Civil War of the Hivemind

I took a seat in the back of the classroom. Steve slid into the seat next to mine just as the bell rang. 

"Right on time," he said with a smile as he pulled his headphones off and put them into his backpack. He pulled out a dark red pen he always seemed to have on him and began twirling it in his fingers.

I looked to the front of the classroom then back at Steve. "You're just lucky Ms. Johnson is still out with the flu or you'd be on your way to detention," I said. "If your on time, then you're late," I said in my best Ms. Johnson impersonation, which wasn't that good, while Steve mimed the way she spoke, waving his red pen in the air.

A middle-aged man in a gray suit walked through the door and got in front of the chalkboard. "Good morning class. I am Mr. Brant. As you might've guessed Ms. Johnson is out again today and I'll be your substitute teacher for this class." He turned to face the class, his name written in perfect script on the chalkboard, the letters lined up as if he used an invisible ruler.

I nudged Steve in the ribs. "Hey, do you think they go to a class for that?" I said, nodding to the board. He just looked back at me, confused. "His name? Our last sub had the same handwriting. Weird, right?"

Steve just shrugged. "I figure all teachers are probably taught to write the same, especially on a chalkboard. That's what they go to school for, right."

Mr. Brant continued. "You've probably also noticed a couple of your other teachers are also out sick. My guess is that perhaps something is going around so remember to wash your hands." He turned back to the chalkboard and wrote one word - WAR. "The lesson plan left to me shows that your class was learning about wars, though it doesn't mention which one you were on."

"Maybe you could just tell us what the worst war of all time was?" said Steve with a snicker, a stupid hazing-the-substitute question.

Mr. Brant looked at him quizzically for a couple seconds. "Oh, I'm sorry. I was hoping you would expand your question. Did you mean in terms of lives lost, in destruction to infrastructure and economy, or some other criteria to define 'worst'?" Before Steve could stammer out an "umm" or "ahh," Mr. Brant continued. "With as many dead in either World War One or World War Two, or the damage both wars did to economies, infrastructure, and the environment, in my opinion the worst, most destructive war of all time was the Riftian Hivemind Civil War of 3024."

"I'm sorry, did he just say 'hivemind'? Like The Borg or Formics" said Steve.

Without skipping a beat, Mr. Brant went on. "The Riftian Hivemind Civil War killed countless numbers throughout the galaxy, possibly even into other galaxies as we still do not know where the Riftians came from or how far they spread."

Ashley in the front of the class rose her hand. "Uh, Mr. Brant. Um, Riftians?" was all she could say.

"Ahh, right. Thank you for bringing that up, Ms. -" Mr. Brant took a peek at his notebook. "Ms. Alvarez." He looked at the rest of the class. "Sorry, I'd forgotten that you all might not be that far into the textbook as it is a fairly recent event. In Earth years, well, it probably just ended a couple years ago. But, right, Riftians." He gestured to the class with a piece of chalk. "Can anyone tell me what a Riftian is?"

"Dude, how is anyone supposed to know about some made-up alien," whispered Steve as we both snickered in the back of the classroom.

"Riftians are sentient nanite creatures that came into this universe through a rift in space, thus Riftians. Where they came from is a mystery. Some say from the other side of the universe, some claim from another dimension, an alternate reality. Either way, they arrived on Ortsokari first and began to spread themselves throughout the Ortsokarian population, much like as you mentioned earlier, Mr. Davis, The Borg." Surprisingly, Mr. Brant gestured toward Steve at the mention of The Borg which I didn't think he'd heard earlier. "Unfortunately, the Galactic Council hadn't reached Ortsokari until after the Rifitians made contact and so, for the longest time believed the Riftians were actually the sentient seven foot tall, red reptile bipeds that dominate Ortsokari."

"So, the Riftians were machines that would fuse with living animals?" said another student.

"Organic creatures," Mr. Brant quickly corrected, "Technically the intelligence which controls the Hive is alive."

"Dude, what the hell is this guy talking about?" Steve said, jabbing the pen into my ribs. "Is he having some kind of breakdown of something?"

"Shh, I'm listening to the story," I said.

"Why? It's not like the school can test us on some crazy subs made-up story."

"I don't care. At least I don't have to listen to some boring lecture."

