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A subtle brush of lilac on blue undertones. The faintest hues of colour accompanying soft thrum.
Meiyok turned. Monochrome greeted her once more. Severely arching structures twisted under their own weight. Hordes moved past, nameless and faceless, single-minded focus guiding them. All was muted; from the rustle of movement to the saturation of the sky.
It was too late. The whisper of contrast was gone, the tides already pushing her away.
It stained her, bleeding into the monotony until it too faded, healed without a scar, gone when she woke.
— — —
Meiyok had never received the chip. A fluke in the system, a wayward mistake. Why else would she dream of, well, dreams? They were disjointed, disconnected, like the rift between her and the Hive. Some were recurring, old memories replayed on loop. Others she couldn’t recall, only knew she had dreamt.
No one ever talked about dreams, about sleep. No one ever talked about anything. It was unspoken, the norms. Exogenous communication was secondary when an internal voice tells you all you need to know, all you need to do. Speaking was only customary as a reinforcer for the children to develop, too young for the chip.
She talked to herself, only in the comforts of solitude. A reminder that she still had a voice, hoarse and gritty but real. She would rant to the walls. Debate whether it was a blessing or a curse to pass the time. It was neither, but it felt like both. She wasn’t one of the Hive. She wasn’t anything, really. She floated, adrift in a world that moved without her. She was a spectator, doing the motions without making any ripples. She flowed in and out, watching the Hive work day and night, the passing of time irrelevant, as it built itself up and spewed onto the Swarm below.
There was another point of interest, another society. Different from her own. Locked in instability with the Hive for as long as she could remember.
She had pondered the feasibility of seeing the Swarm, or any other civilization. If only the sky was not in-between.
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She was flying. She might also be upside down. Peach below and indigo above. On a suspended ship, frozen in air, where soft pastels bloomed away from the rigidity of reality. An anchor was dropped into the waters far above, a roiling wash of brackish mud. Sails were unfurled and billowing even in the absence of tangible wind.
“A stowaway?”
A young woman approached her, dressed in sheer whites and vibrant reds, flowing like wisps of smoke. Bare feet padded over smooth, wooden planks. Amber glinted in her eyes. With her strict posture, the two of them were level.
“Or a castaway gone astray?” She inquired. “Either way, would you stay awhile?”
Meiyok was stunned by the rhymes. Or by how clear another could appear.
“Sorry, guests are hard to come by these days. It gets to be lonely.”
A myriad of questions bubbled within her, but not one left her lips. The woman seemed to hear them regardless. A tired smile graced her features.
“Call me Queen, anchored to the throne in the illusion of power. Call me Princess, chained to lead, noose of air, heir to need. Call me Sophia, Name, Anything and I shall answer.”
Sophia clasped her hands around Meiyok’s.
“Wanderer, would you find me, call for me?”
— — —
The Queen of the Hive was never in the spotlight. She led from the shadowy depths of the Hive, the very heart, hidden in exclusion. Ichor ran, crawled. It filled the walls, the cracks, the very skeleton and neural network of the Hive. The lifeblood, the fuel and medium simultaneously. No, she led not.
Raised by honeyed thoughts, cultivated to be used. Bleeding, sustained by nectar. No, she was lead.
Workers cared not for the Queen. They concerned themselves solely with the Hive. If a Queen was required for the function of the Hive, they catered then.
Such knowledge was not taught, it was ingrained along with the chip. It spoke of structure and living. It carried thoughts of individuals, stirring the cauldron until the mosaic blended into one.
Meiyok knew a Worker. Had even called her a friend. Before the chip, that is. In earlier times, when they could play pretend. Pretend they were above the system, make-believe another world, just the two of them.
As she found out, no one, no two, were greater than the Hive collective.
What hurt greatest was knowing who was still inside, willingly receiving direction, following to a tee. Or unwillingly, if she mistakenly allowed herself to doubt.
They had spoken following the procedure.
“What do you hear?”
“Everything, it is incredible. I wish you could know it too.”
How absolutely bizarre that she was skipped over. A blip. Her name, her number, was never called. She watched as multitudes her age received in her stead. The subtle difference in their expression, their walk, and their tongue afterward. How their eyes seemed to pass her by, invisible and unworthy of notice. An impassable crevasse formed between her and the others.
“What do they hear?”
“As much as they need to. As much as I tell them.”
She knew dread when it came time. She hoped despairingly that Yoonchae could too be an exception, pass under their radar undetected, even as hundreds were chipped without fail before her.
“Do you… remember?”
Yoonchae had the gall to look apologetic. “I do. I am unable to uphold my end of our promise.”
She extended her pinky in offering. Meiyok wanted to scream. She did not want her finger as a trophy of failed assurance. She wanted her friend.
Pain numbed her body. She stared at the proffered hand, unable to take it and incapable of looking away. She might crash and burn if she looked into Yoonchae’s eyes. If she saw the minute changes, glaring obvious.
