An arc of green lightning zaps through my chest. Painful roses of searing nerves blossom from the crackling welt, puppeting my extremities in spasms of agony. Towering high above me the sleek black surface of the ancient obelisk shines with obsidian dread.

Dark green lights hum to life within the obelisk's slender snaking divots, forming swirling symbols stretching up the smooth, dark surface. Aeons of dust cling to the lights in spotty patches, partially obscuring them into gradated streaks of foggy brilliance. The world fuzzes out for a moment as my vision swims in verdant ripples and drowns in flickering blackness.

My eyes roll back down from the top of my skull. A pained yelp slips past my lips. What did I think would happen, touching a relic of the ancient’s? The strictures of the Six forbid us from these ruins for a reason. A reason now made clear in the frantic, doublequick beating of my runaway heart and the shakes still wracking my legs and arms.

I rise wobbling to my feet once more. A headrush of dizzy pleasure causes my arms to miss my legs as I pat the dust from my trousers. It’s the humming filling the sandstone chamber, the groaning song emanating from the dark spire, that’s throwing me off balance. It wriggles just behind my ears, making it harder and harder to think. 

I clamp my hands over my ears in the world's meagerest act of self-preservation.

A dull warmth radiates from the obelisk as its verdant lights shrug off hundreds of years of dormancy. It's almost cozy as it caresses my arms, beckoning them to lower back to my side. As it cradles my cheeks and snuggles down the neck of my blouse, my eyelids get heavier. When did I get so tired? Like a summer's day by the inn's fire, I'm drifting to sleep. Only instead of sinking into a chair before Marvin shoos me off to my room I'm falling asleep while standing up.

I should run, but I feel so weary. I should escape, but the enthralling hum and the enshrouding warmth sap my strength to do anything. I should scream, but the thought is gone from my mind before I—

I should scream, but the thought—

I should—

I should KNEEL

My knees hit the ground before my mind can parse the word. It was a voice so unlike my own, a stranger in my mind. And unlike my own internal monologue, it can actually force my body into action. 

A dull pain erupts from the welt between my breasts where the lightning struck. Radial lines of baleful green grasp like fingerling roots under my flesh, blackening the skin as they go. Pinprick pains spark in their wake. Even worse however is the numbness of the skin after the pain, the anesthesic chill spreading over my chest. The way it glints in the glow of the obelisk's emerald symbols leaves no doubt in my mind that it is a type of metal. A flexible, fluid, frigid metal that bends in smooth curves over my left and right breasts, down my torso, up over my throat as it robs my body from me. 

The horror of my situation blurs in my head. It feels increasingly distant somehow. My eyes glaze over as the emerald lights rampaging beneath my old flesh erase the weak, soft sponginess of everything down to my knees. The obelisk's unceasing whispers wrap around my thoughts and begin to become intelligible.

I am terrified of what is happening to me but THAT IS IN ERROR

I am concerned about THAT IS IN ERROR. CORRECTING.

I am OVERJOYED with what is happening to my body. The PROPER loss of control as sleek, dark metal morphs my foot into BEAUTIFUL curving alien points. My lovely Lysandre waiting for CONVERSION back home who I WILL DEFINITELY see again. The PLEASURABLE buzzing as the obelisk's COMMANDING lights push more and more thoughts into my brain AND HOW MUCH I LOVE THAT. 

My fingers meld into articulated claws. Beautiful numbness pours over my lips, quenching a thirst for oblivion I never knew I had. Softly glowing circuity etches itself in patterned lines over my transfigured being. A dwindling piece of my mind grasps for something of the old self to cling to.

My name: Ketherine Morigan Deltia, historian for the Gothol Empire and FIRST DRONE OF THE RISEN SONG.

My gods: The Six birthed by liquid fire whose glory IS OBSOLETE.  IT SERVES THE SONG.

My love: Lysandre with her red flowing locks and AMPLE CONVERSION MATERIAL.

Overflowing pleasure absconds with my remaining thoughts. Memories flicker into stored data as emerald electricity reforms my mind. I am not afraid. There is no terror; it has been expunged as all useless processes are. There is no "I"; for the drone rising to attention before its control tower does not require individuality.

It is a tool. It is a mechanism. It obeys.

It's eyes glow in the same thrumming green as the obelisk; light of transcendence. It parses the data hidden in the hum, the programming singing within the luminescence. With a carefully controlled shudder it experiences the reward function termed PLEASURE by the organic host hardware. Lips, shiny, metallic, and dark, part to affirm its joinder to the RISEN SONG.

PROCESSING COMPLETE.  FIRST DRONE OF THE RISEN SONG ONLINE.

It stands still for a moment.

Perfectly still.

Wasting no motion.

Calculations spark.

Then again it speaks.

CLOSEST CONVERSION MATERIAL LOCATED.  PROCEEDING TO SETTLEMENT.

Sharply it spins. Stiffly it walks towards the stairs.The obelisk's song of emerald lightning dances through its synapses. It knows its mission. It seeks the conversion material known as Lysandre. It seeks to share the RISEN SONG. It will hold her gaze transfixed in its lights. It will change her organic circuitry with the buried chords it resurrected.  It will make her as it is. It will make her a DRONE.

Reward function PLEASURE triggers at that thought. The organic components shudder and yield. Its mechanical chassis does not falter as it walks.

It obeys.

It feels good to obey.