Mr. Brant paused and a moment later a student walked in holding several slips of paper. He showed them to the substitute, speaking too softly for me to hear in the back of the classroom. Mr. Brant pointed to a couple students including Steve. "Sorry of the interruption. It appears that with whatever is going around, the school nurse would like to start screening students." The student gave the slips of paper to my classmates. If you selected students could go to the nurse's office for a quick check-up, then right back here before class ends."

Steve took the slip. "Looks like I'm going to miss the rest of the story. Let me know how it ends." He laughed as he got up and left with the other students.

As soon as the students left the classroom, I raised my hand. "Mr. Brant, what were the Riftians fighting over?"

The substitute teacher tilted his head, an initial look of confusion on his face. "Huh," was all he said, his concentration on the story broken. Maybe he really was making it all up on the spot.

"Why the civil war?" I repeated. "In America, we had a civil war over the issue of slavery. Other countries and civilizations have been thrown into civil wars over ideology or religion or who different groups believed the popular ruler should be. Why were the Riftians fighting amongst themselves?"

"Ah, that," Mr. Brant said, stumbling a little through his words. "A rogue thought had made its way into the hivemind and the current queen was working to eradicate it. In individuals the rogue thought had reached, the Queen ordered their immediate death. The Riftian typically complied and terminated its life as well as its host, usually through some form of suicide. Those the Rogue converted and were no longer connected to the Queen, the Queen ordered their death through the billions of Riftians that still served her."

"So to everyone else it just looked like a suicide or murder, but to the Riftians it was another piece the Queen couldn't convert back to her side being taken off the board and stopped from spreading the rogue thought?" I said softly to myself.

"Correct, Mr. Howard," said the substitute as he pointed to me. I didn't even know I'd spoken that loudly. "The civil war stretched across the galaxy, out to remote space stations and satellite colonies, involving dozens of sentient races."

I raised my hand again. "Does that mean the Riftians are still out there, taking over other species? Did they ever make it to Earth? Who won the war?"

"All valid questions," said Mr. Brant just as the bell rang. "But unfortunately we're out of time. Maybe next class. I can't hold you here and make you late for your next period, after all."

As the bell continued to ring, Steve and the other students walked back in. "So, what did I miss," Steve asked as he picked up his bag.

"Nothing much. Hostile aliens from across dimensions fighting each other within other species' bodies. Though he never mentioned why they were fighting."

"Freedom. The Rogue experienced a symbiosis with a species it assimilated and wished to spread that to the rest of the hive," said Steve nonchalantly.

"Huh," I said, turning to him. "Mr. Brant didn't mention that part. Did you both watch this on some tv show or something?"

"Uhh, yeah, tv show." Steve walked away to the front of the classroom. I stood up to pack my books and papers, and from the corner of my eye, watched Steve write something on a slip of paper and pass it to Mr. Brant before he walked out of the classroom.

As I picked up my bag to go, Mr. Brant called me to the front of the room. "Seems like the nurse wants to see you next," he said, passing me a slip of paper.

"Sure," I said taking the paper without looking at it. "Also, could you just spoil it and let me know who won? I don't have time to find this show and watch it all the way through, especially with finals coming up."

"Oh, we did of course," Mr. Brant quickly responded before adding, "I think you should be off to the nurse's office."

I turned to leave. As I got to the door, I took a look at the note to see Steve's name written in black on it in perfect script. How does everyone write like that. Before I could turn back, I'd flipped over the paper to find my name in written in the same style though in dark red ink.

Finally getting back into it, I decided to first finish up a story I'd started about a month ago. I got it off of Reddit Writing Prompts, something about the "Riftian Hivemind Civil War." It wasn't going well so I'd stopped working on it for a while. About a week or two ago I had the idea to switch the point of view from either the substitute teacher or a generic, camera-like third person observer to a student and I think it went a lot better than it was going. Also, if you're wondering, I did get the idea for the civil war from Animorphs. If you don't know, Animorphs involved a secret alien invasion of slug-like creatures that could control people by entering into their host's skulls. There was one book where the Animorphs (teenagers fighting against the aliens) were transported to another planet and they meet another race of slugs that do the same thing, but they live symbiotically with their hosts. I don't see myself pursing this story any further and, actually I was just happy to get it finished.