For all its imagery of rebellion and subversion, being a hacker came surprisingly easy to Elsa despite her being neither rebellious nor subversive. Much to her pleasure, the new tools augmented her ability profoundly and her first test went off flawlessly. She'd summoned Kristoff's motorbike from its garage in Cambridge. The decision to appropriate the bike had been a quick one. Both sisters chilled at how Hans had managed to track them across the city even with their attempted decoy.

The two lovers raced through the night, connected at the waist through interlocked fingers. Anna had taken her favorite place - the pilot's seat. It was a bittersweet feeling. Part of her loved being on the machine at all, but her conscience lamented the circumstances. Her face hardened at the thought.

'When this is over, I'm making Kristoff get a sidecar for this bad girl.'

A mechanical foot slammed down, pushing the shift lever down and moving the transmission into a brand-new gear. The engine roared and the bike reared in agreement. Even the loud wind and engine were no interruption for them, as Elsa's wearable infolink sidestepped the noise entirely. On her glasses, directions to Hans' current location glowed bright and true.

"Hans is on the move, he's heading eastwards from CyberDynamics HQ. I suspect he's headed for the Advanced Research Lab."

Anna acknowledged by banking hard to the left, swerving through the legions of autonomous cars. In the distance, the main Evotech building towered overhead.

The curious sensation of vibration struck Elsa on her wrist, and her glasses told her a call was incoming from Dr. Mueller.

"I'm leaving New England in case there's blowback from all this. I like being alive. Anyways, I just sent Anna a map of the building to help you plan your assault. Good luck."

Several blocks away from their destination, Elsa was caught by a flashback. The missile slamming into Anna and exploding haunted her. Pushing the image out of her mind, she gently reminded Anna that storming the front gates wouldn't work any better than it did before.

"Mhmm," came the reply. The bike dipped again, curving into a parking structure and up the winding pathways. Regularly, like a row of markers along a lonely highway, pillar after pillar passed by. Gaunt white lights from overhead painted fuzzy lines of pallor on the hard floor receded into shadowy corners. Finally on the roof, low walls with slick yellow paint kissed the borders of the night sky. All around the city surrounded them, light from the windows forming a galaxy of luminous points.

Anna connected her retinal display to Elsa's glasses so that they could both see the map, and the two of them planned their route together. A bright glowing circle showed their current location, just below the security office.

"First we need to shut down the turrets and bots, or we're dead from the start," Elsa said.

Anna shuddered, reminded of her failures in the simulation. "I'll leave that to you," she said, turning her attention to the map. Her focus darted back and forth, searching. The building, while elegant in the upper levels, was an impenetrable labyrinth underneath. She saw one room in particular that had no details listed within, but had a slithering entry hallway. All along its length were what looked like guard posts. "This one looks the hardest to get into," she said, highlighting it with her own glowing marker.

"I agree. If I were going to protect something, that's precisely where I would put it." Swaying uncomfortably, she dragged her right hand down her chin. "There's still the issue of how we get inside the building in the first place."

Anna nodded in agreement, and paused a moment to think. Past the long row of empty vehicles, she strode over to the far wall. Once there she looked down at the street, watching the traffic go by a heart-stopping distance below. She saw a mostly uninterrupted stream of passersby, the occasional chatting group, and even flirtatious lovers enjoying the company of another.

Anna could feel her sister's observant gaze at her back. She shook her head and tried to focus. Fingers clasped around the hip-high barrier, supporting a body that slowly leaned over. Her neck craned out over the urban chasm. Across the gap lay a sea of glistening glass, lined by vertical piers of concrete. In a flash, her retinal displays showed her a perfect trajectory and told her how thick the glass was. Then she dashed back to where Elsa was waiting with one eyebrow raised.

"I can get us in there. Hop on my back, snowflake," she said, grinning.

'Why is she grinning?' Elsa thought, inciting a brief flare of intuitive horror. It exploded when she figured out the plan. "W-wait a second Anna," she said, waving her hands just a bit and stepping backwards. With one hand held towards Anna, finger raised, she stretched the other towards the window, then invaded it with a legion of frosty shards. She relaxed, dropping to a neutral pose. "I've reduced the integrity of the window, we should have no difficulty breaching it now." One last look into Anna's eyes, and it gave her the strength to climb onboard. She let out a deep breath and held on as tightly as her thin fingers would allow.

