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To say I wasn’t a little uncomfortable in Alpha’s presence would be a lie. Although at the same time I also didn’t think she was a threat. It was actually quite hard to put into words how I felt about her.

“Prime”, she said and gave me a small bow, although she still seemed to be quite alert for whatever might intrude on us, which I supposed was only fair.

“Alpha… I see you got quite a bit of biomass. Anything else happened after we last talked?”, I said, walking closer and inspecting first the corpses, then our surroundings.

I had no idea of what any of the equipment was for, of course, although some of the things I had some ideas of what they could have been, once upon a time. The most obvious was a rather large machine about half as tall as the room was, with a big opening and surprisingly intact interior which was visible through a space that might have once held some kind of glass panel. From the interior and from what I knew of CNC machines or 3D Printers, it seemed to be some kind of fabrication rig, although from the damage on one side I wasn’t sure how functional it would be, even if we could get the power up and running. It did fill me with hope, however, maybe I could finally make a step closer to proper weapons and armour.

“Nothing of note. I did find some success with the traps that you and Orion-501 have suggested, which did make hunting a fair bit easier, however these critters seem smarter than I had first thought, at least they can learn quickly, so I can only use each trap a few times.”

Alpha’s words returned my attention back to her and I nodded. I had no clue about hunting, so I would take her word for it, and if she wanted to hunt then I wasn’t about to stop her. She also didn’t seem to be lying, at least to me, not that I was an expert on the matter. I still wasn’t sure what I should do with her and about her entire situation, so for the moment I decided that if she wanted to hunt, she could hunt. We needed biomass. As loathe as I was to admit it, we needed more Hatchlings.

“Orion, anything in this room we can use?”, I asked, although I was sure he was already scanning things and going through his database or whatever else he usually did. He did have a proper sensory suite and I figured that he was already utilising it. My mana drain had gone up after all.

“A lot, actually. And most of it is in surprisingly good shape. It looks like there hasn’t been a critter incursion in this room, which I had not expected. I see four machines of immediate value, as well as a backup generator that is only slightly damaged. With your ability to… create things and my schematics we should be able to get it repaired in no time. The issue is fueling it. The specific model variant present is none I have anything on, hopefully it uses the same fuel as its base variant. The repairs are simple enough from what I can see.”

I sighed in relief. Things were looking up.

“Alright, let’s see if we can’t get it to work. If I’m not mistaken there is a fabricator present, although it looks damaged. Anything on that?”, I asked as I walked over to the machine that Orion had tagged as the generator in my HUD.

“My scans indicate that most of the damage is cosmetic, although a few electronics seem to have burned out. Nothing we couldn’t fix, however, your implants were more complicated than that.”

I couldn’t help but smile. This sounded a lot more doable than I had first dreaded.

Arriving at the machine that was the generator I looked at it. It didn’t look like anything I had ever seen, not that I was surprised by that. Within a moment Orion sent me all he had on this thing and I stared at the schematics.

While I liked puzzles, this was a few orders of magnitude more complicated than I knew what to do with.

“Uh… Orion? Could you help me out here? I have no clue what to do with that…”, I said with a frown, crossing my two sets of manipulator arms, while my main arms held onto my hips while I thought.

“Of course. The highlighted sections are the damaged ones. Apart from the two circuits, the only damage is one valve and one pipe, which should be a piece of cake to replace. The circuits are a little more complicated, however they are quite simple. Here are the schematics for each part, do you think you can… use whatever you did to create them?”

I chuckled. I was a little surprised that while what I did was unmistakably magic, he never called it that. I wasn’t sure if that was just one of his quirks or if that was part of his programming. Not that it mattered.

“Sure, Orion. Here.”, I said and got to work.

It took quite some time, the valve and pipe was childsplay, although the circuits were a whole lot harder to do and each used up nearly my entire mana pool, which meant I had to wait in between creating them. Worst thing was I messed it up the first time, so I had to do it again.

In the meantime I chatted with Alpha, trying to get a feel for her… personality? She seemed to be much more herself and less the blank that most of the Hatchlings had been so far.

“So…”, I started awkwardly, “You, uh, got new directives… and stuff? From the Interface, yeah?”, I asked while I waited for my mana to replenish.

Neither Alpha nor Gamma had moved from their spots ever since I had arrived, both waiting patiently, although Alpha seemed a lot more fidgety.

“If you mean the floating text, then yes. Although, truth be told, I am not exactly sure what I am supposed to do. It’s called a directive, but it doesn’t really tell me anything concrete, outside of my goal to try and understand you better.”, she explained, which made me frown.

“What does it say exactly?”, I asked, although before she could answer, text flashed before my eyes.

Alert: Information on the directives of [Hexclaw Hunter] Alpha:

To walk the Path of Loneliness.

Despite all odds stacked against you, you have not given up, determined to learn and understand your Prime to be of better help. Through this you have gained individuality and have received a chance to uplift yourself to stand side by side with the Prime to further the Hive. You have started to walk a long and lonely path, however, should you follow it until the end you shall learn everything you need to support both your Prime and your Hive to the best of your abilities.

I blinked in surprise, only half hearing Alpha reading out the exact same text out to me. Trying to order my thoughts I signalled her to wait for a moment.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The implication of this was clear, I could somehow check on what she was up to, at least to a degree. The issue was, who was in charge here? Was it me, or her? Or was it this Interface thing?

Alert: Registered Users listed by Authority:

* [REDACTED]

* NULL

* Alpha

Huh… Okay, on the one hand that's reassuring, on the other hand that was terrifying! Who was this [REDACTED]? Could they control me or this Interface? How did this Interface work anyways? And where did the information come from? Why was it helpful sometimes and not at others? Or was I just using it the wrong way?

