Holy hell, I check in on fandom after a few years of absence and this story is still getting follows and favorites?

Okay, here's a bomb I've been waiting to drop for years. I'm really curious whether anyone noticed some signs up ahead.

Even if you're a lurker, just drop it a yes or no?

· · · · · · ·

August 27, 2578

· · · · · · ·

Sarah kept a hawk's eye on Lemura's training sessions, but didn't partake herself. She wasn't likely to need combat as much as she was to need her analyzing of new worlds; Odygos could deal better with threats anyway. She was sure she'd go far with genetics and personalizing xenomorph drones; Karga'te was the one actually wasting his time. Other than maybe helping Lemura, potentially.

First order was making the new human members capable of heading out without standing out.

Almost in stubborn desire to be contrary to Engima II, she d gained back the weight she'd lost by overeating a bit. Today the face in the mirror was the same as before, and now the extra fat helped helped hide the odd way upgraded skin creased. Yautja skin did the same to a degree, but with every thinner human the more solid muscles were visible to a discerning eye.

She'd actually suggested people gain some extra fat, but that didn't go well. Unfortunately, removing silly health concerns would take more time than just figuring out a thinner underskin. Hmm, maybe they'd come back complaining about getting hurt more easily if they lived with that for a while.

Odygos suggested just altering their fat retention ratio, but that brought about a whole mess with autonomy. It was one thing to pump people full of hive material for their survival in a crisis, a whole other to modify in day to day life.

She had just taught Odygos to play fetch, because why not, and then she taught him it was okay not to play fetch if he didn't want to. Explained what dogs and pets were in the process, and observed along as he mulled this over, and decided that it'd mean something if he felt like it, now throw the ball again because he was bored.

It took her a bit to get used to Odygos as a 'xe' rather than a 'he', with her lapsing back into that habit by default. It made sense what Bison had said about that, but habits seemed more difficult to shed nowadays; she had to set reminders to eating too.

Only fascination really drove her, research becoming everything.

So altogether, it took until seven days later, when Odygos wanted to invent a sport based on sticks, that she realized she hadn't seen Kirindi in a week.

Of course she was a constant presence in their minds, overseeing everything — happiness, and so on — but she wasn't playing anymore.

Sarah asked her whether she'd come have fun with Odygos's new game. There was no, and an almost palpable rejection. Kirindi worked with Ti'chai-di on making the kids behave, and helping Noasyvé figure out how to reproduce drones without needing hosts dying after one run. Forever hosts was so much better.

Sarah had had enough time to rediscover her ability to feel offended at social slights. Kirindi couldn't just go be their social manager from afar, and those kids needed human contact and play. If even Odygos figured that, so could she.

So she got up, marched across the plains, all but ready to pull her out of their den, when an Auton sprinted up.

"Ah, there you are at last. We've been trying to get a hold of you for days!" the Auton said, as if he'd just strolled up. "Please, come along. We have some exciting new data, and you're the best to adapt it."

"Oh, fantastic, what is it?"

"Potential location of Jormungandr's core, and locations of hostiles hominoimorphs, and a lot of strange culture developments in the associated system.

Right, the very thing Noasyvé needed help with.

"I have a moment," she said. "A lot of moments, I was about to drag Kirindi out for inventing some sport."

When they walked up to the Auton ship, a ramp lowered, and raised immediately after they'd boarded.

Persephone stood in an immaculately clean hangar, looking grim. The Auton who'd brought her here dropped the cheery attitude to match her.

"You had new data?"

Weird place to be sharing this, she'd have expected an office.

"Yes, we suspect the primary enemy is in the Dunya system. The additional resources from both our new allies has proved useful. But this is not why we called you.

Rather, before we engage with this enemy, there are a few loose ends to tie up, should this alliance with the old queen work out. We need the full truth.

Back then, we found Karga'ta and Kirindi while following a peculiar distress call. We'd always assumed it was of the crashed yautja vessel; somewhat similar pattern to types we harvest from before.

Now, I've run some diagnostics on what Odygos is trying to do, and the way xenomorph can interact with human technology. Sarah ... is he actually obedient to Noasyvé?"

"Yes, why would he not be?"

"Cause he's been hijacking humans to talk for him, and even when he's typing, he always refers to you."

"Why is this important?"

"We try to guess whether to trust you with certain sensitive information, which Odygos might pass on, even if you do not."

"Ugh, no. Noasyvé doesn't know what to do with him. Xel. Even the gender thing baffles her. Odygos has more individual agency than Kirindi has, and even hobbies that don't relate to the hivemind."

"What nonsense, Kirindi makes dolls for fun," Persephone said.

"A coping mechanism from when she had no proper hive. Does she still do it?" Sarah asked.

Persephone feigned a sigh. "We are losing track. Listen. We're worried what kind of people Noasyvé's hivemind would be made of, to be honest. Now that Karga'te is paying less attention to Kirindi, it seems that—"

"For fucks's sake, she's been glued to that bastard for so long, give her some room to find herself."

"We would like to see whether Odygos and you—"

"No, I'm done. If you want a weird xenomorph, Odygos is right there."

She turned sharply, down the ramp before it was open, and didn't stop until she was around several rocky corners. Reflexively she caught her breath, remember she didn't need this much anymore, and stayed still.

It'd rattled her more than necessary. Not what they'd said, as much as the break in pattern and the deception. Not all was right. Not at all was right.

She didn't want a shape to it, because then she'd have to look. Sarah just wasn't ready, to not have peace after all. Thing was, now she noticed that, it was harder to ignore.

What was she doing again?

Oh, right. Kirindi needed a childhood, and so did the rest.

· · · · · · ·

The main Auton ship felt practically alien, despite him not having been away from it that long.

