The red scout approached the border of Uley territory, smell sensory fibers on her fore legs picking up the pheromones left by her hive cousins. Moving above ground still felt weird to her. She was young and, though she had seen thoughts of other Uley's experiences of being on the surface, being there in person was still odd. The lack of a ceiling still made her feel unprotected.
The entrance to the hive in this area was close. The "scent" of her kin was getting stronger on the ground. That was when she sensed them. Pheromones erupted into the air in front of her like a cloud. Though invisible by eye, her antennae were going crazy with activity.
Five large, hulking whites emerged from some bushes concealing a hole in the ground. They moved with speed, ferocity, and a dazzling display of unity. They encircled her, holding spears as their own antennae went insane.
She put her hands up in the air and twisted the backend of her abdomen up. She quickly sprayed out some pheromones of her own. In an instant, the group relaxed, lowering their spears.
One of them got closer and, like the Outsider white in the middle of the jungle, the pair did their dance for a moment before touching heads. The exchange of information took a moment or two longer than that, though. The swell of connections to the main hive was a rush.
It was a brief look at how it felt to be a central member of the clan. She felt the beating pulse of the workers; the reds acting like blood cells carrying things about the body that was the colony. Whites were the guardians and protectors, and the queen their reproductive organs. The hive was one. All knew what all knew.
All of her, her memories, experiences, and feelings flowed from her and into the hive. All that the hive had done and learned since her last visit that she hadn't got from her Outsiders, flowed back into her. In what wasn't long enough for her, the white pulled away. The five quickly pulled back and into their hole with another rustling of the bushes.
She knew how the hive felt about her. How they felt about all the Outcast scouts. The scouts were failures. The scouts needed results or the Outcasts would be... culled. Thinking about it made her shudder. She had her orders, though. They hadn't changed; learn to learn like the humans learn.
The red scout sighed. One more try. One more desperate attempt to get closer to the humans. It had to happen. She needed to save her siblings. Standing there wasn't doing her any good, so she turned and walked off. Her feet skittered over the ground as she began the trek to Outsider Outpost. She needed time to sift through and process everything the Hive shared with her. She was also starving.
The following morning was somber. Jon, Pinky, Nate, and Rocco informed the others of what secrets this planet held. They came to the collective understanding that they needed better information than Harl and his family could provide.
It took little to convince the Hawthorns to give the group a ride into town. The whole brood was going though; Harl, Kartha, Henny-mae, Hecky-lynn, Harnold, and Hobert (Bob) were all coming along.
Kartha passed out their jumpsuits but offered them some clothing. She even took a little time in the night to fabricate some for Rocco's size. The Hawthorns had even used some of their materials to print up some baggage. Borrowing some boxes, Nathan and Pinky went back to the Hab to grab a few more of their basic supplies.
In the meantime, the others helped Harl and his sons get Harl's hay wagon hitched to his tractor. It was the only thing big enough to haul them all. Harl's tractor impressed Jon. It was the sleek, futuristic thing that Jon had been looking forward to seeing. Bold, angular lines and sleek curves gave what was more than likely a standard tractor, look to Jon like the thing of a 20th century farmer's dream.
The big blue thing, though a working and towing vehicle, had a cab that sat four comfortably. It had large back tires and much smaller font ones and looked more like a hot rod tank than a tractor. Jon got a closer look at the wheels and realized they didn't make them of rubber like he was expecting. They were a polymer-rubber, didn't need air, and they built the hub into them.
The trailer was the same in its futuristic lines and curves. A long flat bed flanked by homemade wooden sides, and metal railing toppers. It was full of fluffy looking hay and seemed oddly comfortable, despite Jon's memory of hay rides in his youth.
"Why is this hay so soft?" Katie asked from over the side of the wagon, having climbed up inside before or after they attached it to the tractor with no one knowing.
Harl, who had been walking from the front to the back of the trailer, stopped to look up at her. He looked like he was searching his head for the information before he finally said, "well, it's a native grass and it doesn't get hard and brittle when it dries. Gets soft. Cows love it." He then shrugged at her and moved along to get things ready.
