“I just don’t understand it, Arthur,” Olivia said as she went through her plate of mashed potatoes and bits of fake meat. The Parasite didn’t understand why anybody would waste such a large amount of money on a dish so lacking in nutrition. But, as much as it loathed trying to reason with a person so lacking in logic, one of its vessels was distant friends with the woman before it. That meant that when the Main Host was sent to do other activities during lunch, the woman would see an opportunity to gather before the Arthur vessel. “We give the courses on how to avoid criminal activists, we send out pamphlets about the dangers of engaging with those criminals, yet all of them can’t help but go right back to where they came from. Gods, it’s like they don’t even care about the farm.”

The Parasite was rather passive in the conversation, letting the old man’s mind take over in the conversation. It already knew the flaws, had already used the knowledge of criminal activity at the farm for its gain and had more often than not noted just how much was being lost on said activity. Missing items in the machines, people coming to work in unprofessional states of being, and more than a few supplies being stolen for illegal trade were just the tip of the iceberg.

“You know how they can be, Olivia. They’re ruthless when they don’t get what they want,” Arthur replied with some level of sympathy. The Parasite had learned that the vessel had become rather indifferent to the spectacles at the farm, years of working there making the person numb. The Hivemind was unsure of how such a mindset had any reason to be formed. Without action, it would always be terrible. Humans were so flawed sometimes. “You know that people disappear when they try to make sure the criminal activity stops entirely. We lost Fred three months ago when he tried to get the police to investigate it.”

There was that fact as well. While the illegal activity had mostly been having a passively negative effect on productivity, the Hivemind had been starting to note that some faces weren’t seen anymore. Some of the more brutish characters, those that had shown off signs of withdrawal, had suddenly disappeared. The Parasite wasn’t able to directly ask, though it could find through digital media that people were being either kidnapped or killed. The workers of the farm weren’t safe anymore. They weren’t being drugged but taken out of a productive environment. Whatever happened to them after that fact didn’t matter, the fact being that the Hivemind was seeing its optimal ground destroyed over time. As was clear, it didn’t want to happen, the idea of being forced into another untested environment having the chance of destroying its potential growth. The lack of actual police and the easy methods to subvert the cameras had made it possible to grow. If it all changed, weeks would be wasted on trying to make it all work.

“I know what can happen if it gets out,” Olivia assured the old man before making a grin form on her face. “But… I have perhaps collected myself a list. It isn’t one I’ll spread out in the public just yet, but I think I have located every major dealer on this farm. Almost all of them, at least. There are a few I am not too sure about and a few who wear masks when selling but I think I have nearly all of them. They’re getting out of control, you know. With was has happened in the past, I… ”

Now that was curious.

“What happened before?” Arthur asked, the old man sounding rather curious. The Hivemind was too.

“Nothing that I can talk about without you signing an NDA and even then I don’t know much,” Olivia finally answered, though there was little that the Hivemind could use it for. Having read through the farm’s history previously, it had found nothing amiss. Sure, it had been refurbished just twenty years before, due to the change in ownership, but nothing had been written down other than that. Was there something that wasn’t shown in plain sight?

The Parasite took the chance to take over Arthur’s mind once more, asking for the paper. Glancing through and committing every name into its mind, the Hivemind noted how many faces it could already attach. Many of them were seen daily yet the Parasite had never been offered such things. Even more interesting… The ones at the top were friends with Oak, the Biomancer. The Parasite had only had limited interactions with them in the recent month, the people mainly drinking heavy amounts at the Biomancer’s area.

With the need to stop the trade from having such a large impact on the farm itself, the Parasite started to have a few ideas.

“I talked with Markus about this a few days ago,” Olivia said as the Parasite continued to glance through the names, making sure it had each of them right. “He said that the amount of crops being smuggled away is reaching a critical point. If it continues to be stolen in the next two quarters, the farm might stop being worth the hassle. The owners are discussing if they should sell the property and let another company tear down this place to build a full-on storage plaza. It’s despicable, you know? Twenty-five years of work down the drain just so a few criminals can make quick money.”

The Parasite liked to think that was the moment in its current short life where it had been the most shocked. Its foundational thoughts about the farm still being stable overall were shattered, the truth revealed to be worse than it had ever imagined. Plans had been made to slowly weed away the drug trade over a few months but it seemed something more desperately needed to be had. It would be impossible to get rid of them all at once yet the Hivemind did have a few ideas that would make it possible to get rid of the most important people. If the structure fell through, it would destabilise the entire system and make sure they couldn’t steal too much in the short term. Or maybe they would try and get caught, fixing the problem more legally.

