Hive Story Samples
“Juni and the Whale” and “They Calls Me Freedom” take place in the same universe of “Hive,” from my in-progress novella. “Hive” explores the connections between humans, technology, and nature through a series of interconnected short stories.
Florida is mostly flooded, with only a large swamp remaining, and most Americans have uploaded their consciousness into mandated augmented realities. Meanwhile, androids work to restore the land’s health. The story follows two main groups. The first is the Swamp Kin, who have rebelled by choosing not to upload and live in an anarchist commune that strongly opposes artificial intelligence. The second group includes “nanny-bots” who teach children in the uploaded foster system how to live in harmony with nature.
“They Calls Me Freedom” is considered the present in the novella, whereas “Juni and the Whale” takes place in the recent past. Freedom has their own language, which is inclined toward metaphor tied to the swamp and lacks commas, emulating how everything blends and runs together like the murk of a swamp.
Juni and the Whale
(Short Story Excerpt)
“You could speak to the dead, ya know? Amanita muscaria, ergot, psilocybin, any of these, really, take you right through the veil. I have some lovely psilocybin strains right now, very generous energy.” Sheldrake picks dirt under their nails. Redundant, their light brown fingers are always a green-black stain. Their lanky body sways, threatening to topple on me as I squat in the tech pile, shifting between useful and refuse.
My wide nostrils flare, but I don’t stop my sifting, “Now why would I need to speak to the dead?”
“Juni, youse gonna have to face it, he—”
“You betta’ seal them lips right now before I staple them shut.” I don’t look up as I remove the staple gun from my tool belt and waggle it in the air with intentional malice.
They suck their teeth at me, “Chht, find yo’ low tide. I’m just tryin’ to be helpful.”
“Go be helpful elsewhere. Don’t you have a meeting?” I gesture to the hut next to me, an intricate construction that is part traditional chickee—a cypress log cabin with reeds—juxtaposed with painted concrete walls, cut with tiny, dotted windows made of colorful glass bottles. This is the hut I usually sleep in, but not recently.
Sheldrake spits then smiles, “I’d forget my head if it weren’t attached. Ain’t you comin’?”
I gesture emphatically to the pile of found technology in front of me, robotic toys, intergenerational cell phones, lost remotes to forgotten vessels, Bluetooth speakers squat and tall, “smart” housewares, talking picture frames that now sound like demons, and much more that folks find floating in the swamp. Since we’s part of all’s that’s left of the physical society of Pahayokee, of the land that used to be known as Florida, we have a responsibility to support her restoration. Her—our Mother Swamp, who does protect us, the last swath of land not completely swallowed into the sea. The pile is twice as big as normal, cause usually I ain’t doin’ this alone.
“Ok, ok, I got you girl. Don’t worry, I’ll speak loud fo’ ya.”
“I’m not gonna lis—” They’re already inside. They know me too well; I am absolutely planning to eavesdrop. I love that loon. Sheldrake’s my closest friend, at least the one closest to my age, even though they’re like a decade olda’. We do not keep track of genetic lineage anymore, but Sheldrake’s mama is Angelee, a Black woman only a bit lighta’ than me, and Sheldrake came out quite light and loose of curl, so it’s not hard to narrow down who their “giving” parent might be. There ain’t that many white people among us.
I grabs a pink dog-unicorn toy that has lost its glitter and fluorescence to time. I crack it open like an egg, and as I thought, it is indeed a simple AI made to adapt to its child’s idiosyncrasies for superior artificial bonding. This AI, even one as primitive and harmless as this, would still make the adults uneasy, so I place its circuitry in the “Juni-only” pile for future inspection. Inside, I can hear Grandelder Rocksalt chastising Sheldrake for being late, and Sheldrake rambling something about nonlinear time. I peek through one of the clear bottles. The image becomes less distorted when I press my eye against it as my telescope. This is the only way I’ll let myself look at him.
Geo lies on his bed, propped up by many foam pillows. They’re the only thing keeping him upright. There’s a bucket clutched like a teddy bear. He can’t keep nothin’ down. He’s a gnarled beached log bleached by the sun. There is a slight green hue under his skin tone. He’s bare-chested. He’s a man who was born with a large chest, but it’s shriveled, extracted of nearly all its fat. Does he grieve them? He has never been one to be shy about being a man with “alotta’s tattas.”