Anna tore across the parking lot at breakneck speed in a manner not unlike using a jackhammer as a pogo-stick. A mighty kick launched them into the air, the extreme g-force hearkening back to sweet memories of tearing through Lunar orbit in a tiny craft. Nostalgia shattered, as did the glass, when the two assailants smashed through it. The shards clattered together, sounding like a kinetic assault on an army of tiny wind chimes.

"What the hell?" exclaimed security chief Johnson, the sound of his voice bending as he whipped in place to face the calamity. Years of training manifested in a smooth transition to a fighting pose. His wrist as a hinge point, a tonfa-style stun baton came sizzling out of his arm.

Elsa dove behind a nearby desktop workstation. Anna, on the other hand, was primed and eager for combat. With a smirk, she taunted her opponent by waving him on as though to say 'bring it'.

The scent of burning air whiffed by her; she ducked his swing and once behind him delivered a calculated blow to the back of the head, relieving him of his consciousness. He hit the ground with a satisfying thud.

Anna hadn't even finished dragging the body behind a fortress of heavy furniture before Elsa had swooped into the previously occupied seat. With seconds to spare, she overrode the deadswitch tied to the chief's consciousness. Looking up from the console and putting on an inquisitive look, she asked, "What if he wakes up?"

The click of handcuffs replied before Anna said a word. "He's not going anywhere snowflake. Any luck with your stuff?"

"Yes! Come look." She waved her hand towards the station, one finger curled inwards. "I was able to disable all of the robots." She hooked Anna around the waist, pulling her in closer. "And, check this out. Hans is in that room alright, the one we looked at earlier?"

The camera for that room had gone completely static, and a nearby diagram was indicating regular spikes in power draw. "Nice catch, snowflake. I'll run down there and tear the place up. Open the door for me please?"

Brilliant light from the hallway spilled into the room in the meager space between the giant halves of door. Anna stood in the growing lumination, bouncing on her knees and flexing her hands repeatedly. She took a single step out into the hallway before the sound of her name from behind stopped her, and she spun to face it. Elsa poked her head out above the workstation, her brows upturned in a pleading fashion.

"Just in case we don't make it... I love you."

Only the upper half of Anna's body could be seen, the cloak of invisibility encroaching ever further upwards. Just before her face disappeared, she replied with a wry smirk, "I love you more!"

Hot under the collar, Elsa barely managed to stifle instinctual protest. If she hadn't been worried about being overheard she would have shouted all manner of rebuttals, but she had no choice but to fume in her seat. Her scowling face was hidden by the massive doors crawling shut.

Underneath a faceted, spear-like chandelier lay a cavernous void surrounded on all sides by stout walls lined by pipes and beams. Echoes of hidden machinery reverberated through the space, the pulse of the facility thrumming along oblivious to the evil about to unfold. Far below, against the grid-like pattern of the floor tiles, two shadowy forms stood near a glowing console.

Behind a thick layer of transparent sapphire, a spherical piece of machinery, solid white with beveled edges and matte black trim lines waited expectantly. In the equatorial region, just above a trim line the words 'SWARM root node' were emblazoned into the material.

A squealing hiss came forth when the sapphire container started hinging upwards along the uppermost edge. A long cable came undulating out from the sphere, pulled along by black metal hands. Short strands of red hair parted, pushed aside by mechanical fingers. All was silent as Clarice inserted the uplink cable into the back of Hans' head. Bits flew across the wire, delivering digital transformation at blazing speeds. Less than a minute later, the transfer was complete. Hans removed the cable and held it outwards, offering it.

To Clarice, such a simple sight being so evocative was a new sensation. She held the uplink cable in her hand, staring at it. It was just a plastic-coated array of extruded metal wires, dull and lifeless. If it had been anything else, she wouldn't have given it a second thought. And yet this nondescript entity stared her down, the promise of godlike intelligence and unparalleled intimacy sparked chills all over her body, flesh and metal alike. Without a second's hesitation she plunged it in, soaking up the program and all its power.

At once, everything felt changed in a subtle, yet uniform way. She felt stronger, even a bit bigger. Though no-one spoke aloud, she heard Hans' voice clearly. Not from aside where he stood, but from within. As though she'd thought it herself, just in his voice. The elaborate, electrically-charged dance that had gone on between them since they'd met switched dynamics instantly, and the connection was still only on its lowest setting.

