//Writing Soundtrack: SN-1054 by Amie Waters

By the time we were done, we were thoroughly done. Each of us had done as much as we possibly could, although the other me was a lot worse than I was. I didn’t know why, but for some reason I could lay more than double the eggs in only a small amount of additional time. The main issue was eating biomass fast enough, so it ended up with me being a marathon eater for a good portion of this endeavour.

The strangest thing, though, were the eggs themselves. Mine hatched almost instantly, by the time I laid my third, the first had already hatched, while his eggs still hadn’t hatched almost a day later.

We had no clue why either, although maybe the Hive-Mind would. Wait, wasn’t I technically a Hive-Mind now too? Despite us acting as different people, that was mostly so things didn’t get weird, but we shared thoughts, memories, and everything else. Hell, I had no issues watching through his eyes and I am almost certain that if I wanted I could take control of his body.

I didn’t try, though. I wasn’t sure why, but it felt like once I made that step my life, as I knew it, would change.

So I just… waited, for a while. Laying there, exhausted. I had just awoken from a deep slumber in which I had watched the new additions to the Hive work, organised and ordered around by Orion of all people, but with both myself and the other me out for the count, he was our most reliable project manager. It had only occurred to me when I was already awakening that I could have commanded them myself through… whatever strange means a Hive-Mind had, just as Alpha had told me on the day she was born.

That felt like forever ago by this point, despite only… actually, I had no clue how long it had been. I had so utterly lost any track of time that I wasn’t sure if it was a couple of days, or maybe a week already. Maybe more?

I should probably be better about that in the future. It would be good to know.

For the moment I set that thought aside and thought about my options for what I should do next. For the moment my immediate goals had been met, at least in some capacity. We had biomass, thanks to Alpha, who was still out hunting. She had only taken a single short break so far. I guessed she wanted to prove her worth to me, and it was nice that she worked hard, but the entire episode still left a sour taste in my mouth for a reason I couldn’t quite explain.

Anyways, we had a semi-secure location, one that was upgraded as much as possible as fast as possible, thanks to the ten new hatchlings I had birthed, and once my other me’s four hatchlings hatched we would have a sizable workforce.

So, for the moment, my most immediate concerns had been, more or less, dealt with. Now the question was, what should we do next? In the long term, in any case.

My other me wanted to explore more of the digital world, which made sense. Also it was hella weird to share thoughts with someone you knew was still out cold.

I wanted to figure out what the hell had happened to me, how I got here, what happened to humanity, and of course just what the bloody blazes was up with the Interface. That last one was currently being tackled by the other me, so I could, at least for the moment, focus on something else.

In general, it felt like my other me was much more useful in my long term plans, at least at the moment. Everything hinged on the Interface and the data in the station system. So what could I do?

I felt a bit lost, truth be told. I had no real idea about any of the things going on and so far I had been just going with the flow. Now was the first time where I felt I… achieved something. I wouldn't go so far to say that I completed my goals, this place was by far not safe enough for me to say that, but I did manage to get somewhere. And all by myself too, in a way. If I counted the Hive-Mind as part of me. Which I really didn’t want to. Okay, so not all by myself, but I had been a leading factor. Maybe.

God, this was depressing.

Anyways, for the moment I could still help with the repairs, the clean up, and the build up. Maybe utilise my magic more. So far I really haven’t done all that much with it, now that I thought about it. Sure, I conjured a lot of little pieces up, but nothing… I dunno. Worth being proud of?

Other me wanted to focus on his code stuff, maybe I should start focusing on this magic thing. It was still incredibly weird to even think that way, so far I don’t think I actually, fully, one hundred percent, internalised that magic was real. Or that any of this was fully real. Or had I?

I think I felt similarly after I woke up after being wounded. The sleep with the strange dreams.

Anyways, I should focus on that. Maybe once I got better at it I could use it for a whole range of things. It was magic, after all. Or magick. I still had no clue what the difference was.

Sitting up I looked around, then got up and made my way over to the chairs we had gotten the previous day, still a little o-legged from the recent experience.

Trying not to think about that too much, I sat down, sighed deeply, then went through my mental list of things I could do with my magic.

“Good morning, dear host. I hope your rest has been… well, restful?”, Orion asked in his typical slightly British voice.

“Hey, Orion. It's been… okay, I think. I can still feel the pains and soreness, but I’m not completely drained. Unlike other me… We should think of names for ourselves, shouldn’t we? Would make the whole addressing thing so much easier”, I mumbled, before I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts, “Anyways, yeah, I’m better. Anything on the agenda at the moment I could help with?”