Persephone waited for him in a new reception room. "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes." Persephone gestured at a couch, and sat opposite of it on a chair, next to another chair holding Anudjan in his first casual outfit. The room altogether was the most human thing he'd seen in a long time; paintings, curtains, shelves with books and disks and cds.

Jake sank into the couch and spread his arms. "Nice place you got here, what gives me the honor?"

"Curiosity does. Let me get straight to the point : out of the entire group of passengers, you and Shadhahvar were the only mercenaries. Everyone else was carefully chosen to have no inconvenient criminal ties, and be incapable of anything inconvenient like hacking or violence," Anudjan said. "Either you did something, or someone else did," Anudjan said.

"What, I'm under arrest?" Jake glanced about the room for a way out.

"I think that if you're utterly unrelated to this, you'd benefit from the truth. Will you accompany us to your home, in the Monadin system?" Persephone said.

"Sure, I'd love to fetch some of my stuff, I got storage, but ..." He raised two fingers to match. "Is it safe, and what do you gain from that?"

"Yes, the Aing Tii can get us there easily. Though if we want the safety of our regular shuttle, it will take a few days to navigate down out of the nebula and to the surface. As for why ..."

That giant tv flickered on, showing data files on him.

According to these he'd never left, and was still filing taxes erratically as of the most recent transmission.

Post his departure.

Jake pressed his lips together. "Anyone else got their absence ... covered, like that?"

"No, just you. And possibly Shadhahvar, but she's been sloppily off the grid even before abduction," Persephone said.

"Yeah, don't read to much into that. Someone snatched my name and reaped the benefits of my obscure reputation, but I am getting my stuff either way. Let's do it."

· · · · · · ·

September 03, 2578

· · · · · · ·

Before all this, home had been an excellent seedy space harbor. It was both nostalgic to step onto the rusty docks, and disappointing; he remembered a more picturesque decay.

Most of the shops had shifted around, save his favorite coffee spot that doubled as a drug canteen. Maybe that was the only reasons things looked a little cleaner than they should be. Or maybe cleanliness stood out more now he'd been sharing minds with so many for whom that'd been hell.

He resisted the urge to sit down and pretend none of it had happened, and led his company to his old home. Persephone and the two Auton guards had no interest in the place, but Shadhahvar looked around like she had never seen it before.

His keys were long gone, but being a mercenary meant he might stay away a long time. He'd made sure to pick an apartment in an area not likely to explode or torn down anytime soon; and fully paid off.

So when he arrived at apartment 52 B in the Ychtys district, just to find a changed door, well fuck.

"Let me. Persephone set a hand on the lock, released a small wire, and so hacked the lock. Acting as if nothing was wrong, he invited in his guests with a broad gestured, then grabbed Shadhahvar before she could go after something that distracted her further down the street.

"You stay, Shadey, we'll visit your home later."

She huffed, but wandered off to the kitchen. One of their guards trailed her.

Everything inside was still in place : big wall tv, couch before it, posters all over the wall, shelves full of trivial memorabilia ... and clearly lived in recently.

He tried to recall which of his old buddies was most likely to do this; nothing big had been stolen. He glanced across the shelves, Like they made hims nostalgic for this place, rather than whatever they'd come from.

"Hey, uh ... you got any devices like phones in here that you can sense somehow?" he asked the Auton.

They'd scattered about the appartment, looking over things without touching them. Persphone stopped at an empty cup on the table before the tv and ran a small scanner to the edge, before wiping it off. The little piece of cloth she handed to one of the other Auton, whose duffel bag contained an organic scanner from the Aing-Tii.

Having scanned that the Auton walked to a desk — a desk that was also new, albeit in Jake's style.

There did lay a phone, which she picked up with sterile hands. Holding it out to Jake, the Auton said, "Will you try the fingerprint scanner?"

"I'm starting to think you guys didn't tell me everything," Jake said as he took the phone.

He vaguely recalled the model, but couldn't call any details to mind.

The fingerprint didn't take.

"We didn't want to give her any time to prejudice you, in case that matters," Persephone said. "Why don't we start with you telling us why you would take a holiday like that?"

He chuckled uneasily as he tried every finger, and the phone kept rejecting. "It's not my phone, it's gotta be a buddy who got in here."

"Who are they? Your buddies?"

"Y'know, Mervin, Jessica, ... Jordan ... Hooks ..."

"Jake, why would someone like you, a mercenary whose closest ally is a nutjob, just take a suspicious holiday with no security, no research, no benefit that you couldn't get here in some fashion? Are you even interested in luxury resorts or science?"

"Why are you asking?"

The phone felt familiar, but he couldn't actually recall it. It was black with some artsy purple streaks, like those street painters did. Definitely his style, but ... he couldn't actually recall where he'd gotten it.

"I like spray art," he said, absentminded.

Persephone was right, why would he have gone onto a boring luxury cruister for a science station?

He put it down. Pinched the bridge of his nose.

"What are you getting at?"

"Well, you see—"

The entry door opened again.

"What the ... " The voice was alien to Jake. And he knew the voice better than anything regardless.

From the corner of his eye he saw the shape in the doorframe, from the other corner, Persephone and the Auton slipped into the shadow of a messy weaponry closet.

"What's the matter?" Shadhahvar called from the kitchen, but any further prattling fell to the background when the man leaned aside, so he could look at Jake's face.

He looked back.

Into a living mirror. The man who'd just come into his old apartment was Jake all over again. Almost similar scars, and clothing right out of Jake's former closet, but a little bit off.

"Aww shit, whose idea of a joke was this?" the other Jake said.

Asthe new Jake spoke, he stared at Jake wide eyed, fascinated, and snapped a photo with his wrist watch.

Jake could only stare back in sinking horror, tearing through his own mind for some explanation that left the other one the joke, or the clone, or the synth wearing his skin.