Standing in each other's space with a scorching closeness, their pulses and brainwaves began to synchronize. The pace of their union ramped up with each tiny increment of the connection setting. All of their ambitions and desires were laid bare before the other, each one triggering emotive responses in a feedback loop of growing consensus. Barrier after barrier fell, until something changed. The last barrier felt ineffably different, and each knew intuitively that if they crossed it, neither individual would survive the utter unity of the connection. One last consensus was achieved, and that was to dial things back just a bit and lock in the monarch protocol.

Clouds of cold steam rolled off the stasis pods wheeled into the room. Together the two linked minds pulled a poor soul out of one pod, propped him up by the root node and uploaded the software. The monarch protocol immediately forced him into slave unit mode, stripping him of his autonomy and turning him into little more than a mental augmentation for Hans and Clarice. Sharing in the boost to their consciousness, they smiled devilishly at each other, and promptly got to work adding as many new drones as they could to their twisted collective.

Tiny echoes of a massive quake made their way to the floor upon which the conspirators stood, followed by plumes of dust and chunks of concrete falling from the ceiling. It piqued their attention, but not nearly as much as the building wide alert that followed.

"CONTAINMENT LOST, EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY."

Both hiveminded leaders tried to access the security system simultaneously, only to find themselves locked out from the surveillance devices. Silent consensus ensued, and Clarice's body left the room to investigate, along with a contingent of drones. In perfect unison and formation they slid into the winding exit corridor.

A distraction was the last thing Anna needed at this particular moment. Vertical containment doors bit down before her like a massive vise grip. Her pulse shot up, if she didn't make it through those doors neither her nor the poor soul slung across her shoulder would survive. Silently hoping for the best, she heaved off her spring-loaded legs as hard as she could. The door barely clipped her, and she stuck the landing safely on the far side.

The angry squawking in her head threatened to break her concentration. "What the hell Anna! There are innocent people here!"

'Yes, I know, snowflake.' she thought in response without actually replying. With the back of her free hand on her hips, she shifted her weight to the side and put a frown on her face. The pile of unconscious bodies was similarly discouraging. She pulled open the entrance to an air duct nearby and shuffled the body slung across her shoulder into it.

"I know knocking out the fusion reactor was drastic but hear me out – who knows what the heck is gonna happen?! I needed to get all those innocent people OUT of the building!"

"Hrmph!" Elsa retorted, "what about the technicians in the reactor room?"

"Sleeping like babies," she replied, smugly closing the air duct behind her. The arrangements may be cramped, but everyone would certainly live.

"Still, you're being reckless."

"As long as you keep on top of the bots, I should be fine," Anna said, tip-toeing through the door from the power room to the hallway. She nearly jumped out of her skin at the sight of a massive bot, only to let out a sigh of relief when it slumped over and powered down. With a hint of triumph, Elsa spoke up in her ear.

"No... I love you more."

Jittery from the adrenaline coursing through her, Anna let one hand fall to her chest, feeling it rise and fall furiously. "M-maybe just this once."

"Heh, maybe," she replied before the tone in her voice dropped all warmth. "Oh my god... that's it."

"That's what?" Anna demanded.

"There are 15 people walking in perfect lock-step down that hallway we talked about earlier."

Anna nodded in acknowledgment, then brought up the floor map in her retinal displays. The path to get down there was straightforward now that the guard posts had been evacuated, and as long as she could find a way past the security doors she'd be able to get to the root of this mess.

Anna stood at the top of a dizzying staircase, staring down at the spiraling pathway down. 'Might as well take the quick way down.' By the time she'd finished her thought she'd already cleared the handrail, descending in a blur. Closing her eyes in adrenal bliss, she felt her skin ripple all over with goosebumps, and reveled in the air rushing past her. Kinetic energy ripped through the ground when she hit, churning the floor into a wave which settled into a crater. Her head held high, Anna strode out of the stairwell.

Eerie silence filled the air with a surreality unlike any she'd ever known. Here, the entire world had a mirror image in the impossibly slick floor, the swirling patterns twisting the image in a manner most wicked. Lights from above, support beams and piping all contorted menacingly.

