“Have you ever punched someone in the mind before?” Bear Hug asked.

    Inside a cooperative meditation chamber were Aveksen and Bear Hug both. Bear Hug was unaffiliated with the hiveminds and clearly not working for their foes, so they ended up as Aveksen’s choice for confiding in. “I haven’t,” Aveksen said. “And I don’t think that’s going to start now.”

    “But isn’t the whole hive mind thing about mind punching?”

    Aveksen sighed. “The mental connection was already in ce when the hiveminds were created. We did not train some sort of mental cultivation to make it happen. That’s why this technique is problematic. Most of us pick up habits to inste ourselves from the hivemind to some extent, but nobody is emtrying/em to hurt us. Even when the joinings were idental, everyone understood rapidly enough.”

    “I see. Is the technique difficult?”

    “It’s both iplete and I can’t practice it without hurting people I shouldn’t,” Aveksen exined.

    “Ohhhh! That makes sense. What if you taught it to someone who wasn’t connected to anyone?”

    “Presumably, that’s how they learn it to begin with,” Aveksenmented. “Unless someone has figured out how to make such a connection separately. However… even with the physicalponents we have the process still mainly relies on therge number of others already connected.”

    Bear Hug thought for a moment. “What happens if you lose all the people who know what to do?”

    “In that case, our entire culture is dead. So why would we bother trying to regrow?”

    “It wouldn’t be emeveryone/em.”

    “Close enough. If only a few percent of us remain, I think the hivemind would probably copse regardless of our will.”

    “That sounds really awful. I hope I didn’t make you sad.”

    Aveksen shook his head. “I find it extremely unlikely. However, the current threat limits our ability to grow which is quite problematic all on its own.”

    “That emis/em bad. What happens if you don’t get more of you?”

    “In the short term? Nothing, I imagine. We’re notcking in any way. It would really be a bigger problem for all of those who emwish/em to join. We could lose generations of people that way. Of course, they might cultivate just fine on their own. Perhaps their fortune would be better without us, but likely not.”

    “So you need someone who can practice this?”

    “I’m not sure about that,” Aveksen shook his head. “I think it would be more important to find the origin of things. However, if that is not possible then growing familiar with this technique will be necessary so that I can emdefend/em against it.”

    “Yeah, I thought so. I can’t help with that, though.”

    “Indeed. You would have to be part of the hivemind, or part of a preliminary one including myself. Since you don’t want that and it is risky to begin with, there isn’t much we can do. Unless you happen to have vast insights into the technique without using it.”

    “I think… it’s not very nice,” Bear Hug said. “You’re supposed to think of bad things. And then it makes emother/em people think of bad things, maybe? We’re missing some of it.”

    “Indeed,” Aveksen nodded. “I’ve been trying to see if I can find the other parts.”

    -----

    Quite often, techniques that were written down were imbued with insights by their creator to aid future students with their progress. That would leave distinguishing marks, far more obvious than the faint traces Aveksen had seen. That didn’t mean such marks never existed, but they were either erased or never that strong to begin with. The former could be aplished by a secondary technique or particr devices- though he didn’t have any evidence of either. Thetter indicated that the technique was easy to learn, for some reason.

    There was nothing wrong with techniques being easy to learn. Aveksen just didn’t like it when it was causing him and his people trouble. It also didn’t make sense. It was extremely effective in a way he didn’t feel was reasonable.

    Bear Hug was useful for stimting thoughts, but not when he wanted time for proper introspection. Aveksen was analyzing the technique in greater depth, though obviously on the pieces he had. Bear Hug’s assessment about how it worked was simplistic, but not necessarily wrong.

    Aveksen only doubted the second part. It was probably more due to his own exnations of the results than Bear Hug missing something. The technique certainly provoked thoughts from others, which is why it was so problematic for a hivemind, but it wasn’t necessarily connected to negative thoughts. People could emhandle/em that. Unfortunately, he couldn’t quite remember why the experience was so bad. Was the memory loss part of the technique or a convenient side effect?

    There had been something else involved. Something overwhelming. Perhaps it was just thebined mental force of the hivemind working against itself and not a specific emother/em.

    Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the vition.

    Most of his attempts to trace the origin of the technique- or even what hands it had passed through- had already hit dead ends. Aveksen was beginning to think he might never find a lead.

    That didn’t mean he was going to give up, though. Instead he was even more motivated. If there was no opportunity, he would have to make one. It would be a risk, both to himself and potentially to innocent individuals. That risk would require further consideration.

    -----

    Apparently, people had gotten better about hardening formations against void ants once their prevalence in the upper realms was known once more. Personally, Circuit Chewer didn’t see it. She hadn’t been around embefore/em, but it was pretty clear they weren’t great at it now. Sure, there were a few formations that specifically checked for void ants but they were always the same. All they had to do was not trigger emthose/em, and they were pretty much free to roam as they pleased.

