The hivemind is conquering for me?

Janine was lying down on a cot with a needle in her arm. Sophia had finally gotten around to testing her genes and Janine was both excited and nervous. And a little nauseous. ”Lady Sophia, how much blood do you need?” She asked as she turned to her left.

Sophia frowned before walking over and removing the needle from the Sepiida. ”I suppose one pint is enough for now.” She said as she took a pipet from the table, placed it into the bag to retrieve some blood, before putting said bag into a cold storage box alongside many other bags.

”Why do you need so much blood?” Janine asked, feeling a little loopy at the sudden drop in blood pressure. ”Here. Eat these quickly.” Sophia said as she handed Janine a large pack of red flavoured gummy aliens.

” I need your blood to cross reference with other Sepiidans. You are beyond unique Janine being a Psionic wielder and having non human parentage. Now sit still, be quiet and eat your sweets while I run some preliminary tests.”

Sophia lied of course, well partially as now she said it, that sounded like a good idea. She initially just wanted to taste the difference between Janine and the Royal blood Sepiida to tell if there was a quality difference.

Sophia moved over to her makeshift lab that was so inefficient by Hive standards, but she had to keep up appearances in front of the non hive entity. Sophia then placed the blood she collected from the pipet into a petri dish before placing said dish into a large device Janine had never seen before.

”What does that do?” Janine asked, causing Sophia to reply without even turning to the Sepiida. ”That does not sound like being quiet and eating your sweets.” Janine felt a chill go down her spine as Sophia said that so casually. It felt like she was being scolded by her mother for some reason. ’Is that why she has that nickname among the workers? I thought they were just weird. I suppose it makes sense now.’

A while later, Janine was feeling better and watched intrigued as Sophia worked. Taking out the blood bag constantly, almost going through the entire bag by the end of a few hours. Janine had been trained to wait long hours doing absolutely nothing for her overwatch role in the Scythes, but now she was starting to get bored so she spoke up.

”Lady Sophia, have you found anything?” Janine flinched slightly when Sophia turned around. The look in her eye scared Janine for a moment before the usual beauty returned to Sophia, like the thing that scared Janine was simply a mirage.

Sophia walked over to the Sepiida on the table and grabbed her by the sides of her head as she stared deeply into the Sepiidans eyes. Janine grew a little flustered and blushed, her eyes darting to Sophia’s lips a couple times. She had thought about the gorgeous blonde a couple times after all...

”Aren’t you just the most fascinating specimen... I would take all your blood right now if you would survive, truly a shame.” Sophia said, causing Janine to shudder slightly as Sophia’s demeanor seemed to change a thousand times in a second.

”What did you find out? Can you change my sexual orientation?” Janine asked curiously, causing Sophia to smile as she began pacing back and forth. ”You know. When you came to me with this request, I did not think I would be able to help you as I said, apparently you are born that way, but your genes. While I still cannot tell what your alien parentage is... It is advanced. I mean. Gene locks, gene conditions, splicing, communication suppressants, what looked to be a proximity clause and most importantly, behavioural imprints. Whatever species half of you belongs to. Their ability to manipulate their genetic structure is incredible! It is even beyond what I am currently capable of.”

This information needed to get to the queen. This hidden knowledge... If she could track down the species, the hive could possibly increase their gestation speeds by beyond double as well as making the basic bio-forms even stronger with little detriment.

”My Lady? Your hand.” Sophia heard and looked down to realise she accidentally put her hand right between Janine’s legs. Pulling away, she looked down at the delicious bundle of knowledge in front of her and forcibly had to restrain herself from eating the thing.

”Stay there. I want to test something based on what I have observed. Janine, do you trust me? I need to enter your Mindspace telepathically.” Sophia asked. Janine’s eyes darted around the room, unsure. She only 100% trusted Apollo. Everyone else she was careful around. However.

”I trust that you would not do anything Apollo would disapprove of. I will lower my defenses. give me a bit of time though, It takes a while for me to enter my Mindspace.” Sophia smiled at the Sepiidans emotional attack, it was the perfect bait if she actually was planning something nefarious.

”That is fine, it will take me a couple of hours before I am ready to enter. I need to prepare the bypass after all.” Janine nodded her head after listening to Sophia and closed her eyes. It took a couple of hours, but she managed to disable her Mental defense. It was weird. She did not have one for her whole life, but now she had one, she felt so incredibly exposed now that it was down.

When she opened her eyes. She was greeted to Sophia staring at her holding a device in her right hand. Sophia wasted no time. She had cut herself from her under link so there would be no interference as she connected to Janine before jamming the device into Janine’s leg.

Janine wanted to express ’ouch’, but she did not have the time as all of a sudden, her mind became overloaded with a myriad of voices that she both understood and were completely alien to her.

One such voice seemed to ’notice’ her and spoke. ”Sister? Identify. Why are you so estranged from the fleet?” She heard the voice boom from inside of her head, accidentally sending waves of panic and confusion back in response to the voice. ”We have a breach! Disconnecting from-”

”Aaagh!” Janine screamed in pain. It felt like her entire brain was about to explode. ”Well, Yes, it would have if I did not intervene.” Sophia said before removing her telepathic link. She then gazed at Janine like a prized possession, a large smile on her face.

Janine then started massaging her temples as she asked. ”Lady Sophia... What was that? I felt like...” ”You were home?” Sophia chimed in. ”That is what I felt from my connection to you and judging from what I was able to steal from your link, that makes sense.”

Janine looked up at Lady Sophia once more and repeated her question. ”What was that?” Sophia looked at Janine, slightly confused. ”Could you not tell? Or could you simply not understand? That, Janine, was your family. Your other parentage. Of all things I expected to find tapping into the suppressed communication genome... A hivemind collective?” Sophia stopped. ’Simply delicious...’

”A hivemind?” Janine questioned. ”Wait, like the swarm!?! Sophia, I think you are confused. I am not a bug.” Sophia wanted to slap the Sepiida into next week over the gross oversimplification of her species. That and only Apollo got to call them bugs. ’We are his bugs...’

Composing herself, she replied. ”No, nothing as intense as the Swarm. They all seem to be one individual from what I have garnered. No, ’your’ Hive seemed more like a community from what I was able to steal. All your sisters share knowledge and information among one another freely and openly. For a species, that is actually a very smart way to progress while maintaining individuality. No wonder their science is so advanced.”

Janine had a million thoughts running through her brain at this moment. She was finally getting answers about her parentage after so long. ”Does this explain why I always felt lonely? Because I was supposed to be a part of a hive?” Janine asked, causing Sophia to shake her head.

”No, you were lonely because you had no one around you. Your genome was heavily suppressed due to your Sepiida side and the blocks from your other side. You should have had no influence over your desire to belong to a collective, the only things that have had an impact on the way you live your life is the behavioural imprints. Janine it looks like you were right and I was wrong. I think if I am able to safely remove your imprints or simply override them, I might be able to change your sexual orientation. Or at least it will reset to your default and you will know for sure if you are naturally attracted to our gender or if the behavioural imprint has made you that way. Are you ready for more experimenting?”

Janine looked up at Sophia with a twinkle in her eye, before yelling. ”No. What are you even talking about! I want more information! What is the behavioural imprint? What did you learn about my other species? Please, tell me everything before we continue!”

Sophia then looked back at the Sepiida, her excitement pulled from underneath her as she replied.

”Fine. Ask away. What do you want to know?”