Hive > Mountain Anchor > Runner C : 1 month, 13 days, 23 hour, 15 Minutes

The cool late evening air filled my ears, the rush drowning out my and Runner D’s footsteps, breathing, and heartbeats. I reached through the hive, mentally grasping for Ops Leader’s familiar beacon, then tracing the narrow thread to Entertainment Anchor, then coiling my mind around Literature’s mind. Though I was still running, I was also laying on a bed, curled around a pillow while slowly scrolling through isekai manga. I scrubbed through our memories to catch up, then let my feet carry me on as I enjoyed the read.

Hive > Mountain Anchor > Runner D : 1 month, 13 days, 23 hour, 41 Minutes

I reached over to lightly tap Runner C’s shoulder, drawing them out of whatever entertainment stream they were no doubt absorbed in. After a moment, we fully opened the taps to each other. It took a few moments for us to adjust to being two people at once, our barely-differing memories and minutely different personalities melding easily. I took in their manga reading while they took in my observations on the passing landscape. After a few blinks to adjust to quadinocular vision, I was ready.

I reached the top of the mountainous hill that the road seemed intent on climbing in the most difficult angle possible. Below, the thin grid of a small town glittered, a pretty garland of headlights and taillights flowing between the single story structures that eventually gave way to farmland, warehouses, and a messy tangle of suburbs.

I exchanged glances with myself, then opened my mind to the hive, reaching through to Ops Leader, rather than my superior, Mountain Anchor. Through them, we shared the view to the hive. I felt a few dozen of myself look out over the city with a vague sense of smallness.

I lingered there for a few minutes, drinking in the liquid sun evaporating from the rooftops, then closed the connection and trotted down the hill. Once I found myself out of the suburbs I split up and began to slowly trot down two streets at a time, getting a quick lay of the land. While Home Anchor researching the area on Google was nice, walking it myself helped cement it in my head.

After a quick check with Work Leader, I met up near the center of town, where a brown office building sat with a “for sale” sign in the window. I wandered around to the back and split off another body. I gave me a wave, refreshed both runners, and took off once more, again heading for the south pole. I divided once more between the two bodies as the taps closed. I was about to follow up on the manga Runner C was reading when a squeal of tires shook me from my thoughts.

Suddenly, I was airborne. A pain lanced through my leg as I cartwheeled, a pain which was suddenly gone when I hit a wall and tumbled to the earth. I could feel my body begin to shut down, to give up as blood began to fill my lungs. Luckily, the pain stopped from my navel downward. I welled up my last shred of concentration and split.

I gasped, leaping to my feet as my old body absorbed into them. I checked for my companion, first mentally, then physically, only finding a splatter of ooze gracing the wall of the building I’d managed to bounce off of. I was busy appreciating the subtle lion-head design I’d ended up painting with my death when the slam of a car door brought me back from my thoughts.

“Oh my god! Oh my god oh my god oh my god are you okay?” The car had pulled over a few feet from where it had hit me - a testament to modern braking power - and the silhouette of a woman in the blinding headlights rushed forward with hands a-titter. The same hands searched me with surprising efficiency for damage, all the while their owner babbling apologies and concern.

“I’m fine, I’m okay luckily! The wall broke my fall, it’s pretty lucky actually!”

“What a relief! Worse, I thought - well,” She paused, her hands fluttering around her giant loose scarf as she considered her words, then continued, “I thought I’d hit someone else too…? Was…?”

“No, no, it was just me out here.” I say, glancing at the impressionist lionhead with a smirk, then hastily add, “I’m fine, honestly! Uh… praise… the lord that I was so lucky.”

“Bless.” She agreed, though her tone was almost sardonic. She fished through an oversized purse, drawing out and then pressing a business card into my hands. “Please, if you notice anything’s broken later or anything, please call me, I’ll pay for whatever you need done! I feel so, so bad!”

I glanced down at the card, which read “Danielle Thornley, Family Therapy.” before listing a jumble of letters and an address.

There was an expectant pause and when I didn’t respond, she gave a soft sighing “so young,” then began her retreat. The tittering concern continued until her door had closed, leaving me standing in the dark with her card in a daze. The encounter was over as quickly as it had begun, leaving me with a strangely overwhelming ache of exhaustion.

Eventually, I shrugged off the confusion and split off a clone to carry the card back to the new anchor I’d left in the officebuilding and another as a running buddy/backup. Refreshed and now definitely awake, I continued on towards the south pole.

