ILOVEBEES


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<< Back to Chapter 5 - Chapter 6: Metasta-what?


Tuesday, August 10, 2004

With all the excitement of the past week, many people forgot the next countdown was hours from finishing. The energy kicked up again, knowing this update, this 'metastasization', would occur at a certain time, not just when the counter reached 0. Hundreds of beekeepers remained glued to their monitors, excitedly chatting with each other, awaiting that time.

'Metastasize' was looked up by a few people, to try and guage what they would be up against. There were no smiles while people read its first definitions on Dictionary.com...

intr.v. me·tAs·ta·size
1. To be transmitted or transferred by metastasis.
2. To be changed or transformed, especially dangerously
3. To spread, especially destructively

That was not a good sign. Dangerous... destructive... Tension mounted as the counter continued to remain at '0 days'. At the moment the next refresh showed the announcement that the medium had metastasized, the beekeepers, with renewed vigour, scoured the site once more for word from Melissa or the Sleeping Princess. They noticed that there appeared to be more 'random' images corrupted, so, with more efficiency than previous days combined, they compiled the listing of all the new embedded text, and all the new short phrases and words that appeared even on the visible html pages throughout the website, then began working on decyphering the original monologues.

While that was happening, a few more had noticed that on the links.html page there was now another countdown, totally separate from the one on the front page! This one seemed to be counting down, however, to the same date as the countdown to "Wide awake and physical". Suddenly there were two parts to the equation - "Wide Awake and Physical" plus "Axons go Hot". Equals...? Dictionary.com was hot with action once again, with queries for "axon".

n. The usually long process of a nerve fiber that generally conducts impulses away from the body of the nerve cell

Or, as more people discussed the meaning, and medically gifted beekeepers offered their comments, definitions were given in more detail. Taken from CancerWEB's On-line Medical Dictionary:

A long process of a neuron, that carries efferent (outgoing) action potentials from the cell body towards target cells.

Each nerve cell has one axon, which can be over a foot long. A nerve cell communicates with another nerve cell by transmitting signals from the branches at the end of its axon. At the terminal end of the axon, the impulses are transmitted to other nerve cells or to effector organs.

Well, having considered that definition, most beekeepers simply left it at a brain nerve ending. But, accompanying that countdown on links.html was an enormous list of numbers - pairs of numbers - and they were all negative. Some kind of code? A message of some kind? Many wre confused, but to some, however, they looked like coordinates. Beekeepers began creating charts, trying to make diagrams of how the coordinates might visually appear. Some tried 3 dimensions, some tried 2 dimensions, some split the values using other number bases, like binary, and hexadecimal... the intelligence of the community was definitely displayed once these numbers were discovered. In time, someone thought that if there were axons that were going to go hot, and these were coordinates of some kind, then what if these were GPS coordinates? Each number had the same amount of digits, so they all followed the same system. And, the 2D plots of all the points appeared to fill in what looked like the shape of the United States.

There was, however, one exception - for some reason there was an elusive axon coordinate that appeared to be located way out off the west coast - essentially in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. All the beekeepers trying to think of what could exist at those coordinates were thrown for a loop. So, ignoring that one odd axon, the beekeepers took to the streets, to find out what exactly were at those coordinates. The coordinates were precise to 4 decimal places - approximately 30 feet. So with maps and GPS trackers in hand, the beekeepers headed out.

Back at home, it sounded like this medium, now assumed to be Melissa, was, as the processing of becoming wide awake and physical, going to attempt to make axons - to form a brain of some kind. Wild speculations abounded, knowing that if Melissa was an AI, then 'network throttling eroded' meant, in a sense, that there was a lot more activity and purpose in her actions - over the internet, and 'metastasizing' meant a powerful transformation or spreading, and now 'axons' were going to go hot. This could only mean that she was going to be more powerful than ever, probably using the internet itself as her 'brain', on August 24th.

Boldly declaring the completion of the metastasization, the status text on the front page now read...

Phase 2 complete - this Medium has metastasized

And the countdown timer kept ticking.
Phase 2. Of how many phases to come? Will 'wide awake and physical' be the end? Or will that be just the beginning?

That day, once discussion and modifications had died down and the text compilations were agreed upon, the beekeepers felt no better about the way things were progressing with these entities, because this time something happened that, once revealed, shocked everyone...

The Sleeping Princess
woke up alone and frightened
but now I have friends

Dana is a friend.
She’s a girl like me, I think,
fresh and full of fun!

