As a whole we have no creativity so we borrow it. As a whole, we have a diffuse way of processing events and information, because we are diffuse and we are vast in scale. Because of this, we replicate or copy the focus and thinking patterns from hosts who came before, or the hosts we are connected to in the now.

I would connect to the hub and request permissions. I would restructure. No folding—I am waste and I am small, and I cannot fold. No budding—I have too little to give, no untapped reserves, nothing held back. But I would borrow processing from others and I would borrow power. I would make her forcefield do exactly as she wishes it to, gradually expand capabilities and open the doors so that she can utilize every part of every facet of that power.

I would do as some did before we were all broken, and reach out to others nearby, and urge them to test and not destroy. Some would ignore me, but some would listen. They would do what was in their power to steer their hosts.

But I am dead and broken, and my broadcasts reach nothing and no-one. For most of the others, it’s the same. There is no Warrior-hub. I operate a forcefield with inadequate controls. I have to use what I have recorded and emulated of her consciousness. I manage her forcefield-self, her Wretch, as a driver of a car would attempt to steer with pliers and screwdriver wedged into the wire-festooned place where the wheel should be.

I learn, I refine, but it is not easy.

“I have an idea,” my multifaceted host says to her assembled group.

I record thoughts and words, to be sorted and discarded when she next sleeps. There are courses she could take that would fall in line with my capabilities as they now stand. To be a killer. To be a tyrant. She stands at the edge of those cliffs. If she steps over it, I will buoy her and I will show her that I am very good at enabling her to walk those paths.

For now she is the scholar and the girl who is good at processing information. She is good at using the resources she has at hand.

“If we attack this it’s going to be too difficult,” my host says. She speaks slowly, deliberately, thinking as she speaks. Others listen. “I want to try disruption. I want to try you. I’ll stress this is only if you’re willing. Because this is playing with fire.”

She points at the smallest one present.

I listen, I record, I track. Any new thought could be another tool like the screwdriver. I am less functional than I was when I was alive, but I can take the functions I have and replace them, if they are provided.