Drone
NOTE: This story was written for the Scribes and Scribblers Writing Competition. It's the first thing I did as a newcomer to their Discord server and I'm really excited that this story won, and I got cookies (their currency), and I got to pick the new week's prompt! I don't know how many of their group is on Steemit but they're a blast and a really nice, welcoming writing community.
The prompt for this was Not Quite Human
Drone
It was the visual nature of the thing I was least prepared for. The way a smell that wasn’t really a smell--but only the visceral response of my newly altered body to the pheromone signature of another of my kind--would erupt in my mind. A Technicolor display that would have distracted me from the task at hand if I were still myself.
Just myself.
I know to keep what I am seeing a secret. I know it is never to leave the hive and I know why. What I don’t know is who was first to conceive of it and how they could have done so without someone like them to show them a picture like this. Some lingering part of my old mind thrusts a memory forward: a small child in a cold room asks a frowning man in black, But who created God? I know I am that child and that I should care, but I also know I am not her.
And I don’t.
The picture assails me again and my own pheromones send back a picture that means, Yes, yes, I understand, you don’t have to shout! I wonder briefly what that looks like as I pluck another thingamabob from the bin, place it onto a whatchamacallit and twist.
The bin of thingamabobs never empties and the flow of whatchamacallits never ceases during the sixteen hours of my shift. My hands fly of their own accord and I never miss. I am a part, now, of this well-oiled machine and a remnant of me I am sure is no longer supposed to have a voice, tells me this is ironic. That man should rise above all the other animals, only to build machines that are best suited to dumb beasts.
Not for the first time I wonder if it was the right decision. As usual I remind myself I had little choice. And I pluck and place and twist and pluck and place…
Word on the street had been that it was easier if you went for the GT. Life was a long time. The longest, really, and a life standing there snapping shit together sixty-six percent of it was hard on a human body and mind. I’d also heard favorable treatment was given to the GTs. People said it was because the guards trusted the drones better than the prisoners who had refused the gene therapy. They figured the hive was safe, manageable.
They thought we were tame.
Pluck and place and twist and…a newcomer! A bare back wriggles in my mind’s eye, writhes away…crawling. A massive hand appears, arrests the progress of the naked figure by grabbing a fistful of dishwater blonde hair. A breast bobbles into the scene as she’s yanked backward and up onto her knees. Then I get the full monty as she’s thrown down on her back and her slender throat disappears into the giant mitts my new brother calls hands. Pluck and place and…he’s twisting so hard her eyes bulge and the vision is so clear I see the first petechial hemorrhage blossom in her milky sclera.
All around me the hive responds with awe to the brute violence on display. Such strength is a valuable addition and I feel a very un-drone-like envy as I recall the far less impressive crime I shared upon my arrival. I’ve barely had the time to register I feel this though, when the hive begins love-bombing me. My contribution is also valuable, I am reminded from a thousand different directions.
And I know it’s true. The human misconception was to believe drones, because numerous and focused, were unimportant and unthinking. We GTs know the truth: that every drone is indescribably, immeasurably important to the hive. And for our particular hive? Every new addition is another set of hands that have killed, maimed, brutalized.
I feel a shiver of anticipation. His hands were so big and his crime so brutal. Surely this is the time. Surely there are enough of us now. But no. The signal does not come. And I pluck and place and twist and the hive is peaceful, and there is nothing at all for the human guards to fear in their complacency.
Yet.
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I'm astonished Jessica! This is honestly one of the very best prose pieces I've read in a long time. I LOVED everything about it... the gradual reveal of the situation, deftly sketched one detail at a time by following the internal thought process of the protagonist. The vividly imagined altered state of the "almost human" drones. The casual use of scientific terminology ("I see the first petechial hemorrhage blossom in her milky sclera") as one of many devices used to underscore the line that separates the reality of the protagonist from that of the reader's.
"...love-bombing".
"...another thingamabob from the bin".
"But who created God?"
"...the visceral response of my newly altered body to the pheromone signature of another of my kind..."
The language is perfect, both brutally direct and intriguingly enigmatic.
"Yet" is such a small word upon which to pile the buildup of tension and mystery in this piece. But then... "yet" carries it perfectly. A perfect ending to a perfect piece.
This blew me away.
Wow! This is an incredibly flattering, kind, generous response to such a small story. I can't tell you how pleased I am! This really made my day. I love words and love to try and use them to convey a sense of things beyond just what is said, and your response tells me I did in this piece. Thank you a thousand times over. <3
Not particularly kind or generous, just honest. Your writing is amazing!
lol... tho I do remember telling you that your comments about My Pet Spider "made my day" like a week ago. That's a nice echo to get :D
What a turn, Jess!
i thought that ominous forboding atmosphere you created through your worker hive member was going to boil over, but man was i underestimating the patience of the collective.
you did a great job crafting a film-esque SciFi setting, brick by brick, i like how you built things from the ground up, but also left the reader enough space to be a bit offput and nervous and maybe even scared.
the observation and disconnected fascination with the display of ultra-violence, it feels inhuman, then to have that tension snap, only to be dragged back out - man, feels like every muscle in my body tensed.
fun read, Jess, truly enjoyed it.
I'm so happy you mentioned this because that's something I really would love to explore in a longer work from this. How much of the disconnection is GT and how much preexisted it in these killers? Was the gene therapy not only a mistake in giving them the level of non-verbal communication and collaboration, but also in further desensitizing already-murderers to human suffering?
Perhaps we shall see.
What a buildup. Loved reading through the progression, as you revealed more of the underlying premise, just to shake it up one more time. Maybe it's the best story of yours I have read...
...yet.
Thank you so much naquoya! It's always so hard to know whether you're writing to obscurely or if readers on the other side are thinking, "I get it already, jeez!" So it's wonderful to hear that the revelations came at a good pace :) So happy you enjoyed it!
Also, I shared your story in last weeks The Library
Oh my, @naquoya, thank you!
This is beautifully written.I felt captivated from the very beginning. Thanks for sharing it. Following you so that I get the pleasure of reading more content from you.
Thank you very much! I hope I continue to entertain :)
Winner, winner! Nightmare giver!
hey so nice I really like your post! Thanks for it! I actually wrote my 2nd part of my introduceyouself and I write about that I went to jail because of cryptos... lets make steemit together to a better place with our content! I would like to read a bit more about you and maybe do you have some more pictures? Maybe you upvote me and follow me swell as I do? https://steemit.com/counterfeit/@mykarma/2-jail-review-counterfeit-euro-speeeeending-time
You got a 0.68% upvote from @postpromoter courtesy of @jrhughes!
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This is really engaging. I love it. Great!
You know, you and Inna really are kindred spirits when it comes to fiction. She writes of the malaise. You write of the brutality that hides it. Always blood with you, always death, even if metaphorical, with her. But can you really have one without the other?
I do wonder though, who makes the shots. Maybe that is the true issue within the Hive, that there is no one to actually make the calls, and yet, they keep waiting for the move forward, but it will not come.
Though yes, the mechanical separation from labour, how Marxist of you ;-) Though the next step is the one where you do not need the dumb beasts, just the machinery, but as this asks, is it machinery? And what will the people do? Because really, if they could have the GT, then they don't have these workers because they need them, but they keep the work undone fully in order to have something for these people to do.
Maybe they should've just truly droned them.
The question of language is an interesting one. So many interesting answers one could give here. But just like the above, which was an impressionist painting of motives and humanity borne out of what is, it's more to give ideas.