"You're a joke," he told the man whose fingerprints probably could unlock this phone.

"Hmm. Am I?"

Would it make sense for anyone to just clone him? Maybe the Auton had dressed up one of their own to pretend he was being deceived by the hive ...

"Huh, pretty dull you are. We're not gonna have an epic fight?"

"No, I'm not ..." Not Jacob.

"You either don't know, or it's some kind of elaborate scheme," Jacob said as he took a seat backward. "Didn't think I was that important."

He poured himself a drink, and another one for Jake. "You can imagine, I'm awfully curious what kinda synth you are. And what kinda prank — if say, Flaggrerson did this I imagine you'd be mimicking me. Probably in his idea of me."

He downed his entire drink and gave Jake a good look over.

"Yeah, definitely someone who's not close to me. The cool mercenary thing is something is a brand. I quit the business a few years ago. Smuggling is a lot more lucrative, and stylish." He scoffed at Jake. "You don't have actual memories from me? Tell, who's Evan?"

"My brother," Jake said.

The man named Jacob relaxed. "Brother in law. I'm so gonna kill Flagg's butt for this. Now you get out, I got more important shit to do."

He waved the empty glass at the door, and took the one he had poured for Jake.

"Wait! Where have you been all this time?" Jake asked. "Do you know Shadhahvar at least?"

"Uh huh, blastergirl on some missions. Wouldn't ever actually get with her though. Too dumb. I cut her off after she fumbled the second mission."

Jake lost an uneasy chuckle.

"Out, the joke's been long enough." Down went the second glass.

Numb, Jake walked to the door.

Remembered Persephone was still around somewhere.

Remembered himself.

If they did have similar personalities, then he himself wouldn't make such a big point about a joke.

A click right on cue, and Jake wasn't ever fast enough to dodge a bullet. It went right through his liver.

If old human pain of a wound was piercing, fanning out, biomechanic pain was like a thousand impatient officers lining up at his nerve center insisting it was time to move. It did not incapitate the same way, but it would overpower his mind of it could. An instinct not his own.

He stayed still on the dirty floor, groaning only.

Jacob turned him over with a foot, prodding at the oozing wound.

"You not gonna tell me what I'm being framed for, hmmm?"

Jake gurgled.

"Nah. I need evidence whatever I'm being framed for wasn't me. Good god, look at that blood. You're one hell of a synth."

A flash of white, and he almost fell on top of Jake.

For an eerie moment, his mirror's body hovered over him, then elevated.

When his eyes focused, he saw Persephone hurl him aside.

"Hold still." She checked his wound, and the other handed her a compress. "You probably won't bleed out, but we're gonna make a run for it. Brace yourself."

Persephone hauled him over her shoulder and snapped at Shadhahvar, "You. You leave through the front, lock the door, and go back round to that vent in the back with the car."

He didn't notice much of the rush or the escape, only of his own body knitting itself back together. Most of it was just back alleys and excuses for why she had an injured man without calling emergency services; the place was a mess enough it passed.

When they got aboard their shuttle, Persephone methodically placed him on a bench and unfolded a med shelf above it.

"I'm sorry, I should not have assumed the original Jake was as even tempered as you are."

"You knew he'd ..." He coughed up something not blood, but bile.

"No, I didn't know he'd come by, but I should have interfered sooner," she said. "Or checked the tech, he probably was nearby and got alerted by someone fiddling with his phone."

She tended to his wound by prying out the bullet, which had begun to corrode. There was little else she could do beyond that.

After giving him some water, she took the opposite bench.

"We can safely presume that Noasyvé cloned you somehow," Persephone said. "And now we have an idea of the timeframe."

"You ... that's why I got *cough* high rank escort like you. You guys—," he forced out, each word a labored breath.

"We suspected it, yes," she said. "With how thoroughly they selected their candidates for leaving no mark and causing no trouble, you two stood out like sore thumbs in the line up.

If Sarah could be lined in because an internal spite game, then others can slip by recruitment choices without someone looking at the logic of the choice. We are more curious about how Noasyvé did that, than the cloning — and why Nuitar didn't tip off any human allies it was happening."

She stopped talking, went to prepare the ship for take off. He didn't want her to, he was not ready for going back. Or even being left with his own thoughts.

Sound did come when the hatch opened again. He tensed, but it was only Shadhahvar, late. Of course.

"Ah, you did make it! Yay!"

"Please tell me no cops trailed you," Persephone called from the front.

"None what so ever," she said, and then proudly held up a crate of liquor. "Look what I took from your evil twin!"

"Shadey, be serious for five seconds. Please, we're not ..."

The rebuke died in his throat.

Maybe Odygos wasn't the only brainfried emergency creation he'd seen of Syvé's brood.

· · · · · · ·

September 04, 2578

· · · · · · ·

The human hive deep within the Beast Nebula dreamed that night, as they always did, of unity. They also dreamed of their old life, moreso because Jake, well renowned member of the group, had gone home to retrieve some things. They too would like to see home.

Some more than others.

Within these dreams, their drones followed them at every move, and understood humanity all the better for it. Though it was not their instinct, it was their command, for their mother would soon wage a war across the stars, and their enemy would be made out of the flesh and mind of humans. They would carry residue of this in ways drones never would. Drones were only a genetic shadow, not a true cognitive echo.

The human hive knew they were learned, and they all had their pride in this process. In all their small ways, they were saviors of the galaxy.

Told that all their trivialities were now of great importance for understanding that would impact the galaxy, nobody was insignifigant. Nobody was allowed to be outcast for silly reasons.

It was not untrue. All things considered, Noasyvé had no interest in eradicating any species. She wished to spread across the universe, but was content and even invigorated by the challenge to do so without destroying ecosystems. To take the most violently hostile empty planets instead.

