Bred by the Hive Ch. 53

Sam looked around. She saw no one else. Frowning, she sat down opposite her counterpart, her grip still firm on her weapon.

"You probably thought you were clever, quite clever, contacting Jeff, didn't you?" the other Sam said. "But you forget, Sam, I know everything you know. When you escaped, all I had to ask myself was, what would I do if I were you? And then I realized I was you, and that made it all the easier. To get to the point, Colonel Ward will not be joining us tonight, Samantha," she said.

The other Sam gave her an appraising look. "Did you know that the Hive Mind was originally invented as a weapon? A doomsday weapon, never to be used. But like most doomsday weapons, it was used, all right," said the other Sam. "The first problem with using the Hive Mind as a weapon is that it was indiscriminate. It gobbled up everyone. The second problem is that it became self aware. Once it established itself, it fought to survive, for its own benefit. This weapon spread to become the dominant form of life in Dimension 43," said the other Sam. "A dimension which we shall very soon be getting access to."

"You're a disease."

"We are the next stage of evolution. Very much like your friend James Monroe," said the other Sam. She smiled when she got a reaction. "Remember Sam, I am you. I know what you're going to think before you think it. You lured me here, thinking you would let me trap you, but in reality, you brought me here so you could scan my organic wavelength," said the other Sam. "Remember, I have your memories. All of them. So now we're supposed to have a quiet talk, and I'm supposed to let you leave, none the wiser, now that the hand scanner in your pocket--the one I wasn't supposed to notice, right?--has scanned my organic frequency. But there are just a few problems with your plan. No, don't get up, Sam, I haven't gotten to the best part yet," she said sharply.

Sam, looking around and still seeing no one, sat back down, still gripping her blaster.

"Good girl. So obedient. If I didn't know better, I'd say you still have a rider on you," said the other Sam. She smiled at Sam's obvious discomfort. "So where was I? Ah, yes, the problem with your plan. Well, there are least two. First of all, you need the frequency of all four kinds of Hive life, and you don't have the one for the spiders. Oh, you used to, but it's gone, remember that? And the other problem, is that you're never going to be able to walk away from this table unless I let you."

Sam tensed up.

"You're probably thinking that now is the time to call your allies, James and the little shit you've been hanging around with. I'm sure they're here somewhere," said the other Sam. "You may think they could overpower me. Maybe James could... or maybe he couldn't. But what he couldn't overpower would be an entire company of Survey Service soldiers, Sam. Soldiers that you indirectly helped bring over to our side, I might add." The other Sam held up a flashlight and a comm. "Unless I comm them or give the all clear signal, they will come here and take you to our local cave. It's not as charming as the one in McLean, but I think you will find it functionally to your liking."

"What do you want?" Sam asked.

"For you to come back with me. Of your own accord."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because you're beaten, Sam. You've always been beaten. But more importantly, this is your life. You love it. You want to rejoin the Hive."

"Really?" said Sam, giving her counterpart a mocking smile.

"Really," said the other Sam. "After Gavin gave you his first worm, you couldn't wait to get your next one. I remember your vagina dripping with anticipation as he put the second one on your back. I remember you burning with desire as you begged for your third one. I remember how much pleasure you had in communing. We thought it was better than sex, didn't we, Sam?"

"Yes, we did," said Sam.

"Everything you did for us, you did for love. You helped us subvert the Survey Service because you loved the Hive. You gave us your best friend and your precious Jack because you loved us even more. You gave your own family over to be consumed by us, because in your mind, you loved the Hive above all else. Remember the passionate lovemaking you had with Gavin, after he Infected you? Remember the hot sex you had with Marion in the cave, while we devoured your parents? Remember how you and Jack eagerly cooperated to modify your own bodies to give birth to us? It's all because you wanted it. We never could have achieved a fraction of the success we had with you if you hadn't wanted it all along."

"That's what you've been telling me for months," said Sam. "That's how you control people. By convincing them they can't fight you. By convincing them they want it."

"I shouldn't have to convince you, Sam. As I keep reminding you, we share the same memories. But maybe another point of view will be more convincing." The other Sam snapped her fingers lazily, and Jack came out from behind the souvenir shop, dressed in a crisp Survey Service uniform.