“Not really. Your new hatchlings have been very helpful in stocking the fabricator with everything I needed for the immediate concerns, even if they didn’t seem fully motivated to consider my requests as having any authority. Outside of that there are only a few minor things. Certain materials have run out that have removed some minor items from the queue. Nothing that would be a big deal breaker, but they would be very good to have for efficiency in the future. We also could use some more detailed planning on what you have in mind so I can adjust the fabrication schedule to be more efficient. So far your goals have been rather vague, and I must admit to a certain degree of frustration in the lack of thorough planning in that regard.”

I chuckled, of course he would be frustrated. He was programmed to do that stuff efficiently. “Okay, Orion. Let my other me wake up and we’ll have a chat. I could speak for him, but… I dunno. It feels strange.”

“I wouldn’t know. Although I find it a little strange, as far as I understand from my chat with this other being, you two seem quite different for being the same person.”

That got my attention. I did share thoughts with other me and I was aware he was talking to Orion through his digital system stuff, but I personally hadn’t really noticed any discrepancies between us from the few little glimpses I paid attention to. A slight worry rose in my chest at that news, although one that felt… hollow? Or rather, artificial. Like a logical kind of thing with no emotion behind it. Me, as myself, was worried, but not… us? In that sense.

“Wait, what do you mean? We are different?”

“Yes. They are much more upfront about a lot of their thoughts, in a way. It's not blatantly obvious, but I have observed you for a while now, and I start to get a mental picture that I don’t fully understand, yet stands out. For example, when I first spoke to Alpha she informed me of you referring to yourself as male, which has been consistent so far even in the conversation between the both of you, as far as it mattered. Out of idle curiosity I asked them about it, and they seemed much less… clear may be the wrong word, but far less focused on one or the other. Then there is the way you think about future problems. They describe your thoughts as maybe not pessimistic but also overwhelmed, out of your depth, driven by emotion. They of course feel similarly, however they wish they wouldn’t. They yearn for a more logical approach, something quantifiable.”

That was… I didn’t know what to think of that. I was aware of that, somewhere, subconsciously. Those thoughts weren’t new to me. I have wished for more logical approaches in my life before, at least I thought I did, and I didn’t disagree with him at all, but to have it being said like that was… I didn’t really know how I should respond to it.

My mental state wasn’t the best, I was aware. My memories were fractured and my entire sense of self built upon the wish to be, to survive. I took the first memories I had and ran with it. Even ignoring the weird comment about gender, I did feel a bit… confused, maybe. To hear that other me was leaning much more into that part, to find a way around those issues, it was… I honestly didn’t know what to say.

I would lie if I said it didn’t bother me, didn’t make me anxious or even panic a little. Yet at the same time, no matter how much I tried to find fault in those thoughts other me had, I couldn’t. They were my thoughts, my concerns, my emotions. Just… differently articulated.

If I had to describe it in words, I would say it was like watching yourself act on the same knowledge but with different experiences. A carpenter, for example, would see a broken table or faucet in a different perspective than an IT guy, for instance. Even if they share the same base knowledge and memories, if they had lived through different experiences, it would make for a different belief.

In a way, it was like that with the both of us. And I wasn’t sure if I should even want to think about it further. I just felt that if I truly dredged those questions up, I would lose myself. Lose myself in the mess of conflicting, nonsensical memories of different lives I may have, at one point in my existence, experienced myself. I didn’t know who I was. I was… well me. And this me only existed because I didn’t look too closely.

With an effort of will I dragged my thoughts away from that, back to reality, and found myself… curling my hair. I couldn’t remember doing that before. Had that always been a tick of mine?

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“Okay, okay, Orion, that is… I… I don’t want to talk about that anymore. It’s weird. What can I do to help?”, I decided then and there that I would continue to be me, whoever this me was. At least until I learned more about… well, everything.

In the corner of my awareness I felt other me be a bit disgruntled at that, but not really annoyed or angry. Just… a disagreement, I guessed.

“You said you needed materials. Let’s try and get them. Then, once other me wakes up, we can talk shop. And perhaps figure out names.”

And with that I got up, tried to ignore the reminders of the previous day as well as whatever confused mental chaos that had just erupted, and walked over to the hatchlings. Time to get to work.

Waking up was… annoying. I was perfectly content with just being asleep while I worked, being able to just… do stuff while you were out cold was amazing. I was also not entirely happy with Orion telling other me about our more private conversations in the way that he did. It might be stupid to say that, considering that other me was still me, but the more I dove deeper into our shared thoughts and feelings, the more I realised that there was something strange going on. On the surface it didn’t seem to make much sense, we were technically the same person, down to thoughts and memories, yet at the same time we were quite different in specific areas. I had no proof of it, but I figured it had something to do with the weird artificial cut between us and the Hive-Mind, as well as the Interface.

