The Industrialist

Bay City. Abominant Hive

[The night Nathan failed]

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His knees felt weak, kneeling for a long time. The aura darkened when the Queen expressed her frustration. The fog thickened like cotton whenever she had to release anger.

Their dead brethren only came second, and what concerns her the most was his failure and the death of his Adjutant.

"Where is your Adjutant!" The Queen asked, screaming. Her voice reverberated to the nearby structures. What made her voice horrifying, especially when she expressed anger, were two simultaneous voices. One was hoarse and strong, overpowering the weak and sharp secondary voice.

It was the third time she asked and it was the third time that Nathan had not answered her.

Nathan felt an overwhelming blast that burdened his shoulders, forcing him to bow down. Understanding it was way beyond his comprehension. He treated it as a natural phenomenon.

Her rage manifested on the surroundings, on their respective pods. The pods where the Abominants sleep had black exoskeletons, sheathed with a fine sheet of skin. As the Queen rages in anger, the pods would turn reddish.

And each pod had a neural connection between the Queen and the hive underlings.

Despite Nathan’s silence, she already knew the answer. The Entity told her. The Entity conveyed information to all levels of the Hive swarm. The recent ambush was only a few miles from where their Hive sits, eventually within the proximity of the Entity.

However, the Queen was always stubborn. She needed verbal answers from the defeated Overlord.

"Whatever answer you would come up with, it is unacceptable!" The Queen reprimanded.

With all the evil that they desired in the world and humans, the Queen’s love for his underlings was beyond measure.

Silhouette figures of lower level Abominants cowered in the corners behind their pods, or behind the abandoned structures. The ones who could fly had already flown as the cloud of hatred had swirled above the Queen.

Power defined the Queen, the life source of one hive. However, with all her power, she could not stray far beyond the reach of her designated hive.

Hence, Overlords were born.

Nathan needed to face punishment. It was protocol for every failure they made, moreover, it fed their fear. Facing the consequences would nullify their fear.

He could escape the punishment; however, every fiber of his sanity had compelled him to comply.

"It’s a new weapon," He finally answered.

"What weapon?" The queen hissed.

Her pod opened, she had the largest pod in the hive like a brain, connected to the other pods by tubes, like blood vessels. A viscous liquid oozed as she emerged from the skin-sheathed opening of an exoskeleton.

Elevated from the ground, her pod was precariously hanging with root-like veins embedded with the concrete structure behind it.

The slimy liquid bathed the ground below it and her bare feet landed as she descended slowly. The viscous black metallic liquid made the floor slippery for a normal human being.

But her skin had thickened, and small hair-like spikes emerged from her pores, preventing her from slipping. She had perfect form, and her black skin protected her all over from external threats.

For what power potential she holds, Nathan had no idea.

The organic skin tubes detached from the pod connected to the Queen’s back. She sauntered towards the larvae incubation pods. Hundreds of them spread all over the city road.

She grazed her touch towards them and they vibrated. The developing larvae were happy and energized whenever she touched them.

He remembered when he had complete control of his thoughts, of his body, when he was human, he entered into these pods. Before anything else, he remembered the City where the hive habituated.

Bay City.

He remembered when he was a scientist, nurturing his mind towards the inventions of Science. There were times he was overwhelmed with brainstorming and stressed to create the prototypes, but everything was now a blur.

He knew he was intelligent, however, he was careless. He wanted to study the Abominants. He wanted to make a vaccine and the Abominated animals were his test subjects. Day and night, he was in the lab. His work almost made him insane. He made a mistake but could not identify when.

How could the contamination invade his system? He had fevers at first. He knew the symptoms of prolonged exposure with the Aerobic contamination. It had no cure and his life expectancy should not exceed to seven days.

Suddenly, everything was turned to blur. His hardships became garbage but something new emerged inside of him.

The contamination had invaded him like an acute disease, uncurable, and painful. Nathan remembered that it started with the boils on his neck, and then down to his stomach. For a few days, the boils became rot, and blackish, disintegrating the dermis of his skin like it was exposed to flames.

What he looked like was not his concern anymore but the pain borne by the disease and munching its way to his innards, searing heat, and sleeplessness.

His dreams became nightmares.

The Entity called them and assigned them to the nearest hive. The Queen had nurtured them, taught them how to eliminate the pain, and synchronize with the invading contamination inside his blood.

She promised for a full transformation would realize their full potential. More than human. One with the nature. One with the Contamination.

One pod opened and compelled him to enter. To his sight, the pod opened like a flower, luring him into its sweet embrace.

He submerged himself inside the pod and the opening closed behind him. A soothing liquid engulfed his body and submerged in a euphoric embrace.

Tubes came out of nowhere like worms, borrowed their small circular teeth on his skin, tongues deployed through the tubes, weaving through his muscle tissues and into his spine.

A surge had been experienced his nervous system.

Then, Nathan’s nightmares became dreams.

Dreams of an ideal world, of harmony, and happiness. He felt that his human thoughts fading into bitter memories, drowning in a deep water that he could not reach.

Every day inside the pod, controlling his thoughts was beyond his capability as if something was injecting the images of his mind, overpowering his subconsciousness.

Until there was silence. Peace.

Others like him were given positions within the Hive. There were four of them in the hive. The fifth one was the Queen.

As a Battalion Overlord, he answered directly to the Queen. However, there were beings above him, which they called Executors.

The Queen had her special assignments beyond the scope of being an Overlord. These Executors were the Queen’s direct descendants and accomplished her will to the letter without question and regard of their own lives as if they were not their own.

Nathan knew the magnitude of her disappointment. She loved her creations. She always watched over the larvae pod as she dislodged herself from a sleep state. Or when she was mad.

A large abominated dog purred as it invaded their space, passing between him and the Queen. His sides were wounded from the battle – bullet marks. But it seemed that it was victorious. They always were.

It was one of the Queen’s Executor.

Her eyes opened. The same color eyes with Nathan, yellowish pupils with dark eyeballs. Her gaze darted towards the cowering Overlord.

"You know, it is not easy to create them. Each of them is a part of me. And you squandered them away like garbage!

"My Queen, apologies. I won’t fail you next time!" Nathan responded, maintaining his kneeling.

"You almost failed your mission the last time," The Queen hissed. "You let those filthy humans kill half of your Battalion! Now, your Adjutant had perished! It is not easy to mold someone like you. You are different from the majority of the human race, so you are precious to me, and Johnny too!"

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"My Queen, if I may?"

"You may not, Overlord!" Her voice raised, thunderous for him. "Let me finish. You should not have sent him if you knew about the weapon. You should have tread carefully. Hunt like a predator. Not getting too cocky because of your superior strength and speed.

It takes a lot of my essence, my energy, and my power, to synchronize my Contamination to you! And Johnny was a total waste of my precious essence," She ambled close to him, wanting to emphasize something. "Do you want to be devoured by him?"

He referred to a colossal-sized Abominated dog that rested behind her.

With her finger wafting in the air, the Queen commanded and tube worms emerged from her pod, slowly creeping into the resting Abominated dog.

"Let your wounds be healed," The Queen said. The tubes warbled as they released healing fluids to the wounded dog.

"I will avenge Johnny, my Queen. Command me to infiltrate Axe Central City, and I will find the kid who killed Johnny," Nathan suggested.

"Do what you must! Return to me victorious. Or else, the Executors will do it for you!"