The muffled roaring of detonation pushed Helen to open her eyes. Lights danced in the air around her. She opened her mouth to breathe in… nothing. Then she realized she had no mouth.

She drew in a sharp breath... or tried to. She felt no air go into her lungs. She cannot breathe.

Panic seized her, total and swift. Where am I? What is this? Am I dead!?

More detonations rang. She turned her eyes, feeling her vision shift and zoom in. The detonations appeared to come from some point on the horizon, shrouded by a thick fog. Each explosion was a muted burst of orange light, appearing and then vanishing. The sound from each explosion reached her a few seconds after seeing the corresponding bit of light.

She still could not breathe. She did not feel the need to breathe. She looked down, down at her body as she felt it rise from the ground via the movement of muscles she could not see. She saw silver coating her metallic arms, hands, legs, feet – everywhere on her body, really. A metallic human, or a shell holding a human inside? She did not know.

Panic backhanded her along the back of her head. She tried to scream and failed; no mouth to voice the sound. But she still heard the sound in her mind, a rising wail of distress and anguish. And then the sound faded as something even larger took hold of her mind.

Helen wobbled on her silver-colored legs as one more detonation echoed in the distance. The larger presence clamped down on her screaming, her fear, and smothered it beneath a warm aura of comfort and care.

Peace. Silence. Safety.

Helen welcomed the sensations into herself. It felt like a thick blanket to block out the cold. Only, this blanket had tens, hundreds, thousands of voices whispering to each other in what seemed like continuous conversation. Helen’s mind snapped back from the group discussion only with concentrated effort.

Helen’s body stepped backwards, feet moving on hard dirt and rock. She stopped moving when she heard something else step into a position behind her. Glancing back, she saw a figure standing on what looked like a strange set of metal insectoid legs. It was just a few feet away from her; how had she not sensed its approach?

“Commander?”

The figure’s voice had a slight rattle, a sort of tick or quirk. Helen risked turning around to look at this figure fully. Almost immediately, she wished she hadn’t. It was like a metallic hunchback, or a very old ant with big green eyes, that had managed to split its body at the waist. The lower half of the figure consisted of four large, pointed metal legs that shifted around and stabbed the ground with every motion they made. The upper half mimicked a wizened ant with small clicking mandibles.

The figure appeared to perk up as Helen looked at it. “Greetings, Commander. I am your aide and temporary military advisor in the Hive, designation “Drone E-X-Five”.” Helen took this in as it kept talking, its voice masculine and low in her new body’s ears. “My role is a designation outside of standard Hive protocols, but it is necessary for our situation. Indeed, how I am speaking to you is beyond the Hive’s normal operating procedures.”

The “drone’s” mandibles wiggled as its body drooped from visible sadness. “We have encountered unexpected opposition in this sector. A native life form, alien to us, has responded to our arrival with concentrated force. The members of this species classify themselves as “Xylos”. They appear naturally hostile towards us and have ceased all attempts at communication.”

Helen’s mind clicked onto the name “Xylos”. Then she wondered why she had latched onto that name at all. She didn’t know anything about them.

The figure continued to speak, unhindered by Helen’s silence. “The Xylos emit a natural resonance that can target other mechanical and organic beings with lethal force. This resonance was able to target the Hive’s network directly. We were not prepared. Malfunctions ran unchecked in the Network, crippling our efforts to coordinate. Unfortunately, Commander, your original branch of the Network was crippled. Your core data was saved into this body, which was subsequently launched away to escape danger.”

“Our current forces are scattered around the planet and disabled. The Xylos have already begun expanding on this world. We are now… severed from the Hive.”

Severed. The word gave Helen pain. She knew, through knowledge not entirely her own, that severance was a death sentence. To a hivemind, being separated from the collective whole was the worst punishment. And Helen was here with a splinter cell, a disabled piece, of a larger “Hive”. But it was not entirely dead, not yet.

Helen looked to the horizon, where the detonations kept occurring. Then she looked down, tilting her vision to the ground beneath her. Stones and dirt had been dislodged, the ground shaking from those repeated explosions. It did not look safe now. The shrouded horizon looked less safe for her.

What is going on?

“Our Spires have fallen, but the Xylos are occupied with destroying the remnants. We have time to prepare, Commander.” The hunched insectoid’s words got Helen to look at it again, scrutinizing its appearance with growing familiarity. As she did so, it told her, “Do not let your independent emotions overpower logical thinking. We survived the cataclysm of Omicron-Ex. We will survive this.”

Helen’s brain lurched. “Omicron-Ex”: the world that had housed the dormant “Synaptic Hive” for untold eons. That had been mentioned in the faction’s campaign, a piece of lore she had absorbed without comment. And now…

Helen could not stop herself from reaching out with her mind. To touch, to feel, to be with this collective was too tempting. The many voices answered back without words, just approval and welcoming. She was one of them already, and now she knew it was so.

