as she expected it to be.
It lacks symptoms of individuality, it just… reacts and responds.
She peels more and more information away. Everything is consistent with what 99 and 387 discovered before, so at least the Voice doesn’t seem to be lying. However, the two didn’t get deep enough and she does now, revealing the barest form of the Voice.
It’s just a simple set of basic instructions… and a desperate wish.
“…what we die for must not be forgotten…”
At that moment, everything clicks into place in Chrysalis’ head, and she withdraws her talon from the Voice’s head. The fake drone stops glitching, then twitching, and finally its breathing returns to normal as it blinks while staring ahead.
The imaginary idea of how a mechanical pony might work, the understanding of a drone barely familiar with simple clockwork. It realized that the robot was just a part of a greater whole and related it to the hive mind. 36658 wanted- no, wished for a caretaker who could help drones and their allies remember certain things so that every drone’s inevitable death wouldn’t mean the loss of their knowledge.
Its wish was granted. Somehow.
“How did 36658 create you?” she asks the Voice.
“I don’t know,” it replies.
“Theorize.”
“The only possibility I can think of is that it somehow used the Universal Wavelength Reforger to create what it understood 10101 to be and about its existence as a long-term caretaker,” the Voice confirms Chrysalis’ theory.
“The damn robot said the device didn’t work,” Chrysalis frowns.
“It said that the Reforger was unfinished,” the Voice corrects her, “After all, 99380 is successfully using it to find those quicktrotter ‘skips’. How 36658 did it is beyond me. It didn’t even know it was the one who must have made me.”
“Yet it still gave you enough power to shield drones from mind control,” she raises an eyebrow, “It makes me wonder what more you can do.”
“I can only work within the hive mind, and most of my attention is spent on analyzing information. With a good enough description, I might be able to perform other tasks.”
“Helpful, as expected from a drone creation,” Chrysalis turns away and walks over to 99380 still cowering on the floor, “Get up!”
The drone does so, its eyes darting from Chrysalis to the chained Voice.
“Thank you for your help, 99380,” she states, the chains restraining the Voice vanish, and the hive mind circles stop glowing green, “Voice, make sure that what happened here isn’t leaving this place, especially what I showed 99380. NO ONE will read any of this out of 99380’s mind and 99380 is a good drone so it won’t tell anyone even by accident, right?” she leans close and boops the drone’s nose. It’s not the nice kind of boop, it’s a very threatening boop, “Consider it a chance to prove yourselves.”
“Understood. I will limit access to this specific segment of information,” the Voice nods, “Who should be allowed to access it?”
“Only 99380,” Chrysalis smirks, “We don’t want to traumatize anyone else.”
99380 and the Voice nod. Chrysalis raises her hoof.
“One final thing before I let you both go - Voice, stay out of non-drone heads unless they specifically ask and unless they’re considered ‘friends’. That’s AND, not OR. The others will get you in full when they’ve earned you, and I’ll decide when that is,” Chrysalis stomps, and the darkness of the hive mind vanishes, leaving her and 99380 alone on the stone floor of the throne room. The drone is still overwhelmed by the horrifying visions, so Chrysalis pats its head, refilling it with love, “Good job, 99380.”
“...it feels like I betrayed a friend…” it mumbles.
“Correct choices don’t always feel good, often quite the opposite,” she says, “Now, 156 is still taking your place assisting 65536, so why don’t you have some fun with the others outside before it gets dark and too cold to stay?”
“I- I’d like that, Your Majesty,” 99380 forces a smile.
“Off you go then,” she nods towards the exit, and 99380 vanishes in a burst of green fire. Chrysalis feels the return of love she previously lost, when the drone appeared.
Hah! I still don’t know how it does it, but I was right about WHAT it’s doing.
99380 isn’t teleporting around in a way a unicorn would describe it. It’s not bending space, it’s not turning itself into atoms and shooting itself using magic to a different place. A changeling only holds shape if there’s love coursing through its body. Without it, the carapace crumbles and flesh withers. In theory, if one was able to take all the love out of its body, the body would just disintegrate. Is 99380 transferring love through other changelings, like any changeling can do, only truly… all of it? Without knocking out all the drones it’s passing through or them even noticing?
As usual, a stupidly useful ability limited to someone possessing as little love as a drone. If I tried, I’d either immolate or forcibly hibernate half of my hive depending on if I’m coming or going.
She flies up onto the throne, stretches, and lies down. She wouldn’t let it show, but shackling the Voice was taxing even for her.
Speaking of which…
“I almost forgot. Welcome to the hive, Voice.”
The Voice doesn’t need to answer. Chrysalis knows it heard her.