She became avoidant.
Out of loyalty or apathy, Meiyok, the deviation, had not been eradicated. She was not a threat, but nor was she of productive value. A miniscule mite nibbling away at food stocks, holed up one of thousands upon thousands of living cells. If she did not resist, perhaps it was simpler to leave her be. Maybe it was a social experiment of sorts, the feasibility of unlinked bodies, how to control an uprising before it could even begin.
She existed. Nothing more, nothing less.
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A key. An innocuous object, were it not for the lack of locks.
Meiyok rolled it around between her fingers; heavy, but weightless all the same. The door before her whispered of warnings. Black edges blurred, hazy. The fathomless depths stared back at her. Surrounding in all directions was emptiness stretching endlessly.
She extended the key into the void, hand and arm following. It swallowed her up, a cold vacuum sealing her in and spitting her out.
A viscous substance soaked her limbs, hugged her skin. A light in the distance, a beacon. She started jogging towards it as best she could through the dense liquid. Concave walls narrowed until she was forced into a crawl, almost drinking in the fluid. Closer and closer to the blinding light.
The ground gave out beneath her.
— — —
Meiyok awoke with steel clutched in her hand, warmed by the heat of her palm, jagged edges digging into her skin. In the privacy of her cubicle, she dared reveal the key. Its lustre mustered a yellow shine under filtered light.
It was a dream, but not just a dream. Sophia had been a dream, but possibly not merely a dream.
The Queen, how unlikely would it be that she too was separate from the Hive? How else would she dream?
Meiyok’s mind raced with the possibilities. There could be others, however slim the likelihood.
She looked out the window. There were few Workers bustling around at the early hour, tending to the orchards below. Most were resting.
She could find a Worker to ask. She could ask her. Moons had passed, but she still knew the path to her cell. She suspected she may never forget, a cursed cue of what was lost.
She could waste away, all alone in her cubbyhole, wallowing in her woe. As tempting as it sounded, the idea of rebellion was just as sweet.
Her feet were carrying her out before she could overthink it. Past rows of tessellated rooms, regular intersections, and smooth surfaces of gold-veined marble. Through a closed door uninvited, finally halting.
In closed eyelids and relaxed countenance, she could delude herself into thinking nothing had changed. Children again, she would poke Yoonchae until she was awake and Yoonchae would strangle her in playful wrath. Tugging her along unchanging passages, dodging Workers and hiding in the gardens, they exchanged in hushed tones. Momentary escape before the Workers found them again, reminded of their future.
Yoonchae stirred, and the illusion was broken. Her eyes creaked open, found Meiyok immediately, then fluttered shut again. Her lips curved halfway to a smile.
“I have not seen you in a while,” Yoonchae murmured, voice raspy with sleep and disuse, “one hundred thirty-nine days.”
Meiyok stiffened.
“I was starting to think you had forgotten little old me.” Yoonchae manoeuvred herself into a cross-legged position.
“I could never,” Meiyok admitted, then pivoted. “Do you know the Queen?”
Yoonchae crooked a brow in interest. “I know of the Queen. We do not commune with her. We have no need to.”
“If I said, I can commune with her?”
She mulled the tidbit over. “Intriguing.”
“Is that it?”
“Well, thank you for telling me, but I know not what to do with said knowledge.”
The corners of her eyes crinkled in amusement. Meiyok was admittedly unamused.
“A trade,” she proposed. “Do you know anything about her?”
“Such heed to another woman,” Yoonchae teased, “should I be jealous?”
“Just answer.”
Yoonchae hummed in contemplation, swaying in her seat. “Sure.”
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She was back on the ship. The masts stood taller, the sails fuller. She faced the bow, where spokes rotated aimlessly. Just beyond was Sophia, leaning on the rail, turning to look over her shoulder.
Meiyok was already walking up, coming to rest beside her. For a brief second, she soaked in the view of pale flecks swirled in the air, a distant storm brewing.
“You look troubled,” Sophia observed. “Make that doubled. Your mind is cloudy, difficult to see.”
“The best option in a given situation is never clear-cut,” Meiyok thought aloud. “You have no autonomy yet crave companionship. I was adrift, now wishing to see them crumble. But you would be a collateral casualty.”
“Kind of you to care after knowing me solely within dreams.”
She glanced at Sophia’s profile, unable to read her. The brief lull in conversation was accentuated by a low rumble of thunder.
“I do not fear supersedure,” Sophia murmured. “I fear failure.”
“Failure of what? The Hive?” Meiyok was incredulous, floundering.
“The Hive is all I know. What else is out there? I know you have seen of the Swarm, other Colonies, but who would accept you, take you in? If solitary, could you survive on your own?”
“Surviving is overrated. Living without feeling is not living. And what is living without dying? Live a little.” She patted Sophia’s white-clad shoulder.