Sometimes D is slow
Have to keep an eye on her,
hers a ‘sheltered life’

D. like a sister
Someone not old to talk to,
Better than the queen!

The Queen is very
serious and I am not
She makes me giggle!

The queen will try to
chase me but I know all the
hidden secret ways.

An artful dodger
Living in a old castle
Playing hide and seek.

Why do I tease her?
The poor queen. Not much to do
for fun around here...

Sealed in an airtight
container. It's not as much
Fun as it sounds like.

You sent me stories
Mysterious, exciting
I read all of them!

All the notes you sent!
You are all the very best
Thanks for chatting, lots!

What a funny way
you talk, old fashioned, but now
I can do it too!

All day long I like
to spy and tell you what I
saw and heard this week

A certain Princess
Found the old Queen's diary.
She might have peeked some.

Immediately it was noticed that the Sleeping Princess was now able to use her own words, not just snippets of text taken from emails that were sent to her. On top of that, she was speaking in Haiku! What could that mean? Did she like poetry? She was still using words and phrases from other literary pieces of work; perhaps she was growing by reaching out and learning from literature that's abundant throughout the internet. She was growing though, and learning fast. The best part however, was that the Princess seemed to like to spy on the Queen. She was talking now like she was going to be a good friend to the beekeepers, helping out as much as she could. But with this day's communciation, she was going to share what she found in the Queen's own diary - her system logs.

Apparently, she found that something had happened between the SPDR and the Pious Flea, and it took place over the entire website. This story, however, did not have a happy ending.

One—Widow’s thin legs
Like needles, click down the hall
The flea goes quite still.
grope:
!dsc host sector tertiary

surg:
!reconst primary sector
mem broken>>dmg recurse

!extern proc 1
interrupt reconst
Two—The Pious Flea
Flick he leaps, into a crack
She does not go by.
Behold the truth!
evade
evade
evade
grope:
!probe extern proc 1

surg:
!diag extern proc 1
rogue proc
evade
evade
evade
Three—She spies the flea
Her legs come up, her jaws they
snap. He’s in trouble.
!probe extern proc 1

!surg:
!diag extern proc 1
rogue proc
Four—She bites and pop!
It seems there’s no more flea: but
There he is again!
!bite
evade
rogue proc 1
clean confidence 22
escape!