Jon climbed up the side of the wagon then and did a flopping somersault to land in the hay beside Katie. She had rolled on to her back and was staring up at the bright blue preafternoon sky, watching fluffy white clouds drift lazily by. They lay there in silence as the others were actively gathering things up for the trip.
"It's almost funny to think about," Katie finally said, breaking their private silence as she put her hands behind her head to get more comfortable.
"What's that?" Jon said as he followed suit, but also crossed one ankle over the other. It felt kind of good to be lazy while the others were working around them. They had little time to do it on the island and there were plenty of free hands on the farm.
"This is a really amazing place with beauty around every corner," she said with a sigh that made it sound sarcastic, before she added, "but there's possibly going to be death under our feet wherever we go."
Jon frowned a little. She was right. This place was both a paradise and possibly a death trap. He had seen nothing like this technicolor jungle and part of him was excited to see more of what this world offered. "We'll just have to... fuck, I don't know," Jon said after a moment as he stretched out, trying to come up with a plan on the fly, "carve out a niche for ourselves, make a living, and live out the rest of our days as time traveling pod oddities."
Katie laughed a little and shook her head as she said, "I mean, that's what we're going to have to do, isn't it? We are people literally out of step with everyone. Everyone here is going to outlive us."
Jon pushed up on to his elbows as he said, "who knows, maybe we can fix that? I mean, tech here is a few hundred years beyond what we're used to."
Katie frowned a little but then nodded in agreement as she said, "who knows? We didn't even ask the farmer how people react to pod people."
She was right, Jon thought. He put up his index finger and said, "one second." He moved towards the side, stopped, and said, "don't go anywhere, okay?" She laughed at him a little as he poked his head over the side and looked for Harl. "Hey Harl!?" He shouted out over the busy yard before spotting Harl poking his head out from behind an open barn door.
"What?" Harl responded with a raised brow, a large sack of something over his shoulder.
"How do people treat pod people around here?" Jon asked as he leaned on the railing, tilting his head at the farmer.
Harl looked away for a moment, thinking about it before shifting the bag on his shoulder. He looked back at Jon and said, "something between a celebrity, hero, and an anomaly." He paused for another moment longer before he said, "anything else?"
Jon shook his head and said, "nah, I'm good. Thank you!" They exchanged nods before Jon slunk back into the soft hay, and Harl went about his business. "Well, that will be interesting," Jon said to Katie as he got comfortable again.
"Direct, huh?" Katie said with a bit of a quirked a brow in a flirty tone that... Jon was chronically oblivious to. An "illness" he suffered from most of his life. If a girl in college hadn't taken the reins and made him fully understand her intentions, he would probably still be a virgin.
Jon nodded his head a little, smiled at her from the side and said, "yeah, happy to help."
Katie raised a brow at him and wondered if he wasn't interested in her. She pushed the thought aside instantly, not needing the validation or approval of a man to feel good about herself.
She would keep trying to flirt with him, but wouldn't take it personally if he didn't notice her back. But, if a handsome modern man or woman caught her eye and took an interest back in her, she would just move on.
"You okay?" Jon asked as he rolled his head slightly to look at her, pulling her out of her train of thought and bringing her back to the moment.
She rolled her head to look at him, smiled warmly and said, "yeah, I'm fine. Just lost in thought."
"Oh, okay," Jon said as he watched her for a moment longer, then went back to looking up at the sky. "Oh, that looks like a bunny," he said, pointing at an amorphous cloud that was rolling by.
She rolled back and looked to where he pointed. It looked like a bunny. Sort of. At a loss for words, she joined him. Quickly pointing to a different cloud, she said, "and there's a fish, right?"
Jon smiled as he said, "yeah, I can see that." He sat up suddenly then, looking around. He swore he heard a clattering of wood off in the distance. The hay wagon and tractor were in the middle of the front yard, facing the gate to the main road. Jon looked to the empty pasture behind them and saw Pinky and Nathan running towards them, looking over their shoulders.