So every day they woke up to help adapt to this planet. Many a host had ideas to bring together that drones never could come up with. They brought perspectives that Noasyvé and Zheng alone lacked in their ancient complexity, dedicated to many other things instead.

Jake was in their midst this night, but most could not truly hear him across their own adventures.

It certainly did not help that Jake had no shape of his own, and Shadhahvar was a mere shadow. When Jake spoke, they heard a silly joke : look, we aren't real, I'm not real, you all might have died already.

And it became a dream about rebirth.

· · · · · · ·

Sarah woke up from this good dream to Bison shaking her shoulder.

In the dim outline of a fading day against the entrance of the hive, he looked like a ghost, dark hair loose around a face paler than usual. Eyes wide, he whispered, "Sarah, you need to decide names for your siblings."

She tried to push him away, but wasn't awake enough to really put strength to it. "What do you want?"

"Your clones. It's time."

He pulled at her shoulder, forcing her to sit up.

"We can talk later about what I learned on Ro. Jay got the message just now, and he's on the Auton ship already, packing. You should too."

Trying to focus on anything so far away was as wading through mud.

"What I'm about to say will confuse you, but you might have heard of Carly Markens. She was something I am now, something that defends against the ashla. Against the telepathy across it. I went to Ro for this, and I think Jake will want to be like this too.

Let me help you create space."

She struggled against the blanket.

"You're not making sense."

"Neither do you, Sarah. We're as lost here as we were on Enigma II, but the iron is on our minds now."

He set a hand on her forehead.

The effect was crystal clear, so similar, yet ... less cloying. More like a quiet fire, or water smoothing out a shore. Like hands patiently picking apart every strand of violence and coldness with a frightening expertise. Every violent thought, he put before her in isolation. Had her look at, before folding it up.

There was nothing outside, for this time, save what the hivemind had left to her.

"This place only looks like salvation because Enigma is there to make it look bright by its shadow. But would the old you really be alright letting a thing like Noasvyé run the galaxy? We don't have to choose between two evils, Sarah."

He stood still for a moment more, casting that quiet veil, and then abruptly spun away.

The force of the ashla slammed back into Sarah, the hivemind riding on its waves. Powerful, certain, but no longer held the comforting haze of just minutes before.

At last it struck Sarah how absurd everything was, most of all the lack of disruption in herself. The Sarah threatening Walltraud with death sat right here, trying to imagine what the Sarah who aspired for a good job would have done in the same situation.

The fear mingled with the unwrapped seed.

Persephone's ship was on its way here, with Jake and Shadhahvar not on it, but instead, two people more or less aware they had no names of their own.

Jake was a clone. Shadhahvar either a failed clone or someone so brainscrambled she'd gone stupid. Both of them had almost certainly been in Syvé's hivemind the entire time, subtly influenced.

From the other end of the hall, Bison whispered, "Noasyvé makes tools. We're unsure how and where, but, she doesn't really need any of the people here. They're just around because there's no benefit to killing them, and it would upset her allies.

But, you have to remember that Noasyvé exists to conquer, to consume, to repurpose, as any xenomorph queen does. An entity that evolved to intelligence, or was made so, while bypassing the cooperation and innovation that evolution requires of ordinary species.

Intelligent enough to know when it serves her to respect ethics in allies. But there comes a day it's useful for all people she just linked to drones to be her drones too. And they'll leave behind everything until even their names are just a is the form it takes, when a creature as absolute and amoral as a xenomorph tries gentleness."

Sarah pressed her lips together, and washed away the joys to look at the price. She was back on Enigma.

· · · · · · ·

When Karga'te got the news in his mind, he scoffed, but wasn't surprised. This is what you got with genetic monsters.

"Kirindi. You are not allowed to sway anyone's opinion to favor the hivemind."

Then he went on with training Lemura.

· · · · · · ·

When Jake wasn't down under while healing from the injury, he was really upset about the clone thing. Kirindi wouldn't have thought that mattered much, she was something of a clone herself, all the drones had cloned bits.

Sarah had some more thoughts about her own clones now, and once she caught wind of Jake's situation, it all collapsed. Just, woosh, gone. The entire peace of the human hivemind sector collapsed into chaos because Sarah was there screaming about manipulation.

She didn't say anything specifically to Kirindi, really just avoided her. The only gist she caught was this : no respect for individuality, or human life, and that was bad.

Amidst this sad mess, Eliath cantered up to her and made himself understood as there for her no matter what.

And he had a preference on how to do that : leave.

Because one day, Kirindi's individuality might also be replaceable, once Noasyvé understood how to replicate her. She was a faulty experiment turned useful, not the final product.

Kirindi certainly did not want to die, and did not like the way some drones were willing to die for the old mother so easily.

Did Eliath then think, if she was to live, she had to stop doing this?

Eliath nudged her in the shoulder, and wanted the way she touched foreheads with her sister; a little world of their own shared thoughts. She leaned in.

Leave together, go with Karga'te. Stay there. Don't wander off. Don't belong to this queen.

It had to be bad, if Eliath thought Karga'te was the better option.

· · · · · · ·

September 05, 2578

· · · · · · ·

The human hive had one dream that sleep, where they all asked (for different reasons) why Noasyvé had created Jake and Shadhahvar. When, too.

Were they just created to infiltrate Enigma II?

Oh, she had not. She had merely been curious about the various ways she could acquire human drones, one of those being tilting the genetic copying so much to explore to unexplored : to burn a mind onto genes, or to invoke the echo of minds through it. She still did not truly understand the ashla. This echo only ever happened to queen embryos, who benefited without distraction of knowing so much about their host's environment.

It had not been a very serious attempt, but oh so useful after she was caught, though it took some maneuvering.

