The answer had been staring me in the face all along. I had tried to see the world through Ben’s eyes a long time ago (or at least it felt like a long time). Thanks to Compartmentalization, I was able to do so without throwing up. However, I hadn’t been able to split my attention enough to actually do stuff while paying close attention to Ben’s sight. As a result, I thought I had hit a limit with the Lock. It was a helpful tool, but not much else.
Queen blew that out of the water.
When she did the impossible and manipulated the Lock, I was shocked by her capability to influence the world. Finally, she was one step closer to being ‘real’! But that wasn’t the actual shocker. It was what she did that should have blown my mind and Mind.
The box containing the gross stomach feeling and my bad thoughts.
By increasing the Compartmentalization Lock’s Mind usage, she had been able to create an additional compartment… box… thing. One that didn’t exactly isolate the thoughts but… separated them. My attention wasn’t on them anymore. How did this work? No fucking clue. Explaining it was as confusing as trying to figure out how the hell she could suddenly manipulate Mind.
Ah, dear Enno, did you forget? You had tried to increase the Mind allotment to Compartmentalization when it was first created, and what did it get you but a sore head and a mouthful of that morning’s breakfast?
Aha! But that is where Queen’s frankly unfair talent came into play! When I had increased the Lock percentage, it was just tweaking numbers on a screen. In this world, that wasn’t good enough! The numbers on the screen had to be combined with skill, strength, and something else that starts with ‘s.’ She had been increasing the Lock while creating the box.
In other words, those compartment ‘boxes’ worked in tandem with the additional Mind being allocated. Otherwise, it was just wasted resources!
I had been using Mind in an incredibly inefficient way. It was pretty simple; under or over-allotment of resources caused errors. Since Mind was a limited resource, we would want to use it as efficiently as possible.
And so, I made a box.
It was a strange sensation. I had to envision a box popping into existence since there was no actual visual aspect to this. It wasn’t like Vulch’s Mind world. However, if I ever managed to figure out how Vulch had done that, I was somehow sure that the transparent, boldly outlined box I had imagined would actually appear in my world.
So. What could I actually do with said box? The box was basically just a representation of my consciousness, separated from my actual consciousness. Conscious without being conscious.
Conscious.
I could basically think about things without thinking of them. Or something.
Disregarding the overly complicated thought process, I would consider this a ‘blank box’ and could probably… put stuff in there, like Queen had done with the feelings. So what to put inside?
If I wanted to get a better understanding of the bees in order to help and control them, I needed a way to know their thoughts. Oh, I could already feel their thoughts coming in through the Link, but the situation with Bedivere exposed an apparent flaw.
In my fervor, I had created an incomplete hivemind.
The psychic Link between me and every other bee was, in a way, a hive mind. But. A true hivemind would not have a situation like Bedivere arise. Why? Because I would have immediately known what he was thinking of doing right as he thought it.
In theory, that was already possible with the Link. If I specifically probed Bedivere and constantly monitored his thoughts, that is. But I had other responsibilities. I didn’t have the time or resources to continually know what the bees were thinking.
Or did I?
I needed a way to monitor the thoughts of the bees without actually sparing focus on them. And I thought this blank box was the solution.
So I put the Link in the box.
In theory, this would have the same effect as if I were sitting down and painstakingly reading each individual thought coming through the Link. Except with the box, I would be doing that and actually being productive at the same time.
Once I did, the box grew. And grew.
Oh, shit. It wasn’t stopping.
“Again? How many times will you brazenly test some crack nut theory?!”
No, this was no problemo. The box ‘growing’ was just it consuming more resources. I could just dedicate more Mind to the Lock, and voila! Problem solved!
Suddenly the box exploded.
Goddamit! Queen had undone the box. Was she getting better at manipulating Mind? Frankly, this was unfair.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“I have a different solution, you dolt. Separate the tasks. Have one ‘box’ collect the information and have another analyze it.”
“And how in the hell do you think that would even work? I can make boxes, not complex systems of circuitry and data transference. And I know what those are!”
“…Could you not just… connect the boxes?”
Oh. Of course. Who could have imagined a solution like that?
“Just try it. I swear, sometimes you over-complicate matters to such a ridiculous degree.”
Fine. I made two blank boxes, ready to go. What Queen wanted was slightly different from what we had done so far with this power. The original idea was simple. Something inside box: thing separate but still in conscious.
This?
Instead of putting something in the boxes, the boxes would… do things. A task. One box would perform ‘analysis,’ while the other would ‘collect.’
The collection box seemed easy enough. Just put the Link inside, same as last time. However, before that, I needed to connect the two boxes. That way, the collection box wouldn’t become immediately overwhelmed.
So I just… smushed them together.
It wasn’t very elegant, but I thought it could work. If I could successfully assign a box a task just by imagining it, surely they could transfer stuff between them with a thought, too.
Now, the hard part. How did I assign the boxes a task? I drew upon my well of experience with computers and underlings and came to a tentative answer.
Just tell it to do something.
It worked for people. It worked for bees. These boxes were just my brain or something, right? Surely my brain could understand itself.
And that’s what I did. I made sure to slowly feed Mind into the analysis box to ensure the number of resources didn’t falter, and soon, I had something.
The same box. But a little bigger.
Well, hopefully, that would be fine. I similarly instructed the collection box to send information to the analysis box through the wall, but things seemed to get stuck there. Something wasn’t right…
“May I?” I could feel Queen experimenting, so I let her. This was all she had been able to do since my arrival. Why not let her have some fun?