The existence of the mumbled memories made it even more strange. I spent some time trying to figure out a specific timeline from all I could remember, but it seemed to be at random. My earliest memories, or rather splinters of the earliest memories, were some strange images from way back in the colonisation days, nothing concrete, nothing with any emotion attached to it, it was more like someone had implanted still images into our memories, utterly disconnected to anything that would make a memory.

The latest I could find was some soldier training stuff from well after the original memories we had. I had no specific date that was attached to any of them, but considering that augmentations, cybernetics, and space travel seemed at least vastly more present from the images I got from those, I doubted they came from the twenty-first century.

That brought a few ideas to mind on why that was the case. The most outlandish one would be repeated reincarnation, each time keeping a few of your memories, but losing others. That would have worked right up until I found two memory sets that could be close in time, or even overlapping. One was utterly indescribable, a lot of thoughts and images attached to what I could only explain as an acid trip, the other much clearer in meaning, but much more confusion in its lack of anything else attached to it. Same with the memories from the colonisation days, these seemed to be still images, or in this case, emotions, that were put there for some purpose without anything that would actually make up what you would consider normal memories. Mainly a visual image, other sensory input, an emotion or feeling attached to it with a location that it happened at.

To speak in computer terms, these weird memories were basically images with no metadata on who the creator was, when it was made, or which system it was made on. The database entry for those would be virtually empty, outside of the image file.

But what did that leave us with? Pessimistically I could imagine us being a result of the Hive assimilating multiple people into their Hive structure. How that would happen I didn't know, but magic existed so the sky was the limit. That would basically mean, however, that we were part of the alien swarm thinking we were human once. Maybe that was why we were cut off? For some reason the Hive decided this split would be beneficial. Then again, they had to ask us for assistance with building the Hive, since we were now basically the Prime. Or other me was anyways.

The strangest thing about that was how we had become the Prime. Or how other me had become the Prime. He was chosen. In my opinion that was a good point in favour of this theory. If we were cooperative the Hive would work together with us, therefore achieving its goals, whatever they were. If we weren’t, they’d just eat us and start over.

The one thing that didn’t seem to fit was us waking up first. I remember the strange instincts taking over whenever we were out during that time. Perhaps that was the Hive doing what it thought was necessary to prepare us for our role. Was that how they planned it from the beginning, or just a result of chance?

Then there was the comment they had made when Alpha was first born. Someone or something had told them to help us. It had given us the Interface, the [ERROR]. Where did that work into this theory?

This last fact was the basis for my last theory. It seemed to work best with all the data I currently had on hand, outside the fact that it seemed utterly nonsensical.

Some part of us, either me and other me, or the Hive-Mind, was artificial. It, whomever or whatever It was, had created either side of us and given us tools for… something. It took all the data I had into account, like the two sides being separated, our memories being a jumbled mess, and this It that was somehow involved.

At the same time, what was the point?

After mulling over that for a time, I realised that there didn’t necessarily need to be an outside force involved for this theory to be viable. What if this It had been the previous generation of Hive that had made us the way we are so we can… I dunno, take over the world easier or whatever. But then the question was: Why us, and why these memories? A few I could understand. Even ignoring the question of how they got their hands on any human memories if humanity was gone for a long, long time already, and how they could implant them, there were some memories that seemed utterly inconsequential for a Hive to survive. Take the acid trip for example. Or the images from the colonisation days. What was the point of Tal and Carl in this context? The soldiers I could understand, basics of agriculture, if we had any of those I would understand, food distribution, politics, friend-foe interactions, combat skills, a lot of things would make sense. Others didn’t.

With a defeated mental sigh, I dragged my thoughts away from this mess once more. While it was an interesting thing to philosophise about, it wasn’t exactly useful. I was pretty sure that to get answers we need to crack the Interface problem. The directive basically told us to. I wasn’t sure I liked following whatever plan had been laid out for us, but at the same time I also didn’t just want to abandon the problem entirely. It felt like a cop out.

Finally letting myself fully join the waking world, I had probably wasted a good few minutes just laying there, I got up. While I was rested, my entire lower body was aching and sore. Strangely enough, however, it wasn’t a bad feeling. It wasn’t what I would consider a good feeling to be sore, but now that I personally experienced it, I couldn’t share other me’s hatred for laying eggs. At least not that strongly. Yes it hurt like hell, and I wouldn’t do it on a daily basis, but it also felt strangely… nice. Pleasurable in a way, although not exactly the same way other things did, but also… rewarding. Maybe it was a quirk of this new body, maybe it had something to do with this body being more… female, in a way, but it felt nice to put life into the world. Even if they were a strange alien thing.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I had some kind of motherhood feelings about the entire thing, but it was certainly something to take note of, if only for future estimations.

