Mindhive: Chapter One
In Which I Pretend This Was A Good Decision
Sunset-bathed Montana wilderness flies by at a terrifying speed. Pine trees blur into stark streaks of green. The car hitches as it rolls over a train crossing, and I shift uncomfortably in my seat, wondering if the road ever ends.
I don’t think I’d mind it if it didn’t. I’m not very anxious to arrive at my destination.
The pale yellow envelope in my hand — emblazoned with a simple bee inset with the initials RG — is damp from my sweaty palms. If it wasn’t so important for me to keep it on my person, I’d be tempted to crack open the window and let it fly away into the slipstream. As I trace the embossing, I mull over the words printed on the flap of the envelope.
ReGene: Building Better Futures And Bodies Since 2034.
Thank You For Participating In Our Worker Bee Trial!
The cheery paper looks out of place against my chewed-up fingernails and the bee stares up at me in silent judgment. Thoughtlessly, I open it again. There’s the pamphlet advertising the trial for the Worker Bee implant, the signed contract, and the list of qualifications for participants.
Volunteers must be between the age of twenty and twenty-five, and within a reasonable measure of physical health (see chart below). Volunteers must not be diagnosed with any mental health conditions. Nor may they be diagnosed with any health conditions, chronic or temporary, that would medically complicate or render intracranial surgery unfeasible . . .
Below, in fine print, it lists out a variety of conditions that would disqualify a volunteer from the trial.
ReGene is not at liability if a volunteer under contract fails to disclose necessary information that would result in injury or death during the trial.
Fun stuff.
I skim straight down to the finances section. A quick two thousand dollars a month, straight to my bank account — all in exchange for a year or two locked up and having my brain gently prodded with Science Things. Not the worst sum to sell myself for, I guess.
But my other contract is much more lucrative.
“Will you pick me up when I’m done here too?” I ask the driver.
He grunts, half-shrugging.
“Oh.”
“This thing is all up to Jessica,” he explains, eyes on the road. “Flexible schedule. Better for you to figure it out, I bet. Dunno what you’re going to go up against in there. Do you know?”
“I know a little.”
“Personally? Not a job I would take.”
“Hmmm.”
The trees whipping past the window slow down and yield to a busy parking lot. We cruise past the staff-reserved parking spots and pull up in front of a group of stark, shiny, boxy white buildings. A maintenance crew is busy washing the windows, filling the air with a sanitized metallic scent as I step out of the car.
The driver rolls down his window before I leave, motioning me closer. Right. That detail.
With sweaty palms, I hand in the worn, peeling-lensed pair of glasses that had served me through high school and college. The driver hands me a slick, black-framed pair in exchange. They’re heavier than I’m used to.
“You know how to work these?” the driver grunts, impatient.
“I read the email, yes.”
“Good.” He starts to roll up the window again, then stops, tapping the steering wheel. “Contact Jessica once you’re in and secure. She expects your first report within a day or two.”
“Will do, sir.”
He grunts again. “See ya. Or not.”
The car rolls off of the lot, a red glint on the sole road.
I sigh, adjust my glasses, and hike up to the main building.
Since the Facility’s doors are still closed, I end up waiting on a metal bench along with a couple of the hundred-or-so other volunteers that have showed up. To my right, somebody’s curled up in an impressive midday nap. ReGene’s invitation envelope sticks out of their pocket, and their long, black hair tangles over various silver piercings. I say “them” because of the yellow-purple-black pronoun pin fastened to their hoodie.
To my left, I have a chattier companion. We exchange quick pleasantries. Between the multicolor scrunchies looped around her frizzy red hair and the chartreuse reading glasses tucked into her shirt pocket, I imagine that she’d make a quaint librarian, or perhaps an art teacher.
“Ha. I was actually thinking about library science in college,” she says when I tell her this. “But I bet on there being better nursing jobs instead.”
“Are there?”
“Not really. Better salaries, but just barely, and the sleep schedule is hell on earth.”
“So you took this instead?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you comfortable with being the patient this time around?”
She shrugs. “Meh. Best option I have.”
“I suppose it’s not like they’re messing around with—”
“With our DNA, no, not for this.”
The Worker Bee Trial is just the testing zone for an implant that’s supposed to do some vague kind of “mental enhancement” — which is its own can of worms that I haven’t yet cracked open. Still, both of us glance back into the crisp, mirrorlike sheen of the Facility’s windows.
I can't help but take stock of my reflection. My body’s something I tend to ignore on a daily basis. I’m just living here, you know? But it’s harder to ignore when you’re about to walk into a genetics company. So I mull over all the little details, wondering what “imperfections” would have been scrubbed out of me in the womb if I’d had rich parents. I mentally measure my less-than five and a half foot height, and trace my bushy eyebrows and heft. My last girlfriend thought my dimples were cute. I’m neutral about them.
Ah well. It’s the deliberate details that I care about. A lot of people look at the glasses and the button-down shirt and assume I’m a smart guy. And in this case, they would be right.
I think that I like myself as I am.
I think that I wouldn’t be here if I had better options open to me either.
She sighs. “Besides, I don’t think it will do anything, anyway.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, any time one of these companies tries rolling out an intelligence enhancement, it crashes and burns. At best, it doesn’t do anything. At worst, it actively hurts people. Let’s just hope that this one doesn’t backfire on us.”
I glance back at her, half-smiling. “So you think it’s an intelligence enhancement.”
“Well, what else could it be?”
“They’re being this hush-hush for just that?”
“You don’t know genetics companies. To them, everything they make is a revolution of the human species.”
We sit there for a moment.
“I’m Jillian,” the girl says.
“Nathaniel.”
She stares at my glasses for a few open-mouthed seconds, as if she has more to say.
“Good morning, volunteers,” a cheerful voice crackles over the intercom. “And welcome to the ReGene Northwoods Research Facility. Please prepare your paperwork and enter in a single-file line.”
Our sleepy benchmate lifts their head and lets out a groggy groan as Jillian shakes them awake. I sidle past the two of them and head on in.