Hive > Work Leader > California Anchor : 1 month, 14 days, 8 hours, 58 minutes

Watery light leaked through the yellowing blinds and soaked the five clones standing before me in a sickish light. We stood in a dusty meeting room, a small cardboard box standing open on the furry table. The clones stood casually, each lost in each other's dreams, each starkly different from the last, yet wholly unremarkable. They were bland in their uniqueness, like the computer average of their particular demographics.

Somewhere in the hive, we heard a phone alarm go off, marking the hour. At once, we jumped into action. The five quickly filtered out of the room, one by one, each carefully watching a different angle for prying eyes or lenses. I waited for the last to escape the rusted fire door before sweeping the years of dust from the table. I picked up the box and rolled myself onto the hard surface. With the box on my chest and eyes closed, I began opening the taps to my team.

Hive > Work Leader > California Anchor > Worker 1 / 5 : 1 month, 14 days, 9 hours, 06 minutes

I looked up at the dirty brick awning of the local library with a mix of relaxation and anxiety rushing through my muscles. I pushed through a heavy glass door and took in the musty smell of a barely-maintained local library. While a library was itself comforting, I could feel the intense looks cast in my direction by the few staff and transients that haunted the place. Quickly, I shuffled past the information desk to post up against a pillar. Just beside it, a local listing bulletin board hung askew.

Home Anchor had set up a few clones with quick jobs on Craigslist but not enough to make keeping California Anchor here any longer than a few days worthwhile. Afterwards, I’d be absorbed back into me and we’d move somewhere a little more established and anonymous.

The board was pitted and covered in missing chunks. Yellowed fliers for tractor repair and a child’s attempt at starting a tabletop roleplaying group fluttered dejectedly in the far corners, though a few newer read-n-tears had been posted. I pulled a tab down for a local lawn company looking for weekend help and then passed the number along to Home Anchor for a temp kitchen job hiring for the summer.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I was about to leave when a familiar face caught my attention from the corner of my eye. From the information desk, the woman who’d struck me with her car gently smiled from the hardcover of a heavy book. I glanced about, then gave a tight smile to the clerk as I approached, gesturing to the thick tomb by way of awkward explanation. She barely glanced at me before returning to her game of online poker.

The book sat atop a pile of others, apparently for sale. It was a run-of-the-mill family advice book, according to the jacket, written by an award winning, internationally recognized celebrity family therapist. The bio at the back went on to sing her praises, listing TV appearances and celebrity marriages she’d saved. It listed countries she practiced in and plenty more that my eyes simply glazed over. I set the book back on the stand and made to leave.

Hive > Work Leader > California Anchor : 1 month, 14 days, 9 hours, 13 minutes

At least there was some verification that she was who she said she was - though something about the whole thing did not sit right with me. She left too quickly the previous night and besides - why would someone this well known be based out of this nowhere town? I rolled my thumbs against the box resting on my stomach in agitation.

Hive > Work Leader > California Anchor > Worker 4 / 5 : 1 month, 14 days, 10 hours, 45 minutes

“Paper or plastic?” I asked, then quickly set to shoving whatever came down the belt into whatever receptacle was at hand. I’d been hired on the spot for the afternoon by a frazzled older lady who made it clear she was not the manager. The manager, and owner, had apparently taken a vacation a few months prior, leaving the employees without hiring codes and severely short staffed. This was the third time someone in the Hive had been hired this way.

The line shifted down as the last bag was unceremoniously dropped into the customer’s cart and they zipped away.

“Paper or plastic?”

“Hello! Paper please! Lovely day, shame you’re all stuck inside!” the next customer tittered brightly, then added to the cashier, “Can’t get enough of that California sun!”

I glanced up to give a cursory grunt, but was surprised to see a familiar face. The woman, the therapist, gave me a quick smile, then continued her conversation with the cashier. I kept an eye on her while I bagged and carted, careful not to seem too interested. Everyone needs groceries, after all.

She paid and took her cart, giving me an intense, but warm smile as she left. The hive relaxed a tension in my shoulders I didn’t know we were holding. Then, the line moved down.

“Paper or Plastic?”

Hive > Work Leader > California Anchor : 1 month, 14 days, 18 hours, 01 minute

The grocery bagger, 4 of 5, and another clone hired in for stockroom, 2 of 5, both ended their day with little event. The woman who’d taken over managing the place seemed to favor quiet workers, the forty plus year old women most of all. I kept a note in the back of my head. After a week with the current teens, I’d swap them out for some older-looking bodies. With under-the-table pay like this I could play with favorites to get a little extra.