“Geo, you look awful,” Sheldrake spins in the refurbished ergonomic office chair. Grandelder Rocksalt, from their wheelchair across the hut, throws something at Sheldrake’s head, but they dodge. Grandelder’s straight silver hair is thin but wild down their back. It seems to puff in annoyance.
“Goddamnit Sheldrake! Have some goddamn respect.” Grandelder’s raspy shouts make their sleeping, three-legged cattle dog Lulubell lift her head for a moment, before assessing that there is no danger—this is just what they’re like together.
Geo wheezes a laugh, “Nah, they right. Call me,” he retches a bit then calms himself, “Santa Muerte.”
“Don’t be talkin’ like that, baby.” We’re all Mona’s baby. Mona sits on the bed. If genetics ruled family in our culture, Mona would be the primary person who would’ve raised me. She’s my mama’s sister. People tell me Mona is much shorter than my mama, but they both big-boned and quite soft-bodied. Besides our noses and smiles, you wouldn’t know we was related. I got none of their curves. I don’t remember much about my two mamas, who were arrested before the government gave up on our commune. I gotta take people’s word for it when they say I remind them of either mama. But it was Geo who raised me. He’s white Cubano, a transman, and the only person in Sanctuary who knows more about tech-wielding than me.
Outside, I pull out a motor, likely from a personal hydropower converter. When the flooding increased, these became very popular. You could build your own dam for your own energy. Water wheels became a popular home addition, painting them with murals or bright colors was very on trend, some charm to distract from the omen of their existence. A few more of these motors and I could probably rig something useful, maybe something to increase the efficiency of the water filtration system Geo built?
“Wait, Mona, don’t sit on his bed. You don’t know what he’s got.” Grandelder Rocksalt reaches for Mona’s hand.
“Now whoooo’s being ruuuude?” Sheldrake sings, spinning in the opposite direction. Mona grabs Geo’s hand and pats it with maternal comfort, though I’m certain Geo is older.
“Nonsense Grandelder. Me and the medic team been working on Geo for the past few months now and none of us has caught a thing. Unfortunately, whatever’s Geo’s got just got him.”
“Can you speak,” Geo takes a hiccupped breath, “louder, Mona? My ear implants have been going in and out more. You know I’d fix them if I could.”
“Of course, baby. We’re here to seek yo’ advice. Me and some otha’s was gathering the wild rice ‘bout ten miles east of here, it’s really flourishing, I wish you could see, I think the brackish water is actually makin’ it more flavorful—”
“What Mona’s tryin’ to say is we found this giant.” Grandelder rolls closer because they can’t speak very loud. “I don’t know, it’s like a submarine or a beached whale, but entirely artificial. We think its base color is white, but of course, Mutha Swamp’s painted it green. Must’ve been there since that first hurricane this season. It’s got many flippers like an old Greek ship, and warts all over the top. What you make of something like that?”
“You actually got it,” Geo smiles, “people called them ‘whales’ and—” Sheldrake leaps almost into Grandelder Rocksalt’s lap, sending the office chair careening to the opposite wall.
“You’re tellin’ me y’all found AN OCEAN-CLASS FUNGAL MUTARIUM!?”
“I thought it might be something like that when I inspected the top and wanted Sheldrake and Geo here to confirm. I kinda remember the advertisements, shot like a regal nature documentary.”
Grandelder Rocksalt throws their arms up in mock surrender, “Well I don’t remember shit! There were so many ‘miracle solutions,’ so many goddamn technologies promisin’ to reverse climate change.”
Outside, I dismantle cellphones into their component parts without looking. I carefully extract the silicon and copper, taking special care with the phones from the brief, volatile era when radiumite was used instead of silicon. I keep the screen glass as well. The hut to my left has a window entirely made from fused iPhone screens.
Sheldrake is still gesticulating their info-dump with passion, “…but the important part is that the fungus can digest plastic and create a nontoxic edible byproduct! It’s incredible! Let’s go get it!”
“Even if we was gonna get it, it’s a complex machine that’s broken to bits, and Geo ain’t exactly in the condition to be fixing nothin’ but his own health. Besides, we gots plenty of food, don’t we Mona?”
