I woke up with a start, the image of flames that had been burned into the back of my eyes fading as I traced the wooden beams above. The staggering beat of my heart faded and I crawled out of my sleeping bag. A pervasive ache soaked my bodies that were neither sleep nor work related.

I swung my legs out of bed and sat up, groaning as my original body caught up with my mind, which had been active throughout the night. It was an odd relationship we had, but I was quickly getting used to it. The wooden floor chilled my bare feet to the bone and I could see my breath in the morning light cutting through the windows. The sooner I could get glass in there, the better.

Something about the motes of light caught my attention and I stared into their golden beams for a few moments. A flash of blue light filled my mind and I tensed, each of my hive preparing for another break. The memory faded as quick as it had come and I pushed the thoughts from my collective mind. There would be time on the flight to worry about that.

The door rattled in its frame as I slammed it in my haste to get going. I trotted past the nearly complete walls to the warehouse and dove back into the nettled woods. Unlike my clones, I still suffered the hardships of poor sleep and found myself blearily slipping in the morning forest muck. By the time I had escaped the brambles I was caked to the knees in the stuff. I hustled down the side road, giving a small wave to a bemused old lady sitting outside her trailer. She gave me a pleasant smile and returned to watering her wild planter garden. It was a cute little place and I vowed to buy it as soon as I could. Too many witnesses seeing me coming and going from this area…

I shook my head, clearing the paranoia before it could take root. That way led to becoming a mad god and that went against most of the Laws of Division. I stood aside as a cheap rented sedan pulled up and I got in the back.

Inside the car were three of my clones in various levels of disguise. The driver, bearing a borrowed hat and sunglasses, turned the wheel to bring us onto the highway. The clone beside me handed over my backpack. I unzipped it to triple check the contents as I reabsorbed the clone. Here, a variety of my treasured possessions and important documents were gathered, along with a fair assortment of what clothes I couldn’t now generate. The only electronic device included was my phone, to which I added the laptop I brought to construct the cabin. The rest would stay at my apartment and - paranoia or not - this would be the last time I would allow a phone related to me this close to the base.

The car roared along the highway and the clone in the front seat reached back to hand me a muddy envelope. I took the manilla folder and stuffed it in with the rest to study on the plane. My eyes combed over the runner, staring at their thin frame and stature shorter than the driver or myself. I could spawn these different bodies at will, even spawn the steps in difference between us, even if the last of that body type existed nowhere else in my hive.

I passed the bag back to the front and carefully climbed over the center console, absorbing my runner as I took their place. We merged into the carpool lane and I leaned back in my seat, closing my eyes to focus on a new idea - and to get in a little nap while I could. It would be a long drive from my secluded base in the depths of the national park's forest to the airport, then even more from there to the airport nearest my parents. Plenty of time to plan.

At base, I split out a pair of clones from those working on the warehouse and had them stand at the center of the construction. They took each other by the forearm and braced, then began to rapidly absorb and split each other as fast as possible while still fully creating a body before returning it. With the stress training provided in the firestorm, they were practically a blur.

I kept the image of a major film celebrity in the front of my mind, juggling every physical detail between my brains. A clone wandered over to watch the two flickering forms slowly warp and shift, clumsily guessing at changes before locking them in and moving to a new area. It was a wild and almost random selection done through tiny mutations that already rendered me hundreds upon thousands of new combinations to disguise myself with. However, I had two dead ringers for the celebrity standing in my warehouse by the time I pulled up to arrivals.

I stepped out of the car and hugged my bag to my chest. I scurried past the brightly lit shops, paranoia rising as I felt the last of my clones drive off to return the car. I was alone here, and though there was nothing to draw suspicion to me, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched.

Sweat gathered in my lower back as the oppressive aura of being seen pressed in and my armpits were positively swamp-like. My backpack, shoes, and phone barely filled a white tub, neither myself nor the tub setting off the alarm as we were passed through. My heart began to slow again as I reclaimed my stuff, only to stop as I saw a security agent approach, gesturing for me.

There was a split second as I considered my options. I had nothing traceable to hide at the moment, there was no way anyone would know I had these powers as far as I knew. Running while so close to so many cameras and watchful eyes would be disastrous if it went poorly. I wanted to preserve this body as long as possible, becoming a fugitive would violate quite a few of my self-set laws.

“You, stand aside a second,” the agent intoned, thrusting an authoritative finger in my direction. “I have a few questions for you.”

A small gaggle of tourists passed between us and at that moment I made my decision. I cut hard to hide behind the mass of the group, using their numbers to hide the quickest split I could manage. As I scurried to my gate I kept my eyes locked forward and prayed that the distraction would work. My clone, the end result of the celebrity experiment, hustled towards the guard as he craned his neck to find me.

“Excuse me!” my celebrity clone crowed and we both winced, the voice not quite right. The guard held up a hand, determined not to be distracted, then did a double-take as his face lit up. There was a brief exchange and a quick selfie, that I was sure I was going to regret later, and by the time I had directions for the restroom I had already taken my seat on the plane.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

My celebrity quickly took off to hide in a stall and swap out for a new body that looked like a discount version of the film star. This body would wander the airport for a few hours before returning to ooze and vanishing with a good flush.

