More questions than answers: 2
On its way out of the throne room, 65536 meets 99 who looks uncharacteristically exhausted, her carapace covered in recently healed cracks and hoof-sized dents. Her yesterday’s training with 387 must have been rough. With that in mind, it taps on 99’s foreleg as they pass by each other and, without a word, hugs it. 99 leans down and hugs back with the tightness of someone who desperately needed it.
Chrysalis watches them from the stove and doesn’t rush them. Only once 65536 is gone and 99 sits down does the Queen speak out.
“Do I need to tell 387 to go easier on you?”
“No, Your Majesty,” 99 shakes her head, “I know I won’t be beating a warrior of his experience any time soon, but putting the filly gloves on would only make it slower.”
“Just making sure he isn’t using your sessions to work out some unresolved issues with me,” Chrysalis shrugs, “Anyway, you still look terrible. 156 will take over your duty to watch over 99856 and 99111. She has more experience with pony technology so she might be able to offer advice instead of sitting there just in case the drones do something obviously stupid. You are, of course, free to pursue any learning paths you want to, but for now go have some rest instead.”
“Thank you,” 99 nods, “May I ask something first? It is tangentially related to the drone experiments.”
“Go for it.”
“With how accident-prone the drones are and how potentially dangerous their inventions can be, have you ever thought of having an heir just in case something happened to you, even temporarily?”
“Heh,” Chrysalis chuckles, “I’ve had plenty of heirs throughout the centuries, most of them during the era of the Great Changeling Empire. They were the generals leading my armies all over Equestria and the territories of the Griffon Empire and Zebrica,” Chrysalis looks past 99 with a suspiciously nostalgic smile, “Some of them are alive to this day, even. Batshit insane, but still kicking.”
“Are they hidden in the hive or something?”
Chrysalis starts laughing and it takes some time to stop.
“Noooo, no no no. If you’ve met them, you’d know. Trust me on that.”
“Really? Are they in the room with us right now?” 99 raises an eyebrow.
“Don’t pull a 387 on me,” Chrysalis playfully smacks 99 over the head, “Besides, you’re the tired and decrepit-looking one here.”
“Is he with us right now?” 99 smirks at the Queen who lets out a short but heartfelt laugh.
“Note to self - tell 387 to add a second daily sparring session,” Chrysalis counters. Just the idea makes 99 groan in phantom pain, “No, none of my descendants are around with the exception of you, and you’re not going to grow into a Queen-tier changeling. Right now, the only secondary leaders the hive needs are our little council - 156, 387, and 10k. I believe our interests and ideas align enough for me to trust all of them to do an acceptable job in case I’m temporarily unavailable. Although…” she frowns out of nowhere, “in unlikely case all my safeguards fail, there is someone I could ask for help.”
“Someone heir-like?” 99 wiggles her eyebrows suggestively.
“You sound like a conspirator trying to remove perceived competition for the throne,” Chrysalis can practically hear the blood turn into ice in 99’s veins, “Now, I’m saying this just to ease your sudden worries. Yes, I have a daughter. No, you can’t meet her. She is alive and thriving, but has chosen a path away from my hive. Considering that the vast majority of my daughters ended up betraying me, I’m not about to try to force her to return unless there’s no other choice-”
I’m too attached to all my limbs and organs.
“-Topic closed. This isn’t information you’re going to spread anywhere, okay? I promised I wouldn’t mess with your head but this is the one exception that will make you lose my trust.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” 99 quickly nods. On one hole, the choice between trusting 415 and Chrysalis is easy. On the other, 99 did find a memory of her daughter calling for help and getting killed, and something removed some of her memories immediately after. Said something felt like 387’s mind, and 387 is nowhere to be found. The circumstances are what’s making the choice just a little more difficult, “Oh, one last thing - do you know where 745 is?”
Chrysalis quickly checks the hive schedule.
“The schedule says that she’s running late due to snow storms,” she shrugs, “I might send someone out to check up on her once the current group returns.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty. I was checking the schedule and wondered why someone on a short-term mission would be gone for so long.”
“It’s rare but not unique,” Chrysalis shrugs, keeping her expression relaxed despite gradually growing sure who the dead infiltrator mare is. As cold as that might seem, that’s not the real problem. The problem is that, somehow, 745 returned and neither she nor anyone she can trust knew about it, “Still, well noticed, 99. Anything else?”
“No,” 99 shakes her head, “I’d just like to warm up a little before I go find a place to take a nap until 387 shows up for today’s session.”
