Hivemind

Slipping off my clothing, I slid into the regulation bed the PRT had set up for me. I stared at the ceiling for a while, worrying about the future.

 

I wasn’t even aware when I drifted off to sleep.

 

I was slithering through the sewers. I had a dim awareness that I’d been here for what seemed like a lifetime, gaining mass and developing more nodes. I was an ambush predator, waiting for things to pass by so that I could envelope and devour.

 

There was a dim awareness that other parts of me existed; when I grew too large, I’d split off and become two. The smaller versions of me lacked the intelligence of the larger version, because they had to create more neural nodes, and intelligence could only occur at a certain size.

 

Awareness like I had now was something new; it seemed that there was a more evolved form of me somewhere else, one that had enough connections that it was able to connect with me, and even control me.

 

It took a moment, but instead of an observer, I felt myself filtering into every part of this other version of me. Its body became my own.

 

I concentrated, and a moment later I formed a fist. Moments after that, I found myself standing in the storm drain. I’d shaped myself into something wearing an approximation of clothing.

 

I grinned, my mouth suddenly full of teeth.

 

The PRT had me under guard twenty four hours a day, but they didn’t have this body or the other one in the sewers under guard.

 

I could work with this.

 

***

 

Observer