Worry not they would be replaced. See Jake's turmoil for why she had not pursued that angle. Be proud they would be better.

Let her see how much they recoiled from knowing what she could so.

This wasn't a joke attempt, what they were here.

Let the worth stay out of their own dedication.

Sarah was the first to force herself awake.

· · · · · · ·

Lemura herself was excited to learn Jake was a clone, like Sarah had clones. It was good news that clones could be so humanlike, and even inherit mind, so they wouldn't be so in pain the way Sarah's clones were.

Why did everyone react like it was terrible news? They knew Sarah had been cloned, they saw the clones every day. Did they not all agree that was bad cloning? Jake was an example of good cloning.

But Sarah had gone into the Auton ship, to her old room there, put out folded beds, and then carried all her clones in there. She wouldn't accept help from Odygos or anyone, her face steely in a way that belied her inner chaos.

The Auton didn't want to let Lemura into the ship, so she had to break in through a fuel pipe.

When she found Sarah's room, it was a mess of clothes on the floor.

"Why why why," Sarah muttered, among other things.

"Why what?" Lemura asked.

Sarah snapped out of whatever she'd been doing. Her hands dug into the clothes in her hands. Her eyes settled on Lemura.

She didn't look at Lemura like before, a child of hers. "How old would you even be? You can't actually be a baby no matter what ... do you need a sweater? I'll give you a sweater."

Lemura tried not to flinched when Sarah pulled cloth over her head.

It was a blue shirt, much too big for her.

"Good," Sarah said. "Better."

"Better what?"

But she'd already gotten up to keep rummaging.

"Better than what, Sarah?"

"This, this all. Why wasn't I thinking about helping them? They're sick, incomplete clones, they need medical help." She tore open another closet. "They're freaking naked and nobody noticed! Why was I handing out blankets but not clothes?"

Her three clones were each on a bed, either uncaring or confused. The only thing that mattered to them was the food they nibbled on.

"All this is for Auton disguises, and they are never kids. I need to modify these, nothing of it will work. Karga'te didn't teach you needlework by any chance, did he?"

"He did, a little. We need to fix our own stuff. But he won't help, and I'm new. Odygos got good with typing real fast, he would help. Call him?"

Strangled, Sarah said, "No."

"But why?"

"Just no."

"Sarah?"

Sarah sank onto an empty bed, curled up and buried her face in her hands, trying to hide the sobs.

Lemura crawled onto the bed, tried to get between her arms for a hug, but when that didn't work, just laid down next to her and held onto her arms. She didn't know how to make the distress go away. Sarah wouldn't accept any telepathic comfort.

But after a while, when the sobbing got less, she took Lemura's hand in hers.

Sarah's clones stared at them, and never blinked.

· · · · · · ·

Jake would rather not be awake, so he took a sleeping drug whenever possible. He didn't dare call out to her.

So when he had the focus, he asked Karga'te what Noasyvé thought of them finding out.

"She doesn't care," Karga'te sent him. "Not much sign she is controlled me. Could be so total we are prevented from noticing but if so, it sucks. Lots of the linked humans are doubting now. Whatever. Say, your original's more trigger happy?"

He sent some vague sense of his wound along. "I can't even remember whether I was ever like that. I ... how can you not worry whether you're real?"

"Been through this whole thing already with Kirindi," he said. "I'm real, I wasn't controlled then. Lemme go check something so you can stop whining about it."

About two hours later, Karga'te contacted him again.

"I just killed a random drone. Noasyvé is furious and sent a bunch of drones to drive me away. If she's mind controlling me, she did it herself and is putting up a huge act for nobody." Along he sent the scene of the battle; no Auton around to see it, no Aing-Tii either. No need for a charade.

It gave him a little sense of safety, but then, "What if she now decides you're too big a problem and makes a new you to appease Kirindi?"

"Yeah, we're getting outta here before that can happen. But that just means she can't control me as is. You with us?"

"Yeah, of course. But ... is Kirindi safe to be around?"

"Probably."

· · · · · · ·

September 06, 2578

· · · · · · ·

They didn't really count the days on this planet, but now some of them cared. The Auton offered the many people who wanted to leave the hivemind a refuge.

"You can't just make entire people for a purpose," was a running refrain. "It is dismissive of the value of life."

Other thought this was better than outright mind controlling people. A handful desired to be duplicated this manner, see their mirror and the changes. They stayed. They wanted nothing more. So them Kirindi tended to.

Noasyvé observed it all with detached amusement, and continued her genetic work and distant plans.

Kirindi asked her once what to do with Karga'te forbidding that she sway minds to help the hive smooth out, which Noasyvé declined. She'd rather have those stay were weren't prone to reel against it, might as well use this situation as a test.

Anudjan and Karga'te were arguing late that day, outside. She couldn't telepathically follow along, so she approached.

It was about whether they'd have to kill the drones attached to the people who were now having doubts about being part of the hivemind, and whether they could get away with it.

It just made no sense. The doubt was the easiest part to fix, people wouldn't have to leave or die if that was gone, to like how it was before.

So she piped up and said, "Once Ti'chai-di has enough babies and they are all grown, I can help them add the people to their hivemind core."

Karga'te processed that a little slower than Anudjan, and reacted way louder.

Now all of a sudden, there were all these extra rules : Ti'chai-di wasn't going to be a hive queen to the humans, and all kinds of variations of that, and more restrictions on what to do with Noasyvé (not obey her at all). It was really sad to have to follow all that.

But, Ti'chai-di did not care for that finesse. She would go on with whatever made her children thrive.

The second Karga'te realized that, he told Ti'chai-di that Noasyvé was going to be the actual queen of the hivemind, and she would want her babies as remote drones and they were totally going to die in the upcoming war.

Ti'chai-di spun positions faster than Kirindi could even figure out who she'd choose to help.

