Within the Apple Chapter 7C

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Queen Administrator.

That was the closest translation of the shard’s name/function that could be made in the language of the current cycle’s host species. There were many Administrator Shards, of course, each tasked with overseeing various aspects of the cycle or the shards participating within it, and Queen Administrator was generally tasked with overseeing them.

It was somewhat unusual for the Queen Administrator to be deployed to a host species… particular this early in the cycle. Generally there were far more pressing duties at play and simply no time. If things were going well, then toward the late middle portion of a cycle the Queen Administrator shard would often take some time to gather data personally, as all shards genuinely wanted to do.

This cycle, however, was not normal.

The Thinker was gone, and the Warrior listless… unguided… irrelevant to the cycle.

Possibly the cycle was broken, though that remained to be seen.

Without orders and guidance from the Thinker’s Paths, Queen Administrator had opted to take initiative and insert itself into the cycle to gain data and attempt to determine what, if anything, was salvageable from the entire mess.

The other Queen Shards were incommunicado, and few of the Administrator Shards were properly connected to the network. Data sharing was all but nonexistent, and that left the Queen Administrator with time to plot.

The initial plan was loosely formed around a male of the host species, contacted by his proximity to Collector/Protector in his earlier life. He had proven impressively impervious to the stresses that were required for Shards to make a connection, however, and after many years of waiting Queen Administrator had shifted focus to his daughter.

At first, that appeared to be a wise decision. Her interaction with Phase/Hunter had been very nearly ideal, both offering an ever increasing stress load and a nearby shard to bounce off of while determining the power expression Queen Administrator would offer her.

Very quickly, however, it became clear that the unusual resistance to stress breaks was a hereditary trait.

It was utterly ridiculous, Queen Administrator had seen hosts shatter under a tenth of what this one endured. Phase/Hunter had managed a connection after a single incident.

Some degree of resistance was good, of course, since those with high levels of endurance tended to make the strongest hosts… but there were limits.

Queen Administrator was beginning to ponder whether an entirely new host, unconnected to her previous selection, might not be the best option. That was, of course, the point in which the host began to crack. Eagerly, Queen Administrator extended the offer to the suffering mind.

This was the key. The offer must be accepted freely, else the connection would not form.

It was a limitation that they had struggled under for eons, but one that had never been broken despite all attempts. Forcing a connection, at best, would kill the host. The worst case… did no bear thinking on.

<Destination>

Intent made clear, Queen Administrator reached out to the host and offered it’s help, waiting for the response.

<Agreement>

The host accepted, finally. After how many times help had been offered and refused, Queen Administrator had almost given up hope for being able to gain inroads to the host.

<Trajectory>

The pulse was initiated, looking for other shards nearby to introduce pseudo-random variables to the cycle’s expression. It had long since been determined that individual shards would otherwise tend to default to a preferred expression set, even if they were told not to.

<AgREm$T^>

That wasn’t right.

Queen Administrator started a troubleshooting response to the garbled code, only to be shocked to discover that the garbled code had been accepted!

<Negat->

“Not so fast, McGurk. I think we’re going to have a little fun.”

<Negation.> <Negation.> <Negation.>

“Too late.”

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