“Hello? Hello!” Kaylee found herself yelling into a suddenly empty space, empty apart from the constant chattering of the bugs that currently swarmed around her. The voices had lead her down into and through the sewers and into the surrounding brushland. From there she had found herself into a muddy cavern, now stuck with the massive moth spider and its brood. Slumping down to the ground. Kaylee lifted and scanned her arm, part of her mind catching the irony of how similar this movement was to Laura’s when she had woken with her metal hand. Looking down to the rest of her chitin-covered body, a surge of anger running through her chest. Laura and her god damned arm!

  Hostiles! Find! Destroy! The command rang in her mind, the hissing voices causing her to jerk to her feet. The hissing was followed by an almost electric jolt that almost caused Kaylee to stumble and fall. The feeling quickly faded, leaving Kaylee swaying and giddy.

  “What the hell was that?” she demanded, doubting she would get an even remotely intelligible response from the screeching mass of teeth. For the nth time this week, she found herself surprised.

  Command. Direct. Destroy. “Command? Wha… Gah!” Kaylee’s view suddenly blurred and she found herself staring through the eyes of another, one that was currently hanging from the ceiling. Kaylee yelped and jumped backwards, her vision streaking back into her body.

  “What the fuck is that?”

  Command. Victory.

  “I. Can command you?”

  Lesser.

  “Ok?” the woman said. Her mind already scrambling for an escape plan “what do you want me to do.”

  Defend.

  Along with the order came the sudden onset of a vision. Similar to how an insect might view the world, Kaylee was able to see through dozens of sets of eyes showing several battles in full swing. Bugs swarming over an almost as numerous horde of red eyed machines.

  For a moment she felt a flare of elation, for a moment thinking about ripping into the horrors, rending them to slime. The thought was quashed as a sudden burst of noise ran up through her brain, causing her to wince.

  DEFEND!

  The order caused her to jump into motion, the floodgates opening and allowing a barrage of information to flow uncontested into her mind.

  At the moment, the enemy was still a fair way away, a couple dozen robots rolling through the grass, blasting away at anything that moved. Kaylee winced as a burst of phantom pain ran through her as the bug, she was watching through was obliterated by a stray shot. Scowling, she shook her head.

  “Am I going to feel everything that hits one of you bug bastards?”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  No.

  “Well, isn’t that wonderful.” Kaylee snarled.

  Defend. Entrance.

  The words caused Kaylee to jolt into motion and began to sprint up through the darkness, her eyes, straining to catch any identifiable characteristics from the mud and stone walls. As she continued upward she noticed that there was a slight glow of light, following the light, Kaylee scrambled out of the tunnel and into the dim moonlight. Stumbling to a stop, she scanned the area. The tunnel opening from the side of a hill, ahead of her was the tree line, a sparse forest that whittled down into farmland. Stepping forward, Kaylee began to run, sprinting for the fields. As she reached the edge of the tree line she suddenly skidded to a halt, something pulling on the edge of her mind, preventing her from stepping any further.

  DEFEND.

  The order came with a mental tug, pulling her back towards the cave entrance. Looking back to the hivemind’s directed destination, she could see several large bugs crawling out of the tunnel, unlike the smaller soldier bugs, these ones were each bigger, each the size of a cow, though not standing anywhere as tall. Standing on 8 segmented legs, the bulbous creatures looked like a cross between a honey pot ant and a cockroach.

  “What the Fuck are those?”

  Production.

  “These make more of you?”

  Yes.

  The reply coincided as the bugs’ abdomens began to bulge, pulsing as a black, glistening egg was pushed forth, followed by another and another. Kaylee turned away, the roiling sensation of residual arachnophobia running up her spine. As she watched the eggs began to shift, their undersides bulging and spreading, roots creeping out and descending into the dirt, Kaylee shifted slightly before looking back to the tunnel. For a moment there was nothing, then a chittering mass of a dozen arachnid spilt out and began to scuttle in Kaylee’s direction. For a moment Kaylee almost broke and ran, only for the hivemind to place the equivalent of a calming hand, not that she felt even remotely calmed, especially as the things began to gather around her, black eyes staring up at her.

  Shaking off the immediate mental comparison to dogs, Kaylee snapped an order.

  “Stop bloody starin at me.” The bugs pivoted, turning just enough to not be directly facing her.

  “Oh fuckin har har.” Kaylee muttered, “Smartass bug bastards. Gah!”

  Another burst of feedback hit her, closely followed by more visions of the machines.

  FIGHT!

  “Ok, Fuckin fine!” Kaylee snapped back as she oriented herself with the projected line of attack.

  As far as she could tell the enemy would be coming from the East, straight across the field, pressing her lips together as she scanned the area.

  ‘You and you.” She snapped pointing at two of the tiny horrors. “go over there and cover yourselves.”

  After a moment’s hesitation the two bugs scuttled away, Kaylee and her entourage following close behind. Reaching the edge of the field, the two arachnids set to work, their forward legs rapidly pulling up the dirt, the rest of their limbs pushing and shaping it over their bodies, after several seconds they ceased moving, lying completely still in the ground. Kaylee stepped forward and her face clenched. Not good, in no way at all, they were so horribly obvious it wasn’t funny, bits of grass and sod scattered around leaving a dirty lump that would be obvious even from tens of meters away. Kneeling down, Kaylee picked up several pieces of gras and began to place them on top of the bug. As the extra weight was laid upon it, the arachnid chittered. Cooing slightly to calm the monster, Kaylee continued, breaking up the sods to better distribute the weight. Sitting back, Kaylee scanned her completed project, while it was still pretty poor, she figured that unless the bots were actively looking for it, the little bugger would be hidden for long enough.

  With that in mind, Kaylee repeated the process with the second arachnid before turning to the rest.

  “Alight you little shits, you’ve seen how its done so spread out and hop to it.”

  The little creatures immediately started scuttling away to disperse themselves into the field. Rolling her shoulders, Kaylee turned and began trudging back to the cave entrance.