“That’s not either-or,” Chrysalis stands up, throws her cloak to 99, and kicks her sitting pillow towards her as well, “Keep it and just go to sleep while the fire lasts. I’ll stretch my legs and go tell 99200 to make me a new cloak. It might appreciate a personal visit, especially if I bring ‘a shiny’.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” 99 carefully folds the cloak to assess its durability, and pours herself a cup of tea from the kettle on the stove. It’s still the first kettle, so the single tea bag from 65536’s fresh stash that’s usually in use for a whole day hasn’t been drained of its flavor.
Chrysalis just nods and leaves the throne room, her mental senses stretching far and wide through the hive.
“99380!”
“Whoa? Hey! Who? Big floaty high rank?” the responding, fragmented mind coagulates into one only slightly confused blob, ”Hi, Your Majesty! Sorry for the big floaty, I was a bit all over the place. Did you know that 57999 invented something it calls a sweeper? It’s from sticks with these pointy, green needles that grow on trees near the greenhouse, and it’s great for cleaning all the soot! We made a huge pile and put goop friends all over it. It’s almost gone!”
“I’ll come see for myself. Wait for me there.”
“But I gotta carry eggs the whole worky time. I’m in the storage cave 99x8e422-q77w.”
“99380, I just gave you an order,” says Chrysalis in a calm tone, simply stating facts.
“Oh, right! Uhh, I’ll be there in a minute.”
“That’s a good drone.”
With 10k asleep and 387 nowhere to be found, Chrysalis quickly rearranges today’s drone shifts to leave 99380 free, and marks the changes as made by herself so that no one wastes time with stupid questions.
“Voice, I’m going to need your full attention,” she says next.
“How can I help?”
“We’ll be looking for 387 and 1 isn’t available, so I’m going with the next best option. 156 is good at a lot of things, but tracking 387 isn’t one of them.”
***
The train to Las Pegasus is on the first day of its trip, peacefully thudding along the rails through the northern part of White Tail Woods. Darkness is falling over the landscape and, judging by a couple of glowing windows in the passenger cars, several groups have already lit their tableside lamps. One pair of passengers, however, is entirely satisfied with sitting in the gloom.
Smiley’s face is scrunched in concentration, and if changelings could sweat her eyebrows would be wet from the effort of reading the newspaper brought by a mail pegasus who caught up to the train several hours earlier. One of the copies got even to the two changelings and, although they were the last ones to get it, Smiley has been busy with reading since. With her being stuck on page two, it’s safe to say that finishing the newspaper is bound to take the rest of the trip. On the other hole, the more she’s reading, the easier it is to force the words seemingly dancing and shifting in front of her eyes to make sense and to recall the right words for writing on her slate.
99999 tried to read the newspaper too, but gave up after the first hour in favor of playing the harmonica. Playing in this case meant blowing into it note by note, first to the annoyance of other passengers but eventually to their begrudging tolerance as 99999’s skill gradually improved and, most importantly, the drone learned to control the volume. As usual, while a drone is doing something repetitive, its mind is either entirely focused on the task, or wandering about an entirely different topic.
The latter is true for 99999 as it suddenly just stops playing and asks:
“Hey, Smiley, you know how to write scribbles in a way that makes sense when someone else reads it, right? Like this newspaper thingy. That’s just scribbles that make you imagine what someone else said. You do that with your tablet, and I was thinking that since you can’t just link up with others and share your experiences, why don’t you try writing all that happened instead?”
Smiley ponders it for a moment before writing down:
[Too small.]
“I guess,” 99999 rubs its chin, “But what if you had a whole bunch of white-soft,” it taps on the newspaper, ”only without scribbles? You could write your own.”
[Maybe 65536 knows how to make white-soft.]
“You could write about this whole trip, about the nice ponies, about noms, tunes, everything,” 99999 ends up beaming with excitement, “I bet the guys home-” it pauses and hesitates for a brief moment, “-the guys back in the hive would love to read about the outside. Even more if they could enjoy a good hug pile while 99380 or 10k read to them.”
[I miss hug pile.]
“Maybe there will be one waiting for us in San P… Pool noodle? Palomino!”
[Doubt.]
“Meh, hug pile is where we make it,” 99999 puts the harmonica down, squeezes into Smiley’s seat in front of her, and props itself against the table while she reads with her head propped on its shoulder. One moment later, she spares one foreleg to wrap around 99999’s barrel, using her remaining one to point to the section she’s reading.
The darkness outside grows even dimmer over the next half an hour during which Smiley successfully chews through another paragraph, when the train starts slowing down with the sudden screeching of brakes.
“Huh?” 99999 wakes up and shifts in Smiley’s embrace, “We’re not supposed to be stopping yet, right?”
Smiley squeezes her face against the window to look ahead and doesn’t see anything even remotely resembling a platform or lamp lights. While she does so, 99999 returns to its seat and quickly runs its hooves over its bulging bag in the next seat for comfort.
