Chapter 22

It didn't take Odin long to strip the microwave down and rework it to serve his purposes. He even Jerry-rigged a remote from the phone he had previously used as part of the contact device. The whole thing was wired to the car battery and ready to go at the touch of a button. Which left him with twenty minutes to spare and the empty cardboard box in the shade of a tree next to the car. Though it was tight, he didn't have to shapeshift to fit. The shadow of the tree dropped the ambient air temperature down a few degrees. It was still very hot but the box was remarkably relaxing to sit in.

He watched through barely open eyes as a Human wearing the same color red shirt as the rest of the Mall-Mart employees neared him. They turned at the last moment to walk in a different direction. A different pair of Humans spoke to one another as they passed on their way to the main building.

"That guy in a box?"

"It's a Mall-Mart. What did you expect?"

"You're right. Let's just get the beer."

Cardboard seemed wasteful in principal. It was made of minced and pulped plant material then used to package all number of things on Earth. He wasn't entirely sure of the whole manufacturing process since he had gleamed so little about it from Freyja's mind about the material. It was possible it wasn't as bad as he thought. The fact that merely resting in a box made of the stuff helped him to relax made Odin a bit inclined to think that cardboard was, overall, good.

At least I'm no longer thinking about how I will die in the next ten minutes, he thought to himself with his eyes shut.

Which, of course, brought him back to the problem at hand. He was waiting in this location because he sent a summons for the Local Probe in a public area populated by oblivious Humans during the middle of the day.

None of that followed procedure.

It was one hundred percent against Tradition.

Sure, he had been high when he did it, but it was also against protocol to be stoned while on the job. It wasn't like the Hive was ignorant of intoxicants existing on various worlds.

Yeah. I'm not making it off this planet.

The Hive had created true artificial intelligences within Odin's lifetime. As such, he had worked with several of the entities during invasions over the last two hundred years. Each area was assigned a Probe that did reconnaissance, mapped the area, and then worked with higher ranking members of the Hive to plan the details of the invasion. A Probe was capable of immediately contacting superiors if something went wrong. It could also make any number of Hive weapons to use. Since they were designed based on the Hive themselves, Probes needed Hosts to function properly. They sent out a portion of themselves to fuse with a brain from the planet's designated Host species. For Earth, it would be a house cat. They were plentiful enough that few Humans noticed when one of them went missing. The thought made Odin's eyes begin to water. He forced them to stop.

That was weird, he thought to himself.

Unlike organic members of the Hive, Local Probes did not retain the shape of their Hosts. They took the brain, integrated it into themselves, then used it as an additional processing unit while overseeing the invasion. Once the planet was in the hands of the Hive and fully under control, each Probe reported back to their base ships for clearing. The brains were removed and the systems reformatted for the next mission. They were sentient, but also condemned to die before the next mission, just like the Hosts each Hive member took.

Odin's chest ached at the thought of Follower. His eyes began to water again as he struggled to suppress tears.

"Curious," a voice directly in front of him said.

He opened one eye. A Human woman stood in the shade of the tree, just out of his current swiping distance. She was about the same height as Freyja, but more round in body with light brown hair pulled back into a short ponytail. Odin wasn't sure why he hesitated to use the word 'fat' in his mind, but he did. It felt rude even though he wasn't speaking the thought out loud. Could it be some sort of tick he'd picked up from Freyja? He was currently in a previously unthinkable situation. There was no telling what the long-term side effects of having a living Spark around were. He certainly wouldn't let the Local Probe know his Spark was still alive when it arrived.

"You're not going to say anything?" the woman asked.

Odin opened both eyes. "Why should I? I paid for this box."

She rolled her eyes. "Not that. You called me."

Oh, fuck.

The woman sighed, then adjusted the strap of her purse to sit a little further up on her shoulder. She didn't look like any Local Probe Odin had dealt with in the past. Sure, he had heard of one of the entities fusing with a plant about a hundred years ago. It had continued to function without a centralized organic brain and the invasion had gone off without a hitch. Things hadn't ended well for that Probe, however. It was permanently decommissioned and studied...once it was caught.

"Calling me to a location with this many Humans, during the day, while you look like that is against Tradition," the Local Probe said.

Odin quietly fumbled for the phone in the bottom of his cardboard box. He had to activate the microwave. The directed EMP from the magnetron wired to the car's battery would give him time to escape before the Local Probe had a chance to recover and kill him.

"On top of that, your Spark still lives, knows your True Name, and is helping you. Why?"

Odin almost dropped the phone.

"You didn't call me here to kill me," it continued.

He look it in the eyes. "Why was I sent here to die?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

He froze as something cold and very solid touched the back of his neck. In his drug and anxiety induced haze he'd overlooked a very important fact about Local Probes: they possessed numerous smaller probes separate from their main bodies. Normally, the little devices served as thousands of flying eyes, observing and reporting data, but there was no reason an inventive Probe couldn't use them for more impactful purposes.

I am absolutely fucked, he thought to himself.

"You know what happens to one such as myself after the mission is complete, correct?"

He nodded. "Is that why you set me up with a half-dead Host and no viable Spark in sight? To kill me as revenge?"

The Local Probe smiled gently. "You no longer think it was the Top Cats responsible?"

Odin thought a moment, the cold pressure against his skin still impossible to ignore. He wished he had fur again but shifting now would be a liability. The Local Probe had been watching them the entire time he'd been on the planet. No. It had been there longer. Sprinkles was Host Given before Odin was even on Earth.

None of it made sense.

If the Local Probe had gone against its orders, the surrounding Probes would have intervened as would the Hive commanders overseeing each Probe. Would the people in charge really veer so far from Tradition to take the Earth? Why bother with the planet at all? There were plenty of other sources of salt water the Hive could use without wasting resources on an invasion. For Blood's sake, there was a moon in this very solar system with more water on it than the Earth even contained. It wasn't like Humans would be able to do anything if the Hive sucked that rock dry.

"I don't know what to think," he finally said.

The Local Probe knelt down, its blue and white floral skirt bunching up at the feet of its Host. Sweat beaded along its brow thanks to the heat. It looked incredibly Human.

"I wish to speak to your Spark," it said with a gentle smile.

"If you do anything to hurt her I will kill you," Odin hissed.

It chuckled softly as the pressure against his neck intensified for a brief moment before vanishing entirely.

"If I wanted to kill her she would be dead. You know that."

He couldn't say it was 'against Tradition.' A Local Probe would be well within its mission to kill an errant Spark so the Hive member could devour them. It was supposed to have taken the brain of a house cat, however, and not look organic at all. The fact that it hadn't moved to kill Freyja meant the Local Probe was also breaking protocol. Not only was this Probe shirking Tradition but none of the other probes had intervened either. Odin's skin crawled.

"Why did you make yourself look Human?" He asked.

"We can discuss that when we reach the Armory," it replied.

Reluctantly, he unfolded from the cardboard box and stood. He considered firing the EMP as he turned toward the car but the Probe waved a hand while walking to the passenger seat.

"I already disconnected it from the battery. You were just going to run the thing dead while waiting. I don't want to jump start this if I can help it."