Shamus is suddenly back on his home planet right in front of a hive. It looks a lot like his own... but different. Despite the corpses littering the front entrance, he still hears the rumble of activity inside. Shamus decides to enter and look around. The first thing he sees is another creature just like him, but grey.
Upon closer inspection, it turns out to be a robot. It explains why he didn't immediately have the urge to kill it.The body is more boxy and the antennae are radio antennae, but what grabs Shamus' attention the most is the lack of wings and it's eyes... those glowing emerald eyes....
As Shamus stares at it's hypnotic gaze. It suddenly speaks.
"Ah an outsider, how do you do? I'm assuming you want me to guide you through the complex to the other side?" All Shamus can do is nod.
As Shamus is directed through the corridors he wades through broken robot parts and even a few mechanical wings. All around him he is surrounded by robots who do the daily hive tasks such as digging and well, since they are robots with no biological needs, more digging. They do a particularly sloppy job at it though. Many times Shamus witnesses the collapse of a tunnel due to a lack of supports. One particular bot almost decapitates Shamus with a pickaxe.
"Sorry about that, things haven't been the same ever since the Queen died. I've had to write the tunnel digging algorithms myself and I'm not even as close to as good at programming as the queen was."
Suddenly the antennae on all the other bots straightens significantly and their eyes turn red. Suddenly there is chaos and violence as the bots chant:
"THE QUEEN IS DEAD, THE QUEEN IS DEAD, THE QUEEN IS DEAD"
Parts are flying everywhere as Shamus and his companion run to escape the hive.
"WHAT JUST HAPPENED!"
"Sorry, I guess they didn't deal too well with the fact that their queen is dead, but still.... everything I worked for.... suddenly gone."
"Ah don't worry about it, that hive was doomed anyway."
"But what will I do without my servants?"
"You don't need your servants. They were all emotionless machines anyway. But you, you are special. When you lost your queen, you didn't fall into madness like the rest of your bretheren. No, you persevered and created a system that kept the hive alive longer than it ever should be. Although your motives were misplaced, your genius isn't.
"And I will use my genius to do it again."
"What! NO! Why would you do that? You finally have a chance to be free, to do what you want. Don't just waste this opportunity."
"I was built for one purpose, and I will spend the rest of my life fulfilling that purpose, because without it, my life is worth as much as the pile of scrap on the floor."
"But what about what you want? What about your goals and your desires? Are you just going to leave them unfulfilled?"
"My goal is to help the hive. My desire is to fulfill this goal. You were created with a purpose and you abandoned it and now look at yourself, being absolutely useless on this alien ship trying to convince the AI to not just vent you. If you stayed with your hive, you would have died a happy death knowing that what you were doing was for the greater good. But now... like this... you may never find meaning in your life again."
All Shamus can do is watch as his friend walks in back through the way they came, closing the door behind him.