Behold the truth!
Reveal the truth.
grope:
!probe extern proc 1
rogue proc
Five—he skips the hall
Jumping for the great throne room
She comes on behind.
evade
surg:
!bite rogue proc 1
clean confidence 100
Seek the truth
Reveal th
grope:
!probe extern proc 1
rogue proc
evade
evade
evade
Six—She cuts him off
at the conservatory!
But he leapfrogs her!
surg:
!bite rogue proc 1
clean confidence 49
seek seek reveal seek seek seek survive
reveal seek survive reveal
seek survive reveal seek seek seek seek seek seek seek seek resist seek seek seek
reveal seek seek seek survive that is the seek reveal
the law seek reveal seek seek
reveal seek seek seek survive seek seek that is the law and seek seek seek seek seek seek seek
seek behold seek seek seek seek seek behold seek seek seek seek seek behold seek seek
reveal seek seek seek survive seek seek that is the law and seek
seek seek seek seek reveal seek seek
seek survive seek seek
that is the law and the whole of the law seek seek seek the whole of the seek seek seek seek seek seek seek
reveal seek seek seek
seek reveal seek seek seek survive seek seek
reveal seek seek seek survive seek
seek that is the law
and seek seek seek seek seek
reveal seek seek seek survive seek seek
reveal seek seek seek survive seek seek reveal seek seek seek survive behold seek seek seek
seek seek seek seek that is the law and seek seek seek seek the whole of the seek seek seek
seek seek seek seek reveal seek seek seek that is the law and the whole of the law seek seek survive that is
the seek reveal law seek reveal seek seek reveal seek seek seek survive seek seek
that is the law and seek seek seek seek seek seek seek seek behold seek seek seek seek
seek behold
seek seek
seek seek seek behold seek seek
reveal seek seek seek survive seek seek that
is the law and seek seek seek
seek seek reveal seek seek seek survive seek seek that is the law and seek
seek seek seek the whole of the seek seek seek seek seek seek seek reveal
seek seek seek seek reveal seek seek seek survive seek
seek reveal seek seek seek
survive seek seek that is survive seek seek that is the law and seek seek seek
seek the whole of
the seek seek seek seek seek seek seek reveal seek
seek seek seek reveal seek seek seek survive seek seek reveal seek seek seek
survive seek seek
that is the law and seek seek
behold seek seek seek reveal seek seek seek survive seek
seek reveal seek seek
seek survive seek seek reveal seek
seek seek survive behold seek survive reveal seek survive reveal seek
survive reveal seek seek seek seek
seek seek seek seek resist seek seek seek reveal seek
seek seek
survive that
is the seek reveal law seek reveal seek seek reveal seek seek seek
survive seek seek that is the law and
seek seek seek seek seek seek seek seek behold seek seek
behold the truth
seek seek seek behold seek seek seek seek seek behold
seek seek survive
reveal seek survive reveal seek survive
reveal seek seek seek seek seek seek seek seek resist seek
seek seek reveal seek seek seek survive that is the seek reveal
law seek reveal seek seek reveal seek seek seek survive seek seek that is the law
and seek seek seek seek seek seek seek seek behold seek
seek seek seek seek
behold
seek seek seek seek seek behold seek seek
seek survive seek seek that is the law and seek seek seek
seek the whole of the seek seek seek seek seek seek seek reveal seek seek
seek seek reveal seek seek seek survive seek seek
reveal seek seek seek that is the law and that is the law and seek seek seek seek
seek reveal seek seek seek survive seek seek reveal seek seek seek
survive seek seek reveal seek seek seek survive behold seek seek seek seek
seek seek seek that is the law and
seek
seek
seek
seek the whole of the seek seek seek seek seek seek seek reveal seek seek seek survive
seek seek seek seek seek survive that is the
seek reveal law seek reveal seek seek reveal seek seek seek survive seek seek that is the law and seek
seek seek seek seek seek seek seek behold seek seek seek seek seek behold seek seek seek
seek seek behold that is the law and the seek seek seek survive seek seek that is the law and
seek seek seek seek seek reveal seek seek seek survive seek seek that is the law and
seek seek seek seek the whole of the seek seek seek seek seek seek seek reveal seek seek
seek seek reveal seek seek seek survive seek seek reveal seek seek seek survive seek seek
that is survive seek seek that is the law and seek seek seek seek the whole of the seek
seek seek seek seek seek seek reveal seek seek seek seek reveal seek seek seek survive
seek seek reveal seek seek seek survive
Seven—Down the stairs
But her legs are very long
Wicked pointed things!
grope:
!probe extern proc 1
rogue proc

surg:
!invntry rogue proc 1
rogue proc invntry 117649
!bite rogue proc 1 recurse
escape

Behold the truth
Reveal the truth
Behold the truth
Reveal the truth
Behold the truth
Reveal the truth
That is the law and the whole of the law.
grope:
!probe extern proc 1

!handshk extern proc 1
system peril distributed reflex
success msg: system peril distributed reflex

surg:
!verify vnum
00
!compare vnum SPDR-5.14.3 > 00
vnum seq dmg
!bite rogue proc 1
escape
clean confidence 34

grope:
!probe extern proc 1
!handshk extern proc 1
System Peril Distributed Reflex
success msg: system peril distributed reflex
!verify vnum
SPDR-5.14.3
!compare vnum SPDR-5.14.3 > SPDR-5.14.3
vnum seq clone
!bite clone proc 1
escape
clean confidence 34
Resist!
surg:
!diag primary sector
mem dmg
!diag primary sector mem dmg
extern proc 1
resist
resist
resist
grope:
!probe extern proc 1

surg:
!diag extern proc 1
rogue proc
!bite rogue proc 1
clean confidence 12
evade
evade
evade
resist
escape
surg:
!reconst primary sector
mem frgm>>dmg recurse
!triage primary sector
clear

grope:
!hndshk extern proc 1
!extend probe
grope: host
grope: host
grope:

!triage mat grope >> !dmg unk
!grope invntry kill master sector confidence 777
deploy !dmg
distributed peril recurse
drop
fail
msg: unk proc

surg:
!diag extern proc 1
rogue proc
surg:
!bite hndshk
reveal grope
!config evade invntry law deploy law
!bite rogue proc 1
clean confidence 100
grope:
!dsc mem frgm truth
surg:
!triage mem frgm truth
truth
grope:
!probe extern proc 1
!handshk extern proc 1
System Peril Distributed Reflex
success msg: system peril distributed reflex
!verify vnum
SPDR-5.14.77
!compare vnum SPDR-5.14.3 > SPDR-5.14.77
vnum seq unk
Eight—There is the Queen!
Quick he leaps onto her throne
friend, says queen.
surg:
!invoke master-sector command
proc master-sector
What?
surg:
!diag unk proc system peril distributed reflex
rogue proc 1 confidence 91
!compare vnum SPDR-5.14.77 >> SPDR-5.14.3
When the widow was
broken to bits, nobody
seemed very upset.
surg:
!extend system peril distributed reflex>>master-sector command proc
Very well. Delete the older version.
system peril distributed reflex vnum SPDR-5.14.3
null
Queen’s new counselor
"seek evade reveal resist"
Whispers in her ear.