'Come on, get your head in the game,' she told herself. Her usually unconquerable spirit was starting to get a little frazzled. Hiveminds, creepy underground research facilities and tyrannical psychopaths whirled together into an overwhelming mess and she struggled with it. It felt as though something was going to blindside her.

A solid metal vertical door stood before her. Her augmented vision couldn't see through it, no matter which settings or power levels she tried. Hands tried to pry into the midsection, to pull the doors open. Despite a titanic effort, it wouldn't budge. She pulled so hard that she fell backwards onto her butt with a thud.

Not content with the failure, she scanned the room all over, looking for any weaknesses in the walls. She found what looked like cracks, and punched as hard as she could, torquing at the legs for maximum impact.

Nothing but some concrete chunks and a stress warning in her arm. She plopped back onto the ground, defeated this time.

"Hey Elsa, I'm stuck."

"I'm on it. This could take awhile though, the door controls are on a separate system from the surveillance net."

"I'm not going anywhere."

A squeal from actuators hissed into the air, and grinding noises filled the room. Anna perked up, amazed at how quickly her partner had succeeded. "Wow that was fast! Elsa you did it!"

"That wasn't me."

Blood ran cold. Unknown horror befell as Anna watched the doors part. Dread turned to rage, a familiar nemesis appeared.

'That stupid succubus.'

Clarice stared Anna down with a searing anticipation. When she spoke, two voices came forth in an unnerving echo. "Heading for the root node, are you Anna?"

The sound gave Anna the creepy-crawlies all over. "Wha... how many of you are in there? It doesn't matter... You can't stop me," she replied. Her fists clenched and her face hardened with determination.

'I am gonna mess you up you f-'

"We're getting really, really tired of your meddling. We're still young and need to assimilate more. But no matter, we're still stronger than you." Clarice's body sauntered straight past her as though she didn't exist. Anna could do nothing but stare in confusion at first. But when the body made it to the stairs, her blood boiled at the audacity. "Get over here and fight me you coward!"

The body whipped back around, eyeing her with malicious joy. "Oh you'll get your fight. And we won't need ten or twenty drones to do it. Here, tangle with our favorite one, why don't you?"

Anna followed the pointing finger across the room, past the doors from whence the menace had arrived only to see a familiar form emerge from the shadows. Her heart ached, the pain forcing her lips to quiver. Barely a whisper passed them.

"... Kristoff?"

No answer. If there was any semblance of Kristoff left within that thing, it wasn't responding. Instinctively, Anna dumped hundreds of kilograms of force into a sharp right hook behind her. The attack whiffed, exacting vengeance on nothing but empty air. Clarice had already fled up the stairwell. Bottling up her rage for later, she turned only to barely miss the Kristoff-turned-drone diving for her. It flew through the air and slid out across the slick marble floor.

Rising off the ground, the desperate woman pleaded with her attacker, "Kristoff! I know you can hear me dammit! Fight it!"

Just like before, no response other than a silent assault, but this time the drone adjusted for her dodge, and the two of them hit the ground. Synthetic skin squeaked across the floor. Fingers clamped down onto the drone's shoulders, and Anna used their backwards momentum to flip the whole mechanical mess over. Finally in a dominant position, she struggled through tear-blurred vision and quaking nerves. Painful twinges of empathy shot all over her body, knowing all too well what he was about to go through.

"... forgive me," she whispered, dumping a massive jolt of electricity into his body. She rolled off and lay by his side, weeping pathetic tears.

Frost began to consume the desk at the workstation, crawling out from Elsa's clenched fists in gnarled bursts. She'd seen everything through the cameras, and wanted nothing more than to reach through the screen and comfort her beloved. A deep breath later, and she tried desperately to quell the storm within long enough to hijack a bot.

The standard interface wasn't forthcoming, so she hooked up a thumb-sized remote device to the universal interface on the computer. As soon as the connection was made, her EEG halo began to massage her scalp, giving her sensory feedback. Permission gates stood in her way since the software was relatively robust. But whoever had made one of the low-level systems made a costly mistake, and after some poking, Elsa found her target. There was a buffer overrun glitch, and she was able to inject just the right code and own the entire system.

Anger lead to extreme focus, and within moments she'd found a bot near her target. That awful woman who'd tried to fry her precious Anna... She watched hungrily as Clarice ran full-tilt down the hallway, only to be stopped by a meter-thick wall of ice shooting straight out of the ground. The captive woman backed up against the wall only to face an 8 foot tall mech armed to the nines.