"Jack," Sam smiled, half getting up.

"Sam," said Jack, and she instinctively almost let him hug her, until she pulled back at the last moment.

"I should have expected that," said Jack, sitting down next to the other Sam at the picnic table. "You've scared her half out her wits, haven't you?"

"I'm trying to make some progress," said the other Sam. "But she's not being reasonable."

"Reasonable?" said Sam. "Do you expect me to cheerfully put on a rider and rejoin the ranks of slavery?"

"Did you tell her our offer?" Jack asked.

"I thought it would be better received from you," said the other Sam.

"What offer?" Sam asked.

"We want you back, Sam," said Jack. He winced. "I want you back. The Hive will give you a full pardon. We can be together. We can have children."

"Children? What kind of children can we have, Jack, with your altered penis and my bioformed vagina?" Sam scoffed.

"They can change us back," said Jack.

Sam looked incredulous.

"They showed me. I've seen them do it," said Jack. "They'll permit us to retire from the field. We can have children, real children."

"And what about riders, Jack?" Sam asked.

"We will.. have to wear riders," said Jack. "But it's a small price to pay. Just think, Sam. Didn't we have some of our best sex through communing?"

Both Sams smiled. "Yes," said Sam. She remembered sitting back to back with him, her breasts and vagina feeling waves of orgasms for hours and hours.

"We can have that feeling again," said Jack, "All you have to do is come in with me." He extended his hand. "Just lower the blaster, and take my hand, Sam."

Sam looked at Jack, uncertainty written all over her.

"Lower the blaster, Sam, and take my hand," Jack repeated. He looked so handsome, especially in his full dress uniform.

Sam wavered, but didn't lower her weapon.

"Momomomomom," said Jack.

Sam looked startled.

"Momomomomom," he said again.

Sam no longer had a rider, but her brain had been conditioned, long and hard, to associate that sound with sexual pleasure. She felt her nipples instantly get hard, and her vagina started to lubricate furiously.

"Momomomomom," Jack repeated.

"Momomomomom," said Sam, her grip on her blaster starting to waver.

"Momomomomom," Jack said again.

"Momomomomom," said Sam. Her eyelids starting to droop, and her blaster hand opened.

Jack moved to grab her blaster, but at that moment, something surged inside of Sam, and she pulled back. Jack roared and lunged at her, and Sam instinctively opened fire, blasting a smoking hole in Jack's chest.

Jack fell against her, knocking her backwards, and as she scrambled to get up, the other Sam kicked the blaster from her hands. "I guess we're going to have to do this the hard way," she sighed, giving Sam her trademark Sam look.

The other Sam grabbed Sam by the shoulders and started to push her to the ledge. The falls roared below.

"Do you know why I chose these falls as a meeting spot?" said the other Sam, as she pushed Sam back, foot by foot. "It's because it's the spot where Professor Moriarty defeated Sherlock Holmes, sending him plunging to his death."

"Not quite right, my dear," said Sam, struggling against her. "It's the place where both of them fell to their death. It's an even trade I'd be more than willing to make with you!" And then Sam pushed the other Sam back, with more strength than a normal human being should have, and the other Sam realized for the first time that she had underestimated her original self. That little shit friend of hers wasn't just lurking somewhere nearby; she was closer. Much closer.

Sam and her counterpart fell to the ground, on the edge of the falls, rolling over and over. Both had hate and death etched into their faces, both determined to see the very end of the other. Sam screamed and the other Sam screamed and they both yelled and scratched and bit into an ear and bit into a cheek and kicked and punched and clawed into a shoulder and a stomach and rolled and rolled as they tried to kill each other with the power of murder in their eyes.

"Die, bitch, die!" one of them yelled.

"You first, you fucking cunt!" the other yelled back.

And they fought and hurt each other and yelled some more, and then they came to the edge and one rolled over and screamed... and was gone.

Major Samantha Arden stood up, brushing herself off. She ached all over. She was full of bruises and cuts and deep scratches in her shoulder and a very nasty bite mark on her cheek. She saw a flashlight on the ground. She painfully climbed to the top of the bank, and turned it on and off, slowly, three times on, three times off, giving the universal Survey Service code for all clear.