Alright, it’s decided.

After only a night’s worth of hesitation, I finally decided to gamble on the Linker Bees. What would I really be losing out on by choosing them? I was still getting Wax Drones, and surely I’d be able to choose the other bee options once I leveled up Egg laying again.

I guess that meant I’d really have to grind out those eggs.

It was a simple matter to select and create the Linker Bee eggs, so all that was left was to wait. I wanted to experiment with them as soon as possible, so I made sure not to oversaturate them with Mind. What would these new bees bring to the table? Well, ideally they would let me Link with other creatures without expending much more Mind or having to stare at someone really intensely.

While I waited for them to hatch, I wanted to address two bees. Or rather, two groups of bees.

First up was Ben. And after that was Bella.

Ben and his two cohorts had been instructed by Beatrice to be more cautious about exploring, considering the new danger posed by adventurous humans. However, we had decided that having them scout out the area between ourselves and the presumed location of the human settlement was a good early warning system, so despite the apparent danger, they were largely exploring the most dangerous parts of the forest.

Mainly, I wanted to know more about them. I hadn’t chummed it up with Ben for a hot minute, and he had been enthusiastically exploring the unchanging landscape of the forest for a long while now. And now, with his two buddies in tow, the trio was sniffing around nonstop. That was also likely a factor in the increased detail level on Beatrice’s map. With six eyes, the things that could be seen were amazing.

With six eyes, Ben was looking at three times as many burnt trees. Fascinating.

Unfortunately, the human appearance had put most of the bees on high alert, so I didn’t want to make them antsy. I could only imagine how freaked out they would become if I so much as left the border wall.

“Could you meet me here, Ben?”

“Absoluuuuutely Momallooooo.”

“Let’s keep the nicknames tooooo, like, four letters or less, buddy.”

It wasn’t long before the trio was buzzing before me excitedly. Well, more like a quartet. When did Beatrice get here?!

“Heyhoo Mo-ma-roo. Oh wait that’s sevenish letters.”

“Fine, I’ll raise the letter limit.”

Now, what was up with these two bees? Upon closer inspection, I realized that they made up the perfect generic explorer trio. Ben, the spunky hot-headed leader, a stoic yet apparently immature foil beside him, and a third quiet yet excitable young friend. All in all, they were... charming, I suppose?

“I hope you don’t mind Momoo, but these two’ve already decided on names they want. Go ahead guys!”

“We haven’t talked much, Mom, but that’s all good! I wanna be called Bennet!”

“Hi, Mom. Can I be Benita?”

…

Well, I guess calling them the Ben Squad fit no matter what.

“Did Ben have any say in your names being chosen?”

Oh god. The look of innocent confusion on all three of their faces was clear as day. They genuinely had no idea what I meant. At least Beatrice, surely…

“Those seem like fine names. Perhaps all explorers in the hive should have some variation of a name that includes ‘Ben’ for ease of organization….”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

I hate it here.

“Oh! Maybe we could extend that policy to other groups…”

“While the idea makes sense, let’s not push it too far. Or force it too much. Otherwise, running out of name ideas will become a genuine problem. We’re already doing this ‘Be’ thing….”

“Enough about names! You’ll never believe this, Mamalama!”

Well, at least the other two hadn’t adopted Ben’s frankly ridiculous nicknaming fanaticism.

“Yeah, Mom- er, mo… momoromo? There’s a ton of dead squirrels along the path the humans probably took. Free food, fresher than the state of most food in the forest now.”

“Mhm. Thankfully there haven’t been any more humans that we’ve seen… mamanosuke?”

“Please. Don’t force it, you two. Leave the nicknaming up to Ben. Just Mom is fine. In any case, all of that is good news! I wonder how long those squirrels have been sitting there dead, then?”

“Oh!” Beatrice lit up, “Your brilliance truly knows no bounds, Mother! Leave it to you to get into the heads of those humans. If we figure out how long it has been since the squirrels left, we can discern a wealth of information. Perhaps we can even estimate how far the human settlement is without drawing too close.”

“Of course, Beatrice. Why don’t you run along and figure that stuff out? I think I feel a headache coming on from thinking about that so hard.”

“Ah, but there is something I feel I must discuss with you…”

“You already know what she’s talking about. Stop stalling and help Beck already!”

Beatrice’s concerns were, admittedly, warranted. I had decided to leave things up to Beck, so why bother trying to do it myself? I could just let Beck take care of things. It was working so far with Beatrice. Even better, I had already gotten started on the Linker Bees hatching, so I had time while I waited for them to hatch.

“Sure, but instead of using that time to have some quality time with the children, which I admittedly am liking very much, you should be using this time to speed up Beck’s research, no? You are the one who would ultimately do the best at establishing the Link.”

I suppose that made the most sense. It was decided. I would work my ass off to return to peaceful times so my children could enjoy their lives in peace. That was mother-like, right?

