Get A Lay Of The Land

This world is new, foreign and alien, its inhabitants likewise, as deep as you dive into your drones minds and memories, there are things they simply do not know.

Yes for the time being you are safe, beneath the notice of this planets authorities, but how long can that last? How long before a threat finds its way down here?

Your drones wander around the area of their own record, never straying out of eyesight as they await further instruction, delving deeper into their minds reveals restlessness their emotions having become one with your own.

With but a thought you instruct them to begin mapping these catacombs, it appears prior to their assimilation, they knew precious little of the layout of these sewers, neither land marks nor dangers.

The sewer system beneath this city is winding and over complicated which actually suits your purposes marvelously. The winding nature of these tunnels creating a natural first line of defense fir would be invaders.

According to your minions memories, the city had been destroyed numerous times and each time it was rebuilt they needed a near sewer system to accommodate it, and so this led to a stacking effect, one system over the next and over the next, it’s even said some old building had sunk down into the depths of the sewers creating a world unto itself.

You direct your minions down the various labyrinthine tunnels and chambers, making note of places where your hive structure could expand.

Before calling them back both drones make an interesting discovery, the first heads down a long tunnel that opens up into a large cave chamber.

Within the chamber is a shanty town filled with beggars and misfits, your drone manages to blend in among them seamlessly as they explore.

You spot strange mutants, creatures that should have been human but along the way developed oddities that alienated them from the rest of their species.

Considering humans fight over something as silly as skin color, the prospect of a giant snake might have been too much for the poor misbegotten creatures to stomach.

The mutants and beggars seem to have formed a cohesive unit, similar to what you had intended for humanity but alas the flaws of mankind bubble to the surface as your drone slowly makes their way past a group conflict, fighting over some silly squabble that you don’t bother to solve.

Along the way your drone spots a line formed along a long, plastic table, laden with pots of stew, each member of the line steps along the table, holding a bowl forward for a large man in the opposite side to dispense some of the stew.

You instruct the drone to step into the line, grabbing a pink plastic bowl in both hands before moving with the flow of foot traffic.

You feel a nudge against the drones arm, the drone turning to see an older woman, her face weathered by age as she leans in slightly.

“New here, eh..? Word of advice; don’t think about what kinda meat that is” she says with a wry grin.

You focus your mind, pulling on the shared experience of the hives neural network to speak as the humans do, channeling your control of this drone, this extension of the hives will to address the woman.

“Meh, fuck if I care… stew is stew” the drone says with a shrug, your mind racing as you try to track every little verbal and facial tick a human must make when speaking, this expedition relies on this.

“Hey, what’s the deal with all the muties ‘round here..?” Asks the drone, attempting to emulate the tribalism that seems endemic to the species.

“Ha, yeah I know but you’ll wanna keep a lid on that around some of the others, we’ve got a deal brewing with The Freaks, we give ‘em grub and a place to sleep and they keep the peace” she says, holding her bowl forward to receive her meal.

Both her and the drone take a seat at some rusted out metal chairs and table, their previous elegant design leading you to assume them to be stolen from some restaurant or cafe.

You spot nearly a dozen men brandishing various crude weaponry even by human standards, but the true threat is the mutants, some innocuous but others clear threats, a giant crustacean man with claws that could snip a drone in two and rattlesnakes the size of an automobile.

“Who’s in charge around here?” The drone says, ignoring the steaming bowl of brown broth placed in front of him, you have no intention of tasting whatever lies beneath its murky surface.

“Ppppft, nobody, far as I know, yeah there’s some folk we listen to but they don’t make no decisions for us” she says, eagerly digging into her stew, her spoon scraping against the glass bowl.

“How is it nobody has come to shut this place down..?” You ask with the drones voice.

“Cause why bother? We don’t take their electricity or water and we don’t break nothin, sending capes down here is just a big waste of time, ‘sides, being down here takes up off the streets, let’s the good upstandin folk topside pretend we don’t exist no more, Mr mayor can say that he’s lowering unemployment, everyone wins”

This changes things, if self interest drives humans as strongly as this woman claims, then you could advance your plans a great deal, so long as you don’t make it the topsiders problem, you could conquer these tunnels without fearing reprisal from the authorities.

You dismiss yourself, instructing the drone to return to the hive so that you may regroup and strategize without needing to maintain the charade of humanity.

The second drone investigates a particularly foul smelling path, the tunnel occasionally host to spider webs large enough to potentially trap a human.

The path ends in a chamber, sewage flows down into the bottom of the pit like chamber but resting above is an absolutely massive spiders web with nearly a dozen bodies wrapped up in its strands.

You struggle to imagine an arachnid large enough to weave such a large web or overpower and trap fully grown humans, such a creature wandering the sewers is a threat to the hive but perhaps taming the beast could be a boon to the cause.

You recall your drone, you've no interest in losing one of your children to the spider or whatever other aberrations might be lurking in this forgotten place.