It could only wait so long until action needed to be made. Two quarters? It would have the cleansing done before the first was over. For now, it needed to make sure it could take off all the stragglers when the time came. Those cameras were all over the place… the Parasite knew that it was the upper management in control of them. Nearly every manager around had access to them, meaning that the Hivemind needed to control every single one before it could easily go around exterminating any wanted humans. It was a rather grandiose task but certainly, one that would become doable the moment Markus had been fully turned into the vessel that the Parasite knew it would become very soon. With the egg having gotten plenty of time to hatch, the first two stages had already been completed. At every moment, the Hivemind could still feel the new vessel, though it couldn’t control it fully.

“I think you should take it easy with this information,” the Parasite said through Arthur. “Just having it at all could prove deadly. Hide it when you’re not putting in any new information and make sure not to tell anybody of it. Even telling me was a mistake.”

“What do you think I’m doing with this?” Olivia questioned, putting the pages back into her small bag. “It took a lot of thinking before I even took it out of my room. It’s in my safe every second of the day when I’m not using it. It would take a lot of time before anybody could break in there without me knowing.”

The Hivemind was about to use Arthur’s body to answer back when it noticed a strange irregularity over at its Main Host. Tom had dropped his phone, having used it while sitting in his room to delve into digital research. Humans did do such a thing rather often but it was the first time the Parasite had been in control while it had happened. It was rather strange but not something it would have worried about normally.

Then the Biomancer fell onto the ground as their feet refused to move right, a lack of proper coordination showing itself. That was… weird. The Parasite withdrew from control Arthur to focus more on the other two vessels, noticing the increasingly unrefined actions being done. The orders to move right weren’t disobeyed but they were performed improperly. Even when directly controlling the bodies, they didn’t move as they should, some kind of weird pressure slowly forcing itself upon the Hivemind. It wasn’t directly the pain but something else entirely. The Hivemind was being overloaded.

WARNING

VESSEL CAPACITY REACHED. CEASE ALL ATTEMPTS TO INCREASE THE CURRENT NUMBER OF VESSELS

That wasn’t good at all. Two weeks had passed since Markus had been initially infected with the egg, marking the time where the final stage was to be completed. It wasn’t fully done just yet but the connection had been forming without issue. It seemed that was the problem, the increasingly stable connection making the Hivemind’s capacity overreach.

“Are you alright, Arthur? You’re sweating,” Olivia pointed out, reaching for the old man’s forehead. It was wet and hot. “You need to lie down in your room. I think the rain might’ve gotten to you.”

“I believe you might be right,” The Parasite answered through the old man as it rose from the lunch table. An extra safety net for the new connection settled into place, the overloading of the strained mind, nearly letting the Arthur vessel collapse face-first into the ground. The Parasite grew desperate. This couldn’t go on.

It cut the connection to the Markus vessel before it was fully formed. It understood that doing such a thing risked losing the vessel entirely but the consequences of not doing it were seeming direr than ever. And, like a mere blink, the Parasite was able to control the current three vessels without a single issue, its mind able to be spread out without issue.

“If you need me to, I could follow you back to your room,” Olivia offered, putting away her lunch. The Parasite made the old man reject the idea. The Hivemind had other things it needed to make the vessel do. The Tom vessel was on the other side of the farm while the Biomancer was occupied with staying in its regular rest area. The Arthur vessel was the only one with free mobility without too many questions being asked.

And with the short distance to Markus’ office, it was only natural for the Parasite to have a look around. A few tidbits of shouting were heard down the hallways, a few people running by quickly. The Hivemind couldn’t easily question it, moving with the speed expected of old men. Yet… by the time that it came close enough to see, it could only see turned tables and chairs. People were inside the manager’s office, shouting and doing all sorts of things. The Parasite wanted to investigate further yet the alarms turned off.

“All personnel. Please vacate the area,” a calm voice called through the speakers, repeating itself on an endless loop. Grumbling could be heard from the lunch area as the workers followed the orders. The Parasite considered entering the office to see what was actually going on but decided to follow the crowd instead. Something had gone wrong already. There was no need to make it worse.