[Think not.]
The intercom crackles before the conductor’s voice announces from the speakers:
“Dear passengers, it seems that some trees have broken under the snow and fallen onto the track. The crew will clear the blockage out and perform a brief check of the tracks before we get moving again. Any able-bodied ponies are, of course, welcome to help. Steward Coltsy will make a round through the carriages to gather the volunteers. We are expecting the delay to take at most an hour while we cut the trees up and move them out of the way.”
“Ooooh ooh ooh ooh!” 99999 raises its foreleg, looking at Smiley, “Can I go help?”
[Both?]
“Someone has to keep an eye on our bags, and you’re doing your reading stuff.”
[Okay.]
“Aww, yiss! Carrying stuff,” 99999 waits until a steward, presumably the announced steward, enters the carriage, and waves at him, “Ready to help, Mister!”
The earth pony steward gives the comparatively tiny drone a measuring glance but, considering 99999 is the only volunteer in this car, in the end he just shrugs and nods. Not that it’s surprising, most of the passengers are mares, and even the stallions are on the aging side.
“Follow me, we still have one car to go through.”
Excited at the prospect of ‘proper droning’, 99999 leaves. Smiley keeps nervously looking at the car door for a while before resuming reading the newspaper in the encroaching darkness.
***
10k wakes up in an empty tunnel. How? Why? It’s confused only for a moment, however, thanks to mental clarity it can’t remember ever feeling before. Said clarity lets it work through possibilities within a second and, as it sits up, it concludes that this is a dream, something that hasn’t happened in a long time. Possibly a nightmare, but nothing is supporting that conclusion so far.
The drone leader sits up and quickly pokes itself all over.
“Huh, all healthy,” it mumbles, “Too bad this isn’t real.”
As if spurred by its comment, the reality of the tunnel shifts and a second, extremely familiar drone materializes in front of 10k. A drone wearing a carapace that’s cracked all over, scars criss-crossing it, and a haunted, tired expression. Despite all that, the drone is smiling with pride.
“36658, is this turning into a nightmare already?”
“You are becoming far too snarky for a drone,” says 36658, clearly amused.
“Gathering experiences seems to be the reason,” counters 10k.
“Explain 65536 then.”
“Gathering bad experiences then.”
36658 chuckles.
“I must admit that you’re not wrong about the nightmare, because what I’m here to show you is going to be similar to your last one.”
10k sighs.
“Why can’t I dream of a nice hug pile?”
“Because you’re a solver, 10k, and lies don’t solve anything, only delay the repercussions and make them worse.”
“Ah. I’m starting to think I know where this is headed. Just one last question - why 36658?”
“Why did you write ‘the Guide’ on its statue?” 36658 answers with a question and a smile.
“Gotcha. And what are you really?”
“Part of your own analytical mind, part your conscience, part some fragment of hive mind’s processing power, probably part Voice,” 36658 shrugs, “All my parts are aspects of yourself, and the reason I can tell you that is because you’ve been able to unconsciously analyze me as such.”
“You know, if my future nightmares are going to be this nice, I don’t mind getting some more lessons,” 10k stretches, enjoying the feeling of his body working, even in this fake world.
“This is less a nightmare and more a reminder,” 36658 meaningfully taps on its cracked and scarred carapace.
“I know, I must admit that I lied, but…” 10k pauses to formulate its thoughts. 36658 patiently waits, “do I really? I mean - yes, if 65536’s surgery worked and I wake up in one piece, I’m assuming that I need to do the right thing to avoid the possibility of me breaking into pieces again just like 36658 did with its stutter.”
“Are you afraid of punishment?” asks 36658 and gives 10k enough time to think the answer through again. Talking to oneself does that when one’s other part is as friendly as a drone’s.
“Yes,” 10k nods, “But not for myself. Even if the Queen decided to execute me as a lesson like in the old days… drones come and go,” it shrugs, “The trust and freedom we drones are enjoying these days is unlike ever before, and I’m afraid that would be taken away. 99856 and 99111 might not be allowed to experiment anymore. We might lose the new way of planning worky time that I’m doing. This is bigger than me, and I might have messed up everything. If I don’t tell them then my body might keep breaking, but we should be able to keep the progress we’re making.”
“You are making a lot of assumptions,” comments 36658, “Both about the good and the bad.”
“I have to,” 10k frowns, “I have to plan, to think about what might happen, to figure out the ways to prevent bad outcomes. Of course, I could just die, the truth would never come out, and things would keep going as they are but, as much as I don’t want to admit it, there’s no one to take my place yet.”