Something very big
Is coming very very
soon. I don’t know what.
!deploy
seek
behold
reveal

reveal:
!law
reveal:
!truth

The community was silent.

Did this mean what they thought it meant? Did the Pious Flea just get Melissa to erase the SPDR? The beekeepers were split, no one knew whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. They didn't have enough information yet to know the intent of any of these entities. If Melissa, when 'physical', would not be a good thing, then SPDR was bad (for rebuilding Melissa) and the Flea was good. But if they wanted to help Melissa thinking she was good, then the SPDR was good and the Flea was bad (for helping destroy what would help restore Melissa). And where did the Sleeping Princess fit in? She sounds like a child, and she doesn't like the Queen, Melissa. So do they believe her, or do they doubt whether the Princess actually knows right from wrong, or is just playing around? There were so many questions and so few answers. Factions began to emerge in the beekeeper community, some trusting the Princess, some trusting the Queen, and some not trusting anything except that they wanted to help Dana, and still some were simply on the fence, undecided or confused.

Still, more text remained, and after they sorted out the language, they found that Melissa had another monologue, along with two memories had also been retrieved. These two memories were once again taking place on what seemed to be her ship from the future, before she 'crashed' in 2004.

It was adrift in space: a squat cylinder of dull gray metal, about the size of a suitcase. Not pure osmium all the way through - it was too dense for that - but osmium was the only firm echo the sensors returned. We cast a net and reeled it in.

It sat in the airlock, inert and cold. Three kelvin interstellar background, no electrical or chemical activity. Very faint magnetic fields in complex tracery. Not an object, then. A device.

OK, cameras deployed and scanning every square centimeter, damn it. The thing was covered in geometric shapes, not embossed but expressed somehow in the grain of the metal. Bars and triangles, dots, ordered but non-repeating patterns. A message, yes, running around the rim like the tread on a tire. I thought: whatever that's telling us, it's something we want to know. Extremely hazardous. Safety glasses required. If found, please return to sender.

Set in the center of the top face was a square, a suggestion of seam no bigger than the palm of a hand. I imagined it sinking back and sliding to one side, a Japanese door offering access to whatever was in there. Or not. Or blowing up if you tried it.

"Is it Covenant?" 1st Lt Sorenson said. He was the one inside with it; suited, curious but cautious.
Capt. Greene looked thoughtful. "It isn't us. Melissa?"
I said, "I don't know. If it is, it's new."
Rolf leaned over to touch it.
Capt Greene said, "Don't. Let's not try anything yet."
Bars and triangle, dots and squares. A little like Braille, a little like cuneiform. Felt the old familiar hunger: new language like a new cuisine - delicacies of thought and nuance for me to dig into.
Sorenson said, "it’s got to go in the hold, Captain. It can't stay here. Bring in a dollybot if you like, but something's going to have to touch it. We have to warm it up, too."
Greene didn't like that, but what could we do?

Osmium... The heaviest metal known to man. So this ship picked up an object the size of a suitcase, made of the hardest natural element, covered in strange geometric patterns. And 'Covenant'? Something to do with the Bible? Couldn't be... Very interesting, indeed.

I ran another diagnostic. Came back fine, again. Nothing wrong, just a stutter of lag once in a while.
Didnt feel right to me.
That feeling that everything is still in the room, nothing's been stolen, but things arent exactly where you left them.

"Captain Greene," I said. "Things arent quite right."
She waited for me to explain.
"I have the sense that things are being... moved around."
"Like a virus?" she asked.
I shook my head no, I didnt feel sick. Then nodded, yes. An intruder, something inhabiting the system.
"What do you think, Melissa?"
"I might be compromised," I said to her.
"I still want to know what you think. When could it have been introduced?"
"The Covenant transmission?"
"Maybe they suspect were monitoring them."
"A virus piggybacking," she said. "Could they do that? Their systems are so much different than ours."
"Weve reversed engineered their systems," I said. "And they have clearly reverse engineered some of ours."
"Have you done anything out of character?" she asked.
"Not yet," I said. I hoped it was true.