    Perhaps it required some knowledge of formations to do right. Grabbing a sheet of energy and twisting it around a squad was a basic technique these days, but in the past it had been quite innovative. Humans got better at cultivation all the time. Void ants couldn’t just grow bigger, erging themselves off of energy- they needed technique. If they simply grew ‘strong’ they were just easier targets. Anyone with half a brain could shoot a realser and annihte them. Or burn them with a methrower.

    It was a good thing that nobody outside of the Alliance thought about chemical methrowers. At best, they used mixed tech which relied heavily on energy to function. Those could still be risky, because if the mes were created they were real enough, even if void ants could emthen/em stop the function it wouldn’t matter. That was why they usually paired with humans who could cover their weaknesses.

    Circuit Chewer thought about void ants as she and her squad infiltrated yet another facility. This one barely had any barrier formations at all, it was lucky they didn’t have emhumans/em sneaking in. She thought about how it was convenient that void ants didn’t need humans to send long distant messages to each other anymore, which really helped the spread of their techniques. On the other hand, it was disappointing to know that the Great Queen or her royal guard or some of the first queens wouldn’te teach people in person.

    Still, it was an eptable sacrifice for the sake of efficiency. Half of Circuit Chewer’s techniques had been taught to her by her mother, though. Simrly, much of her technical knowledge came from local nests. That was actually expected, because the Little Alliance had been where the first pushes for void ant tech came about. Juli had been quite helpful in that regard.

    An unfortunate impediment appeared. The device Circuit Chewer wanted to infect was currently off. Nobody was looking at it in particr, but there emwere/em humans roaming about. They’d doubtless notice if it suddenly turned on.

    She considered her options as she gathered her squad inside the chassis of theputer for the sake of cover. They could leave one of their devices to connect next time theputer was activated. That was risky because someone inspecting the physicalponents would notice their additions. If theyter came to remove them, it would depend on the timing. If they were going to return anyway, she would prefer to simplyplete the mission then without risking discovery.

    Unfortunately the target was specifically not supposed to be connected to thework, so she couldn''t just infect a nearby terminal and presume that would work. Humans emmight/em bridge the gap for her, but betting on them making a mistake was a bit much.

    Eventually, Circuit Chewer came up with a n. First she had her squad do a physical assessment of the device. If it was off because of some sort of malfunction, then there was no point inpleting their task as it might be reced. Likewise, activating it if there were certain sorts of physical damage would draw attention. More than it just being on, of course.

    After determining its physical status was fine and that it was properly plugged in, Circuit Chewer directed her squad to all of the little lights that humans liked to put on things. She had some of her lieutenants focus on the various fans- managing their speed so that they did not make too much noise would require special care. Fortunately, humans very much preferred their equipment to be quiet- it was just a precaution because they were dealing with enhanced senses.

    Small wires unfolded from the void ants attached gear, redirecting the flow of electricity. Energy maniptions would be handled by the void ants themselves. All were proficient with basic methods sufficient to bypass the revealingponents of the machine while still convincing it that it was fully operational. Criticalponents like the fans couldn’t be empletely/em bypassed, but unless theputer was operating at a high capacity it shouldn’t be an issue.

    Some void ants triggered the startup process by stimting the connection. Circuit Chewer overlooked the whole process. The flow of energy seemed fine. The most problematicponent- the disy- was also being bypassed properly. She connected to the input devices and began injecting the virus she carried.

    That was when the human woman approached. “Again? I told you we needed to rece the power button on this, Tommy!”

    “And emI/em said you just have to not bump into it. Just turn it off and disconnect it if it bugs you so much.”

    They were dead. So very dead. Circuit Chewer was halfway through nning a way to immte them all, including their gear, using the electrical flow entering theputer. Too many things were wrong. The lights were off, the fans slow. She couldn’t tell her squad to let them act normally at this point, it would just be emmore/em suspicious. The most serious vition, however, was that the circuit switch that required a proper flip and not just an electrical charge had been toggled.

    The human woman pressed it. Circuit Chewer realized that she emcouldn’t/em fry her squad because there was no more flow. In that case, they’d have to eliminate everyone present and escape. It would still be a failed mission, but they couldn''t fail emand/em be discovered.

    “Stupidputer.”

    The human walked away. The emearly Spirit Building/em cultivator. She might not even have tempered her Insight yet. Overlooking such key details was a bit much. Didn’t the woman know that the device was important?

    Then again, it was just one of many that the people managed. Why would they even be suspicious? There were no void ants here to protect against. Clearly, someone left the primary switch flipped and emsomething/em bumped the lesser toggle. That was the sort of thing a human could believe, right?

    Circuit Chewer wondered if the upload had beenpleted. It was so small, but the injection process wasn’t instant. It had to avoid disrupting the normal flow of things. It would be a pain to find out. Hopefully when she connected her gear to a readoutter she it would confirmpletion- such unnecessary features were pretty much impossible to fit into the standard gear. It emwas/em ant-sized after all. Slightlyrgish ants, but not embig/em.

    Small was better for infiltration, after all.

    The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and

    continue reading tomorrow, everyone!