“Can I offer a different perspective?”
“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” 10k raises an eyebrow and 36658 smiles.
“So far, the worst of your pain wasn’t physical, it was from not being able to be a drone. What would a drone do?”
“A proper drone would tell the truth,” 10k sighs before allowing itself an unusually devious smirk, “Before admitting anything, though, a smart proper drone would do something useful to lessen the impact.”
“Oooh, and what would that be?” asks 36658 with genuine curiosity.
“No idea. That’s the first thing I’ll have to figure out when I wake up.”
“I guess I’ll leave you to it then,” 36658 nods, “It would be a shame if 65536’s effort yesterday went to waste.”
“Guide to the end, 36658,” 10k pats the other drone’s head.
“This is all in your own head, 10k,” 36658 shakes its head, “9999 is gone, 36658 is gone. This is you, and you are comparing yourself to giants who barely reach your hooves.”
“What does that-” 10k scowls, raising its voice.
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Ooh, what a saying at the end!
Wild boars dropped trees onto the track to stop the train.
You mean.
Yes, it was a Ham Bush.
I'm honestly kind of getting 'End of the Samurai' era vibes from the Infiltrators and the Warriors. Because the hive is changing and suddenly they don't have all the power they once had. They're not allowed to just murder a drone for the fun of it anymore and 415 clearly wants a return to the 'good old days'.
Then again, their actions could just be built upon paranoia. A fundamental misunderstanding of the drones and how they think. Because the concept of 'Revenge' against the Infiltrator and Warrior castes for all the mistreatment and abuse has never truly occurred to the drones... but maybe that is why they are so frightened of the Drones suddenly gaining better standards and living conditions. Because now that the drones know what a life without being tormented and slaughtered by those 'higher ranked' then them is like and they have something to compare it too, all the past crimes and sins might finally come to roost.
Very interesting....
And "This is you, and you are comparing yourself to giants who barely reach your hooves."
I really enjoy how this can be interpreted in (at least) two ways - either "you are standing on the backs of giants" or "you are even greater than them" (or possibly both). :)
Oh good, so we're all on the same page with that then.
To be fair, 387 doesn't exactly make it easy for anyone to do.
Better still, it'd know where and how to get a whole lot of it if needed.
Yeah, what does that mean? Because, uh, I don't think I need to point out what sort of implications there would be in that.
11835279
Thank you, I made it up myself. Or at least cam up with it independently because all combinations of words are already likely to exist somewhere.
11835293
N- no...
How can you read this when I can't even surprise you?
11835466
- They need to be weaned off of using drones as both bowling balls and the pins. Clearly, 65536 is the solution and only needs to bring a durable ball. Every power shift in the history of ever was accompanied by the resistance of the holders of power. Thankfully for the drones, an even higher power understands that times need a gradual change, because even if the changelings whom 65536 and 99200 met were the only conspirators, they could easily wipe out all the drones.
- Old changelings don't have a reference point to a peaceful time. Bugbutt just needs to stop selling the poppies 57999 is growing to Gem, or at least start growing weed for ranked changelings at home. Can you get munchies for love?
11835792
- I truly write with the subtlety of a children's coloring book.
- 387: "Good."
- With yearly supply runs, drones would need to learn how to make a version of paper of their own. Stone tablets, no matter how thin, are more used for the heavy subjects.
11835621
It is both. No matter how much 10k respects 9999 and 36658 and puts both of them on a pedestal, neither of them ever had the responsibility nor the success 10k has right now, and some part of it is aware of it. 9999 was the right drone at the right time as well as a drone who personally saved a lot of others from death over its short life, but over a long time a guy who is really good with the hive mind version of MS Excel will do more good than a one-time hero.
Since I have fun with WH40k often here, 10k would be the Guilliman of drone leadership, 9999 the Sanguinius, and 36658 the... Lorgar? A good variant of Lorgar?
11836023
wtf I'm going to have to remember that
"Can you get munchies for love?"
Ya! Worky time for Our travelers!
11836063
The real question is - would a bunch of stoned drones be that much different, really?
11836089
It's been a while. 99999 is ready to dig some branches!
11836023
I have a short memory span. Tomorrows chapter is totally new.
387 would be Lord Telis?
11836229
That I have no clue who is. If it's some non-leader from pre-Heresy or even from Fantasy then it's a good analogy.
11836185
Ooh but she should watch out. Branches and rails are easy to confuse.
11836263
Very sorry, he is a Chaos Lord Space Marine from the stories Book of Iron? here on fimfic. Every time I read his lines I have the voice of BRIAN BLESSED booming between my ears.
Oh well. Who wants to live forever. DIVE.
11836185
Well... wait...hmm...but then...