_____________

You know, when I had determined that I had arrived in a fantasy-like world with psychic powers and whatnot, I certainly hadn’t expected that singing was a way to train the brain.

When I arrived back at the central hive and found Beck and their apprentices, I was expecting a deep meditation and quiet thoughtfulness as I had sometimes seen Beck practicing. Instead, I was listening to the shrill voices of two young bees trying their best to sing with their Minds.

“Dance! Alight! Always in the fight! Stomp! And Smash! Everybody bash!”

“Cruelty. Oh, if cruelty is thy name, perish. The world and everyone within, will perish too, in cruelty.”

At this point, I couldn’t be bothered to be confused or weirded out. All of the bees were little weirdoes, and that was that.

But damn, were these two wacky.

“Ah, Becky and Beckham, no? I guess the naming convention had already been a thing since before the Ben Squad… Anyways, what in blazes are you two talking about?”

I hadn’t interacted with either of Beck’s proteges much (not saying much when it came to the newest bees), but the last time I had taken a close look at them, they were wildly different. Before, they weren’t overly unique, being subdued and skittish even. But now…

"Sibling-Master Beck has enlightened us to your ascended ways, Mother! By becoming in tune with our individuality, we have greatly expanded our capabilities and are more prepared to serve the hive than ever before!”

“Yeah…. Like, Sibling-Master Beck’s vibe has flowed through us to the point that we are completely one with the hive… and ourselves. Myself, I have become engrossed with the idea of ‘poetry.’ The ability to express your emotions with words and flow is amazing, but combining it with your Mind totally opens the universe.”

“Poetry is nice, Brother-Disciple Beckham, but I find music to be the true arbiter of emotion! You get all the greatness of poetry plus the energy and wildness of singing!”

Were these guys a cult or what? The cult of Beck and expressing oneself. Well, I suppose it could be a worse goal to strive for. But man, I was really thrown off there.

“And how do those things help with… Links, exactly?”

“As Sibling-Master Beck has, like, explained it to us, the Links that we form are a pale imitation of your own feats. So, by using our individuality, we can strengthen our Minds and observe the Link’s, like, flow.”

Oh, alright. So the Link’s, like, flow, was like, the, like, answer. Hm. I think I actually got what Beckham was trying to explain. Rather than create their own links and learn from that, they were instead trying to study my own Link. I already knew it was possible to ‘observe’ the connections and all that of the Link, but it came naturally to me. It made sense that coming in tune with your own Mind allowed you to pick out the Link and see how it worked. So it was actually a bit more technical than they let on.

“How about you, Beck? Any progress?”

Wow, the other two had more Beck in them than I thought. It was easy to get used to, but the melodious, almost hypnotizing way Beck’s words flowed into my Mind was just… beautiful.

Beck’s explanation was more succinct. Everything the disciples had explained was stuff they had figured out a while ago, so at this point, they were trying to recreate my Link from scratch. Which, was that really necessary? My Link was a natural gift from being a bee, right?

Apparently, Beck disagreed. Sure, the current Kin Link was something of a natural capability, but it was crucial to understand the inner workings of the Links to move to the next level.

Next level, huh? That was certainly my language.

Beck again circled back to the Vulch. His Link had been worse than mine, but that connection had likely been formed from some combination of natural (or unnatural, whatever that meant) capabilities bolstered by the Vulch’s desire for connection to his kin. As bees, our Link was perfect for commanding giant hives of drones. Instant, cheap, effortless. But our hive was different. If we wanted to make full use of our capabilities, why not strengthen that which is already natural for us?

As such had been the focus of Beck’s research for weeks, apparently. They had been poring over the Kin Link, studying each connection and node to understand the Kin Link as much as possible. Only when the humans appeared did that research become vital to the hive’s survival.

Unfortunately, Beck’s research had been focused on deeper understanding. So they had to pivot pretty hard to fulfill my specific request: linking to other creatures in a non-intrusive, speedy way.

“Your research probably could help with that, actually. I should’ve come sooner. I could potentially speed up your process by helping myself, right?”

At that, Beck became overjoyed. They gave their disciples an assignment: forcefully create a Link with a living squirrel and demanded that they leave us until they were successful. And so, it was just Beck and me in their dark little room.

We formulated a game plan. I would create a new Link between us, and Beck would observe it closely. Obviously, I would be paying close attention, and I could actually do so better than Beck thanks to the B-Boxes. If we worked together and figured out how to create a Link from scratch, then maybe we could figure out a way to create a silent Link. Sure, it was likely that the process of manually creating a Link would take a long-ass time, but if it were truly silent, then the time taken would ultimately have been worth it if we could Link with the humans.

Surely it wouldn’t end up being a confusing, broken, downright insufferable process nearly on par with teaching one’s own language to aliens from another world, right?