Not long after, I actually heard a distinct popping sound, and the boxes seemed to shudder. Queen revealed that the boxes had phased into one another. A sliver of space was, therefore, in both boxes.
Did I imagine the popping sound? Or did it lend credence to my theories about the Mind world?
In any case, I again had to applaud and lament Queen’s exceptional talent and creativity. Now that the boxes had some overlap, there was a sort of buffer zone for info to cleanly pass through.
“Can I try it now?”
“…Very well,” Queen sighed.
Alright! Hopefully, this would work…
I placed the Kin Link into the collection box and waited with bated breath.
Like last time, the collection box ballooned, beginning to dwarf the analysis box. This time, though, it was growing more slowly and steadily. Great sign!
I wished I could actually see the boxes. All I got was some vague sense that something was happening.
“Ah, it seems Belle expects the Worker eggs to hatch soon.”
“Hm, Beck’s research is going well….”
…
…
“Oh shit!”
It was working!
“Incredible… I know the thoughts of the hive, but do not need to focus on them to know.”
This was actually insane. It was on a completely different scale from before. Every scrap of information that passed through a bee’s head wasn’t just entering our head; we were fully cognizant of the information. I didn’t have to focus at all to know what they were all thinking. At the same time, even!
“Ack! Look, Enno!”
Hm? Ack! The analysis box! When had it gotten that huge?!
“The analyzed information! It has nowhere to go!”
Ah, crap. It just couldn’t be easy, could it? No wonder I was entirely aware of the putrid smell of a rotting carcass coming in from Bella while simultaneously knowing her thoughts on extra salty meat. I quickly made another huge blank box and connected it to the analysis box, instructing it to store the information. That one then began to grow while the analysis box rapidly deflated. Phew.
“This is not a permanent solution. There is a limit to the amount of information we will be capable of storing, as there is a limit to our Mind. Will the entirety be dedicated to storing Ben’s sudden fascination with a particular pebble?”
While I agreed with her assessment, it just felt weird to me. The human brain never seemed to have an actual limit on how much information it could theoretically store. Why was this any different? In fact, it seemed far less efficient.
* Compartmentalization (5%)
…
* Compartmentalization (5.00001%)
…
* Compartmentalization (5.000011%)
Even now, the allocated Mind for Compartmentalization was growing. Making this whole system had already cost 100x the Mind the Lock previously used, and the growth showed no sign of stopping. It was truly a staggering amount of power being dedicated to this seemingly simple task. The only reason it was automatically climbing in the first place was because of the Lock itself; some portion of my attention had to be reserved to ensure the system’s resources stayed in check.
How long would I be able to do this? I didn’t exactly feel like doing the math, but I was certain it would hit its limit in my lifetime.
No worries. I had a plan.
Earlier, I had complained about memories. It was so unfair that the bees could use my own memories better than I could. However, I had never thought of why. Why were they able to do that?
I assumed it had to do with something simple: I didn’t care about the names of rocks enough to remember them. Hence why I hadn’t thought of the name Beryl. However, memories were clearly more complex than even Earth scientists knew.
My memories had come with me. Without my physical brain.
Were all memories stored somewhere else? Was the brain a temporary storage, albeit one capable of storing immense amounts of data?
Well, that wasn’t for me to know.
All I needed to know was that my memories could probably be accessed, organized, and optimized with my newfound capabilities. So what if I put my memories in a B-box…?
“Huh? What in the world is a ‘B-box’?”
“Just a placeholder name, ya’know? For the boxes and stuff. Brain box.”
Queen hemmed and hawed and groaned, clearly unsatisfied with my naming sense.
“It is fine for now, but we will have to come up with a better name eventually.”
Oh, whatever. B-box it is!
The idea was to use a B-box as a storage device. I knew it would work, seeing the analyzed Kin Link info being stored. If I could keep memories there, could I abuse the system in some way to retrieve memories on demand? I would never have to memorize or struggle to remember anything again; I could theoretically just search for what I needed, like a computer or search engine or something.
Maybe I could even figure out ways to optimize things. Figure out some optimal way of storing and accessing the information, so I didn’t have to use all my Mind.
“Hold on. Something about this… ugh… ‘B-box system’ seems strange.”
Did it? Actually, now that Queen mentioned it, it did feel strangely familiar…
Oh fucking goddamit. No wonder. I had reinvented the damn wheel. The B-boxes were basically Locks!
Man that was stupid. Automation of tasks that I could assign just by imagining and allot percentages of Mind to maintain? That was literally the Lock system. Not only that, but the B-boxes made things infinitely more complicated by requiring some degree of manual effort.
Did that mean everything I had done with the boxes was a waste? Only one way to find out.
I tried making a Lock that performed a similar function to my whole Kin Link analysis system, but nothing happened. Odd. Maybe I could make a B-box directly with Locks?
[Mind Locks:
* Life (5%)
* Float (0.66%)
* Kin Link (0.18881%)
* Compartmentalization (5.000015%)
* B-box (0.05%)
]
Well. Did I feel silly or what?
“Hold on. Something is happening to the menu.”
[Mind Locks:
* Life (5%)
* Float (0.66%)
* Kin Link (0.18881%)
* B-box System(5.000015% + 0.05%)
* B-box (-%)
]
[Congratulations! Through a unique application of Mind, you have been granted the Ability {B-box Sys-}]
[ERROR]
[The Bee has intervened. {B-box System} reassessed. The Bee has manually withheld {B-box System}]
[ERROR]
[The Bee was unable to disable Mind Lock: B-box System]
[ERROR]
[The Bee was unable to disable Mind Lock: B-box System]
[ERROR]
…
…Okay. What?