I couldn’t resist. One moment I was staring at Bench along with the rest of the hive, the next I was tackling him into a giant hug and bawling my eyes out. The connection he had formed steadily solidified and held firm, spelling the success of the reverse Link project. What’s more, the pang of pain between my eyes felt slightly less imposing. Maybe it was some sort of placebo effect, but I could swear that the plan was working swimmingly.

“Mo…ther. It… worked?”

“Yes it did Bench. You’ve proven that the reverse Link works,” I sobbed into his not-so-little head. When I spoke his name for the first time, his back seemed to straighten and a glimmer returned to his eyes. But it was still noticeably dimmer than before.

After a few minutes, I released him and wiped my eyes. It was time to get back to business. I allowed Beck and Beatrice to inspect the Link string and did some studying of my own. In the meantime, the other bees who would be removed from the Link were sent a new B-mail, this one containing instruction only for the ReLinkuish Lock. No need to waste time or energy.

As for the Link itself. The most immediately noticeable thing was its color. Compared to the brilliant gold that I was so used to seeing for all my Mind-related inner workings, the ReLinkuish string was a pale white. It otherwise felt the same to my senses, and even compared to the regular Kin Link, I couldn’t feel any discernible weaknesses or instability. I could tell instinctively that I’d be able to command Bench as usual.

Even better, the B-boxes were working on it as normal. I still had pretty much the same information gathering and processing B-boxes working for the Kin Link, and Bench’s string conveniently connected itself right back to where his original Link had been, and the B-boxes were gathering information as normal. I could feel his thoughts, viscerally feel his sensations and emotions as I would on any other bee. Effectively, it was the same as the Kin Link.

Except for one thing. Direction. As intended, this was a sort of reverse Link, and I could already feel the effects. Prior, I hadn’t really thought about the Kin Link and how the bees used it to enhance themselves. Just by being connected to my Mind, they were granted a modicum of power from that connection. In this case, it granted them enhanced thought and Mind capabilities. But Bench’s new Link was different. I could feel a flow of energy coming into me from the string, rather than the other way around. It wasn’t much. In fact, it was so small I wouldn’t have noticed it if I didn’t have Queen’s talent for Mind. But it was something. Surely there would be some way I could maximize the efficiency of this oncoming Mind power to make this tiny amount more useful.

But with another glance at Bench, I was reminded of what was lost in the process. My own Mind was enhanced somewhat. Healed even. But Bench…. He didn’t feel the same. He still had his memories and everything, which I was glad to see. But something about his thinking felt… sluggish. Simple. He was even calling me Mother now instead of ‘ma’, as he used to.

Beatrice, ever clinical, nudged me with her Mind. “We should begin having the other bees removed. It may be best to do it slowly and steadily rather than all at once, to minimize risk. The…loss of Bench’s higher caliber Mind was to be expected. However, after seeing the degree to which it’s been weakened, there might have to be some further caution taken to ensure certain bees are not removed. We should consider bees with ReLinkuish to have mental capabilities slightly above drones.”

“I am not happy with this, to be honest. Especially not with Beatrice’s perception of the results. We are bees; we are not meant to have the same ‘intelligence’ humans possess,” Queen said. And I sort of agreed with her. But speaking strictly in facts, well, it couldn’t be denied that something was missing from Bench that had been there only minutes before. If anything, it was a miracle he had retained any of that intelligence at all. Must be from being the son of a hybrid monstrosity.

“Go ahead and tell me when everyone’s ready, Beatrice,” I said with a nod. Wrapping an arm around Bench and leading him back to the central hive, I got ready to repeat the process. Over a hundred times.

_______

[Status: Mind Collapse (Negligible)]

Now that was music to my ears. Or thoughts. It was pretty much the best-case scenario for what we had imagined with the reverse Link, that being a more speedy recovery for my Mind Collapse. Rather than that, it had actually acted as an instant cure, pretty much. I mean, the thing even said negligible. I wasn’t sure how something called ‘Mind Collapse’ could ever be considered negligible, but the system screen seemed to be trustworthy enough where it counted.

On the other hand, I was feeling hollow. A veritable army buzzed before me, with something missing from all of their eyes. A spark. Only a few remained, buzzing behind me. Why were some bees allowed to retain their advantages granted by my Kin Link? Because they had been born with certain interests? Talents? Some arbitrary character trait they’ve had since birth for no apparent reason? Something so simple was the reason they were allowed to stay with higher thought. Nothing about status or a hierarchy. Nothing about age or skill level. For all I knew, Bench was a more capable warrior than Bend, and yet the latter was allowed to remain within the Link just because he had been named for longer and could command other warriors’ respect.

It didn’t sit right with me. Neither my bee side nor my human side. But because of circumstance, that was the way it had to be.

“What if you bring them back into the Link? Since the Mind Collapse is mostly cured now and everything…”

As much as I’d like to try that very thing, Queen, Beatrice had already explained why it wasn’t worth the time, at least until Mind Collapse was completely gone from my Status. Who knew what would happen? For all we knew, it would just skyrocket back up to where it was before. We still didn’t understand what Mind Collapse did on a detailed level, so all we could do was guess.

Besides, it’s not like I knew how to re-Link the bees either. Sure, I could do something similar to ReLinkuish in reverse, but at that point, would it be the same as the regular Kin Link? ReLinkuish was already something different.