“Our raised garden beds and chicken coops have been quite successful thanks to our nitrogen-fixing strategy…well, really, it’s the chickens we should be thanking, and their bacteria. I’ve noticed some edible plants are thriving in the increasingly brackish water, like the swamp apple. The closer, deeper waters are bringing bigger fish that can feed more and forming new mangrove nurseries out of whole forests. Oh, and we’ve found a way to test for rat lung worm, which will make the invasive giant snail an actual potential food source.”
“And yet there’s so many more plants that were lost, edible or not. Why would we deny ourselves the chance at more food? We’s got babies poppin’ out every which way! And besides, we have Juni.” Sheldrake gestured their head toward the wall I’m hiding behind. My face goes hot.
“I don’t know ‘bout that. She just a baby.”
“She almost sixteen! Weren’t you younger than that when y’all established Sanctuary?
“Sheldrake is right,” Geo exhaled. I pop a solar panel off a child-sized drivable Jeep with too much force. I nearly tumble back. “Juni was s—she was seven when she rebuilt, that, that generator of yours, Mona, the one for your precious kitchen and yo’ coops.” Geo is speaking as if the sun is in his eyes, but the hut is quite dim. The solar panel is covered in fat teardrops. I didn’t even realize I was crying. I wipe my eyes with the shoulders of my t-shirt. “While many have relearned the trades to help us all survive,” Geo takes a big breath, “I think I’m in my right to say the minds that Juni and I have are not something you teach.”
I can’t hear no more over my sobs, ‘cept for Sheldrake insisting I come inside.
When Sheldrake comes outside, I’m gone...
They Calls Me Freedom
(Short Story Excerpt)
They calls me Freedom and so I run with hurricane howl in my bones. All the mud in my prints left wanting to get between my toes to splatter in new reed clusters tadpole nurseries and wildcat dens. Mud needs me to go farther than the mud can dream alone. It’s cause of this mud smeared on skin that the drones did not find my Mom and kind.
Drones ain’t calibrated to perceive bodies within bodies. That’s what Mom says and tells of the hovering red eyes that don’t blink for no rain or sunshine.
I was born in the Swamp on the first silent night when the drones stopped and we became free. I don’t have no social security card or pin number no codes at all. It’s been twelve years of silence since the drones sought my kins heat their breaths their shapes of life to snatch’m back to the Augment N3w W0rld 3.0. Drones tried trickin’ my kin with loopin’ sick-sweet voices of women that did not exist lyings about bringing thems to safety cause the shores of Florida sunk and alls that’s left is wild swamp. But the Swamp’s our Mutha and she does protect us. Kins say goverments hates us cuz we’re lost prophets. They can’t ‘sploit us no more so they’s gave up on us corrupted files.
Can’t feel loss for what you don’t know. That’s what Mom says and hopes. Control A. Delete. She repeats in the old code.
But Kins speakin’ hush lately of a monster in the Swamp of a gurgling hiccup in the good peace of our long days. Kins says they saw a lumpin shadow cross the norther graveyard of sunk yachts. Kin says they heards a screech in the thick entangle of eastest bodega bog. Kins says it’s a mutant gator down true souths that ate too many meats full up of too many Gee-em-ohs cause the old world farms’ run offs made the reeds grows taller than the oaks and the cow-lily leaves grow so fat you can take a nap on the water.
Kins say: Domi don’t you stray far now, we don’t know if this has claws of steel or bone. And I says: You names me Freedom so I go wheres I please. They laugh or argue or suck teeth but they never catch me. They don’t know more than they can carry. I know where the monster is. I named it Big Easy.
But Big Easy is a little stuck. So I’ve’s taken mom’s biggest cookin’ blade in the inky pitch of the deep night while she does sleep with her many loves in the big bed of stuffed up quilts. I likes to trace the quilt patch pictures of amusement park novelties family cook outs and universe-cities. Mom says: Ghosts don’t need things, but things need purpose. So we takes what floats in off the waters and kins like Maypop and Bartholomew sneaks up to the old world to scavenge from shells of big box stores condo complexes and luxury hotels.
It's hards to runs in a Swamp but she knows me guides me. I know where the gators sleep and wildcats will only get me if I stay still.
“Big Easy you hears me coming?”