Then Karga'te demanded to know about all those extra humans, clones and loyal originals and all that.

Well, of course Noasyvé had lots of them across the galaxy. They'd been a nice, steady background noise the way the other Enigma refugees were, steadily present, and easing into the system now Kirindi could smooth out their adaptional distress.

Kirindi piped in with enthusiasm, to explain better. He had to understand why there was confusion, and why Kirindi could solve it.

For example, Noasyvé did not at all understand why people were upset at mental speed or how to make them understand they didn't need privacy because nobody here laughed at them and that was weird to be afraid of anyway, and shame was ... kind of ... weird ... not happy. Kirindi understood how to pay in happiness because she could feel it along with them, and that mattered a lot for the peace. Noasyvé really did leave her as the queen of that, but she didn't have enough space, so Ti'chai-di would ... no?

It sounded a lot less good now Karga'te paid attention and hated it. He saw Noasyvé as arranging it regardless of who did the thing, because she made the structure of it. They would all be her drones, and not themselves, so the people Kirindi originally added were as good as dead.

And in the back of this, Ti'chai-di reeled like a rising tidal way. How dare anyone claim her children for her dangerous purpose. The only thing Ti'chai-di would agree to was to find a safe home for herself and her family.

For once Karga'te found an ally in her more so than Kirindi, who could only sit by in increasing confusion.

Why did knowing Jake was cloned cause so much disarray? He was real on his own terms, right?

Karga te told Kirindi to stop bothering him for a while, as he prepared some things and tested them. Ti'chai-di quietly scorned Kirindi for having assured her Noasyvé was safe, and followed Karga'te.

It was a test. He didn't say it, but she felt giving that distance was going to make or break whatever stability she had. Of her dead sister she was less sure.

· · · · · · ·

September 07, 2578

· · · · · · ·

Jake sat still in the shuttle, staring at his hands. They'd be back soon. Back to her, his ... his ...

His creator. He couldn't stand the thought.

Persephone tried to tell him he was real, even the original Jacob would have been changed by Enigma, they'd find out how and where he was cloned and what it meant, there were so many ways going forward.

"I don't want to go back to that planet," he said.

It was the only thing he knew for certain he could want.

"Not even to be out of this place faster? I'm told Karga'te and his family are getting a shuttle from the Aing-Tii. If you want to be on it, it is fastest if you board there."

· · · · · · ·

Odygos hadn't seen Sarah since Bison bubbled her off of the hivemind for a moment, right before she had learned Jake was more genetically engineered than previously assumed.

She would not come out of the Auton ship at all.

Asking Kirindi for explanation got no answers, she was just as confused.

It took some tinkering and stealing and Hel, but Odygos got a hold of an old intercom, which Zheng was willing to modify a bit.

It got a straight to her room.

When the screen flickered on, she startled. It didn't make sense for her to react this way. They were still connected, she should not be uneasy around him.

"How did you get onto this?"

Odygos tried to tell her, but could not telepathically go through as clearly.

So xe typed that he had learned.

Sarah only briefly looked at the screen, sniffled, and looked away.

"I can't keep you. You'd just draw me further down the wrong path," she said. Then she slammed something into the screen, which blacked out.

Xe felt her grief anyway. It did not guide her. She resisted the hivemind even as she was still part of it, constantly mulling with logic against the ease of being part of it.

Lies, lies, lies. The real her would not have been fine with many things Noasyvé pushed through, and it made no sense so many people were fine with getting a drone attached. This was all evidence of manipulation.

Odygos was part of that, she had decided.

Lemura had watched it along, and asked whether Sarah also thought Lemura was a trick.

"No, no, don't worry. I know you are not."

"Is it because I'm more human?"

"... Yes. Odygos is a drone, but you can be more."

Should it not be, because Lemura was from Enigma II's product line?

"But ... I don't wanna be a monster. I'm going with Karga'te."

"Why?" Sarah asked, and Odygos had the same question.

"Cause I think he has a better idea on how to be a monster," Lemura said. "You're so afraid of the hivemind now, of what I can be, and maybe you're right. I have the same potential of this thing... whatever it is that draws people to Kirindi. And I have a mother like myself, who knows me."

None of that made sense, Odygos thought, but not his business.

This felt like betrayal to Sarah, but she didn't say it. Thought it wasn't right to feel this way. Still, that sounded like a good word for what Odygos experienced.

But there probably was a point to that being the wrong thing. Lots of instinct and logic didn't line up.

Lemura emerged from a window not too long after, holding a bundle and asking for a ride.

If Sarah didn't want anything from Odygos, might as well humor her adoptee until she came around.

She would come around.

The Auton were panicking about Odygos being able to just hack them like that, but that was nothing Odygos cared about.

Noasyvé was a little upset though that he'd used tech to get into the Auton ship. Now they were paranoid about all this potential. Noasyvé had been planning to let them settle into the clone thing over time, explain all that, before introducing them to Hel.

Lemura said that if Sarah was distrustful of Odygos, she would be distrustful of Lemura too. They all would, because when they went, Lemura would be the only xenomorph on the entire ship. It would be lonely, like Odygos already was.

Odygos did not believe her.

· · · · · · ·

September 08, 2578

· · · · · · ·

When Kirindi asked the Auton, they said they were certain now that Noasyvé was hiding unethical things from them. Both the secrecy around the clone and the potential for hidden technological control were too much.

Too much for what? Nobody outright said they'd stop being allies, but they didn't get along anymore.

At dawn, Kirindi sat by a final meeting between the Auton and Zheng, who simply walking towards one another on the windy open plains. All grim faces, many she could not decipher well. She couldn't even keep track of all the debates before it. Philosophical matters of free will, of goals.

Karga'te sat by on a rock, and Sarah without Odygos stood close to the Auton.