A few quiet minutes passed as I observed worker 3 of 5 get introduced to her new dish-washing station. I was interrupted by the rattle of the door as 2 and 4 returned to the abandoned building. They dropped their earned cash in the box, then melded into me until they would be needed again. I yawned and fidgeted on my hard plastic table, my back, butt, and neck all terribly sore from the surface, then concentrated back in on the remaining workers in the field.

Hive > Work Leader > California Anchor > Worker 3 / 5 : 1 month, 14 days, 19 hours, 22 minute

The restaurant was a disaster. When a kitchen hires on the spot, no questions asked, it usually means something is amiss, but as it turned out, I had been hired by the only decent bar in miles on a friday evening. Plates, dishes, and utensils flew at me by the minute from a flurry of servers. By now I was also running bar dishes, as the plastic cups had run out an hour before I’d arrived.

I closed the hood on the washer and slid across the slick floor to start throwing cambros onto the shelf. I had yet to figure out how to generate non-slip shoes and had a few bites on my tongue and cheeks from throughout the night to prove it. I was close to slipping into the walk-in and splitting off some helping hands when the name I gave on hire was shouted from the swinging doors. I slid over and an apron was shoved into my hands.

“Who put you on dish? Leave that for one of the boys, sweetheart, let's get you on the floor!” The manager shouted over the rock music bleeding in from the bar, “You’ve got seats 45 to 60 on the back wall, go get em sweetheart!”

I was pushed out of the door and into the cacophony before I could object, though I got the feeling it wouldn’t be heard anyway. I tied the apron on, willed small holes open under my shoes to drain the water that had collected in them, and stepped out onto the floor.

In moments I was swept up in a tide of bodies moving with the music like booze-soaked forests of kelp. I carefully stepped through clumps of people to reach the far side wall, bursting out in front of a set of booths lining. A man with a menu waved me over and I skittered through sick and spillage to reach him.

I reached through the hive and opened the tap with Ops Leader, who in turn patched me through to Notes Anchor, then through to one of my scribe clones, the one who took temporary notes to be thrown away later.

“Hi! Welcome, glad to see you all made it!” I said, pulling up familiar lines from years of server work. “Just to let you know, it is happy hour so apps and…”

Serving was like breathing after the various trials-by-fire other workers in the Hive had already experienced. I quickly took the order for the family with a wink and a smile before escaping to the reprieve of the server station before any of the four other tables looking to order could flag me down. An older server, or more accurately, a skeleton animated by menthol cigarettes and hate, elbowed into the station.

“THAT’S MY TABLE!” She shouted over the music and I shrugged. The scribe recited the order in my head as I keyed it into her station and she pointed me to my tables. I glanced over and my hearts sank. Four sad, dark booths wedged into the far corner. All four appeared, miraculously, empty.

“So much for tips.” I muttered as I shuffled across the floor between sweaty patrons leaning on tiny tables. Quickly, Home Anchor checked Google to see if my pay rate dropped for being a tipped position in this state.

To my surprise, there was actually a guest waiting at one of the booths, hidden as she was by the high wooden backs. To my further surprise, she smiled warmly.

“Quite the busy night here!” the therapist brightly tittered. “Wait, come back Newblood!”

I was already halfway across the floor, bursting through the crowd towards the kitchen. I could slip out of the delivery door, hopefully the cooks would stop her following.

Hive > Work Leader > California Anchor : 1 month, 14 days, 19 hours, 37 minute

I rolled off of the table and tucked the tabs of the box closed. Across town, 3 and 5 were returning on foot, with Five managing to get a few dollars for their few hours of mattress-spring-fitting. I swept the table to clear my outline from the dust, then kicked it over and broke a leg. I quickly kicked a few holes in the wall on the way out, then left the door broken on it’s hinges. Normally I’d leave a few spray-painted anarchist As and a few vague complaints against the town leadership for good effect but there was no time, even for my usual get-out-quick coverup plan.

It could simply be paranoia, but there was something uncanny about the woman - Thorny was it? Besides simply appearing before different clones, besides the air of outright familiarity - there was a draw that I felt to her. There was a pull in the back of my minds to talk with her and that spooked me.

I jumped down the steps and pelted down the road, quickly swapping into a runner’s body once more. I met up with 5 of 5 along the road, absorbing them and their cash into the collection. I leaned down to close the tabs on the box once more when a light filled my vision.

Hive > Work Leader > Worker 3 of 5 : 1 month, 14 days, 19 hours, 49 minute

I watched myself cartwheel comically through the air. I watched me hit the wall and become ooze upon death. I watched the box bounce off of the abstract cloud splatter just under the fading lionhead from the previous night. I watched the car door click open and a hand reach out to me.

“Newblood!” the therapist tittered brightly, “You forgot to take my order!”