Just then, the door to the security room collapsed under the strain of dozens of drones piling against it. Within moments the room filled with bodies, all of them pulling at Elsa, who was frozen in wide-eyed shock. Out of desperation she spawned a thick ice cocoon, but the constant barrage of the drones made quick work of it, chiseling it down to a pile of shards. A shrill scream echoed through the halls all the way down to the bowels of the facility, strings of icy protest trailed all the way down like the claws of a beast dragged into oblivion.

Desperate for freedom, instincts took over and Elsa reached out with her mind. Her wireless connection was holding on by a thread. If she could hold on for just a bit longer she'd be able to get another bot...

The EEG halo was ripped right off her head, the AR glasses soon afterward. It was a violation that turned her stomach, and the straw keeping her from turning violent snapped. She balled up massive amounts of frosty energy until it threatened to collapse under its own weight, then shot it outwards with all her might.

Bodies flew outwards from the epicenter in a dazzling array before slamming into the walls and falling lifelessly to the ground, some bloodied and broken. Unimaginable amounts of raw energy flowed through the icy demi-goddess, forming dazzling spheres by her fingertips. She barely had time to get into a fighting pose before the hive charged again. Pouring her icy power into the ground spawned a thick ice wall, and she expelled it away from her offensively, only for the relentless hive to clash against it, using their sheer numbers to overpower.

This cycle continued; each new wave depleted her reserves further and further. Fatigue set in, robbing her of power and drive. Just like her nightmare on Anna's bed, a wall of flesh and metal pierced the ice, claiming her completely.

After her defeat, and having been dragged all the way down into the abyssal basement, Elsa found herself angrily staring out from a thick sapphire capsule. When trying to blast it with ice proved futile, she sat against the glass, staring venom at her captor.

"Contrary to what you might think miss Arendelle, we're not a monster."

"You've GOT to be kidding me. Really?" Her shoulders came up, her fist clenched by her hips and face contorted. "You send your bitch-queen to try and kill my girlfriend and make a goddamn JOKE about it and you're not a monster?!"

Hans gave her an inquisitive look, unsure what to make of her protests. "Of course we attacked you, you stood in our way. As for the humor, one must always make light of a dark situation lest it overwhelm them. But we're going to be gracious and give you a choice."

Elsa crossed her arms and tossed her head to the side, refusing to entertain him.

"We are the future. This world is sick and broken, and we have the power to fix it. You can be a part of that future, and be one with the hive, or I'll have to eliminate you. It would be unfortunate... but I won't lie. We enjoy stamping out rogue elements. It's how we've gotten this far."

'Ugh, you can't justify this,' she thought to herself, consumed with disgust. Without ever facing him directly, she meticulously spelled out the words "fuck off" in elaborate ice crystals, adorning it with care, going so far as to swoop the serifs on the letters.

"What a shame," he replied, eyes downcast. "Maybe your sister will feel differently. Won't be too hard to get her down here now that you've been captured."

Heavy breaths escaped tired lungs, fueling the young warrior as she tossed yet another attacker over her shoulder. They were coming faster now, she was sure of it. They went down fairly easily, due to the fact that most of the augmentation jobs were botched in the first place. Nearly all of them were entirely flesh and bone, minus the brain implants.

Their fleshiness was a double-edged sword. Though the combatants individually posed little danger, if she wasn't careful she could cut them down into chunky giblets by accident. But just as soon as she let her guard down, three of them grabbed her at once, a reminder of just how easily they could overwhelm her.

Desperate to shake the impending dog-pile, Anna jumped up onto a support pillar and dug in with her feet and free hand. Inch by inch, she crawled upwards, increasing the strain on the fleshy drones clinging to her until they dropped to the ground. Hanging above the swarm below, Anna breathed a sigh of relief, and took stock of the situation. She sighed and let her upper lip snarl, it wasn't looking good.

All around, the entire hive stopped moving at once. A chorus of unified voices, they spoke. "Elsa has agreed to be a part of our collective." Each one shifted, holding one arm outwards in a single direction as though indicating a path. "See for yourself."

