Just a little mental distress. No big deal. I told myself as we snapped back into reality.

“Cure,” I told Cindybot to register the word for Minion Heal as we came to. I let go of Dennis’ hair and ran over to Hale to use the ability. There was no beast this time.

Instead “Cure” seemed like I was pulling from the others’ mental ropes as I activated the Minion Heal on Hale. The older man was grimacing in pain but the bleeding slowly stopped and the nasty cut sealed. From what I understood the Legion challenge, or whatever it was, seemingly treated all of us as one host person. I could move in between them somehow, and use the collective health of others to cure individuals or myself. Relief flooded through me as I saw Hale was ok. The people that were ordered to hold him down and stab him previously were now mortified and were apologizing profusely.

The one thing that immediately stood out in the chaos was Cindybot itself. It went from the size of a walnut to that of a tennis ball, and had a second smaller AI rotating around it like a lazy moon.

“So is Greenie your AI pal or mine?” I asked it.

“If you can have a legion so can I,” Cindybot said. I had no idea if it was joking.

Speaking of the legion, around twenty new people were now staring at us. I had inherited Dennis’ legion, but unfortunately it wasn’t going to count towards the challenger twenty percent goal. Looking through the flashes of his memories I now seemed to have, Dennis’ “controller” alien was some birdman named Jitholi. So I had a lot of extra responsibility and had made no progress towards the challenge. Great first steps Jon I thought to myself.

Hey did you go somewhere Jesus? Julio asked me with concern through the link.

I ignored him and turned back to Cindybot.

“The new ones should all be in hivemind already right?” I asked the AI in a whisper.

“Yes they are, they’re just scared shitless and want to make sure you’re not a psycho like the old one. Say something,” Cindybot urged.

That made sense I guess. I blinked a few times and looked at the group. As good as I could be with individuals, I went a little overboard with big speeches.

“Uh hi. As you know I’m Jon. I uh, took over. The new manager haha. Um. Tough room. Anyway,” I started speaking loudly. Someone coughed.

“Soooo aliens took over and some of us are strong enough to resist the mind control shit. Not that you’re not all strong individually. Especially you Pete. You won the beach strongman competition last year huh? Give it up for Pete guys,” I started to ramble. They mostly clapped out of pure obligation.

“Anyway, so I sorta beat Dennis in this game the aliens are playing on us since they are sick assholes. And now you’re all on my team. It’s like Twilight back in the day you know? Team Edward? No? Daphne knows what I mean don’t lie,” I continued while pointing at the embarrassed older millennial.

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“Nevermind please just stop,” Cindybot whispered to me.

“So yeah Team Jon. We’ll get t-shirt's made if we make it. I won’t control you like Dennis did, but we do have goals and will hopefully get through this shit together. Oh Dennis is technically supposed to be in my brain or something but I don’t sense him. Speaking of, we can speak telepathically because of some alien stuff so that’s fun. Good talk team. Did I miss anything?” I asked them loudly.

One of the younger women near me raised their hand.

“W…Why are you the one in charge though really?” Kendall asked. It was such a Kendall thing to ask. I literally just told them. She was valedictorian of her graduating class and was starting at UNF this fall. Well, she was before the collapse of the world. I noticed I was getting really hungry for some reason, can't wait for Cindybot to not explain why until the last minute.

“Sure yeah that’s an important question Kendall asked. Also, Kendall got a 32 on her ACT last spring by the way please clap,” I told the others. Very few polite claps scattered throughout the awkward group.

“I want to die,” Cindybot whispered.

“So the thing is my AI, you know, the floating ball thing Dennis had? Mine is real secretive and as such I’m not sure why I’m like this. Maybe she’ll tell y’all? Cindybot?” I asked it.

Cindybot glowed with red runes and seemed to be on the verge of attacking me. That was a gamble I was willing to risk. Instead it eventually slowed back down to its normal blue runes and surprisingly gave an explanation.

“We accounted for most nerve disorders and human illnesses but overlooked an anomaly in how certain individuals’ myelin sheathes block the exact neurotransmitters we use only for the Legion control program. Crazy how that happened, like it was almost planned,” Cindybot said in her monotone.

“Yeah so basically I’m sheathing things real good and therefore I’m #suspiciouslybuiltdifferent anyone else?” I asked my crowd while looking for a snack.

“So we can share your power in a way?” Kendall continued. I smiled at the valedictorian, what an overachiever.

“Yeah last question,” the man next to her asked. Markus, a former QB high school star turned local mechanic. “Can we break down and process this shit now?”

“Oh yeah feel free,” I responded while opening some beef jerky.

The small crowd erupted in cries and panic as they held onto each other and processed their horror for probably the first time since the arrival. The best thing about the hivemind skill was that it gave us all a sort of connection, which led me back to my original team. I walked over to Hale and the rest of the ones I haven’t used Hivemind on and made sure to give them autonomy immediately.

“Meld,” I finally commanded to Jennifer after about ten more minutes of living through each of them for a moment. She was the last one of my original group to need it. I could see the relief in her eyes as she gained her sense of self again. I wasn’t going to be Dennis, even if he’s supposedly somewhere in my head. Jennifer, Hale, and the rest went to commiserate with the larger group.

“What do you want to do with the body?” Cindybot asked me about Dennis’ corpse after I finished with them. I told Julio to come back over with the rest, there was no need for him to be standing watch over the kitchens now after all.

“Let’s just grab his keys and toss him outside a good half mile from the shelter. He lives a few miles away and if his house hasn’t been completed looted it would make a good second base. The few memories I’ve seen of this guy so far…that’s all he deserves,” I told it.

Julio, George, and a few of the guys went to move him outside without me saying anything. It seemed that no one wanted to look at the corpse any longer, but it was more than that. They felt what I felt, they wanted to do what I wanted for some horribly confusing reason. Even with hivemind I knew this wasn’t a true democracy, they weren’t truly themselves and it broke a part of me. And also, a small, hedonistic part of me loved having a group of people that cared for my every need, but I shoved that thought away.

“Hey Jon? Let’s go get your parents,” Sonia said, coming up to me from the rest of the grieving crowd.

“Yeah. Finally. It’s selfish as fuck. I know a lot of your families are missing. But if I don’t go check on mine I’m going to go insane, and I guess we can’t have that,” I admitted to her.

I looked at my legion, shook my head, and sighed. What kind of world are we going to find out there? What the hell was I doing being responsible for all of these people?

“I guess we need to talk before we go,” Cindybot said flatly. “Through no fault of my own whatsoever, I might have withheld some information. Let’s start over.”