— — —
Meiyok intercepted Yoonchae while she on route to the orchards, running to catch her before she strayed to the fields. She took Yoonchae’s wrist loosely and redirected them to the privacy of a small alcove.
“Take me to the Queen,” she demanded without preamble.
“Why should I?” Yoonchae countered, a taunting lilt. “So you can unchain her in all your righteous glory?”
Meiyok said nothing.
“So selfish, what about the thousands that depend on the Hive? Depend on there being a Queen who provides? Would you do it, enslaved by your own will? You cannot. It takes time to raise a new Queen, not just anyone can be a Queen, certainly not you nor I. What happens when the next Queen also reaches out, will you save her too? Would you free them all? And in doing so, condemn us?”
She gritted her teeth. “You deem the suffering of one to be lesser than your whole.”
“Yes, do the masses not outweigh the individual?”
Her nails dug into the flesh of her palms. If not to quell the trembling, then at least stop from reaching out.
“Have you tried going without?”
“You ask if our heart could stop. We are living, not wires to unplug without a thought.”
“Stop doing that, stop thinking like the Hive. Please.”
She could not bear to hear them. To hear it continuously might drive her to insanity and back. She took a breath.
“They would dispose of you if you are no longer of use. They could just—” Meiyok mimed a miniature explosion, hands splitting apart with a boom, “terminate you if you step out of line.”
“Are you suggesting that I would? I cannot tell if you are giving me too much credit or too little.”
“It’s just—do you not care? Do you not see how inhumane all this is?”
“It works, beautifully so. Besides, am I not still human?”
“Barely,” was what she yearned to say, “are you blind to what you have become?”
But she did not. Withheld, so as not to disturb the precarious balance.
“Sometimes, the monsters are inside.”
Yoonchae met her eyes unwaveringly. Meiyok ripped her gaze away to the white walls.
“If that is all you have to say,” Yoonchae said, smoothing off wrinkles from her uniform sleeve, “I shall take my leave.”
Meiyok kept silent, and listened as steady footsteps diminished. Only then did knuckles meet alabaster, red tracing beige seams.
It would be gone in the morrow, the stain of impractical imperfection erased.
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— — —
Meiyok did not sleep, did not dream. While the Workers rested in their cells, she followed gleaming lines of gold, wandering down uniform halls, sneaking past sleeping forms hidden behind thin walls. Past the resting quarters into unexplored corridors, in darkness bordering absolute. The passing of time was marked in exhales and footfalls, reaching four thousand, five thousand, before she lost track of her position and began again. Filamentous capillaries converged into arterioles. Their delicate luminescence revealed scarred surfaces, glow growing stronger as they widened.
By the end of the tunnel, the shine was enough for her to make out the shadow of her steps. The sides split away, enclosing a hollow domed space large enough to house a mature mango tree. Five other arteries also led into the expanse, lines winding to the centre.
Veins fed nectar into a vast reservoir, a shallow dip carved into the ground. A figure lay at the core, submerged to the clavicle in the translucent orange fluid. Narrow tubes connected to the veins in her arms and hands, floating along the surface, slowly siphoning blood.
The Queen, the backbone of the Hive. Treated like livestock to be milked. Penned in the dark and in isolation.
Meiyok proceeded reverently.
“Sophia,” she called from the edge.
She trudged through syrup, uncaring as it clung to her legs.
“Sophia.”
Her hands grasped Sophia’s shoulders, and she shook her gently.
“Sophia.”
She was unresponsive, eyes closed and body limp. Her appearance was pale and faint, noticeable even in the dim light or exacerbated by it. How small she seemed compared to her dream manifestation, swallowed by the pond without her ship.
Meiyok tugged on the tubes, harder when they did not detach the first time. They disengaged with quiet pops, leaving behind tiny circular indents and microscopic pinpricks. Ochre and orange mixed.
She closed her eyes and waited.
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Seconds stretched into minutes, minutes to hours. Ichor slowed to a drag. Cracks magnified. The structure groaned under its unsupported mass.
In delayed haste, Workers filed into the holding room, following the dried vessels to the source as she had, Yoonchae among them. They moved in eerie precision, stepping into the pool and wading over without hesitation. Like they had prepared for such an emergency. No words spoken, only fluid sloshing.
Off to the side remained Yoonchae with a sad, knowing smile, incriminating and judging her for her offences. Watching on as other Workers rushed to attend their Queen and restore the Hive while disregarding the perpetrator.
Meiyok saw her lips form words, “was this what you wanted”, or perhaps, “what did you expect”, even, “Mei, you stupid fool”. Knowing her, it was all of the above and all that was left unsaid.
It was subtle. The surface of the nectar having risen slightly with extra volume intruding, now falling as it drained between the fissures, leaving adhesive residue.
More apparent was the ceiling crumbling and the tunnels collapsing, white shards raining and sending ripples or shattering on collision, causing incessant clangour. The interior caved in on itself, imploding. The floor shuddered. Gave way.
For a moment, she was weightless.