Okay, first things first. Since I had no way to check if someone else had influence over me or the Interface, I ignored this question for now. How did it work? What were the limits?

“Huh… Okay, Interface, or whatever, can I see Alpha’s Status?”, I asked, more to myself, not really thinking it would work, even if I hoped it would.

Alpha

Tier: 2

Species: Hexclaw Swarm Intelligence

Evolution Path: Hexclaw Hunter

Cybernetic Enhancements: Connector: [ERROR]

A combat focused Evolution Path for the Hexclaw Swarm Intelligence. It excels in covert actions and ambush attacks, but is capable of normal melee combat. It boasts high physical strength and is capable of producing a number of paralysing poisons.

Alpha diagnosis:

Level: 7

Physical Adaptation: 77.6%

Mental Adaptation: 100.0%

Cybernetic Adaptation: 12.4%

Skills:

[The Path of Loneliness]: To understand your Prime and to learn the best way to follow your orders you have cut yourself off from the Hive you have been a part of all your life. Through this you have gained Individuality, but lost your ability to rejoin the Hive. Grants partial Interface functions of [ERROR].

[Nightcrawler]: You hunt in the night, unseen by your prey. Greatly boosts stealthy actions and enables you to blend into your surroundings at the cost of mana. Effectiveness depends on actions taken while stealthed.

[Poison Touch]: A successful hunt takes only a single hit. You are able to create poison in your own body at the cost of biomass and possibly materials. The more exotic the poison, the higher the cost. You can substitute mana for biomass, but at a much more inefficient rate.

[Resilient Body]: To aid in your hunts your body adapts. Your natural armour is more effective. You are immune to any poison and toxin you create in your own body. Slightly raises resilience against foreign poisons and toxins.

[Enhanced Senses]: The key to a successful hunt is to sense your prey before it senses you. Enhances vision, olfactory sense, and hearing. Enables the use of Heat vision at the cost of mana.

[Combat Reflexes]: Through overcoming a challenging adversary you have started to hone your combat sense. Slightly enhances reflexes while in direct combat with a being stronger than you.

Alert: Finish the adaptation process to finalise Skill formation.

Okaaaay, this was handy. Slowly but surely I felt a little more confident.

“Can Alpha see my Status?”, I asked, both to the Interface and to the Hatchling, or rather Hunter, in question.

Alert: User Alpha lacks sufficient authority to view Status information of User NULL.

At the same time Alpha shook her head, “I cannot. It says that I have insufficient authority.”

Okay, that confirmed it in my mind. For the time being I was in charge, whatever that meant exactly. It did wonders to quell my paranoid mind, although it didn’t mean I trusted Alpha. Not yet.

The only problem was that every question that was answered just summoned up even more questions to which I had nothing to respond to. For the moment I decided to ignore the issue and returned my attention back to Alpha.

“Okay. Disregarding all that. Can you give me a full retelling of how you got access to the Interface?”, I asked Alpha, who nodded and started speaking.

She gave me a full description of what happened that day, to the point I was surprised she could even remember even the smallest details. After she had finished with the moment she went to sleep to evolve, I took a long minute to unravel it all.

Truth be told, I didn’t think eating the corpse in specific was the trigger, or at least the fact that the corpse had once been a sentient being. I had no way to prove this, but from the way the Interface had worded things it didn’t seem that it was important what kind of corpse it was, only that she had pushed through a lot of pain to the point of unconsciousness.

Wait, couldn’t I ask the Interface?

What was the reason for Alpha’s sudden access to the Interface? I decided to subvocalize the question.

Alert: User Alpha was registered after fulfilling one or more requirements to be granted access to [ERROR].

Well, that was not helpful at all.

What requirements did she fulfil?

The answer to that wasn’t one I wanted to hear.

Alert: User NULL lacks sufficient authority for this information.

Hm… Okay, that was… something. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it all. There seemed to be things I couldn’t access for whatever reason. Not that I was too surprised, the Interface seemed to work in very weird ways.

Maybe I should approach this from a different angle?

What functions do I have access to?

Instead of an answer I got a sudden piercing headache as my entire vision filled with a myriad of text, scrolling by so fast I could barely read anything even if I had been able to think clearly.

With a scream of pain I fell to the ground, holding my head and wishing for whatever powers to be that I could just pass out. The pain remained for what felt like an eternity, until it finally, finally subsided, leaving me a sobbing mess on the ground, curled in on myself.

By the time my head had cleared and I could string more than two words together all that was left was a single line of text in big, blocky red letters, dead centre in the middle of my vision.

!OMEGA AUTHENTICATION REQUIRED!

What… the… fuck?!

I took a long few breaths, trying to calm my racing heart down. Note to self, never ask that question ever again!

It was the first time I experienced such a thing, and all it gave me was more questions.

Just as I was thinking about blinking away that last notification I got a new one, this one much more normal and without any pain accompanying it. I still winced as the text suddenly appeared.

Warning! New directive: Of new beginnings

Your new life turned out to be a lot more complicated than it seemed at first. Faced with allies you are uncertain you can trust and tools that seem more hindering than helpful, you find yourself confused and helpless. However, for each low there is a high, and you are just at the beginning. Solve the mysteries of the Interface and survive in this newfound life of yours and perhaps, with time, you will find the answers you seek.

“... and amongst the stars they met. So different were they as a people that no comparison could be made.”

Alert: Requirements fulfilled. Skill [Wisdom of Life and Death] has been updated.

What… the… fuck…

Nothing made any sense anymore.