Meghan woke to her phone ringing next to her on the bedside table. She floundered, not being a morning person, and it only took three actual attempts before she grabbed it and answered.

“Whuh?” She very coherently asked.

Jones’ voice came through the receiver. “Have you logged in at all this past week?” That was a strange way to begin a conversation. No, she hadn’t, she was still upset about what had happened. She read Logan’s message, but didn’t know what to make of it. He had a plan, but they weren’t included, so why even bother trying to fight their own way out of the caves until the rebellion was over?

“Your silence is very informative, Megs, but I assume you meant to say ‘no, my dear friend, Jones, I haven’t, why do you ask?’ to which I would tell you to look up news about what’s happening in the game on Dust Hive right now.” He spoke quickly, and was his usual sarcastic self. Well, usual when they weren’t around Logan. Things were weird around him, since he just showed up one day and everything changed for them all.

“Gimme sec.” That’s all he was getting as an answer. She got up and went to her computer, opening a browser to look up the news from the official Prestige Entertainment sources. She wasn’t ready for what she saw.

—

“As you can see, Dust Haven city has been having a few bug related issues” The newscaster reported, using footage that players had captured throughout the last few hours. The entire outer city had been covered in some organic film, pulsing and squirming. The people in the city were sending groups out to figure out what was going on, but once they walked far enough away from the doors they were attacked by a player wearing devourer gear, leading two of the warrior caste and flanked by two small flying bugs, tearing everyone apart within seconds before leaping away.

The newscast pulled up a still shot of the player, showing the six glowing yellow eyes, single mandible sticking out near the mouth, and the blade in the right hand. “This player has somehow used the devourer insectoids to fight the city, and nobody is sure how. Keep an eye out, though, as he seems to be able to directly lead them into combat.” The newsfeed showed a different angle, one above the corrupted city showing another group of players trying to use search and destroy tactics, moving as a team and covering all angles of attack that they could.

They didn’t expect the warriors to burst from the ground in the middle of them, with the player dropping down and hacking them to bits while they were completely destabilized. “Make sure you avoid going anywhere on Dust Hive if you’re not in a vehicle. Preferably one that flies, since they look like they’re very adept at digging.” The feed changed to show the newscaster in front of a map of the greater city area, almost all of which was covered in purple. “Avoid going into the purple area, it’s what we’re calling the corrupted zone. Thar be bugs, if ye be brave.” He pointed to a few spots on the map, mostly on the South side of the city. “These areas have more sightings of the player, so leaders in the Dust Haven Free States militia have started trying to put together a series of teams that will fly around and try to pinpoint where this player is basing these attacks from.”

“Devourers are no joke in the Far Reaches of Space, players, and we’ve decided to issue a warning to all new or low-level players; avoid Dust Hive for now, it’s not worth it.”

—

“Jones… that was Logan.” It wasn’t a question, and she didn’t believe what she saw, even though she just watched it.

“Yeah, so, maybe things are going to finally work out for us, and we’ll be able to play the game like it was meant to be played!” He sounded excited, as if this was great news.

“Jones, no, our friend is out there fighting on his own. Our fight. The rebellion isn’t even there, it’s just him and the devourers. Oh god, how did he get the devourers to work with him?” She realized the detail that nagged at her. He was an engineer wearing the devourers skin as armor, why were they working with him?

“Wait a minute, Pat’s trying to call me. Let me bring her in so we can all talk about this.” Jones pressed a few buttons and Pat joined in, immediately jumping at the chance to talk.

“JONES, we have to get back in there and help him! We brought him into this, and we should help him finish it. Bring down the walls, let Logan’s bugs roam free! Chaos!” She started cackling to herself, calming down after a moment. “Oh, you’re in the call, too, Megs. Good morning. I take it you two were talking about Logan and his hidden Devourer class that it looks like he accepted. I would also wager a lot, and I mean A LOT of money to say that it lets him do exactly what we’re seeing on the news.”

