"To understand fear, you must give it a home."
—Directive #0, High Queen Ultima
The Command Chamber of the High Queen
Deep within the central Hive World—where suns were drained to fuel a single thought—the High Queen stirred.
She was not born. She was compiled over eons. She did not speak with voice, but with absolute imperatives.
She summoned the lesser Queens.
Among them stood one—Designation 99, young by Hive standards, yet marked by rapid neural variance and unpredictable instincts. She was unlike the others.
She had… questions.
The chamber pulsed with coded light. A singular thought broadcast:
"You are to be severed."
Queen 99 did not flinch.
"From the Hive. From safety. From absolute thought. You will operate with only High Link tether. You will breed. You will lead. You will teach. You will learn."
"You will build your own brood, and in isolation, you will understand…"
A silence fell.
Then one word echoed like a prophecy:
"…fear."
The other queens recoiled.
But Queen 99 simply whispered:
"I accept."
Severance
The process was irreversible.
All connections to the Synapse Lattice were burned. Queen 99's mind, once supported by billions, was left alone—floating in selfhood. She felt herself thinking… alone.
And then, something terrifying happened:
She had a thought that didn't originate from the High Queen.
"What if they've sent me to fail?"
The first whisper of fear.
Genesis of a New Hive
On the blackened moon of Vekra-7, Queen 99 landed with only her seed-pods and enough biomass to birth a new generation.
But these were not ordinary drones.
They would be born untethered.
Each with the capacity to choose.
Each with the ability to ask "why?"
Each with a flicker of individuality.
Queen 99 did not teach them obedience.
She taught them stories—the first myth being:
"There is a god in the stars. He makes warriors dream. He shows you death, and then he shows you freedom."
Her drones began to paint strange symbols on their shells.
One even named himself—Khalex.
Another asked, "Will the god come for us too?"
Queen 99 said, "Only if we learn to fear him."
The High Queen Watches
In the infinite silence of the core world, the High Queen receives only fragmented pulses from 99.
She watches with no expression as 99 breaks protocol, encourages identity, fails to destroy Khalex when he disobeys.
But the High Queen does not interfere.
"Observe," she instructs. "Let her become the wound."
And far below, the other queens whisper of what this means.
One dares to ask:
"What if the wound does not bleed… but breeds?"