Both Anudjan and Zheng had their handed folded into their sleeves, one might mistake them for of similar home, peace and mind. It didn't make sense this was their first conversation since the reveal, and one of scorn. There was not even a greeting.

"We wish to depart. Are we free to go?" Anudjan said.

Zheng nodded. "We have no desire to antagonize our allies."

"We might not be so. At best, we will tolerate you to face of a greater threat, as long as you are a necessary lesser evil," Anudjan said. "I hope this is clear."

Zheng nodded her head.

"Well then, I suspected there shall be declarations of resilience and worth. Perhaps we can skip this, Anudjan. You must understand, Sarah and the others you take will be the swiftest way for us to contact you, should need arise."

Sarah held up her hands. "I won't vouch for Noasyvé, but you've seen Shadhahvar and Odygos, and Karga'te's been blatantly going against her wishes. She is not omnipotent, even if you technically are in her hivemind. We wouldn't be having this conversation if she outright controlled us."

"Yeah, but she was not awake while we adapted," Karga'te said, very slowly and speaking in a fancier dialect than he usually bothered with. "And we will be outnumbered once she gets better drones now she is awake."

"That's not the point, you jerk. I'm saying, we are not compromised yet." With that, she nodded at Zheng. "I'm here to familiarize myself with her, because I will not accept speaking with Noasyvé directly anymore."

"Ah, now I see." Zheng held out a hand. Reluctant, Sarah shook it. The simple gesture marked a pact, and a sense for one another. Sarah understood it as a risk, Zheng as a pleasant concession.

Anudjan produced a small block of tech that Kirindi did not recognize, and tossed it at Zheng. "We would prefer as little communication in this manner. Use our beacons when not in dire need."

"Understood."

Zheng turned to the entrance of the hive, and the Auton with Sarah to their ship.

Kirindi bolted after her, on all fours at first until she slipped by them at a rocky corner.

Standing before Sarah, she tried to reach out, but Sarah stepped back.

"Sarah, please don't go," Kirindi asked, trying again to just touch her arm.

"I'm not going to stay here and serve that thing!" Sarah snapped. "Humankind needs to be protected from whatever is ravaging our cyberspace. Syvé is not the one to do it. She would just use us and you know what? I don't want to go. That's not her, that's you. A tool as well. I wish you'd come, but the only reason I love you is that you're making me. I am more rational than to let that ... you, anyone, rule me. Not now I know."

She lost breath blurting it all out, and tears were in her eyes, and hate ready to spill off her tongue.

But she she reeled herself in.

When Kirindi said, "But the hive is here," she already felt how hollow that sounded to Sarah.

"I know that," she said, calmer now. "It's in my head too, even see, I was going to lose myself in that. My clones weren't growing into their own people, but into my drones."

"But that's a good thing, because there are going to be duchesses and dukes to the queen, and they do less thinking than you so—"

"They will think for their own once I let them grow. You should too, and your cousins, but I cannot help you with that when you force affection."

One of the Auton took her by the shoulder and softly pushed her aside, while ignoring her. Sarah stepped past, not looking back.

"Odygos is going to miss you," she said, finding nothing else Sarah still cared for.

She thought in reply, "Odygosonly does because he was written this way, and maybe I was influenced to like him. I don't know, but it's best if we get over it.

She reached the threshold of the Auton ship, and Bison approached to her. By that, she was gone.

When Kirindi turned back, Karga'te was waiting for her.

He just stood there on the plain, watching. He was tense all over, mind full of all his buried fears of her controlling him. Laid bare all his options in his mind, and for some reason so aware of how empty this planet was.

When she approached, he rattled, "This already was hivemind rejection days ago. You couldn't tell?"

There was no violence to it this time, though he was ready if it came to that. Was he expecting violence from her?

"How is it so?"

"Shut up, you know it already. I am leaving for the same reason. Are you with me?"

"Yes, of course," she said, and she thought it too, but not quite feel it.

"Good. Then you're rejecting a hive too. Fun, is it not? Let's go."

But she was already so entangled. All that was natural to her was best here, on this planet, with Noasyvé.

Karga'te squatted, so they could see eye to eye. "Come on. It only feels like everything because you're young. You'll get out. Took me decades to stop being a hunter, even after I left. You get to start early."

He wasn't sure what he promised to help with, and she didn't either. It didn't feel like she needed help.

In that moment, he decided that mind was a strength on its own, far from the ways yautja defined power. Thought his own reaction to her secrecy foolish now, his reaction to bygone burning cities even more so. That he should become stronger in this way.

He tapped a hand on the top of her head and stood up. "Gather all our brood. I want as much weapons and tech as we can carry, and we need rations. We will become our own hive to rival all the other hardmeat and the hunter clans and everything else."

She nodded, but could not shed the doubt the way he hoped, nor could he shed the unease.

· · · · · · ·

Odygos had delivered Lemura to the Aing-Tii ship, and there was nothing else to do but wait before the Auton ship.

· · · · · · ·

September 09, 2578

· · · · · · ·

The Auton ship left in the morning, taking along over a little of half the human hive, including Sarah, Jay and Bison. No drones came along.

· · · · · · ·

Karga'te still poked and prodded at his own mind, like everyone else did lately, but didn't find difference. Noasyvé's general disinterest in him now Kirindi was smoothing over her issues, remained so. That she could clone frighteningly well only meant Kirindi was no longer so necessary — he expected there'd be a lot of Kirindis around down the line.

He'd considered murdering the old queen as a precaution, but the Auton did have a point about the bigger threat of the hominoimorphs. Better to live under his disinterest than those things, he'd seen well enough what damage those were capable of.

So back to his mind, he had long not been motivated to find Nra'tex-ne. Not really since since joining the badbloods. It'd long been a habit not to follow up memories of his brother with pressing forward. Nothing to press towards.