I settled into my seat and anxiously watched out the window for any signs of pursuit. It wasn’t until the seatbelt sign flickered off that I finally relaxed. I let out a soft sigh that rippled through the hive and opened up my bag. The manilla envelope crackled softly as I pulled it free, caked mud sprinkling freely on the dark carpet. I shook out what few pages I had recovered and set to getting them back in order. As I did, I noticed a small mark on the bottom, hidden behind a dog eared corner. It was an odd mark drawn in the mayor’s hand, a sort of rounded triangle symbol similar to hazmat or recycling. However, the three arrows here seemed to only point down. Scouring the pages revealed two more copies of this symbol hidden between words and yet more buried in the various illustrations and diagrams. The more I looked, the more it looked like a code, but without the pages…

My row-mate’s snores drew me from my intense study and I stowed the pages once more. I cast my mind to the remains of the fireteams.

Team 4 had returned the papers and had all been returned to the hive. Fire team 1 had been returned to Mountain Anchor, who continued to run the forest explorers and two runner pairs. Thus far, none of these pairs had encountered anything of interest and continued to share their memories through Mountain Anchor.

Fireteam 2 had traveled a short distance into the hills to find the townsfolk hiding in the abandoned mine. After a short amount of convincing, they returned back to town and team 2 merged with 3 after the all-clear.

Team 3 had returned straight back to town only to scatter and hide upon seeing a figure standing at the center of it. The figure, a tall man in a ten gallon hat with some kind of black case on his back, wandered around, kicking the rubble for a few minutes. He soon grew bored and wandered back across the scorched landscape. He seemed to travel faster than he walked and quickly moseyed out of sight on the horizon.

The townsfolk had returned in waves, first those from the mines, then groups of cars returning as they were called and in turn called others - though the mayor was conspicuously missing. A gaggle gathered at the remains of town hall and I quickly shoved to the front. In the few hours my main body had slept, a deal was arranged with the town. They would never speak of me or what happened this night to anyone outside the town, never celebrate or serve me beyond the outpouring of gratitude I had already received from them since the end of the blaze. In return, I would leave a crew of fifty clones with them as laborers, as well as an anchor to serve as a liaison. I would earn a small percentage of town profits from wherever I helped out in cash, which would get run to the base to be hoarded or to my apartment to be deposited. Better yet, the farming techniques I could learn in the process might prove useful in my endeavors back at base.

At base, the small garden and animal coops had been finished and the warehouse was nearing completion. Inside the warehouse, several clones buzzed about completing construction, but another five had already begun using the space as a lab. The observer, now Research Anchor, managed the two who rapidly swapped to discover new body combinations, but also another two that I had begun to call pilots. These two were experimenting with rapidly generating clones to gain elevation fast enough to fly by way of flinging. So far, it had only rendered hilarious tottering towers and less hilariously broken bones of every flavor.

Inside the cabin, I had begun to fill the rooms with a new system of clones, lead by one I was calling “Ops Anchor”. The clone who I had used in the fire to create mental maps was now under this anchor, as well as another focused on managing the TV clones. These clones gathered memories from across the hive and streamlined them, processing them into TV channels of entertainment for the clones doing repetitive work. Each was a copy of me and shared my attention span, after all. There were four TV clones, one hosting an building and DIY network and the other taking over the exploration and running from Mountain Anchor. There were also two at my apartment who consumed and broadcast books and TV or film respectively.

The apartment was starting to get seriously full, as the bedroom and living room now hosted two more bodies, for a total of eight clones. These were House Anchor, the coffee shop worker, the digital artist, the traditional artist, the two TV clones, and two clones under the purview of Research Anchor. The first sat with Jay in his room staring with an intense lack of comprehension at a series of graphs. This clone would try to learn and earn on the stock market doing daytrading of penny stocks online in the hopes of finding a relatively safe way to launder my income. The second took up a corner of my bedroom, experimenting with the limits of my ability to generate clothes.

The plane rattled lightly as we hit a brief spell of turbulence and I opened my eyes, slightly surprised that I had fallen asleep while my focus was elsewhere. I gave a tight-lipped nod to the person sat next to me and pulled out my phone. I scrolled through the photos to a set that had been taken just before heading out. The photos alternated between brightly lit digital and moody marker art, each piece growing slowly more accomplished than the last. It was barely noticeable, but their hours of focused work were certainly better than where I had started. Still, it would be a few weeks before they would be ready for commissions at the very least.

Income was still a concern, something made incredibly difficult without a social security number. I would be limited to one, maybe two jobs at a time. I was still wracking my brain for solutions beyond simple manual labor by the time I could feel my stomach lift into my nose. I pulled out a pen and napkin to distract myself from the bumpy descent, writing down a few new entries to add to the Laws of the Division.

7. Stay Organized

This included keeping to my system, with Anchors acting as managers and checkpoints for a series of specifically focused drones. If I needed to add new layers to the system, I would, as long as I kept a system and didn’t let my own mind fall to chaos.

8. Protect Base at All Costs

This meant no phones, no visitors, no talking about it, even minimal visits to the forest stronghold. There were some things I couldn’t make or find in the forest of course, but the longer I kept it a secret, the less chance that blue light would find me there.

I startled as the plane jostled sharply and finally came to a landing. My seatmate got up immediately, shoving their way into the aisle to stand awkwardly and wait to reach their luggage. Once the aisle finally began to flow I scooted into the next chair and quickly split a randomized clone into my seat. We merged into the stream, then parted ways just outside of the gate. The split wandered into one of the bathrooms, then clambered up into the ceiling tiles the moment I was alone. From there, Airport Anchor began to drip out new bodies who paced the airport, digging into every nook and cranny. I planned to sneak aboard any flight I could manage. Project Plague would take me across the world if I could stay under the radar.

While Airport Anchor took off to hide, I continued out past baggage claim and into the arms of my parents. We began to chat comfortably as I hopped in the back seat and took off to the highway. Across the hive, I could feel my various clones and anchors lean in to listen, a smile on each face.