Jon's brow furrowed as Katie sat up to see what he was looking at. "Something's wrong," Jon said as he jumped over the side of the wagon without hesitation. He landed hard on the ground but sprinted towards the pasture with agency. Everyone was noticing, coming to a stop to see what was going on.
Jon hopped over the fence and raced towards Nate and Pinky. He finally saw the looks on their faces. They looked scared. Both out of breath, they came to a stop near Jon and dropped the boxes of stuff they gathered from the hab to a clatter on the ground.
They both doubled over, panting and looking faint, like they wanted to throw up from running so hard. "What? What is it?" Jon asked as he looked between the both of them and then at the tree line that they had come from.
Nate, through panted breath, raised his hand and pointed in the general direction of the jungle. "Saw... one. Followed... us," he said, still trying to catch his breath. They both looked like that had sprinted a great distance to get back to the farm.
Jon took a few steps past them, staring into the jungle to see what he could see. Like normal, it was nothing at first. That all changed in an instant, though. Exploding from the trees came a flurry of legs and arms as a blur of red came charging towards Jon and the others. It jumped over the fence in a mighty leap and with a thunderous landing, came hurtling towards them.
"Oh fuck! There it is!" Pinky shouted, as a surge of adrenalin sent her flying away once more. Nate joined her, taking off running without a second thought. Jon, however, let fear paralyze him.
Rooted to the ground and unable to move, Jon stared at the creature as it lunged towards him. He screamed internally at his legs to run, and he knew he needed to move. His legs had become two blocks of stone and he could not lift them. His heart was pounding in his throat as the creature barreled towards him.
Jon had gleaned some idea of what an Uley was, but seeing it in person was far more terrifying. A giant hybrid ant/human creature, slightly taller than him and could probably rip him in half, was charging at him at full speed.
He threw his arms up in front of his face like a shield, closed his eyes, and grit himself for the impact as it got closer. Jon heard someone shouting for him, but the thunderous charge of the creature drowned everything else out. The sound got closer and then halted.
Jon, refusing to look, felt something smooth and hard slap his arms away from his face. This snapped his eyes open and forced him to look. There it was, in front of him, rearing up on its hind legs, towering over him. Jon felt the color drain from his face and felt like he wanted to pass out. Its mandible clicked together excitedly as the human mouth beneath seemed to snarl at him.
Its forelegs slammed down hard into the ground, making it shudder beneath them. Its hands then moved to the sides of his head with such speed that he was sure it was about to twist it off his neck. That's when it brought its face towards his, mandibles parting as it grit its teeth at him. Worse than a neck breaking twist!? She was going to chew his head off!?
That's when he felt its antennae roam around the top of his head, rustling through his hair. It smelled him. Making sure he was tasty. The creature was certainly going to eat him. This was it. The end of Jon's life. The final chapter of his story. Epitaph; Killed by the ant monster.
That's when it finally leaned in and touched its forehead to his and Jon was suddenly no longer on the farm.
Jon stood in a white void, looking around with more confusion than anything else that had happened in the past week. His head was spinning, and it felt like... he wasn't alone. He turned a few times, seeing nothing. Just endless white nothing.
That's when he heard a harsh but feminine voice echoing from everywhere that had a strange clicking sound behind it, "I don't understand you, human. What is this life you have led?"
Jon looked around again, looked for the source of the voice, but continued to find only empty white space. "Who are you? What is this place? Why did you kidnap me?" Jon asked into the void, hoping the voice could hear him.
There was nothing at first, then something that resembled a... kind of... chuckle? The voice chuckled at him as it said, "silly, pathetic creature. All this knowledge in your head about how to build and repair things, how to plan, how to create, and how to learn and you cannot understand the simplicity of the mindscape?"
This only fueled Jon's confusion, which the voice only seemed to pick up on. "I see now," the voice continued, sounding more high and mighty by the second, "your species is... isolated and alone. They do not share understanding through the link. How sad."
"You're that thing that I saw at the farm," Jon said, looking around, still hoping to figure out a way to escape this emptiness; "you're an Uley, right?"