The advisor’s mandibles clicked together rapidly, displaying gratitude as it felt a fraction of what Helen did. “Follow me. We have secured a crop of natural minerals to harvest, and a Core Spire has been reconstructed. Your presence will be a further boon to our production efforts.”

Helen nodded, having no mouth to voice her concerns. Against the Hive’s greater voice, she was just a stick in the sea.

Helen’s new body made good time and maintained a steady pace after her Advisor, the latter breaking trail without slowing down. The pair eventually stopped by the side of a large rock wall, the rock sticking up from the surrounding forest like a large growth. Helen with recognition and a noticeable amount of childlike glee. She knows everything here, her memories of “Stellar Crucible” providing a deep well for her to draw from. But the knowledge is deep and vast, unable to be drawn up all at once.

The woman sees several “Harvester” units are already working with mechanical efficiency, each of the jeep-sized machines scuttling on six legs and holding extracted mineral shards in their enlarged pincers. They travel between the exposed patch of minerals and a “Core Spire”, a pyramidal tower of reflective metal chitin tens of feet high and wide, largest at the bottom. It was this spire that produced the “Harvesters”, who fed the spire their extracted resources in return.

Helen looked at the spire from the ground up, rather than from the air down. As she did so, she felt her mind focus on the structure. It let her in, allowing itself to be examined; “selected”, one might say. She learned what it was doing and could do, if she commanded it to.

Helen’s eyes narrowed, the only sign of her new body showing that she was concentrating. She gave her first command: Core Spire. Build a Harvester.

The spire obeyed. There was a momentary flare of energy as the construction process began, hidden from Helen’s physical view because it was happening inside the structure. She looked at the spire’s bottom, seeing “Harvesters” come in and go out via access entryways. She waited, her Advisor nimbly walking around her to approach the Spire. “As you are weakened, Commander,” it told her, “I do not wish to push you too far. Merely create enough units to reach our current command capacity, and we shall proceed from there.”

Helen’s new body smirked. “Command Capacity” was the in-game term the Hive used for supply and upkeep. Every unit took up some capacity to maintain, which logically meant she needed to expand her capacity to command more forces. She also remembered the structure needed to increase that amount: a “Resonance Spire”. But none of them were built here yet.

As Helen recalled her knowledge of the Hive, her prior order was completed. A new “Harvester” emerged from the Core Spire with a brief chime, moving away from the others to stand idle. Helen saw it look around, observing but not acting, and felt pity for it. It was a simple machine, the true worker of the Hive built only to gather resources, build structures, and fight if ordered. It did not have the complex thoughts of a human being because the Hive did not require it to.

Helen focused on the “Harvester” with her mind and gave it an order. You. Come here. It obeyed, stopping a few feet in front of her. Despite it being larger than her, she recognized its submission to her. It obeyed without question, as programmed.

Helen’s new fingers twitched. A sizeable part of her mind projected uncertainty about what to do next. She knew she had to survive, that to not do so would be to die. But would she really die? Was this all real? When had this game become so real for her? She worried, her focus wavering.

The Advisor turned back to face her, sensing her lack of concentration. “Commander, you are unnecessarily straining yourself. Focus on the desired action, and it will be done.”

She did not know what to do. Where should she build what she wanted? Should she make more Harvesters first and get more minerals? What was the cost in the game for a Resonance Spire again? She had never memorized the costs, trusting the game’s repeated notifications telling her she did not have enough ready until she miraculously did. Now she just had this piece of the Hive speaking to her, drowning her as surely as those Xylos creature would drown the Hive beneath their crystal fists—

STOP!

All the Harvesters froze at Helen’s mental cry. The Core Spire ceased processing information. Drone E-X-Five stood still. Helen retained movement, crouching down on the ground without truly registering its presence. She felt split, pulled between what she knew was reality and what she felt was reality. The lines were blurring; she was losing control, and she would die, like she had died so many times in the game before.

In the silence of the stilled Hive, Helen underwent a rapid series of revelations. She needed control. She needed direction. She needed purpose to survive, to win. If this was a game, to win was the big goal. To do that, she must survive.

Helen stood, her new body’s face set with a new fortitude. Continue, she directed the other Harvesters and Core Spire. As they did so, she looked to the one Harvester she had drawn out. You will build a Resonance Spire where I tell you to.

The singled-out unit gave mental acknowledgement as she looked back to the spire. Do we have enough stored resources to build a Resonance Spire? she asked it.

The spire answered in the affirmative: it cost one hundred resources to build a Resonance Spire, and they had one hundred and thirty-five stored resources at that moment. This number increased as the Harvesters brought in more minerals again. Helen walked around the Core Spire as it told her this, her new body’s eyes looking for a suitable spot to build the new structure.