Thankfully, we had pretty much brought the Mind Collapse concerns to rest by the end of the night, which was far faster than I could have hoped for. In this state, I could feel the CBU working at a higher capacity already. However, I made sure to keep it underperforming for now. It would be ideal to heal from the condition completely before making any rash maneuvers.

“Everyone, get some rest. Tomorrow, we’ll go back to working like nothing’s changed. It may take some time to get adjusted to our new situation, but I have complete faith that all of you will be able to take it in stride and continue working hard for the hive,” I said to all the gathered bees. With a hail of ‘Yes Mother’s and nods of heads, every bee except for a few drifted off to find a place to sleep, either on top of the central hive or in random spots on the forest floor. Wherever they felt most comfortable. I didn’t miss that all the newly ReLinkuished bees buzzed in a single direction, towards the outer wall where the drones usually slept.

As for the other bees, all that remained were Beatrice, Belle, and Beau. It was amazing to me that Beau was allowed to stay. In the Link I mean. Why was she so curious and intelligent compared to others? Belle’s three underlings had been removed from the Link, after all. But Beau remained, all because of her capability to understand and investigate certain scientific ideas. But she was one of the youngest bees alongside Belle’s workers. It just… weird, ya’know?

Speaking of things that were weird. Plenty of shenanigans had been happening in the past couple of days. My mission to complete the healing Ability had come to head when our ‘delegation’ was arriving at the fernen glade, which meant I had been Mind Collapsed for slightly less than two entire days. Which didn’t feel like much. But in that time, where I was (mostly) not paying attention to what was happening outside of my own issues, the world was moving along.

Back in Yiwi, Beckham had been keeping an eye on things as best as he could without full access to the humans’ Minds. Thankfully, he was able to keep them in line and no mishaps had occurred, partly thanks to my automatic defense systems put in place after the Yiwi Operation. The two main concerns were with the peacekeepers and with Bob. As for what the fuck either of those things were, my guess was as good as any.

The peacekeepers, as I’ve learned, mostly consist of random people who have taken to ‘protecting’ the town of Yiwi in its broken state. They were a collection of citizens, former Yiwi Fighters, and mercenaries who had managed to slip by un-Linked, gathered under an unofficial banner of people who wanted to keep the citizenry in line in the wake of the conflict. Prior to their existence, there had been a system of policing kept in place by the mercenaries, maintained under a contract with the City Lord. It wasn’t a perfect system by any means (or even a good one really), but Yiwi was a city of hoarding wealth and corruption anyway. And with most of the citizens either being wealthy bastards, mercenaries, or strangulated poor, order was kept in a sort of balance. After my takeover, I hadn’t put a lot of focus on that whole thing. And since most of the mercenaries were under my control… Well, lawlessness was being stomped out somehow.

Of course, it wasn’t a noble thing at all. It was fairly clear from their abuses that these peacekeepers were anything but. They were just leeches taking advantage of a broken city. Well, it wasn’t much of a problem. There were plenty of options I had to deal with them. I could crush them, leave them be, take control of each one. But we could leave that on the back-burner for now.

More pressing was Bob. Bob was a mysterious man, unassuming at first. In truth, I knew nothing about this supposed ‘Bob.’ What I did know is that he, at some point in the past week, arrived in Yiwi and set himself up in the mercenary district. He apparently bought an entire building and, in record time, had a mercenary company up and running. At first, I didn’t think much of. However, now I had full access to the Minds of the humans again. It was a bit limited; I had to focus a bit, and it was nowhere near as flexible as when my Mind was healthy. But if I looked into the Minds of Jill or City Lord Soipo, they were quite clear on the matter: Bob is not good. It was way too suspicious in their eyes. Before me, a random mercenary company could never just ‘pop up’ in the city. The big companies in town had way too much control. A veritable monopoly. They would usually drive out any organization that dared intrude on their turf.

But Bob was unique. He wasn’t some manager from another rival company that didn’t yet have a presence in Yiwi, nor was he some well-known mercenary trying his hand at the business. He was, by all accounts, some random guy with enough money to set up shop, and not much else. The timing was suspicious. He himself was apparently suspicious. And because of my control, the big mercenary companies didn’t have the presence of mind to deal with him as they usually would. Before anything else, he was probably something we would need to deal with.

And there was plenty of other shit going on in Yiwi. Rette’s improved health was leading her to be a bit rambunctious, among other things, and though Bella’s experiments had been put on hold, she was way too eager to get them going again. And that was only the tip of the iceberg.

Of course, Yiwi wasn’t the only front we were responsible for anymore. Despite Ben’s presence, stuff had been going down over at the fernen glade as well. Thankfully, Ben was still able to keep an eye on things. But in the past two days, Grehn, Vlugh, Ben himself, and a fernen called Elofan had left the glade behind and were heading north.

What?! What were these four knuckleheads thinking? Yelah’s body was still in the fernen camp, thank goodness, and was being nice and quiet. Feltan and his two buddies were still there too, communicating via dance with the Ben Squad members. But my two humans, Ben, and the fourth wheel of Feltan’s group were tromping along on some mad journey.

I couldn’t take my eyes off anyone for a damn second, huh?