The whole facility echoed with the sound of locks disengaging and doors throwing themselves open. Skeptical, Anna clasped the few remaining EMP grenades on her belt. 'Elsa would never...' the thought trailed off as Anna began the long journey to investigate. The closer she got, the less fleshy the drones became. Her skin crawled at the sight of one drone implanting armor into another. She hoped silently to herself that if there was any semblance of the individual trapped within that they were blissfully unaware of what was being inflicted upon them.

One foot followed another, pushing her past the threshold and into what was clearly the collective's home base. The environment around was in a state of flux. Drones set up regeneration chambers, medical and mechanical workstations, as well as what appeared to be a transportation line out of the building.

"Anna," came the voice. She wasn't sure she was ready to look.

"Elsa?" she asked, reluctantly turning to face her. "What's gotten into you?"

"I just listened to reason. You know how thoughtful I am."

She couldn't help but agree. Elsa was nothing if not a lover of logic and reason. But this? No, something wasn't right. She had to be drugged, or maybe even assimilated. If Anna's chronometric implant hadn't been slowing her perceptions right then, she might not even have noticed it, but the image of Elsa flickered for just a fraction of a second.

'Hologram!'

She leapt high into the air, dropping one of the grenades underneath her. It fell into a swath of drones that dived on her old position, knocking them out. Hanging from a pipe attached to the underside of the walkway above, she scanned the room for any sign of the real Elsa.

"Damn," she said aloud, finding nothing. Something else caught her attention out of the corner of her eye, a bright spot across the room. Two drones walked a person-sized metal box out to an illuminated spot on the wall, where a white ball was mounted behind a protective window. The container split in half, and an unconscious person emerged. Upon seeing the two drones plug the unconscious body into the device and the body come to life, Anna got the idea. The sight of the assimilation reminded her of the conversation she'd had with Elsa about the danger of the technology including the unresolved psychosis issues, and she desperately hoped that she could heal these people when it was all over. Chills came over her; the clock was ticking away.

Hurling her momentum back, then heaving it forth, Anna flung herself upwards past the railing. Gracefully she flew through the air, tucking hard at first, then gently uncurling till she flipped over backwards, her arms stretching outwards like wings. The clash of her feet hitting the mesh were more drones, weaving and swarming. They started climbing the railing to catch up to her, and after a brief moment of teeth-baring horror, she calmed herself long enough to recharge her shock system. Still no sign of Elsa or Hans.

The drones caught up to her, and this time more of them were mechanical than last time, vastly cutting down her combat advantage. She felt her throat close and her breath shorten. Turning her attention inwards, she pushed the growing anxiety deep within, turning it into powerful electric currents. Uncertainty loomed - was her mind playing tricks on her? It was possible that her chronometric implant was stuttering, but Anna could swear that each time she fired, the drones adapted to the shock more and more quickly.

Without a second's warning, the closest mechanical monstrosity lunged at her. With femtoseconds to spare she latched onto its chassis, rolling with the dive. Unleashing a guttural roar she unleashed every volt of static charge she had. The attacking drone collapsed, but the remaining ones responded with only a stutter and a blue glow. Sparks danced off their newly adapted configuration.

Instinct pushed Anna to try the cloaking device. A loud buzz in her ears and a crossed out battery in her vision meant that the power was drained, and there'd be no invisibility any time soon.

Eyes widening in primal fear and options running out, she scanned desperately for an escape route. The window was closing swiftly, walls of impending doom encroaching from all sides. Closing her eyes she made a leap of faith towards what she thought was a clearing in the nightmare. It wasn't enough. All around her the ruthless drones dug their claws in. She struggled into futility, writhing and wrenching until her limbs gave out. Slowly her field of vision began to shrink as the pile grew.

Through the tiny opening, Anna saw that far above, Hans was looming over Elsa who shrank, cowering underneath. Flashbacks of all they'd been through together played out in Anna's mind; she realized that her one true love, sister and soul-mate would meet her end today as well...

The very thought of something so precious being lost rekindled her fight with the strength of a raging fire. She reached deep within, and found the infinite well of willpower and determination that had been part of her all along. Against the astronomical weight above her she struggled. She pushed ferociously until she'd emerged from the other side, but the hive still had her by the left arm. Trying to break free she pulled again and again with tenacity that would make Sisyphus run green with envy. Stress alarms all throughout her body blared and warnings flashed in her vision, which was tunneling red at the sides from exertion. When she ignored them her body resorted to sending natural pain signals of crippling intensity, but she persisted regardless. The hive tightened its grip on her in response. Without a second thought she tripled her efforts, trembling as the joints, tendons and neural implants in her shoulder tore away. Sparks, blood and coolant fluid all flew from the newly cleaved limb.