Meghan didn’t know how to respond to that. Pat knew about what he was able to do? Hidden class? “Pat, how do you know about any of that? He didn’t tell me, and I’m pretty sure he also didn’t tell Jones.”

Pat sounded embarrassed when she answered. “Oh, y’know. We fought the queen together, I died, he said he got justice for me as he was crying. Told me he found an item that would change him into a Devourer and then stuff went down. We haven’t been back, so he might have felt trapped, and did his best to cause chaos.”

—

Chaos was his choice, but Pat couldn’t have truly known that. It was what she would have chosen, which is why Logan made that choice. He was on top of his central hive, a modest sixty warriors milling around inside, being tended to by about a hundred workers. The entire building had been restructured on the inside, to keep the queen happy, and to allow easier vertical movement for the insectoids. He didn’t enjoy spending time inside, but he wanted to be near them when he wasn’t working on causing terror.

Logan stood and looked over the city around him, seeing the layers of organic material covering much of what stretched out into the distance. He didn’t fully understand it, but the queen said it was vital for them to claim the city when they breached the inner walls. Something about a foundation material, but he wasn’t listening too closely. As he looked around, he caught a bit of movement out of the corner of his eye, seeing the door to the stairs open.

“Archibald? It’s been a while, I wasn’t expecting to see you in here.” Logan greeted the program warmly, allowing his helmet to split and pull away, uncovering his head for the first time in days. He offered a hand to shake, which Archibald took and shook once before stepping back.

“Yes, sir, system admin has shown interest in what you’re attempting to accomplish, but since you have not left the game in six or so real days, I haven’t had the chance to see you. I have been allowed to contact you in the world as long as it is for admin business, which this is.” He gave his very creepy, too wide smile before continuing. “You see, while you have worked very hard to get here, you don’t understand the fundamentals to what the Devourers as a species do. In short, they are genetic manipulators, capable of using biological materials to take in traits that are beneficial while using spare genetic code to push out any undesirable traits.”

Archibald looked over at the mass of pulsing purple covering the city below. “This is what you will eventually use to build up your new hive. In the building you have a hive as a unit, but when you take the city, the whole planet will be yours to conquer. You’ll need to make something grand enough to hold all of your children then, and this is the first step. The second step is to find what you want your children to do, and take that from the creatures that can already do it.”

Motioning in the air, Archibald pulled up an image of a human. “Take the standard human, for example. They walk on two legs, which isn’t useful to your brood. What they do have that’s useful, though, are manipulators.” The image lifted its arms and wiggled its fingers at Logan. “You see, your queen already knows how to use them, but she shouldn’t be fighting. Give your warriors the ability to use tools and then what? Even more deadly warriors. Teach them to use guns, and you’ll have a very different fight in front of you.”

The ideas spun in Logan’s mind as he turned and sat on the edge of the building again. He could create specialized forces, like how the devourers in the caves were different; worker, warrior, and defender. Make diggers to break into the city and then lead a stream of gun wielding warriors behind a line of shield bearing defenders? He would have to ask the queen how to do that, but it was a wonderful idea.

As Logan turned around to thank Archibald, he was alone on the rooftop. Nothing but the gentle sound of the wind to keep him company, the radio having stopped working hours ago. This wasn’t his forte, war, so he did something he hadn’t done in a while; he opened a browser and started to do a bit of research into combat organization. Logan didn’t want to conquer like the voice in his mind told him to when he first saw the egg, but he did want to make sure that the other players were able to get past this point.

—

Being stuck was frustrating no matter what it was in. A project at work that you couldn’t get off your checklist. A relationship that you didn’t know if you needed to work on or just finally call it quits and let go. A hobby that you felt like you couldn’t get better at, but enjoyed doing so much that you couldn’t tell if you refused to stop because of the sunken cost fallacy. Logan thought to his friends, stuck in that cave. Stuck behind the rules that Mason had laid down for them.