There was another pause before the creature replied, "yes, that is what your pathetic species has labeled us. We don't have a name for ourselves. We are just... one."
"And what do you want from us, if we're so pathetic," Jon asked, figuring he could learn a thing or two from them since it seemed to know so much about him.
There was a pause, as if debating on whether it should tell him before it said, "your death."
Jon shook his head and said, "no. That's dumb. Why do you want us to die?"
There was another pause, and Jon didn't know if it understood that he had insulted them. "We once ruled the land and under it," the voice finally said, "but the great age of ice drove us into the under. We stayed there for ages, built and survive in near darkness. It was the humans, drilling into our tunnels looking for ore, that awoke us to the planet's revival." There was another pause as Jon took all this in before the voice concluded with, "we will take back what is rightfully ours, human."
Jon's mind raced before he said the first thing that came to it; "Can't we all... just get along?"
There was another long pause. This one felt like it lasted an eternity. Jon looked around again, once more trying to find an exit from this void. The voice almost startled him as it said, "this 'get along' you speak of. I see it in your memories. The bond you share with your family. The friendship you share with others. It is... similar to the feeling I get when I am with members of my clan."
Jon's head suddenly pulsed violently with pain, bringing him to his knees. Images, thoughts, feelings, and everything that was this creature flooded his mind. It was like he was experiencing it for himself firsthand. It terrified him. She even seemed to remember everything that ever happened to her, from her laying to the moment she charged out of the jungle.
Jon felt like he was writhing with pain. It was too much, too fast. He felt like his brain was tearing itself in two. "I thought," came the voice, a little less aggressive, as if not understanding the pain Jon was going through, "that it might only be fair you get a glimpse at the other side."
In a flash, it was over and Jon felt himself falling hard on his back against the ground. He blinked a few times and realized he was staring up at a bright blue sky with fluffy white clouds above. He heard a skittering of footfalls and lifted his head to see the Uley creature fleeing the pasture as Harl and his sons came rushing past with pitchforks in hand.
"What? What happened?" Jon said, looking around, trying to understand what just happened to him.
Rocco came sliding in on his knees through the grass and up alongside his brother. He was looking panicked and concerned as he said, "that... that thing looked like it was going to rip your head off." Cindy was second to come sliding up on his other side, grabbing Jon's hand and looking down at him, just as concerned.
"Then it just sort of," Cindy said, trying to find the right words to describe what she just saw, "touched foreheads with you. A second later, it just dropped you and ran away."
Jon's head still throbbed with pain and he only had a dream-like memory of the white void and everything the creature showed him. He sat up and, even though Rocco and Cindy helped, felt heavier than a sack of rocks. "It... spoke to me," Jon finally said as he processed some of what he had just seen.
Harl was marching up to them, hearing what Jon said, but wanted to be clear that he heard what he did. "It spoke to you?" He asked, crouching down with a serious look on his face to lock eyes with Jon.
Jon nodded a little but then shook his head as he said, "it did more than that. It showed me... its life?" Confusion shrouded his mind. Thinking about it only made his head throb as images and thoughts flashed through his mind for only the briefest of moments. They faded away in an instant, unable to be focused on.
Harl looked up at Bob and Harnold, who now flanked him, with the three exchanging worried glances. Harl sighed a little and said, "I need to take you to someone of authority. I need to take you to see Captain Jamison."
She ran. She ran until she reached the sea. Panting and catching her breath, her mind raced with a million thoughts. Red, as she fancied calling herself, reviewed the human's memories again and again. She took a copy of all of it, absorbed it like he was part of the hive. She was so terrified, but now the hive can know exactly how the humans think. Right? Who cares if they saw... one... insignificant red. Right?
She scanned her hive memories, wondering if anyone else had ever attempted stealing a human's memories before. She came up empty. The hive's feeling on the matter seemed to be very... against connecting to other species. Other species were lesser than them. Would one want to connect its mind to a pig in the mud? She wondered then as she slowly lowered herself to sit on the ground to catch her breath, if she should even share this knowledge.