Finally free from the nightmare, her pulse spiked. Time was of the essence, but as she looked upwards it became clear that scaling the chamber fast enough was impossible. The walls were too slick to climb, and the catwalks didn't go all the way up. Freaking out with her lips quivering, she ran her remaining hand over her forehead, dragging her fingers through frazzled copper colored locks. How could she come this far, and sacrifice so much only to have it not be good enough? As her hand came back down, her fingertip grazed her medullary implant, and feeling the edge of the diagnostic port stirred a hint of a memory, like a fuzzy dream. Like a trail of breadcrumbs, there was something to be found and she felt as though she knew the answer. Tossing her last EMP grenade towards the hive and coaxing her sense of time to a crawl to give her more time, she followed the trail.

'By the lake at home weeks ago, I walked alone. It was the first time I really got to think about who I am and what I'm here for. I know I was made for this, since others gave up so much for me. But when did this all start?

I wonder… when I first met Dr. Lancaster, papa gave me an upgrade. He never told me what it was for.

What's even weirder is that it came up again, when Elsa and I followed him to Ashley. But still, nobody knew what it was for. Although, Ashley said it was a lot like what's in these drones.

Come on, Anna, think! What do you know about a hivemind?

Hans is controlling it. Clarice was helping, but everyone else was a slave. That means there are monarchs!

Wait a second! That upgrade was called monarch something… Maybe the way is not up… but through! Oh gosh, can I really do this? What if it doesn't work? Elsa told me that some people go crazy, that they lose themselves in this thing. What if I turn into a slave just like them?

No, I can't turn back now. I have to save Elsa. What happens to me doesn't matter.'

The threat of fatigue pushing her onwards, Anna hopped up onto a nearby pipe, and slid down it with her only hand. She grit her teeth as the synthetic skin on her palm peeled away, the metal underneath grinded against the pipe hard enough to send fiery sparks flying. Hurtling towards the root node, she let go and gravity did the rest, pulling her on a long arc towards uncertainty. Pain provoked a grunt, her ribs compacted as she hit the wall at top speed.

Beaten and broken, she staggered to her feet. With her shredded, mangled hand she plugged the uplink cable into her head, took a deep breath, closed her eyes and hoped for the best.

Hans' body gave off a menacing hum as he inched closer to his prey. Moments ago, both hunter and hunted had witnessed the daughter of Agdar succumb to the hive, and Hans had now turned his attention to Elsa. The door to the capsule slid open, giving him entry.

"Unbelievable… even in death, your father can't stop failing. You know, back when we were just 'I', I had a feeling you might reject my future, so I had my engineers cook up a special surprise just for the occasion."

Frozen in place, Elsa watched as his hand split apart, folded backwards and re-assembled into something far more sinister. From the metal mass emerged an ominous syringe.

"These nanites will swarm down to your feet, work their way upwards and latch onto each nerve in your body. At each one they will overload it all the way to just below the breaking point. This will cascade upwards, bringing a wave of agony from which there is no escape." He smirked fiendishly at her.

"What!? Why not just assimilate me forcefully? I mean think of what my ice powers could do!"

"We gave you a choice, and you turned it down. Why would we reward dissent? Besides, we don't need living tissue to figure out your quirk."

Speechless, she simply stared in horror. This was really happening. She'd failed everyone, and was going to pay for it. At least she wouldn't have to suffer long, she thought.

"Once you're in up to your neck, two very special nanites will move deeper into your brain and turn your sense of time to a standstill. The next wave of nanobots will dump a potent flood of serotonin agonists right into the receptors. Centuries will pass in your mind as your body revolts against you, muscles contracting and spasming, an infernal fever consuming every iota of your being. All the while we'll vary the pain levels… just to keep you from adapting."

He licked his lips and shuddered, dragging the needle across her skin. He took every precaution not to break it prematurely.

"And out here, comfortably guarded by our invincible drone hive, we'll eagerly watch every wave of neural activity, watching our handiwork until we personally see your final surrender. Then, and only then will you be shut down."