This was for them. All of them. The players who were trying to be rebels just to enjoy their time in space. The players who were forced to be soldiers, to appease the ego of someone else who wanted to stay at the top of some rank list. All of the players who had yet to try, because reviews of the game complained that the Free States were ruining the fun for everyone.

Logan had a hard time making sense of the systems the queen was telling him about, but he was starting to understand the basics. While he had no dreams of ruling over the stars, he wanted to ensure that he could help the others. Helping them would help him, ultimately, so while he had good intentions, he was also being selfish, and he recognized that.

He didn’t care, though. Selfishness was inherent to the experience of life.

The warriors didn’t have a full hand like the queen did, but three claws was more than enough to manipulate guns and other tools. Once he knew what he needed, he took his personal warriors from his Summon Warriors ability and was able to bring back the pieces necessary to begin creating a new caste in his hierarchy.

Biomass was easy enough of a resource to understand; kill something that was made of organic matter and the remnants were biomass. It meant that he had to keep finding and killing people, especially if he was looking for specific traits to give, like fingers, but Logan did his best to target players, not the NPCs. He hadn’t been able to breach the walls yet, but that was mostly due to him trying to keep himself safe, rather than an inability.

Keeping to the roads leading out of the city, Logan tried to bait the players into the abandoned alleys and underground structures, where they had less chance to escape from his twin warriors. The army he had built was mostly just the basic units comprised of the biomass he collected from when the militia attacked him, so he hadn’t given much thought to how to improve the insectoids until now. His queen was helpful, and would take care of most of the work to integrate the designs he wanted into his fledgling army; his brood, as the queen and Archibald called it.

Two hours passed, and Logan had brought the queen the mass he was able to get his hands on. She started to pull it apart, dropping the pieces into one of the many pools around the room that she had designated as the spawning chamber. After stirring and prodding the mixture for around twenty minutes, she stepped back and gestured with her right hand, lifting it. A holographic image of the basic warrior template floated out of the pool, floating about a foot above the bubbling liquid.

“My Hivelord, you said you wish to incorporate the manipulators onto forward limbs, instead of the pincer claws, correct?” She asked, turning to face Logan. He sat nearby, getting bored until now.

“Yes. We want them to have hands that are dexterous enough to be able to use the weapons our enemies use.” Confirming what she asked, he nodded. She started to use her sharp and nimble claws to manipulate the image, molding it like clay. Only a minute or so passed, while he watched the process, before she stepped back again. The tiny warrior now had hands like hers, but with two fingers and a thumb. They didn’t seem too durable, but sometimes you had to sacrifice to get what you needed. “Do we need to make these new, or can we incorporate the design into our existing warriors?”

The queen tilted her head at the question. “We can force a new genetic line, or we can alter the current one we have. It will take a bit more biomass to restructure the current warriors into the new configuration, but it will cost less than having to create a new army from scratch. Would you like me to push this design change to the worker caste as well?” She gestured to another pool, and a little holographic worker rose out of the goop.

The idea was really tempting, and while Logan was sure he would need tool using workers at some point, he just needed deadly warriors at the moment. Defenders could come later, since he didn’t want to wait too long and give the militia a chance to adapt to his presence out here in the city. There were more Free States agents roaming around the sector, and he wouldn’t be surprised if they were on their way to give support against him, using their upgraded ships to level the entire outer city.

“Go ahead and push the change to the warriors only, please. The workers will be used later, but we won’t need them for the assault that’s coming.” The queen bowed, and the worker image settled back into its pool. She used her claw tips to force the changed image of the warrior back into the pool, and it resisted, but only gently. Every devourer warrior Logan could see buried themselves into the organic matter that covered everything, forming a small cocoon underneath.

“Your brood will finish alterations in roughly ninety minutes, my Hivelord.” The queen said, while bowing. He felt a little weird about the reverence she showed, but knew that he couldn’t do anything to change it for now.

“Thank you, queen. I’m going to go to the roof to wait. Let me know if anything important happens down here.” Logan said as he made his way back up the stairs, looking forward to seeing the city again, if only to imagine how things would be when this was all over.