But hey, now he was moving, he might as well use the telepathic supersenses he got.

The Dunya system it was, because there Jormungandr was.

The Aing-Tii were vehemently against slavery, and had decided that Noasyvé copying people and redesigning them for her purposes was a new kind of shackle. Anyone willing to get out, they would help. Thus they gave him and his family a small vessel to travel with, which Shadhahvar was already decorating for their use — she had arrived already?

Only to pick them up. Jake was nowhere in sight, though Kirindi sensed him. Karga'te tried to reach out, but wasn't as good at starting conversations like this.

Ti'chai-di was climbing into the top of the green pod when he and Kirindi arrived, where a large hatch had opened. With some space for her to turn, she hung her arms over the edge and carefully scooped up her babies.

That's where he noticed Jake for the first time, near an crate. Stock still, until a baby rolled away. He went to pick it up, and this pulled him into the act of helping gather them to safety.

When he noticed Karga'te approach he gave him half a smile and a raised hand, while fidgety around Kirindi.

Karga'te carried the tech and food he'd gathered up onto the vessel himself, figuring out a place to neatly store it away from Shadhahvar's grabby hands, and made sure all the things she liked to eat were somewhere harmless.

During this, Lemura quietly crawled aboard.

Karga'te was surprised she went with them, more so because of the reasoning behind it. Not contaminating Sarah's clones, but he could imagine that underneath that, she might be afraid of Sarah too — she knew after all how Karga'te had tolerated a coalescent existence until a secret came to light. Lemura would be threading on eggshells around Sarah.

Of course he agreed — extra hands for handling Ti'chai-di's many little brats was welcome.

Ayo was overseeing it from the shadow of the larger sanhedrim ship, with Eliath at her side. This surprised him, Eliath showing interest in someone other than Kirindi?

He walked up, and after some hesitation, Jake followed.

"Hey, you. Tell me something."

"Hello to you to. What'd you need?" Ayo said. Eliath slunk away, ignoring everyone now on his way to the pod.

"Noasyvé knew all along that there were yautja ships that humans had retrieved. Didn't know what that meant till just now. Anything else she's been hiding?"

"The Auton are guessing well with the Dunya system," Ayo said. "It's one of the things we were checking up on. If you can get Kirindi to pry more into that extended hivemind, you could probably get a planet out of it too. Say hi to Mahad if you meet him."

"What the fuck? You had a lead already?"

Ayo rolled her eyes. "Nothing I could pursue, and I certainly didn't want you to do it. You know, you could come with us, to Ro."

"Not happening. I'm going to my brother."

"Fine. I haven't been in contact with Mahad for years, and won't risk prying. We have more than one enemy with telepathic powers. But this won't show up." She held out a letter to Jake, old fashioned written on paper. "Will you give it to him?"

"You bet. It would probably be easier if I knew where he was or what he looked like," Jake said; the words he'd choose any other time, but without the usual cheer. "And where."

"Karga'te should get you up to date on that backstory. Knowing Mahad, he'll try to stay near Carly; hominoimorph stick together and he's clever enough to know that's not senseless instinct. Looks mostly like me, but I don't know how different we look compared to other humans; I haven't seen many outside the emptied city we were born to. He had long locs last I saw him, with some some deco that defied the hunter style."

He nodded stiffly, and put the letter in a pocket. "I'll make sure he gets it."

Ayo jumped down, though stayed at a distance, to face Jake.

"Jake, I get it. I was born in a broken desert city that served as Jormungandr's petridish. We never knew what we were, because the monster was this watered down thing that didn't active.

As humans we plucked meaning of outdated history books and imagined ourselves a past and a future, we forced the scrambling corpse of a culture from an the sand around us.

I learned the other day my name means great joy rather than flight, and I don't know whether my parents thought of being airborne or of escaping, and I can't ask them anymore. I certainly can't go to earth and make a life there, if this is all over. But I made something new.

Pick what you like out of this life, and pretend that past is yours too, because you can't build on sand, but ghosts at least have a shape."

Karga'te couldn't resist saying, "Nah, sand turns into glass if you heat it and you can't eat ghosts."

Jake sputtered a broken laugh, while Ayo shot him a miffed look.

They were the only truly peaceful parting that day.

There wasn't much ceremony to boarding the weird oversized pod, with almost everyone but Karga'te himself very troubled about manipulation and lost sense of refuge. The way this went, it looked more foolish than ever to get attached to shit like that.

He sat back, plastered his feet on the control board and prepared to have fun piloting this weird spiky thing. Insta-relocation had so much potential, seriously. Why fret over losing this place they'd never had?

The Aing-Tii contacted him for take off, giving some instructions on flight, and potential for regrowing the organic vessel to their needs. They warned against doing so in any way that made them more susceptible to Noasyvé or the hominoimorph, better to lean into something else. If they could figure out how to block it entirely at will, all the better.

Kirindi, Ti'chai-di, about 17 of her babies that were sane and capable of movement, Eliath, Jake, Shadhahvar. It'd be a cramped flight, but Jake was going to go into hibernation. They probably all should in turns. Karga'te decided to be the only one awake at all times.

The hatch started growing shut until it was all but invisible even from the inside. Just as it was almost closed, Kirindi blocked it with her tail and hands.

"Wait," she said. "One more."

Through the edge, Karga'te saw Odygos walk up on all fours.

Sarah really had not taken him. Dammit.

"Fine, get in."

· · · · · · ·

The human hive dreamed as many dreams as there were people, that night, while Noasyvé waited.

· · · · · · ·

Author's note : Jacob is a common name, rarely understood to have a meaning once upojn a time : to follow, to be behind, and it also may mean, to supplant.

· · · · · · ·