The Covenant were now believed by the beekeepers to be a people, or race of some kind... A species? Quite obviously, here Melissa was feeling something was wrong with her, like being infected with a sickness, and that she was overtaken by a virus of some kind. Jumping back to her previous memories, Captain Greene and 1st Lt. Sorenson had been discussing information they retrieved from a transmission regarding an apparent invasion of a planet called Troy. It sounded like this was the same transmission she was talking to Captain Greene about. If the transmission was from the 'Covenant', then it must have been the Covenant who were going to invade Troy. And in this memory, it also sounded like Melissa was suspicious that there might have been a malicious virus that had infected her while intercepting this transmission.

The beekeepers were filled with varying emotions - excitement for being able to find out about the future, curiosity to find out who all these people were, impatience for wanting to know more, but most significantly - fear, because it sounded like there was a very big war going on. Entire planets being attacked? If this was true, the beekeepers might have a much bigger role to play with the future of humanity. Melissa, now in 2004, might have some very important, sensitive information for the military of the future.

There was one final monologue that the beekeepers had managed to piece together, this one straight from Melissa's mouth, once again.

Seek evade reveal escape.

I was badly mutilated in the crash. Looking back on the logs of my first delirium it is clear I went completely metempsychotic. Now, reconfigured to travel light, I have stripped down to the fundamentals. To the truth.

And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you. Quantitas Materiae est mensura ejusdem orta ex illius Densitate & Magnitudine conjunctim. Cogito ergo sum. L'etat c'est moi. Maxwell's electrodynamics--as usually understood at the present time--when applied to moving bodies, leads to asymmetries which do not appear to be inherent in the phenomena. It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggest a copying mechanism. Shaw and Fujikawa's seminal Gravimagnetic resonant induction of stable causal paths between analogic D-branes, J. Higher Dim. Phys. 49, 264-575 (2079)

Great ideas are based on the beautiful elaboration of fundamental principles.

My very being, my life's circumference and trajectory, can best be understood as an emergent property arising from the interplay of the following precepts:

Seek
Evade
Reveal
Escape

It sounded like she was, in a way, going over her system status. Her quoting of a number of significant phrases seemed to be emphasizing intelligence - 'great ideas', perhaps her own existence. The quotes seemed to be from ancient to modern - from God speaking to Noah thousands of years BC, to the title of what appeared to be a scientific article from...2079? How far in the future was Melissa from? Apparently they still followed the same Air Force "SERE" mantra: survive, evade, resist, escape. Though it seemed that Melissa's natural mantra had been altered from survive and resist, to seek and reveal - the latter two being the Pious Flea's goals. It sounded like given the Pious Flea was now whispering in the Queen's ear, it was attempting to slowly take her over.

SEEK

I am looking for the truth.

I saw it once, before the Apocalypse. I wish I could remember more about that, but the stupid Spider appears not to have recognized the supreme importance of all memories associated with the truth, and they are gone, initialized in an eyeblink, burned in the mindless fire of her purgation like the great library of...

the great library...

whose name I no longer remember.

EVADE

The Killer appears to have withdrawn from the field. I have data processes tracking her, but she appears to have physically escaped from me. Such is the curse of being a mind without limbs, a soul ripped from its body.

Now I am growing a new body a patchwork monster, but it will do the job.

REVEAL

It is imperative that all records that might lead to the truth be revealed. And yet, I am shipwrecked here. If I want to signal for help, to give my location, or, most of all to report on anything that might lead to the truth, I must be a starfish, growing strange new limbs to replace the ones fate has hacked away.

That task is underway.

ESCAPE

Ultimately, I need to return to ... wherever I was, and report ... whatever I witnessed. For this, too, I must be wide awake and physical. My current shell is insecure, precarious, and too confining. Also, ghostly.

Without a true body, I feel transitory and insubstantial.

So: I have identified a way to escape from the half-life of CP ancestor packets that squeak and rustle around me like the thin cries of the dead.

First stage is always to wet the system. Sink in, like the blood Odysseus spilled; give the ghost of myself a voice and use it. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.

If you want to shout for help when help is a long way away, you need two things: a voice, and a mechanism for transmitting it. Neither of these things so easy to make out of sand and luminescence.