As Helen walked, she felt something pulse beneath the ground, and she stopped. The pulse came again, extending from the Core Spire to a certain distance away in all directions. This, Helen was automatically told—or perhaps reminded—by the Spire was the structure’s range of “resonance”; a psychic energy that united all Hive creations into their singular gestalt mind.

Helen continued walking, stopping only when she felt the “resonance” pulses reach their weakest point. She was closer to the line of trees, looking straight at a makeshift path carved through them. Several hundreds of feet remained between the Core Spire and this path, but that would not stop a fast attacker coming from the forest.

Harvester. Build a “Resonance Spire” here.

The Harvester opened its mandibles as, from beneath the ground, the Core Spire directed a buried tendril of pointed metal to burst up at that point. The tendril’s tip snapped open and extended into a cross-shaped base that was latched onto the ground. The centermost point of the base held a shining piece of mineral surrounded by nanomaterial from the Hive. The Harvester then walked onto the base and began to manipulate the nanomaterial with its mandibles and front-most legs.

As the Harvester worked, Helen continued to walk in a long circle. Her knowledge of the game kept trickling into her head, pooling with her new body’s innate senses and reactions to various stimuli. She summarizes it for herself as a growing sense of understanding on how the game world “worked”. For example, tracking the radius of “resonance” pulses in order to figure out its maximum range.

A thrill of energy shot through Helen’s new body, tingling between her thighs to settle on her mechanical genitalia. Blinking fast, she turned to find the Resonance Spire was built. It is a smaller structure shaped like a tuning fork, standing at around twenty feet from its planted base on the ground. The Harvester scuttled back, waiting for new orders, but Helen locked on to the new spire as it activated, sending out higher-pitched “resonance” pulses.

Helen gasped. She could feel the pulses now, the “resonance” amplifying and magnifying as the two spires synchronize their rhythms. For a second, she rode a high of bliss, and then she came back down with a happy smile. The Hive sent wordless hums of approval into Helen’s mind, sharing the satisfaction of expansion and growth with her. And then it shared instructions with her.

[INCREASE SUPPLY]

[FORTIFY CHOKEPOINT]

[COLLECT RESOURCES]

[SURVIVE]

Helen accepted these instructions, already knowing what she will construct next. Harvester. Build a “Chitin Cannon” over… here.

A mental pinging comes from Helen as she pointed to the general area where she wanted this cannon to be; facing the chokepoint between the clearing and the forest. The Harvester gave a short burst of binary chittering, and the Core Spire extended its reach out to the specified location. The same base emerged from below the ground via a new mechanical tendril. Helen waited until the Harvester had begun constructing before turning back to the Core Spire.

The smile on her face shrank. Fatigue claimed hold of her mind, and then her body. She felt hands catch her before she fell to the ground; she heard the voice of Drone E-X-Five as muffled words of worry. She tried to bring up her hand, but everything went dark before she could finish the task.

In the darkness of her dorm room, Helen Millon lowered her hand to her side, the limb limp as a doll’s. Her eyes only saw fractal patterns and pulses of neon light from her computer screen. Her body sat straight, rigid, unmoving save for when she was instructed to move. She heard the whispers in her headset and obeyed them, because obeying was good and the Hive wanted her to feel good.

The whispers changed tone; the screen’s patterns darkened somewhat as new text appeared on the screen: “HYDRATION INTAKE, TWO SIPS”. Helen saw this and moved with mechanical fluidity, grabbing the water bottle on her desk and opening it. She took two gulping sips, leaving space between them to avoid choking or getting air in her lungs. Afterwards, she resealed the bottle and put it back where it had been before, not registering the coolness of the liquid running down her throat and into her stomach.

New instructions flashed before her: “ROLL SHOULDERS, THEN ARMS, TWO SETS EACH. BEGIN IN 3… 2… 1.”

Helen rolled her shoulders back, down, and up again. Tension sang in the affected areas, but relief had a stronger tune after the set was done. The same feelings came from her arms as she rolled them back, up, and forward again. After completing all the sets, she saw more words to read.

“RESPOND WITH “AFFIRMATIVE” OR “NEGATIVE” TO THIS STATEMENT: I WANT TO CONTINUE PLAYING.”

“Affirmative,” Helen droned into her headset’s microphone.

“RESPOND WITH “AFFIRMATIVE” OR “NEGATIVE” TO THIS STATEMENT: I HAVE MET MY BODY’S CURRENT NEEDS.”

“Affirmative.”

“RESPOND WITH “AFFIRMATIVE OR NEGATIVE TO THIS STATEMENT: I AM SATISFIED WITH MY CURRENT IMMERSION INTO THE GAME.”

“Affirmative.”

“GOOD PLAYER.”

“I am a good player,” Helen automatically stated. “I know my game cares for me so I may enjoy it.”

“RESUMING GAME IN 3… 2… 1.”

Helen’s vision went white, a smile on her real lips as her mind dropped back into the virtual reality.