No evil laughter came forth, no gloating or mustache-twirling. All he did was stare her down and smile faintly. The totality of his malice could be seen in the reflection of his eyes. He inched forwards until his mouth was practically touching her ear.

"Or maybe we'll keep you locked in that hell forever. Who knows, maybe we'll even take the most intimate memories of you with yourincestuous whoreand make some minor adjustments. She never really loved you anyways, did she? Enjoy the theater of the mind you fleshy, weak osterkleer."

Something other than sadism went wrong in Hans' head. His displays flickered and everything went black for just a fraction of a millisecond. The strangest, most ineffable feeling came over him ever so briefly along with the sensory interruption, but then all normalcy returned.

With her fearful soul laid bare, Elsa stared back at him with wide, tearful eyes. Her lips quivered and she whimpered pathetically. Skin pinched inwards, the needle pierced a vein, opening the floodgates for millions of tiny nanites. Searing pain consumed her body and she fell backwards, slamming onto the floor. Sweet, sweet victory was finally firmly within Hans' grasp.

"... and he really can't tell he's trapped in a simulation?" Elsa asked, only minutes after watching Hans collapse to his knees. As soon as he'd hit the ground, the entire hive swarmed him.

Anna nodded, the cable still plugged into her head swayed in response. Across the room, Hans lifeless body was restrained by several drones, keeping him plugged into a CyberDynamics Virtual Reality cube until his consciousness could be transferred entirely into the cube. Anna's voice echoed through the hive, coming out of each of the people connected, but the kind, endearing tone was unmistakably hers. "It would have been easy to just... shut him down. But..."

"You don't want to be like him," Elsa finished.

"I've never killed anyone... I wasn't going to start now."

'Which is more than I can say,' Elsa thought, showing hints of guilt over the blood she'd spilled. She rubbed her arm where the needle had been dragged but not actually pierced and replied. "Just in the nick of time."

Her sister frowned, casting her gaze down. Each of the connected drones displayed the collective dismay in their body language. "I know, I'm sorry I wasn't faster..."

"No! You didn't do anything wrong I just..." Elsa stopped, trying to get her breathing under control. "It was terrifying. What he was going to do to me, I mean."

"I know snowflake. I could feel it as soon as I plugged in. I can feel everything. Father was right, this is going to change everything. I've access to so many memories, so much knowledge."

"How does it work?"

"Do you remember back when we followed papa's GPL to Ashley? And we discussed an upgrade?"

"Mhmm," she said, nodding. Her eyes were starting to dry as well as get wider in curiosity.

"It's called the monarch protocol, and my copy is special. It lets me override anyone else and become the queen of the hive."

Alarm bells went off in Elsa's head. Everything she'd seen so far told her that kind of thing was begging to be abused. 'What if Anna turns into Hans?' she thought, and then immediately chastised herself for thinking it. 'That's impossible.'

"That sounds like a dangerous power."

Anna went silent, her expression blank. Her eyes glowed and her chest flexed ever so slightly under her breath, but aside from that she was as still as an empty night. The intensity of her eye-glow pulsed slowly at first, then picked up speed.

Elsa cocked her head to the side, and slowly drew closer. "Anna?"

Anna went slack again and blinked. "You're right. The beauty behind the SWARM's original design is that it's totally decentralized. This monarch protocol messes that whole thing up."

Gritting her teeth and shrugging her shoulders, Elsa leaned over to the bloody socket where her sister's arm used to be. Her finger hovered inches from it until she recoiled in empathetic pain. Words failed her, and she simply held her hands over her mouth.

"Don't sweat it. I'd give anything for you, snowflake. besides, this was nothing, I can have the hive help me patch it up."

They held each other as tightly as they could possibly manage, tears of relief flowing freely. Finally, Elsa pulled back, cradling Anna's face in her hand. "Please don't stay in there too long, we don't know what it might do to you."

Anna nodded. Her nerves were beginning to calm now that the fight was over, and as incredible as it felt to be thousands of times more intelligent than normal, it also reinforced that they were all in uncharted territory. With a smile, she softly whispered "Soon. There's nothing I want more than to just have some normal, domestic lovey time with you. But first, we have some fixing to do... and oh oh Kristoff's ok! I can feel him in here! Let's go get him! I'll carry you!"

Side by side, and hand-in-hand, they boldly went to set things right.