“Freedom, I hear you.” Big Easy’s made of big slimy lumps like a drowned wild hog but has a voice that sounds like Mom if she had up North old world schoolin’.
“Goods good I didn’t want you thinkin’ I was no cat out to get ya.” I says as I break through the reeds’ line. Where murk meets mangrove I find Big Easy tangled in roots and half sunk in silt. Big Easy wears wrappings of kelp and vine with skin that shine with blue-green striping through silver. Even in moonlight Big Easy shine like river fishes at noon or the coins Mom sifts out the mud and turns into tinklin’ jewelry. “Youse gotta be scared of cats being a fish spirit and all.”
“Once again, I am neither a fish nor a spirit,” Big Easy pauses, “but uploading one’s pet required a substantial surcharge, so most pets were placed onto unsustainable droid-run farms during the Upload. America’s streets are now rife with gratuitous warfare between the domestic and the wild. The wild is winning.”
“You means the ghosts abandoned their animals?” I could nevers cuz I loves me my racoon Patooie and all the kins’ cats and Grandelder Rocksalt’s three-legged cattle dog Lulubell.
“Ghosts? Ah, yes, your colloquialism for the uploaded humans.”
“You be knowing too much ‘bout that old world. You probably had to for surviving. Kins had to do a lot of pretending for surviving but youse can be yourself now. We’s free now and my kins gonna help you do whatever you wanna do! That’s the meat of it Big Easy! Youse a free spirit! Do what you wanna do!”
“Do what I want to do?” Big Easy makes a sound like a sigh but Big Easy got no breaths mouths or noses that I can see so it sounds more like the static of the ole ass record player that Cousin Juni found and gots workin’ playing some crooner man named Frank.
I point at the blade in my hand, “This here’s Mom’s good cookin’ knife and I’m going to use it to cut you outs the mangrove.” I slip into the water slicker than a newborn otter pup. The mud welcomes me holds me.
“You have been relaying for days about your people’s various craft ingenuities. Would it not be more efficient if you used some of the carpentry tools of your kin?”
“Hey now I tried snatchin’um but this what I got. You wants to be frees or not?”
“You are Freedom.”
“That’s what they calls me!”
I mades quick works of the roots. Said sorry for cuttin’ um too. I tries runnin’ but Big Easy keeps getting’ snagged by roots and brambles. Big Easy’s hands so long I only need to hold a finger as we slink. The kelp and vines hang over them like a drippin’ blanket as we slog makin’ their body sway heavy in soak and silt.
“I’m sorry I’ll takes it slow for you. I’m eager as a hummingbird for honey wata.”
“Why are you eager?”
“Well ain’t you?”
“I am anticipatory to meet the ones who are liberated. Is that the correct usage of that word?”
“You gots it!
“You are certain of my acceptance?”
“Mom says: Errything got a spirit. Errything got a divine name. Errything got a home in the ecosystem. An ecosystem’s like the family of errything in the whole world. Do you know that word?”
“I do, now.”
“Hush now we’s here.” We don’t use night watches no more so we sneak unseen onto the pontoon dock that floats in the middle of all the house rafts the one used for dance functions markets and townhalls so many townhalls.“I wanna be heres right outs in the open when everyone wakes up. I want them to sees you with me and knows you a friend.” I yawns the kind that rattles your throat and pops your jaw.
“You look tired Freedom. May I offer you my arms and the concave of my body as a suitable rest receptacle?”
“Youse a little wet but hells so am I,” and I curl up in the swinging cradle arms of Big Easy and lean into the curve of Big Easy’s chest. It’s good cold against the heavy humid of full belly night. All fishes be cold blooded.
***
By morning Big Easy arms slurped up the warmth of my body but the chest still cool. I could wriggles out but I’s been too big to hold for a long while. It’s good here. Breath’s foggin’ Big Easy’s silver. I goes to trace a heart but lurch to the scream of my name. Full name. Mom’s running cross the rope bridge holdin’ high the mace she made oh so carefully out of lionfish quills. I don’t know if poison can hurt a spirit and Big Easy clearly ain’t a people. So I don’t know why she grabbed it but all’s I know she calls it her Last Resort.
Mom says: If otha outposts come havin forgot the ways of collective survival, me and this weapon will stand between you and them and none shall pass my wrath.
And today wrath is her eyes…