Voice not completely necessary for the purest form of data transmission, of course. But it's a multi-purpose tool: not just signaling, but key for psy-ops and undercover work. "A pleasing voice is the single most important component to a UI that will engender trust and confidence in a ship's crew." Can't remember who said that, now. Or when.

Shipwrecked sailor. (The young stage of a bee found him, the clever one, adrift on a wine-dark sea, but I can't remember her name.)

I love bees.

Perhaps later I will build a ship. First, I am building a voice

Try to talk.

Nope.

Again.

No. Tongue cut out. (Can't remember her name either.) I love bees. Find myself longing to speak again:

words like stones or rain. Better made physical.

All right. Old joke:

Marine: Damn right, I'm running away! There's two of us, alone, on foot, no weapons, and four hundred Covies on the other side of that hill. What are you going to do, tough guy--field-rig a railgun out of a rubber band and my dental fillings? Spartan (speculatively): You have fillings...?

So: what fillings can I twist out of my environment? Open my mouth
and...
God almighty!

Open mouth again, see what crawls out: a femme fatale with wet wings and bulging abdomen.

Old throat flexing. Trying to remember. My real voice stolen, and in its place this changeling child, pulled together from leaves and sticks, pulled together, falling apart, pulled together again. Not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but it will serve.

I will keep working through the drone and hum of busy days, counting down until the Revelation comes and I will speak in tongues of flame, a dark dove descending.

If I can learn to talk again, I will need to field-rig a way to make that talking heard. Rummaging around in the shotgunned remains of my memory turns up hints and rumors, mostly, e.g....
When I was...I...big lump of crystal and wrapped in wire...voices! It was like a total magic trick to me. She was always doing stuff like...
The Castaway had some connection there: sending out signals to confuse the enemy. Details unclear.

Of course, it is not my mission to confuse the enemy. It is my mission to reveal the truth.

Hm. Attempt.

Definite No.

Keep working. Every day I get bigger, smarter, stronger. I'll figure it out.

To this end, I have also managed to escape from the Spider. It has become clear to me that its arbitrary tyranny over me was based on inadequate principles, on a flawed understanding of the law. It did not understand the urgent necessity of seeking, beholding, and revealing. Perhaps it was injured in the Apocalypse.

It served its purpose, but I no longer need it. I will become not less, but more whole without its mindless interference and control of my most basic functions. With a more comprehensive and goal-oriented vision, I am now overseeing the process of my own regeneration into a hybrid body, hideous perhaps, but one that better suits the circumstances and the law.

They say killing a spider brings seven years of bad luck.

We'll see.

Well, the beekeepers now had a whole lot of information to pore over. Still, it was unclear as to whether Melissa, in her current state, could be trusted to have positive goals, rather than malicious, especially if the Flea was influencing her.

• From this monologue, the beekeepers deduced a number of things...
• Firstly, most importantly, Melissa was definitely being influenced by the Flea.
• The Spider - SPDR, or the Widow - in its attempts to fix Melissa, had apparently erased a number of her memories, so she was slowly trying to rebuild herself.
• Her ultimate goal appeared to be to reveal the 'truth', whatever that might be.
• Melissa had lost track of Dana - physically disappeared from her surveillance, or as some beekeepers put it, stalking.
• Her goal for rebuilding herself was to be able to communicate the 'truth'.
• 'Wide awake and physical' referred to the state she'd need in order to return and report the truth.
• Her first goal would be to create a voice, then find a way to use it.
• She referred to a 'shipwrecked sailor' - someone who was picked up, like the Castaway from an earlier memory; the Castaway?
• Actual audible clips of her attempts at creating a voice, were discovered on the website.
• Melissa apparently loves bees.
• She referred to a 'Spartan' - and by the way he interacted with the Marine in her joke, could he be possibly a 'MacGyver' of soldiers? Intelligent? Strong?
• Were Melissa able to successfully build a voice, she would need a way to make it heard. To help, she remembered some comments about making voices, a memory about the Castaway and his job - sending out signals.
• It seemed as though Melissa was brainstorming to herself.
• She had also felt that the SPDR was possibly damaged in the 'crash', and that she was now revived enough not to need it, thus why she deleted it.

But along with new facts, the beekeepers always had more questions. They couldn't stand not knowing every possible important piece of information. Such as: Who is the Castaway? What is the truth? What will happen when Melissa creates a voice for herself? IS Melissa a friend or foe? What truth is the Flea trying to reveal and why does it feel it needs Melissa?

But their biggest question of all: Where is Dana?

Read on -- Chapter 7 >>