I had to chuckle when a slight feeling of dread came from other me at my thoughts, he had obviously picked up on it, maybe he was paying closer attention to me, who knew. Not that I was bothered by it, it wasn’t something I wanted or tried to hide. Maybe I would have been more weirded out by having someone else in my mind if I had been first, but so far the only thing I found slightly unsettling was the sense of duty I had towards him.

“Morning, me!”, I said with more enthusiasm than he felt, hoping to help him to relax at least a bit. I skipped the friendly smile this time, knowing it would just horrify both of us, so I just gave a wave with both of my left arms. “You wanted to talk names?”

For the moment I skipped the entire episode that had happened, he obviously didn’t want to talk about it, and I didn’t want to push him on it. He was me, after all, why would I do something to myself that I didn’t want? Or part of me didn’t want anyways.

“Morning, me”, he said, with much less enthusiasm, but also without the scepticism or caution from the previous day. “I thought it would help. Yes, technically we are the same person but… You know… names… they’re important.”

I nodded, fully understanding what he meant without him needing to say anything. He was torn, both in how names would differentiate us further, as well as the strangeness of calling each other ‘other me’.

“Yeah, I get it. I don’t really have much in the way of ideas, truth be told. I don’t really like the idea of using some name from whatever mess our memories are, so I guess you can just give me one, like you did the others”, I said as I sat down next to him on some random machinery, dangling my legs back and forth while I watched the hatchlings work away.

It was strange that my own hadn’t hatched yet, but I also didn’t worry too much about it. It felt natural and they seemed healthy.

“Uh… I’m not sure what to name myself either”, he said with a kind of lost expression.

“You have it easy. You are Prime. Maybe not the best name in the world, but you also called your first hatchlings Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. Unless you want to use Omega, which I wouldn’t, you might as well use Prime, I guess.”

The idea of using Omega as a name was… Well, we weren’t exactly superstitious, but after that whole Interface episode we didn’t want to push our luck. Who knew what would happen.

He agreed with me with a nod, “Yeah… I guess. Maybe until I find a better one. Not sure what about you though. I, uh…”

I sighed. Really, sometimes I could be a bit awkward. “Yeah, I don’t feel the same way you do. But then again, as long as you don’t name me Hanz-Dieter Meier, or some bullshit like that, I don’t really care.”

He seemed to think for a moment. It was a rather strange thing. Ever since Orion told him that I didn’t really care either way for gender, there was something in our subconscious that seemed to bother him. I knew it had to do with the whole ‘Who am I?’ question, but I just didn’t share it. And he was nice enough to ourselves to take it into consideration, even if he didn’t really like it.

I had to chuckle at the thought, it was so utterly strange to be the same person, yet different. Maybe if I had studied linguistics in the past I could have articulated my thoughts on the topic better, but I hadn’t, so I was forced to make do.

“Okay, how about… Skylar?”, he asked with a sort of cautious optimism. We both liked the name, obviously, and the reason for why he had picked it wasn’t a bad one either. We didn’t know the exact meaning of the name, but it had sky in it, and considering that we were on some alien moon with magic and weird alien biology bullshit available to us, the sky more or less was the limit.

Yeah, okay, it wasn’t the most well thought out name, but I liked it, and that was all that mattered.

“Sure, that works. And for the record, just call me however you want. Seeing you dance around the topic so much, while funny, isn’t helpful.”

In response he pouted, and despite his reluctance to accept it, it looked kind of cute in a very horrifying way.

“Anyways. I was thinking I’ll take a deep dive into the system again, maybe start to poke at the interface a bit, while I help out around the base? I’ll probs skim some mats off our collection to add to my cybernetics, although I have a feeling that unless I get a better Skill, Evolution Path, or upgrade my current Skill somehow, I don’t think I can achieve much more.”

He nodded, thankful for the shift in topic, and brought his thoughts back on track. “Yeah, that works. I was thinking of taking a few hatchlings out to scavenge for some more mats. That way they can get some experience, maybe pick an Evolution Path for themselves, and a name or something. I don’t really wanna go through the entire greek alphabet, it seems a bit… bland.”

“I agree. I’ll play around with my own tools and see if I can’t figure out the names for the rest. Anything I should focus on while you are gone?”, I asked as I hopped down from my seat and made my way over to the fabricator terminal.

“Uh… I think Orion has the queue well in hand, although maybe you can browse through the options more thoroughly. Maybe you find something you think would help.”

“Can do, Boss. Now chop chop, we got work to do!”, I said with a fist pump as I arrived at the terminal and plugged myself in.