There would be no hiding it. They would see all, of course. She went over again, more slowly, looking at everything. Jon's family, his friends, their names, his whole life. All those human names for everything. Red. She looked at herself and liked the sound of it.
Red saw Jon's school life, everything he ever learned about anything. All the human history he had ever absorbed or heard about played before her. She learned about how and why they came to this planet, how they had killed theirs. She saw his time had been short here, that he went to sleep and dreamed for centuries, it felt like.
She saw the crash and their attempts to escape the island it stranded them on with their hab. Should have just abandoned it, in her opinion. But there was more than that.
She learned what true individuality meant. Personality, freedom, music, dance, expression, writing, she learned what movies were and what serial television was. It was a weird revelation because she was... she was free of the hive. She looked around, and for the first time, she actually understood what that meant. She could go anywhere, she could go... do... anything! Explore, climb a mountain, meet new people...
Red stopped her train of thought and looked at herself again. She shook her head, trying to clear them. This was dangerous thinking. But now she knew this was the human's power. Their diversity strengthened them. With this mentality of innovation, maybe the Uley could evolve in a way that it had never thought possible.
There was a rustling behind her and there they were. The white from last night. She slowly rose and crept toward them. They stood, stronger and more opposing than she remembered. She was wondering how it was going to react to everything she had gained from the humans.
In an instant it charged and so did she, finding her energy. They clashed without impact once more, then they began their little meeting dance yet again. Its forehead touched hers when, suddenly, the white reeled away, shaking its head fervently. It then stopped and there was a pause as it, too, slumped to the ground in thought.
This was not what she was expecting. Red watched as the white looked at his hands, examined himself as if for the first time. It took a short time before it rose and looked hard at Red. It then tilted its head for a moment.
"Red?" its mouth and mandibles clicked out the words, sounding harsh and forced.
"What's wrong with Red? I'm red," Red retorted back with clicking mandibles and mouth, almost not even realizing how uncomfortable and unusual this was.
Uley doesn't talk with mouths. They talk with their minds. They looked hard at one another, realizing how dangerous this was, how dangerous they were.
"If we go to the hive," the white said after a moment of thought, "what will happen? Will they become one giant individual? Or will it destroy the hive?"
Red slumped a little, then moved to lower herself to the ground next to it, not knowing. She took a deep breath and said, "perhaps we should at least share with the other Outsiders?"
The white shrugged a little, unsure. "This... is weird," the white said as he looked around, trying to understand this new point of view that was flowing through his head. "Humans are really dangerous," the white finally said as he rose, "and we need to learn like they learn. To build like they build. We will... talk... to the hive. Make them understand what we have learned. We will let the hive decide on what to do with it."
Red slumped a little more as she said, "that would work if the hive could talk like us. I do not know a way to filter in just the human's language, White."
"I do," White said, standing a little more proudly than he was before, a little more... smugly, "and do not call me that. Call me Bruce."
Red did not like that feeling, the whites sense of superiority, or that name. "What? Why Bruce?" She asked, getting to her feet and stretching out her limbs for the long walk to the hive entrance, "and how do you know but I don't?"
"I guess we had a little individuality before," Bruce said as they walked along the ocean line, "because a white taught himself and taught the others. We convinced ourselves it was important."
"You idiot, it is!" Red said as she stopped, slapped Bruce's arm with an annoyed clicking tone.
Bruce stopped and turned to look at her, rubbing his arm as he said, "I mean, I... I can teach you. You just can't tell the other whites I taught you."
"Fine, I won't," Red said with a rolling of her insectlike eyes, something she was still getting used to doing on instinct, it seemed. They got closer to transferring knowledge before she stopped and said, "wait, you didn't tell me; why Bruce?"
Bruce tilted his head and said, "search Jon's memory for Bruce Wayne."
It only took a millisecond before she said with dawning understanding, "Oh, okay. You're a dumb male, got it."
"What? How is that dumb?" Bruce said defensively before he leaned in and gave her just the information she needed to reserve her memories. They then turned as they walked their way back towards the hive, learning the depths of their individuality and personal tastes.
